  In the present work the role that a generalized uncertainty principle could
play in the quantization of the electromagnetic field is analyzed. It will be
shown that we may speak of a Fock space, a result that implies that the concept
of photon is properly defined. Nevertheless, in this new context the creation
and annihilation operators become a function of the new term that modifies the
Heisenberg algebra, and hence the Hamiltonian is not anymore diagonal in the
occupation number representation. Additionally, we show the changes that the
energy expectation value suffers as result of the presence of an extra term in
the uncertainty principle. The existence of a deformed dispersion relation is
also proved.


  The present contribution constitutes a brief account of information
theoretical analysis in several representative model as well as real quantum
mechanical systems. There has been an overwhelming interest to study such
measures in various quantum systems, as evidenced by a vast amount of
publications in the literature that has taken place in recent years. However,
while such works are numerous in so-called \emph{free} systems, there is a
genuine lack of these in their constrained counterparts. With this in mind,
this chapter will focus on some of the recent exciting progresses that has been
witnessed in our laboratory \cite{sen06,roy14mpla,roy14mpla_manning,roy15ijqc,
roy16ijqc,
mukherjee15,mukherjee16,majumdar17,mukherjee18a,mukherjee18b,mukherjee18c,mukherjee18d,majumdar20,mukherjee21,majumdar21a,
majumdar21b}, and elsewhere, with special emphasis on following prototypical
systems, namely, (i) double well (DW) potential (symmetric and asymmetric) (ii)
\emph{free}, as well as a \emph{confined hydrogen atom} (CHA) enclosed in a
spherical impenetrable cavity (iii) a many-electron atom under similar enclosed
environment.


  We report 18 new primary minima timing observations of the short-period
eclipsing binary system NY Virginis. We combined these minima with previously
published primary minima to update circumbinary exoplanet models in this system
based on O-C timing variations. We performed a non-linear least-squares
minimization search using a quadratic ephemeris and either one or two
exoplanets. The only model with an acceptable fit includes a period derivative
$\dot{P} = 2.83\times10^{-12}$ and two planets in eccentric orbits $e =
0.15,0.15$ with minimum masses 2.7 and 5.5 Jovian masses. Analysis of the orbit
stability shows that this solution is stable for at least $10^8$ yr, but a
small increase in eccentricity ($e\geq0.20$) for either planet renders the
orbits unstable in less than $10^6$ years. A number of model parameters are
significantly degenerate, so additional observations are required to determine
planetary parameters with high statistical confidence.


  Archival data from the WISE satellite reveals infrared flux variations of
tens of per cent around numerous dusty white dwarfs. Data spanning more than
seven years reveal more than half of known systems are varying in the 3.4
micron band, while the 4.6 micron data are challenging to interpret due to
lower signal-to-noise. The sparsely-sampled data limit interpretation, but the
heterogeneous light curves suggest each source may be idiosyncratic, where
there maybe competing processes operating on different time-scales. Collisions
are likely driving the observed decays in flux, and this finding suggests that
dust production is operating more often than indicated by previous
observations. The observed variation is at odds with the canonical flat disc
model in isolation, and underscores the need for infrared monitoring of these
evolved planetary systems to inform the next generation of theoretical models.


  We extend our theory of slow magnons in a two-component Bose-Einstein
condensate to the case of two spatial dimensions (2D). We provide a detailed
discussion of polaronic corrections to the magnon branch of the elementary
excitation spectrum in a weakly- and strongly-interacting regimes. In a dilute
system, the latter may be achieved by adjusting inter-species attraction such
as to obtain a resonance in the $p$-wave scattering channel. Resonantly
enhanced $p$-wave attraction results in the self-localization of magnons and
formation of a magnetoroton. The nature of a ground state beyond the
magnetoroton instability remains to be explored. We suggest a dilute p-wave
crystal of alternating polarization as a possible candidate. In contrast to
three dimensions (3D), the required strength of the attractive potential in the
$s$-wave channel here corresponds to tight binding, and we suggest a potential
realization of our model with excitons in 2D semiconductors.


  The article presents a method that improves the quality of classification of
objects described by a combination of known and unknown features. The method is
based on modernized Informational Neurobayesian Approach with consideration of
unknown features. The proposed method was developed and trained on 1500 text
queries of Promobot users in Russian to classify them into 20 categories
(classes). As a result, the use of the method allowed to completely solve the
problem of misclassification for queries with combining known and unknown
features of the model. The theoretical substantiation of the method is
presented by the formulated and proved theorem On the Model with Limited
Knowledge. It states, that in conditions of limited data, an equal number of
equally unknown features of an object cannot have different significance for
the classification problem.


  Excitation of radial pulsations in red supergiants of Magellanic Clouds is
investigated using the stellar evolution calculations and the self-consistent
solution of the equations of radiation hydrodynamics and turbulent convection.
The stars with initial masses 6M_odot<=M_zams<=28 M_odot and the initial
chemical composition X=0.7, 0.004<=Z<=0.008 are shown to be unstable against
fundamental mode oscillations with periods from 17 to 1200 days as they become
helium burning red supergiants. The period-luminosity relation slightly depends
on the mass loss rate varying with a factor of three, whereas its dependence on
the metal abundance is delta M_bol=0.89 delta log Z. In comparison with
galactic red supergiants (Z=0.02) the low metal abundances in red supergiants
of Magellanic Clouds are responsible for their higher effective temperatures
and substantially narrower ranges of evolutionary stellar radius change during
helium burning. Therefore on the period-mass diagram the red supergiants of
Magellanic Clouds are located within the strip with width of delta log M =
0.09, so that the uncertainty of mass evaluation of the red supergiant with the
known pulsational period is nearly 25%.


  We prove that given any finite abelian group $A$ and any irreducible
$3$-manifold $M$ with empty or toroidal boundary which is not a graph manifold
there exists a finite cover $M' \to M$ so that $A$ is a direct factor in
$H_1(M',\mathbb{Z})$. This generalizes results of Sun and of Friedl-Herrmann.


  We study the level surfaces of quantum discord for a class of two-qubit
states with parallel nonzero Bloch vectors. The dynamic behavior of quantum
discord under decoherence is investigated. It is shown that a class of X states
has sudden transition between classical and quantum correlations under
decoherence. Our results include the ones in M. D. Lang and C. M. Caves [Phys.
Rev. Lett. 105, 150501 (2010)] as a special case and show new pictures and
structures of quantum discord.


  A translation from Russian of the famous paper by Mark Krein "On the theory
of symmetric polynomials" published in Math. Sb., vol. 40, no. 3, 1933, pp.
271-283.


  We study the Z/2-equivariant K-theory of the complement of the
complexification of a real hyperplane arrangement. We compute the rational K
and KO rings, and give two different combinatorial descriptions of the subring
of the integral KO ring generated by line bundles.


  Instabilities in relativistic magnetized jets are thought to be deeply
connected to their energy dissipation properties and to the consequent
acceleration of the non-thermal emitting relativistic particles. Instabilities
lead to the development of small scale dissipative structures, in which
magnetic energy is converted in other forms. In this paper we present
three-dimensional numerical simulations of the instability evolution in highly
magnetized plasma columns, considering different kinds of equilibria. In fact,
the hoop stresses related to the azimuthal component of magnetic field can be
balanced either by the magnetic pressure gradient (force-free equilibria, FF)
or by the thermal pressure gradient (pressure-balanced equilibria, PB) or by a
combination of the two. FF equilibria are prone to current-driven instabilities
(CDI), while PB equilibria are prone to pressure-driven instabilities (PDI). We
perform a global linear stability analysis, from which we derive the different
instability properties in the two regimes, showing that PDI have larger growth
rates and are also unstable for high wavenumbers. The numerical simulations of
the non-linear instability evolution show similar phases of evolution in which
the formation of strong current sheets is followed by a turbulent quasi
steady-state. PDI are however characterized by a faster evolution, by the
formation of smaller scale dissipative structures and larger magnetic energy
dissipation.


  Generative AI technologies such as large language models show novel
potentials to enhance educational research. For example, generative large
language models were shown to be capable to solve quantitative reasoning tasks
in physics and concept tests such as the Force Concept Inventory. Given the
importance of such concept inventories for physics education research, and the
challenges in developing them such as field testing with representative
populations, this study seeks to examine to what extent a generative large
language model could be utilized to generate a synthetic data set for the FCI
that exhibits content-related variability in responses. We use the recently
introduced ChatGPT based on the GPT 4 generative large language model and
investigate to what extent ChatGPT could solve the FCI accurately (RQ1) and
could be prompted to solve the FCI as-if it were a student belonging to a
different cohort (RQ2). Furthermore, we study, to what extent ChatGPT could be
prompted to solve the FCI as-if it were a student having a different force- and
mechanics-related misconception (RQ3). In alignment with other research, we
found the ChatGPT could accurately solve the FCI. We furthermore found that
prompting ChatGPT to respond to the inventory as-if it belonged to a different
cohort yielded no variance in responses, however, responding as-if it had a
certain misconception introduced much variance in responses that approximate
real human responses on the FCI in some regards.


  The phase diagram of Yukawa particles confined between two parallel hard
walls is calculated at zero-temperature beyond the bilayer regime by
lattice-sum-minimization. Tuning the screening, a rich phase behavior is found
in the regime bounded by stable two-triangular layers and 3-square layers. In
this regime, alternating prism phases with square and triangular basis,
structures derived from a hcp bulk lattice, and a structure with two outer
layers and two inner staggered rectangular layers, reminiscent of a Belgian
waffle iron, are stable. These structures are verifiable in experiments on
charged colloidal suspensions and dusty plasma sheets.


  Correlations between the intrinsic shapes of galaxy pairs, and between the
intrinsic shapes of galaxies and the large-scale density field, may be induced
by tidal fields. These correlations, which have been detected at low redshifts
(z<0.35) for bright red galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and
for which upper limits exist for blue galaxies at z~0.1, provide a window into
galaxy formation and evolution, and are also an important contaminant for
current and future weak lensing surveys. Measurements of these alignments at
intermediate redshifts (z~0.6) that are more relevant for cosmic shear
observations are very important for understanding the origin and redshift
evolution of these alignments, and for minimising their impact on weak lensing
measurements. We present the first such intermediate-redshift measurement for
blue galaxies, using galaxy shape measurements from SDSS and spectroscopic
redshifts from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. Our null detection allows us to
place upper limits on the contamination of weak lensing measurements by blue
galaxy intrinsic alignments that, for the first time, do not require
significant model-dependent extrapolation from the z~0.1 SDSS observations.
Also, combining the SDSS and WiggleZ constraints gives us a long redshift
baseline with which to constrain intrinsic alignment models and contamination
of the cosmic shear power spectrum. Assuming that the alignments can be
explained by linear alignment with the smoothed local density field, we find
that a measurement of \sigma_8 in a blue-galaxy dominated, CFHTLS-like survey
would be contaminated by at most +/-0.02 (95% confidence level, SDSS and
WiggleZ) or +/-0.03 (WiggleZ alone) due to intrinsic alignments. [Abridged]


  Rapid advancements in spatial technologies including Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) and remote sensing have generated massive amounts of spatially
referenced data in a variety of scientific and data-driven industrial
applications. These advancements have led to a substantial, and still
expanding, literature on the modeling and analysis of spatially oriented big
data. In particular, Bayesian inferences for high-dimensional spatial processes
are being sought in a variety of remote-sensing applications including, but not
limited to, modeling next generation Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)
systems and other remotely sensed data. Massively scalable spatial processes,
in particular Gaussian processes (GPs), are being explored extensively for the
increasingly encountered big data settings. Recent developments include GPs
constructed from sparse Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) with a limited number of
neighbors (parents) to characterize dependence across the spatial domain. The
DAG can be used to devise fast algorithms for posterior sampling of the latent
process, but these may exhibit pathological behavior in estimating covariance
parameters. While these issues are mitigated by considering marginalized
samplers that exploit the underlying sparse precision matrix, these algorithms
are slower, less flexible, and oblivious of structure in the data. The current
article introduces the Grid-Parametrize-Split (GriPS) approach for conducting
Bayesian inference in spatially oriented big data settings by a combination of
careful model construction and algorithm design to effectuate substantial
improvements in MCMC convergence. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our
proposed methods through simulation experiments and subsequently undertake the
modeling of LiDAR outcomes and production of their predictive maps using G-LiHT
and other remotely sensed variables.


  We present new sets of pion and kaon fragmentation functions obtained in NLO
combined analyses of single-inclusive hadron production in electron-positron
annihilation, proton-proton collisions, and deep-inelastic lepton-proton
scattering with either pions or kaons identified in the final state. At
variance with all previous fits, the present analyses take into account data
where hadrons of different electrical charge are identified, which allow to
discriminate quark from anti-quark fragmentation functions without the need of
non trivial flavor symmetry assumptions. The resulting sets are in good
agreement with all data analyzed, which cover a much wider kinematical range
than in previous fits. An extensive use of the Lagrange multiplier technique is
made in order to assess the uncertainties in the extraction of the
fragmentation functions and the synergy from the complementary data sets in our
global analysis.


  We show how to attach to any rigid analytic variety $V$ over a perfectoid
space $P$ a rigid analytic motive over the Fargues-Fontaine curve
$\mathcal{X}(P)$ functorially in $V$ and $P$. We combine this construction with
the overconvergent relative de Rham cohomology to produce a complex of solid
quasi-coherent sheaves over $\mathcal{X}(P)$, and we show that its cohomology
groups are vector bundles if $V$ is smooth and proper over $P$ or if $V$ is
quasi-compact and $P$ is a perfectoid field, thus proving and generalizing a
conjecture of Scholze. The main ingredients of the proofs are explicit
$\mathbb{B}^1$-homotopies, the motivic proper base change and the formalism of
solid quasi-coherent sheaves.


  We have considered the 1D dimerized frustrated antiferromagnetic
(ferromagnetic) Heisenberg model with arbitrary spin $S$. The exact classical
magnetic phase diagram at zero temperature is determined using the LK cluster
method. Cluster method results, show that the classical ground state phase
diagram of the model is very rich including first and second-order phase
transitions. In the absence of the dimerization, a second-order phase
transition occurs between antiferromagnetic (ferromagnetic) and spiral phases
at the critical frustration $\alpha_c=\pm 0.25$. In the vicinity of the
critical points $\alpha_c$, the exact classical critical exponent of the spiral
order parameter is found 1/2. In the case of dimerized chain ($\delta\neq0$),
the spiral order shows stability and exists in some part of the ground state
phase diagram. We have found two first-order critical lines in the ground state
phase diagram. These critical lines separate the antiferromagnetic from spiral
phase.


  Detection and location of moving prey utilizing electrosense or mechanosense
is a strategy commonly followed by animals which cannot rely on visual sense or
hearing. In this article we consider the possibility to detect the source of a
localized stimulus that travels along a chain of detectors at constant speed.
The detectors are autonomous oscillators whose frequencies have a given natural
spread. The detection mechanism is based on phase coherence which is built up
by phase resetting induced by the passing stimulus.


  The present paper investigates the sub-Riemannian version of the equivalence
between the curvature-dimension conditions and strong Brunn-Minkowski
inequalities in the sub-Riemannian Heisenberg group Hn. We adopt the optimal
transport and approximation of Hn developed by Ambrosio and Rigot [1] and
combine the celebrated works by M. Magnabosco, L. Portinale and T. Rossi [17]
to confirm this.


  We explore the prospects of constraining general non standard interactions
involving light mediators through elastic neutrino-electron scattering events
at the DUNE Near Detector (ND). We furthermore consider the special cases of
light vector mediators in motivated models such as $U(1)_{B-L}$, $U(1)_{L_\mu -
L_\tau}$, $E_6$ and left-right symmetry. The present analysis is based on
detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the expected DUNE-ND signal taking into
account detector resolution effects, realistic backgrounds as well as On-Axis
and Off-Axis neutrino spectra. We show that the high intensity neutrino beam
available at Fermilab can place competitive constraints surpassing those of
low-energy neutrino searches and direct detection dark matter experiments.


  We consider amalgamation properties of convergent sequences in topological
groups and topological vector spaces. The main result of this paper is that,
for arbitrary topological groups, Nyikos's property $\alpha_{1.5}$ is
equivalent to Arhangel'ski\u{\i}'s formally stronger property $\alpha_1$. This
result solves a problem of Shakhmatov (2002), and its proof uses a new
perturbation argument. We also prove that there is a topological space $X$ such
that the space $C_p(X)$ of continuous real-valued functions on $X$, with the
topology of pointwise convergence, has Arhangel'ski\u{\i}'s property $\alpha_1$
but is not countably tight. This result follows from results of
Arhangel'ski\u{\i}--Pytkeev, Moore and Todor\v{c}evi\'c, and provides a new
solution, with remarkable properties, to a problem of Averbukh and Smolyanov
(1968) concerning topological vector spaces. The Averbukh--Smolyanov problem
was first solved by Plichko (2009), using Banach spaces with weaker locally
convex topologies.


  We study Dolgachev elliptic surfaces with a double and a triple fiber and
find explicit equations of two new pairs of fake projective plane with $21$
automorphisms, thus finishing the task of finding explicit equations of fake
projective planes with this automorphism group. This includes, in particular,
the fake projective plane discovered by J. Keum.


  Swift J1818.0-1607 is a radio-loud magnetar with a spin period of 1.36 s and
a dipolar magnetic field strength of B~3E14 G, which is very young compared to
the Galactic pulsar population. We report here on the long-term X-ray
monitoring campaign of this young magnetar using XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, and Swift
from the activation of its first outburst in March 2020 until October 2021, as
well as INTEGRAL upper limits on its hard X-ray emission. The 1-10 keV magnetar
spectrum is well modeled by an absorbed blackbody with a temperature of
kT_BB~1.1 keV, and apparent reduction in the radius of the emitting region from
~0.6 to ~0.2 km. We also confirm the bright diffuse X-ray emission around the
source extending between ~50'' and ~110''. A timing analysis revealed large
torque variability, with an average spin-down rate nudot~-2.3E-11 Hz^2 that
appears to decrease in magnitude over time. We also observed Swift J1818.0-1607
with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) on 2021 March 22. We detected
the radio counterpart to Swift J1818.0-1607 measuring a flux density of S_v =
4.38+/-0.05 mJy at 3 GHz, and a half ring-like structure of bright diffuse
radio emission located at ~90'' to the west of the magnetar. We tentatively
suggest that the diffuse X-ray emission is due to a dust scattering halo and
that the radio structure may be associated with the supernova remnant of this
young pulsar, based on its morphology.


  In the early Universe, most of the cold neutral gas that will later form into
individual stars and galaxies is practically invisible to us. These neutral gas
reservoirs can, however, be illuminated by bright cosmic lightsources such as
gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and quasars. The aim of this thesis is to use these
luminous objects as tools to study the environments of intervening or host
galaxy absorption systems through cosmic time. Part I is dedicated to examining
the gas, dust and metals in the immediate region surrounding GRBs. Part II
presents a search for and the study of cold and molecular gas in high-z GRB
host galaxy absorption systems. Part III focuses on using quasars to examine
gas-rich intervening galaxies in the line of sight, with specific focus on
absorption systems rich in dust and metals. This thesis demonstrates the
importance of observing large samples of GRB afterglows to 1) allow for
statistical studies of the GRB phenomena itself and the associated host galaxy
environments and 2) to obtain spectra of peculiar or unusual GRB afterglows,
that is only observed rarely. In addition, it highlights that defining a
complete and unbiased sample of quasars is vital to fully exploit the potential
of quasars as probes of cosmic chemical evolution. In this version of the
thesis only the title, author list and abstract for each published paper,
presented as individual chapters, are provided. Principal supervisor: Prof.
P\'all Jakobsson.


  To use heterogeneous hardware, programmers must have sufficient technical
skills to utilize OpenMP, CUDA, and OpenCL. On the basis of this, I have
proposed environment-adaptive software that enables automatic conversion,
configuration, and high performance operation of once written code, in
accordance with the hardware. However, although it has been considered to
convert the code according to the offload devices, there has been no study
where to place the offloaded applications to satisfy users' requirements of
price and response time. In this paper, as a new element of environment-adapted
software, I examine a method to calculate appropriate locations using linear
programming method. I confirm that applications can be arranged appropriately
through simulations.


  We consider the interaction of a weak gravitational wave with electromagnetic
fields in a thin plasma on a Minkowski background spacetime using the 1+3
orthonormal frame formalism. Because gravitational and electromagnetic waves
satisfy the same dispersion relation, electromagnetic waves can be effectively
generated as a result of this interaction. In the case of the interaction with
a static magnetic field, the amplitude of the electromagnetic waves depends on
the size of the excitation region in which the magnetic field is contained. It
is argued that due to the presence of a plasma this process can also lead to
the generation of higher harmonics of the original mode. Estimates are given
for this effect in the case of a binary pulsar and a cold electron plasma. It
is found that the emmited radiation will lie in the radio frequency band. We
also speculate on the possible relevance of this process on situations in
cosmology, in particular whether this could be used to constrain primordial
magnetic fields.


  The ANTARES telescope has the capability to detect neutrinos produced in
astrophysical transient sources. Potential sources include gamma-ray bursts,
core collapse supernovae, and flaring active galactic nuclei. To enhance the
sensitivity of ANTARES to such sources, a new detection method based on
coincident observations of neutrinos and optical signals has been developed. A
fast online muon track reconstruction is used to trigger a network of small
automatic optical telescopes. Such alerts are generated for special events,
such as two or more neutrinos, coincident in time and direction, or single
neutrinos of very high energy.


  Cloud computing has rapidly emerged as model for delivering Internet-based
utility computing services. In cloud computing, Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS) is one of the most important and rapidly growing fields. Cloud providers
provide users/machines resources such as virtual machines, raw (block) storage,
firewalls, load balancers, and network devices in this service model. One of
the most important aspects of cloud computing for IaaS is resource management.
Scalability, quality of service, optimum utility, reduced overheads, increased
throughput, reduced latency, specialised environment, cost effectiveness, and a
streamlined interface are some of the advantages of resource management for
IaaS in cloud computing. Traditionally, resource management has been done
through static policies, which impose certain limitations in various dynamic
scenarios, prompting cloud service providers to adopt data-driven,
machine-learning-based approaches. Machine learning is being used to handle a
variety of resource management tasks, including workload estimation, task
scheduling, VM consolidation, resource optimization, and energy optimization,
among others. This paper provides a detailed review of challenges in ML-based
resource management in current research, as well as current approaches to
resolve these challenges, as well as their advantages and limitations. Finally,
we propose potential future research directions based on identified challenges
and limitations in current research.


  We have performed magnetoresistance measurements on single-domain, submicron
elliptical Ni particles using nonmagnetic probes in a four probe geometry at
liquid helium temperatures. In the smallest particles, the magnetoresistance
shows sharp jumps which are associated with the switching of individual
domains. Using an anisotropic magnetoresistance model, we can reconstruct
hysteresis loops of the normalized magnetization. The remanent magnetization in
zero applied magnetic field is typically 15 percent less than the saturation
magnetization. This relaxation of the magnetization may be due to surface
effects or crystal grain structure in the particles.


  We describe the directional growth of ferroelectric domains in a multiferroic
BiFeO3 thin film, which was grown epitaxially on a vicinal (001) SrTiO3
substrate. A detailed structural analysis of the film shows that a strain
gradient, which can create a symmetry breaking in a ferroelectric double well
potential, causes ferroelectric domains to grow with preferred directionality
under the influence of an electric field. Our results suggest the possibility
of controlling the direction of domain growth with an electric field by
imposing constraints on ferroelectric films, such as a strain gradient.


  We develop an improved method to explore the $\Xi_c- \Xi_c'$ mixing which
arises from the flavor SU(3) and heavy quark symmetry breaking. In this method,
the flavor eigenstates under the SU(3) symmetry are at first constructed and
the corresponding masses can be nonperturbatively determined. Matrix elements
of the mass operators which break the flavor SU(3) symmetry sandwiched by the
flavor eigenstates are then calculated. Diagonalizing the corresponding matrix
of Hamiltonian gives the mass eigenstates of the full Hamiltonian and
determines the mixing. Following the previous lattice QCD calculation of
$\Xi_c$ and $\Xi_c'$, and estimating an off-diagonal matrix element, we extract
the mixing angle between the $\Xi_c$ and $\Xi_c'$. Preliminary numerical
results for the mixing angle confirm the previous observation that such mixing
is incapable to explain the large SU(3) symmetry breaking in semileptonic
decays of charmed baryons.


  Abstract We investigate a short-period W UMa binary KIC 9026766 with an
orbital period of 0.2721278 days in the Kepler field of view. By using an
automated q-search for the folded light curve and producing a synthetic light
curve for this object based on the PHOEBE code, we calculate the fundamental
stellar parameters. We also analyze the O-C curve of the primary minima. The
orbital period changes can be attributed to the combination of an upward
quadratic function and light-travel time effect due to a possible third body
with a minimum mass of 0.029 solar mass and an orbital period of 972.5866 days.
The relative luminosity of the primary and secondary eclipses (Min I Min II) is
calculated. The periodogram of the residuals of the LTT effect, and Min I Min
II show peaks with the same period of 0.8566 days. The background effect of two
nearby stars on our target is the possible reason for this signal. By
considering the amplitudes and periods of the remaining signals in the OC curve
of minima, spot motion is possible.


  Existing standards for player characterisation in tokenised state machine
replication protocols depend on honest players who will always follow the
protocol, regardless of possible token increases for deviating. Given the
ever-increasing market capitalisation of these tokenised protocols, honesty is
becoming more expensive and more unrealistic. As such, this out-dated player
characterisation must be removed to provide true guarantees of safety and
liveness in a major stride towards universal trust in state machine replication
protocols and a new scale of adoption. As all current state machine replication
protocols are built on these legacy standards, it is imperative that a new
player model is identified and utilised to reflect the true nature of players
in tokenised protocols, now and into the future.
  To this effect, we propose the ByRa player model for state machine
replication protocols. In the ByRa model, players either attempt to maximise
their tokenised rewards, or behave adversarially. This merges the fields of
game theory and distributed systems, an intersection in which tokenised state
machine replication protocols exist, but on which little formalisation has been
carried out. In the ByRa model, we identify the properties of strong incentive
compatibility in expectation and fairness that all protocols must satisfy in
order to achieve state machine replication. We then provide Tenderstake, a
protocol which provably satisfies these properties, and by doing so, achieves
state machine replication in the ByRa model.


  In this paper we report on the first simultaneous optical and X-ray
(Beppo-SAX) observations of the radio-quiet AGN 1H0419-577. The optical
spectrum clearly leads us to classify this source as a Seyfert 1. The X-ray
spectrum is, however, somewhat at odds with this classification: a simple flat
(Gamma ~ 1.55) and featureless power--law is a good description of the whole
1.8-40 keV spectrum, even if the upper limit to a broad iron line is not very
tight. An analysis of a still unpublished ROSAT observation of the same target
reveals that the soft X-ray spectrum has undergone a transition from a steep
(Gamma ~ 2.5) to a flat (Gamma ~ 1.55) state, at least in the 0.7-2 keV band.
If this difference is due to a remarkably variable soft excess, it is unlikely
that a single component is responsible for the optical/UV/soft X-ray spectral
distribution. The hypothesis that the difference is due to a change in the
primary X-ray continuum and its implications for current Comptonization models
are discussed.


  We put a new conjecture on primes from the point of view of its binary
expansions and make a step towards justification.


  This paper studies a non-singular coupling scheme for solving the acoustic
and elastic wave scattering problems and its extension to the problems of
Laplace and Lam\'e equations and the problem with a compactly supported
inhomogeneity is also briefly discussed. Relying on the solution representation
of the wave scattering problem, a Robin-type artificial boundary condition in
terms of layer potentials whose kernels are non-singular, is introduced to
obtain a reduced problem on a bounded domain. The wellposedness of the reduced
problems and the a priori error estimates of the corresponding finite element
discretization are proved. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the
accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.


  Given a set of finite words, the Overlap Graph (OG) is a complete weighted
digraph where each word is a node and where the weight of an arc equals the
length of the longest overlap of one word onto the other (Overlap is an
asymmetric notion). The OG serves to assemble DNA fragments or to compute
shortest superstrings which are a compressed representation of the input. The
OG requires a space is quadratic in the number of words, which limits its
scalability. The Hierarchical Overlap Graph (HOG) is an alternative graph that
also encodes all maximal overlaps, but uses a space that is linear in the sum
of the lengths of the input words. We propose the first algorithm to build the
HOG in linear space for words of equal length.


  In this paper we address the problem of estimating the posterior distribution
of the static parameters of a continuous time state space model with discrete
time observations by an algorithm that combines the Kalman filter and a
particle filter. The proposed algorithm is semi-recursive and has a two layer
structure, in which the outer layer provides the estimation of the posterior
distribution of the unknown parameters and the inner layer provides the
estimation of the posterior distribution of the state variables. This algorithm
has a similar structure as the so-called recursive nested particle filter, but
unlike the latter filter, in which both layers use a particle filter, this
proposed algorithm introduces a dynamic kernel to sample the parameter
particles in the outer layer to obtain a higher convergence speed. Moreover,
this algorithm also implements the Kalman filter in the inner layer to reduce
the computational time. This algorithm can also be used to estimate the
parameters that suddenly change value. We prove that, for a state space model
with a certain structure, the estimated posterior distribution of the unknown
parameters and the state variables converge to the actual distribution in $L_p$
with rate of order $\mathcal{O}(N^{-\frac{1}{2}}+\delta^{\frac{1}{2}})$, where
$N$ is the number of particles for the parameters in the outer layer and
$\delta$ is the maximum time step between two consecutive observations. We
present numerical results of the implementation of this algorithm, in
particularly we implement this algorithm for affine interest models, possibly
with stochastic volatility, although the algorithm can be applied to a much
broader class of models.


  The generation mechanism of wall heat flux is one of the fundamental problems
in supersonic/hypersonic turbulent boundary layers. A novel heat decomposition
formula under the curvilinear coordinate was proposed in this paper. The new
formula has wider application scope and can be applied in the configurations
with grid deformed. The wall heat flux of an interaction between shock wave and
the turbulent boundary layer over a compression corner is analyzed by the new
formula. The results indicated good performance of the formula in the complex
interaction region. The contributions of different energy transport processes
were obtained. The contributions by the turbulent fluctuations e.g., Reynolds
stresses and turbulent transport of heat flux, were significantly increased,
while the processes by the mean profile e.g., molecular stresses and heat
conduction, can be neglected. In addition, the pressure work is another
contributor to the wall heat flux and the streamwise component works mainly in
the shear layer and the reattachment point, while pressure in the wall-normal
direction is concentrated in the vicinity of the reattachment point.


  In a biometric verification system, leakage of biometric data leads to
permanent identity loss since original biometric data is inherently linked to a
user. Further, various types of attacks on a biometric system may reveal the
original template and utility in other applications. To address these security
and privacy concerns cancelable biometric has been introduced. Cancelable
biometric constructs a protected template from the original biometric template
using transformation functions and performs the comparison between templates in
the transformed domain. Recent approaches towards cancelable fingerprint
generation either rely on aligning minutiae points with respect to singular
points (core/delta) or utilize the absolute coordinate positions of minutiae
points. In this paper, we propose a novel non-invertible ridge feature
transformation method to protect the original fingerprint template information.
The proposed method partitions the fingerprint region into a number of sectors
with reference to each minutia point employing a ridge-based co-ordinate
system. The nearest neighbor minutiae in each sector are identified, and
ridge-based features are computed. Further, a cancelable template is generated
by applying the Cantor pairing function followed by random projection. We have
evaluated our method with FVC2002, FVC2004 and FVC2006 databases. It is evident
from the experimental results that the proposed method outperforms existing
methods in the literature. Moreover, the security analysis demonstrates that
the proposed method fulfills the necessary requirements of non-invertibility,
revocability, and diversity with a minor performance degradation caused due to
cancelable transformation.


  We study electrical transport properties in exfoliated molybdenum disulfide
(MoS2) back-gated field effect transistors at low drain bias and under
different illumination intensities. It is found that photoconductive and
photogating effect as well as space charge limited conduction can
simultaneously occur. We point out that the photoconductivity increases
logarithmically with the light intensity and can persist with a decay time
longer than 10^4 s, due to photo-charge trapping at the MoS2/SiO2 interface and
in MoS2 defects. The transfer characteristics present hysteresis that is
enhanced by illumination. At low drain bias, the devices feature low contact
resistance of 1.4 k{\Omega}/{\mu}m, ON current as high as 1.25 nA/{\mu}m, 10^5
ON-OFF ratio, mobility of 1 cm^2/Vs and photoresponsivity R=1 A/W.


  We propose a new method for assessing agents influence in network structures,
which takes into consideration nodes attributes, individual and group
influences of nodes, and the intensity of interactions. This approach helps us
to identify both explicit and hidden central elements which cannot be detected
by classical centrality measures or other indices.


  We consider probabilistic PCA and related factor models from a Bayesian
perspective. These models are in general not identifiable as the likelihood has
a rotational symmetry. This gives rise to complicated posterior distributions
with continuous subspaces of equal density and thus hinders efficiency of
inference as well as interpretation of obtained parameters. In particular,
posterior averages over factor loadings become meaningless and only model
predictions are unambiguous. Here, we propose a parameterization based on
Householder transformations, which remove the rotational symmetry of the
posterior. Furthermore, by relying on results from random matrix theory, we
establish the parameter distribution which leaves the model unchanged compared
to the original rotationally symmetric formulation. In particular, we avoid the
need to compute the Jacobian determinant of the parameter transformation. This
allows us to efficiently implement probabilistic PCA in a rotation invariant
fashion in any state of the art toolbox. Here, we implemented our model in the
probabilistic programming language Stan and illustrate it on several examples.


  Deep-agent communities developing their own language-like communication
protocol are a hot (or at least warm) topic in AI. Such agents could be very
useful in machine-machine and human-machine interaction scenarios long before
they have evolved a protocol as complex as human language. Here, I propose a
small set of priorities we should focus on, if we want to get as fast as
possible to a stage where deep agents speak a useful protolanguage.


  A theorem of single-sorted algebra states that, for a closure space $(A,J)$
and a natural number $n$, the closure operator $J$ on the set $A$ is $n$-ary
if, and only if, there exists a single-sorted signature $\Sigma$ and a
$\Sigma$-algebra $\mathbf{A}$ such that every operation of $\mathbf{A}$ is of
an arity $\leq n$ and $J = \mathrm{Sg}_{\mathbf{A}}$, where
$\mathrm{Sg}_{\mathbf{A}}$ is the subalgebra generating operator on $A$
determined by $\mathbf{A}$. On the other hand, a theorem of Tarski asserts that
if $J$ is an $n$-ary closure operator on a set $A$ with $n\geq 2$, and if $i<j$
with $i$, $j\in \mathrm{IrB}(A,J)$, where $\mathrm{IrB}(A,J)$ is the set of all
natural numbers $n$ such that $(A,J)$ has an irredundant basis ($\equiv$
minimal generating set) of $n$ elements, such that $\{i+1,\ldots, j-1\}\cap
\mathrm{IrB}(A,J) = \varnothing$, then $j-i\leq n-1$. In this article we state
and prove the many-sorted counterparts of the above theorems. But, we remark,
regarding the first one under an additional condition: the uniformity of the
many-sorted closure operator.


  Beam search is widely used in neural machine translation, and usually
improves translation quality compared to greedy search. It has been widely
observed that, however, beam sizes larger than 5 hurt translation quality. We
explain why this happens, and propose several methods to address this problem.
Furthermore, we discuss the optimal stopping criteria for these methods.
Results show that our hyperparameter-free methods outperform the widely-used
hyperparameter-free heuristic of length normalization by +2.0 BLEU, and achieve
the best results among all methods on Chinese-to-English translation.


  Let $A$ be an element of the copositive cone ${\cal C}_n$. A zero $u$ of $A$
is a nonzero nonnegative vector such that $u^TAu = 0$. The support of $u$ is
the index set $\mbox{supp}u \subset \{1,\dots,n\}$ corresponding to the
positive entries of $u$. A zero $u$ of $A$ is called minimal if there does not
exist another zero $v$ of $A$ such that its support $\mbox{supp}v$ is a strict
subset of $\mbox{supp}u$. We investigate the properties of minimal zeros of
copositive matrices and their supports. Special attention is devoted to
copositive matrices which are irreducible with respect to the cone $S_+(n)$ of
positive semi-definite matrices, i.e., matrices which cannot be written as a
sum of a copositive and a nonzero positive semi-definite matrix. We give a
necessary and sufficient condition for irreducibility of a matrix $A$ with
respect to $S_+(n)$ in terms of its minimal zeros. A similar condition is given
for the irreducibility with respect to the cone ${\cal N}_n$ of entry-wise
nonnegative matrices. For $n = 5$ matrices which are irreducible with respect
to both $S_+(5)$ and ${\cal N}_5$ are extremal. For $n = 6$ a list of candidate
combinations of supports of minimal zeros which an exceptional extremal matrix
can have is provided.


  The recently discovered gamma-ray burst (GRB) GRB 060218/SN 2006aj is
classified as an X-ray Flash with very long duration driven possibly by a
neutron star. Since GRB 060218 is very near about 140 Mpc and very dim,
one-year observation by Swift suggests that the rate of GRB 060218-like events
might be very high so that such low luminosity GRBs (LL-GRBs) might form a
different population from the cosmological high luminosity GRBs (HL-GRBs). We
found that the high energy neutrino background from LL-GRBs could be comparable
with that from HL-GRBs. If each neutrino event is detected by IceCube, later
optical-infrared follow-up observations such as by Subaru and HST have
possibilities to identify a Type Ibc supernova associated with LL-GRBs, even if
gamma- and X-rays are not observed by Swift. This is in a sense a new window
from neutrino astronomy, which might enable us to confirm the existence of
LL-GRBs and to obtain information about their rate and origin. We also argue
LL-GRBs as high energy gamma-ray and cosmic-ray sources.


  We study the thermal partition function of level $k$ U(N) Chern-Simons
theories on $S^2$ interacting with matter in the fundamental representation. We
work in the 't Hooft limit, $N,k\to\infty$, with $\lambda = N/k$ and $\frac{T^2
V_{2}}{N}$ held fixed where $T$ is the temperature and $V_{2}$ the volume of
the sphere. An effective action proposed in arXiv:1211.4843 relates the
partition function to the expectation value of a `potential' function of the
$S^1$ holonomy in pure Chern-Simons theory; in several examples we compute the
holonomy potential as a function of $\lambda$. We use level rank duality of
pure Chern-Simons theory to demonstrate the equality of thermal partition
functions of previously conjectured dual pairs of theories as a function of the
temperature. We reduce the partition function to a matrix integral over
holonomies. The summation over flux sectors quantizes the eigenvalues of this
matrix in units of ${2\pi \over k}$ and the eigenvalue density of the holonomy
matrix is bounded from above by $\frac{1}{2 \pi \lambda}$. The corresponding
matrix integrals generically undergo two phase transitions as a function of
temperature. For several Chern-Simons matter theories we are able to exactly
solve the relevant matrix models in the low temperature phase, and determine
the phase transition temperature as a function of $\lambda$. At low
temperatures our partition function smoothly matches onto the $N$ and $\lambda$
independent free energy of a gas of non renormalized multi trace operators. We
also find an exact solution to a simple toy matrix model; the large $N$
Gross-Witten-Wadia matrix integral subject to an upper bound on eigenvalue
density.


  Rejected job applicants seldom receive explanations from employers.
Techniques from Explainable AI (XAI) could provide explanations at scale.
Although XAI researchers have developed many different types of explanations,
we know little about the type of explanations job applicants want. We use a
survey of recent job applicants to fill this gap. Our survey generates three
main insights. First, the current norm of, at most, generic feedback frustrates
applicants. Second, applicants feel the employer has an obligation to provide
an explanation. Third, job applicants want to know why they were unsuccessful
and how to improve.


  Flows on the solar surface are linked to solar activity, and LCT is one of
the standard techniques for capturing the dynamics of these processes by
cross-correlating solar images. However, the link between contrast variations
in successive images to the underlying plasma motions has to be quantitatively
confirmed. Radiation hydrodynamics simulations of solar granulation
(e.g.,CO5BOLD) provide access to both the wavelength-integrated, emergent
continuum intensity and the 3D velocity field at various heights in the solar
atmosphere. Thus, applying LCT to continuum images yields horizontal proper
motions, which are then compared to the velocity field of the simulated
(non-magnetic) granulation. In this study, we evaluate the performance of an
LCT algorithm previously developed for bulk-processing Hinode G-band images,
establish it as a quantitative tool for measuring horizontal proper motions,
and clearly work out the limitations of LCT or similar techniques designed to
track optical flows. Horizontal flow maps and frequency distributions of the
flow speed were computed for a variety of LCT input parameters including the
spatial resolution, the width of the sampling window, the time cadence of
successive images, and the averaging time used to determine persistent flow
properties. Smoothed velocity fields from the hydrodynamics simulation at three
atmospheric layers (log tau=-1,0,and +1) served as a point of reference for the
LCT results. LCT recovers many of the granulation properties, e.g.,the shape of
the flow speed distributions, the relationship between mean flow speed and
averaging time, and also--with significant smoothing of the simulated velocity
field--morphological features of the flow and divergence maps. However, the
horizontal proper motions are grossly underestimated by as much as a factor of
three. The LCT flows match best the flows deeper in the atmosphere at log
tau=+1.


  Information Geometry generalizes to infinite dimension by modeling the
tangent space of the relevant manifold of probability densities with
exponential Orlicz spaces. We review here several properties of the exponential
manifold on a suitable set $\mathcal E$ of mutually absolutely continuous
densities. We study in particular the fine properties of the Kullback-Liebler
divergence in this context. We also show that this setting is well-suited for
the study of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation if $\mathcal E$ is a
set of positive densities with finite relative entropy with respect to the
Maxwell density. More precisely, we analyse the Boltzmann operator in the
geometric setting from the point of its Maxwell's weak form as a composition of
elementary operations in the exponential manifold, namely tensor product,
conditioning, marginalization and we prove in a geometric way the basic facts
i.e., the H-theorem. We also illustrate the robustness of our method by
discussing, besides the Kullback-Leibler divergence, also the property of
Hyv\"arinen divergence. This requires to generalise our approach to
Orlicz-Sobolev spaces to include derivatives.%


  In this paper, we study feature cross search as a fundamental primitive in
feature engineering. The importance of feature cross search especially for the
linear model has been known for a while, with well-known textbook examples. In
this problem, the goal is to select a small subset of features, combine them to
form a new feature (called the crossed feature) by considering their Cartesian
product, and find feature crosses to learn an \emph{accurate} model. In
particular, we study the problem of maximizing a normalized Area Under the
Curve (AUC) of the linear model trained on the crossed feature column.
  First, we show that it is not possible to provide an $n^{1/\log\log
n}$-approximation algorithm for this problem unless the exponential time
hypothesis fails. This result also rules out the possibility of solving this
problem in polynomial time unless $\mathsf{P}=\mathsf{NP}$. On the positive
side, by assuming the \naive\ assumption, we show that there exists a simple
greedy $(1-1/e)$-approximation algorithm for this problem. This result is
established by relating the AUC to the total variation of the commutator of two
probability measures and showing that the total variation of the commutator is
monotone and submodular. To show this, we relate the submodularity of this
function to the positive semi-definiteness of a corresponding kernel matrix.
Then, we use Bochner's theorem to prove the positive semi-definiteness by
showing that its inverse Fourier transform is non-negative everywhere. Our
techniques and structural results might be of independent interest.


  We study jet fragmentation via final-state parton splittings in the medium.
These processes are usually calculated theoretically by invoking the
large-$N_c$ limit. In this paper we perform the first computation of a $1\to2$
parton splitting in a thermal medium at finite numbers of colors $N_c$, for
arbitrary momentum-sharing fraction $z$ and with full transverse dynamics. We
show how the problem can be transformed into a system of coupled Schr\"odinger
equations, that we solve numerically. The novel numerical results are used to
estimate the accuracy of several widely used approximations. We check the error
introduced while going from finite $N_c$ (i.e. $N_c =3$) to the large-$N_c$
limit, which we find to be small. For unbalanced splittings, e.g. when $z\to
0$, only one of the partons is affected by transverse momentum exchanges with
the medium. The emission process then separates into a term responsible for the
$1 \to 2$ splitting and the subsequent independent broadening of the daughter
partons. This is also referred to as the factorizable term. For finite $z$,
further contributions arise that are responsible for the coherent color
dynamics of the two-parton system, and these are referred to as
non-factorizable terms. These were argued to be small for soft (unbalanced)
splittings and for large media. In this work we therefore determine the
accuracy of keeping only the factorizable term of the large-$N_c$ solution. We
find that the error is insignificant at a small splitting fraction $z \sim 0$,
but can be sizable in a more balanced splitting with $z\sim 0.5$. Finally, we
also examine the eikonal approximation, which amounts to approximating the
partons' paths through the medium as straight lines. We find that it is
associated with a substantial error for the parameter values we explored in
this work.


  We use the Maximum $q$-log-likelihood estimation for Least informative
distributions (LID) in order to estimate the parameters in probability density
functions (PDFs) efficiently and robustly when data include outlier(s). LIDs
are derived by using convex combinations of two PDFs,
$f_\epsilon=(1-\epsilon)f_0+\epsilon f_1$. A convex combination of two PDFs is
considered as a contamination $f_1$ as outlier(s) to underlying $f_0$
distributions and $f_\epsilon$ is a contaminated distribution. The optimal
criterion is obtained by minimizing the change of Maximum q-log-likelihood
function when the data have slightly more contamination. In this paper, we make
a comparison among ordinary Maximum likelihood, Maximum q-likelihood
estimations, LIDs based on $\log_q$ and Huber M-estimation. Akaike and Bayesian
information criterions (AIC and BIC) based on $\log_q$ and LID are proposed to
assess the fitting performance of functions. Real data sets are applied to test
the fitting performance of estimating functions that include shape, scale and
location parameters.


  Maximum Mutual information (MMI), which models the bidirectional dependency
between responses ($y$) and contexts ($x$), i.e., the forward probability $\log
p(y|x)$ and the backward probability $\log p(x|y)$, has been widely used as the
objective in the \sts model to address the dull-response issue in open-domain
dialog generation. Unfortunately, under the framework of the \sts model, direct
decoding from $\log p(y|x) + \log p(x|y)$ is infeasible since the second part
(i.e., $p(x|y)$) requires the completion of target generation before it can be
computed, and the search space for $y$ is enormous. Empirically, an N-best list
is first generated given $p(y|x)$, and $p(x|y)$ is then used to rerank the
N-best list, which inevitably results in non-globally-optimal solutions. In
this paper, we propose to use non-autoregressive (non-AR) generation model to
address this non-global optimality issue. Since target tokens are generated
independently in non-AR generation, $p(x|y)$ for each target word can be
computed as soon as it's generated, and does not have to wait for the
completion of the whole sequence. This naturally resolves the non-global
optimal issue in decoding. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed
non-AR strategy produces more diverse, coherent, and appropriate responses,
yielding substantive gains in BLEU scores and in human evaluations.


  In recent years, Game AI research has made important breakthroughs using
Reinforcement Learning (RL). Despite this, RL for modern tabletop games has
gained little to no attention, even when they offer a range of unique
challenges compared to video games. To bridge this gap, we introduce PyTAG, a
Python API for interacting with the Tabletop Games framework (TAG). TAG
contains a growing set of more than 20 modern tabletop games, with a common API
for AI agents. We present techniques for training RL agents in these games and
introduce baseline results after training Proximal Policy Optimisation
algorithms on a subset of games. Finally, we discuss the unique challenges
complex modern tabletop games provide, now open to RL research through PyTAG.


  We present a photometric study of the resolved stellar populations in And IX,
the closest satellite to the M31, a metal-poor and low-mass dwarf spheroidal
galaxy. We estimate a distance modulus of $24.56_{-0.15}^{+0.05}$ mag based on
the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB). By probing the variability of
asymptotic giant branch stars (AGB), we study the star formation history of And
IX. We identified 50 long period variables (LPVs) in And IX using the Isaac
Newton Telescope (INT) in two filters, Sloan $i'$ and Harris $V$. In this
study, we selected LPVs within two half-light radii with amplitudes in the
range of 0.2-2.20 mag. It is found that the peak of star formation reaches
$\sim$ $8.2\pm3.1\times10^{-4}$ M_sun yr$^{-1}$ at $\approx 6$ Gyr ago. Our
findings suggest an outside-in galaxy formation scenario for And IX with a
quenching occurring $3.65_{-1.52}^{+0.13}$ Gyr ago with the SFR in the order of
$2.0\times10^{-4}$ M_sun yr$^{-1}$ at redshift < $0.5$. We calculate the total
stellar mass by integrating the star formation rate (SFR) within two half-light
radii $\sim$ $3.0\times10^5$ M_sun. By employing the spectral energy
distribution (SED) fitting for observed LPVs in And IX, we evaluate the
mass-loss rate in the range of $10^{-7}$ $\leq$ $\dot{M}$ $\leq$ $10^{-5}$
M_sun yr$^{-1}$. Finally, we show that the total mass deposition to the
interstellar medium (ISM) is $\sim$ $2.4\times10^{-4}$ M_sun yr$^{-1}$ from the
C- and O-rich type of dust-enshrouded LPVs. The ratio of the total mass
returned to the ISM by LPVs to the total stellar mass is $\sim
8.0\times10^{-10}$ yr$^{-1}$, and so at this rate, it would take $\sim$ 1 Gyr
to reproduce this galaxy


  We investigate the effect of post-deposition annealing (for temperatures from
848 K to 1273 K) on the chemical properties of crystalline Ta$_2$O$_5$ films
grown on Si(100) substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The atomic
arrangement, as determined by X-ray diffraction, is predominately hexagonal
($\delta$-Ta$_2$O$_5$) for the films exposed to heat treatments at 948 K and
1048 K; orthorhombic ($\beta$-Ta$_2$O$_5$) for samples annealed at 1148 K and
1273 K; and amorphous for samples annealed at temperatures below 948 K. X-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy for Ta $4f$ and O $1s$ core-levels were performed to
evaluate the chemical properties of all films as a function of annealing
temperature. Upon analysis, it is observed the Ta $4f$ spectrum characteristic
of Ta in Ta$^{5+}$ and the formation of Ta-oxide phases with oxidation states
Ta$^{1+}$, Ta$^{2+}$, Ta$^{3+}$, and Ta$^{4+}$. The study reveals that the
increase in annealing temperature increases the percentage of the state
Ta$^{5+}$ and the reduction of the others indicating that higher temperatures
are more desirable to produce Ta$_2$O$_5$, however, there seems to be an
optimal annealing temperature that maximizes the O\% to Ta\% ratio. We found
that at 1273 K the ratio slightly reduces suggesting oxygen depletion.


  We present HST images for nine megamaser disk galaxies with the primary goal
of studying photometric BH-galaxy scaling relations. The megamaser disks
provide the highest-precision extragalactic BH mass measurements, while our
high-resolution HST imaging affords us the opportunity to decompose the complex
nuclei of their late-type hosts in detail. Based on the morphologies and shapes
of the galaxy nuclei, we argue that most of these galaxies' central regions
contain secularly evolving components (pseudo-bulges), and in many cases we
photometrically identify co-existing "classical" bulge components as well.
Using these decompositions, we draw the following conclusions: (1) The
megamaser BH masses span two orders of magnitude ($10^6$ -- $10^8 M_\odot$)
while the stellar mass of their spiral host galaxies are all $\sim 10^{11}
M_\odot$ within a factor of three; (2) the BH masses at a given bulge mass or
total stellar mass in the megamaser host spiral galaxies tend to be lower than
expected, when compared to an extrapolation of the BH-bulge relation based on
early-type galaxies; (3) the observed large intrinsic scatter of BH masses in
the megamaser host galaxies raises the question of whether scaling relations
exist in spiral galaxies.


  For reconstructing large tomographic datasets fast, filtered
backprojection-type or Fourier-based algorithms are still the method of choice,
as they have been for decades. These robust and computationally efficient
algorithms have been integrated in a broad range of software packages. The
continuous mathematical formulas used for image reconstruction in such
algorithms are unambiguous. However, variations in discretisation and
interpolation result in quantitative differences between reconstructed images,
and corresponding segmentations, obtained from different software. This hinders
reproducibility of experimental results, making it difficult to ensure that
results and conclusions from experiments can be reproduced at different
facilities or using different software.
  In this paper, we propose a way to reduce such differences by optimising the
filter used in analytical algorithms. These filters can be computed using a
wrapper routine around a black-box implementation of a reconstruction
algorithm, and lead to quantitatively similar reconstructions. We demonstrate
use cases for our approach by computing implementation-adapted filters for
several open-source implementations and applying it to simulated phantoms and
real-world data acquired at the synchrotron. Our contribution to a reproducible
reconstruction step forms a building block towards a fully reproducible
synchrotron tomography data processing pipeline.


  Political polarization has become a growing concern in democratic societies,
as it drives tribal alignments and erodes civic deliberation among citizens.
Given its prevalence across different countries, previous research has sought
to understand under which conditions people tend to endorse extreme opinions.
However, in polarized contexts, citizens not only adopt more extreme views but
also become correlated across issues that are, a priori, seemingly unrelated.
This phenomenon, known as "ideological sorting", has been receiving greater
attention in recent years but the micro-level mechanisms underlying its
emergence remain poorly understood. Here, we study the conditions under which a
social dynamic system is expected to become ideologically sorted as a function
of the mechanisms of interaction between its individuals. To this end, we
developed and analyzed a multidimensional agent-based model that incorporates
two mechanisms: homophily (where people tend to interact with those holding
similar opinions) and pairwise-coherence favoritism (where people tend to
interact with ingroups holding politically coherent opinions). We numerically
integrated the model's master equations that perfectly describe the system's
dynamics and found that ideological sorting only emerges in models that include
pairwise-coherence favoritism. We then compared the model's outcomes with
empirical data from 24,035 opinions across 67 topics and found that
pairwise-coherence favoritism is significantly present in datasets that measure
political attitudes but absent across topics not considered related to
politics. Overall, this work combines theoretical approaches from system
dynamics with model-based analyses of empirical data to uncover a potential
mechanism underlying the pervasiveness of ideological sorting.


  In this article we consider the relationship between vertex coloring and the
immersion order. Specifically, a conjecture proposed by Abu-Khzam and Langston
in 2003, which says that the complete graph with $t$ vertices can be immersed
in any $t$-chromatic graph, is studied.
  First, we present a general result about immersions and prove that the
conjecture holds for graphs whose complement does not contain any induced cycle
of length four and also for graphs having the property that every set of five
vertices induces a subgraph with at least six edges.
  Then, we study the class of all graphs with independence number less than
three, which are graphs of interest for Hadwiger's Conjecture. We study such
graphs for the immersion-analog. If Abu-Khzam and Langston's conjecture is true
for this class of graphs, then an easy argument shows that every graph of
independence number less than $3$ contains
$K_{\left\lceil\frac{n}{2}\right\rceil}$ as an immersion. We show that the
converse is also true. That is, if every graph with independence number less
than $3$ contains an immersion of $K_{\left\lceil\frac{n}{2}\right\rceil}$,
then Abu-Khzam and Langston's conjecture is true for this class of graphs.
Furthermore, we show that every graph of independence number less than $3$ has
an immersion of $K_{\left\lceil\frac{n}{3}\right\rceil}$.


  As machine learning (ML) systems become pervasive, safeguarding their
security is critical. However, recently it has been demonstrated that motivated
adversaries are able to mislead ML systems by perturbing test data using
semantic transformations. While there exists a rich body of research providing
provable robustness guarantees for ML models against $\ell_p$ norm bounded
adversarial perturbations, guarantees against semantic perturbations remain
largely underexplored. In this paper, we provide TSS -- a unified framework for
certifying ML robustness against general adversarial semantic transformations.
First, depending on the properties of each transformation, we divide common
transformations into two categories, namely resolvable (e.g., Gaussian blur)
and differentially resolvable (e.g., rotation) transformations. For the former,
we propose transformation-specific randomized smoothing strategies and obtain
strong robustness certification. The latter category covers transformations
that involve interpolation errors, and we propose a novel approach based on
stratified sampling to certify the robustness. Our framework TSS leverages
these certification strategies and combines with consistency-enhanced training
to provide rigorous certification of robustness. We conduct extensive
experiments on over ten types of challenging semantic transformations and show
that TSS significantly outperforms the state of the art. Moreover, to the best
of our knowledge, TSS is the first approach that achieves nontrivial certified
robustness on the large-scale ImageNet dataset. For instance, our framework
achieves 30.4% certified robust accuracy against rotation attack (within $\pm
30^\circ$) on ImageNet. Moreover, to consider a broader range of
transformations, we show TSS is also robust against adaptive attacks and
unforeseen image corruptions such as CIFAR-10-C and ImageNet-C.


  This chapter is mainly a tutorial introduction to methods recently developed
in order to find all (as opposed to some) meromorphic particular solutions of
given nonintegrable, autonomous, algebraic ordinary differential equations of
any order. The examples are taken from physics and include Kuramoto-Sivashinsky
and complex Ginzburg-Landau equations.


  We review the present observational knowledge on the spatial distribution and
the physical state of the different (molecular, atomic and ionized) components
of the interstellar gas in the innermost 3 kpc of our Galaxy -- a region which
we refer to as the interstellar Galactic bulge, to distinguish it from its
stellar counterpart. We try to interpret the observations in the framework of
recent dynamical models of interstellar gas flows in the gravitational
potential of a barred galaxy. Finally, relying on both the relevant
observations and their theoretical interpretation, we propose a model for the
space-averaged density of each component of the interstellar gas in the
interstellar Galactic bulge.


  Let $\Omega$ be a bounded domain in $\mathbb R^{N}$, $N\geq3$ with smooth
boundary,
  $a>0, \lambda>0$ and $0<\delta<3$ be real numbers. Define
$2^*:=\displaystyle\frac{2N}{N-2}$ and the characteristic function of a set $A$
by $\chi_A$.
  We consider the following critical problem with singular and discontinuous
nonlinearity: \begin{eqnarray*}
  (P_\la^a)~~~~ \qquad \Biggl\{\begin{array}{rl} -\Delta u &= \lambda
\left(u^{2^*-1}+ \displaystyle \chi_{\{u<a\}}u^{-\de} \right), u > 0~~\text{in}
~~\Omega, \\ u & = 0 ~\text{on}~
  \partial \Omega. \end{array} \end{eqnarray*}
  \noindent We study the existence and the global multiplicity of solutions to
the above problem.


  Arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means are the three classical means famous
in the literature. Another mean such as square-root mean is also known. In this
paper, we have constructed divergence measures based on nonnegative differences
among these means, and established an interesting inequality by use of
properties of Csiszar's f-divergence. Connections of new mean divergences
measures with classical divergence measures such as Jeffreys-Kullback-Leibler
J-divergence, Sibson-Burbea-Rao Jensen difference divergence measure and
Taneja's arithmetic - geometric mean divergence are also established.


  The regime of dark matter (DM) freeze-in at stronger coupling interpolates
between freeze-in and freeze-out. It relies on Boltzmann-suppressed dark matter
production, implying that the Standard Model bath temperature never exceeds the
dark matter mass. In this work, we study this regime in the context of sterile
neutrino dark matter, which can be sufficiently long-lived for a tiny
sterile-active mixing. The sterile neutrino is assumed to couple to a real
singlet scalar, providing for a thermal production mechanism of the former. We
find that DM mass can range from GeV to tens of TeV consistently with all the
constraints. The most interesting aspect of the consequent freeze-in
phenomenology is that the sterile neutrino dark matter can be probed
efficiently by both direct detection experiments and invisible Higgs decay at
the LHC.


  NMR measurements on a selectively deuteriated liquid crystal dimer CB-C9-CB
exhibiting two nematic phases show that the molecules in the lower temperature
nematic phase, Nx, experience a chiral environment and are ordered about a
unique direction. The results are contrasted with previous reports that
proposed a twist-bend spatial variation of the director. A structural model is
proposed wherein the molecules show organization into highly correlated
assemblies of opposite chirality.


  We study theoretically the out of plane optical conductivity of d-wave
superconductors in the presence of impurities at T=0K. Unlike the usual
approach, we assume that the interlayer quasi-particle transport is due to
coherent tunneling. The present model describes the T^2 dependence of the out
of plane superfluid density observed in YBCO and Tl2201 for example. In the
optical conductivity there is no Drude peak in agreement with experiment, and
the interlayer Josephson tunneling is also assured in this model. In the
unitary limit we predict a step like behaviour around omega=Delta in both the
real and imaginary part of the optical conductivity.


  This article is about Artin's braid group and its role in knot theory. We set
ourselves two goals: (i) to provide enough of the essential background so that
our review would be accessible to graduate students, and (ii) to focus on those
parts of the subject in which major progress was made, or interesting new
proofs of known results were discovered, during the past 20 years. A central
theme that we try to develop is to show ways in which structure first
discovered in the braid groups generalizes to structure in Garside groups,
Artin groups and surface mapping class groups. However, the literature is
extensive, and for reasons of space our coverage necessarily omits many very
interesting developments. Open problems are noted and so-labelled, as we
encounter them.


  Electromagnetic (EM) vector sensor arrays can track both the polarisation and
direction of arrival (DOA) of the impinging signals. For linear crossed-dipole
arrays, as shown by our analysis, due to inherent limitation of the structure,
it can only track one DOA parameter and two polarisation parameters. For full
four-dimensional (4-D, 2 DOA and 2 polarization parameters) estimation, we
could extend the linear crossed-dipole array to the planar case. In this paper,
instead of extending the array geometry, we replace the crossed-dipoles by
tripoles and construct a linear tripole array. It is proved that such a
structure can estimate the 2-D DOA and 2-D polarisation information effectively
in general and a dimension-reduction based MUSIC algorithm is developed so that
the 4-D estimation problem can be simplified into two separate 2-D estimation
problems, significantly reducing the computational complexity of the solution.
The Cramr-Rao Bound (CRB) is also derived as a reference for algorithm
performance. A brief comparison between the planar crossed-dipole array and the
linear tripole array is performed at last, showing that although the planar
structure has a better performance, it is achieved at the cost of increased
physical size.


  We show that the incompressible Euler equations on $\mathbb{R}^2$ are not
locally well-posed in the sense of Hadamard in the Besov space
$B^1_{\infty,1}$. Our approach relies on the technique of Lagrangian
deformations of Bourgain and Li. We show that the assumption that the
data-to-solution map is continuous in $B^1_{\infty,1}$ leads to a contradiction
with a well-posedness result in $W^{1,p}$ of Kato and Ponce.


  We study a multi-server queueing system with a periodic arrival rate and
customers whose joining decision is based on their patience and a delay proxy.
Specifically, each customer has a patience level sampled from a common
distribution. Upon arrival, they receive an estimate of their delay before
joining service and then join the system only if this delay is not more than
their patience, otherwise they balk. The main objective is to estimate the
parameters pertaining to the arrival rate and patience distribution. Here the
complication factor is that this inference should be performed based on the
observed process only, i.e., balking customers remain unobserved. We set up a
likelihood function of the state dependent effective arrival process (i.e.,
corresponding to the customers who join), establish strong consistency of the
MLE, and derive the asymptotic distribution of the estimation error. Due to the
intrinsic non-stationarity of the Poisson arrival process, the proof techniques
used in previous work become inapplicable. The novelty of the proving mechanism
in this paper lies in the procedure of constructing i.i.d. objects from
dependent samples by decomposing the sample path into i.i.d. regeneration
cycles. The feasibility of the MLE-approach is discussed via a sequence of
numerical experiments, for multiple choices of functions which provide delay
estimates. In particular, it is observed that the arrival rate is best
estimated at high service capacities, and the patience distribution is best
estimated at lower service capacities.


  Nullnorms with a zero element being at any point of a bounded lattice are an
important generalization of triangular norms and triangular conorms. This paper
obtains an equivalent characterization for the existence of idempotent
nullnorms with the zero element $a$ on any bounded lattice containing two
distinct elements incomparable with $a$. Furthermore, some basic properties for
the bounded lattice containing two distinct element incomparable with a are
presented.


  The undulator is a critical component to produce synchrotron radiation and
free electron laser. When a Bessel light beam carrying the orbit angular
momentum co-propagates with an electron beam, a net transverse deflection force
will be subjected to the electron beam. As a result of dephasing effect, the
deflection force will oscillate acting as an undulator. For such a laser based
undulator, the period length can reach sub-millimeter level, which will greatly
reduce the electron energy for the required X-ray production.


  We derive the expression for spontaneous emission rate in finite
one-dimensional photonic crystal with arbitrary defects using the effective
resonator model to describe electromagnetic field distributions in the
structure. We obtain explicit formulas for contributions of different types of
modes, i.e. radiation, substrate and guided modes. Formal calculations are
illustrated with a few numerical examples, which demonstrate that the
application of effective resonator model simplifies interpretation of results.


  In this paper an econophysics model for the currency exchange operations with
commission is proposed. With this purpose some analogies and similarities of
the processes that take place in the frame of the electrochemical system made
from electrodes sunk into a solution of electrolytes and the process of the
currency exchange and determination of the international currency purchasing
power have been used. Some contact phenomena at the electrode/electrolyte
separation surface, the physical principles of an electrochemical source
operation and the determination of the sale attractiveness or the "potential"
of the currency that is to be exchanged are also introduced and analyzed.


  The Polarized Atomic Hydrogen Gas Jet Target polarimeter (HJET) is operated
at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) since 2004 to measure the
absolute polarization of each colliding proton beam. Polarimeter detectors and
data acquisition were upgraded in 2015 to increase the solid angle, energy
range, and to improve the energy and time resolution. These upgrades along with
an improved beam intensity and polarization allowed us to greatly reduce the
statistical and systematic errors for the proton polarization measurements in
RHIC Runs 15 ($E_\text{beam}\!=\!100~\text{GeV}$) and 17 ($255~\text{GeV}$).
For a typical 8 hour RHIC store, the measured proton beam average polarization
was about $P_\text{beam}\!\sim\!55\pm2.0_\text{stat}\pm0.3_\text{syst}\%$. The
elastic $\mathit{pp}$ analyzing power, $A_\text{N}(t)\!\sim\!0.04$, was
determined with a precision of about $|\delta A_\text{N}(t)|\!\sim\!0.0002$ in
the momentum transfer squared range $0.001\!<\!-t\!<\!0.020\,\text{GeV}^2$. In
this paper we present a detailed systematic error analysis of the polarization
measurements at HJET. Perspectives of using the HJET based absolute
polarimeters in the future Electron Ion Collider (EIC) will be also discussed.


  The Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) R71 is currently undergoing an eruption,
which differs photometrically and spectroscopically from its last outburst in
the 1970s. Valuable information on the physics of LBV eruptions can be gained
by analyzing the spectral evolution during this eruption and by comparing R71's
present appearance to its previous outburst and its quiescent state. Here we
present the first spectra of an ongoing monitoring program with VLT/X-shooter
and compare them to archival VLT/UVES and MPG/ESO-2.2m/FEROS spectra from
2002-2011. The discussed data include pre-eruption spectra in 2002 and 2005, a
spectrum of the transitionary phase between quiescent and eruptive state in
2007, and spectra of the eruption in 2011-2012. The 2011-2012 spectra are
dominated by strong neutral and singly ionized metal absorption lines likely
formed in a large "pseudo-photosphere." We find an unusually low apparent
temperature of R71 of only ~6650 K; the star resembles a late F supergiant.
R71's visual lightcurve had a maximum in 2012 with mV ~ 8.7 mag. Given the
uncertainty in the extinction towards R71, this corresponds to a bolometric
luminosity of -9.8 mag to -10.3 mag. R71's 2011-2012 spectra do not show H I
and Fe II P Cyg profiles, which were present during its last outburst in the
1970s and which are normally observed during LBV outbursts. The rise in R71's
visual magnitude and the low apparent temperature of its pseudo-photosphere
during the current eruption are unprecedented for this star. R71 most likely
increased its bolometric luminosity by 0.4-1.3 mag compared to its quiescent
state. The very low temperature of its pseudo-photosphere implies a very
high-mass loss rate, a factor of 1000 higher than during the quiescence state.
No fast-moving material indicative of an explosion is observed (abridged).


  The pion final state interaction model in NEUT is described. Modifications
and tuning of the model are validated against neutrino and non-neutrino (pion
scattering and photoproduction) data. A method for evaluating the uncertainties
in the model and propagation of systematic errors in a neutrino oscillation
experiment is described, using T2K as a specific example.


  A theory of radiation absorption by dielectric mixtures is presented. The
coarse-grained formulation is based on the wavevector-dependent correlation
functions of molecular dipoles of the host polar liquid and a density-density
structure factor of the positions of the solutes. A nonlinear dependence of the
absorption coefficient on the solute concentration is predicted and originates
from the mutual polarization of the liquid surrounding the solutes by the
collective field of the solute dipoles aligned along the radiation field. The
theory is applied to terahertz absorption of hydrated saccharides and proteins.
While the theory gives an excellent account of the observations for saccharides
without additional assumptions and fitting parameters, experimental absorption
coefficient of protein solutions significantly exceeds theoretical calculations
within standard dielectric models and shows a peak against the protein
concentration. A substantial polarization of protein's hydration shell is
required to explain the differences between standard theories and experiment.
When the correlation function of the total dipole moment of the protein with
its hydration shell from numerical simulations is used in the present
analytical model an absorption peak similar to that seen is experiment is
obtained. The result is sensitive to the specifics of protein-protein
interactions in solution. Numerical testing of the theory requires the
combination of terahertz dielectric and small-angle scattering measurements.


  We report results of the equation of state of neutron matter in the
low--density regime, where the Fermi wave vector ranges from $0.4 fm^{-1} \leq
k_F \leq 1.0 fm^{-1}$. Neutron matter in this regime is superfluid because of
the strong and attractive interaction in the $^1S_0$ channel. The properties of
this superfluid matter are calculated starting from a realistic Hamiltonian
that contains modern two-- and three--body interactions. The ground state
energy and the $^1S_0$ superfluid energy gap are calculated using the Auxiliary
Field Diffusion Monte Carlo method. We study the structure of the ground state
by looking at pair distribution functions as well as the Cooper-pair wave
function used in the calculations.


  Animal interval timing is often studied through the peak interval (PI)
procedure. In this procedure, the animal is rewarded for the first response
after a fixed delay from the stimulus onset, but on some trials, the stimulus
remains and no reward is given. The common methods and models to analyse the
response pattern describe it as break-run-break, a period of low rate response
followed by rapid responding, followed by a low rate of response. The study of
the pattern has found correlations between start, stop, and duration of the run
period that hold across species and experiment.
  It is commonly assumed that in order to achieve the statistics with a
pacemaker accumulator model it is necessary to have start and stop thresholds.
In this paper we will develop a new model that varies response rate in relation
to the likelihood of event occurrence, as opposed to a threshold, for changing
the response rate. The new model reproduced the start and stop statistics that
have been observed in 14 different PI experiments from 3 different papers. The
developed model is also compared to the Time-adaptive Drift-diffusion Model
(TDDM), the latest accumulator model subsuming the scalar expectancy theory
(SET), on all 14 data-sets. The results show that it is unnecessary to have
explicit start and stop thresholds or an internal equivalent to break-run-break
states to reproduce the individual trials statistics and population behaviour
and get the same break-run-break analysis results. The new model also produces
more realistic individual trials compared to TDDM.


  We present a method for solving the two-dimensional linearized collisionless
Boltzmann equation using Fourier expansion along the orbits. It resembles very
much solutions present in the literature, but it differs by the fact that
everything is performed in coordinate space instead of using action-angle
variables. We show that this approach, though less elegant, is both feasible
and straightforward. This approach is then incorporated in a matrix method in
order to calculate self-consistent modes, using a set of potential-density
pairs which is obtained numerically. We investigated the stability of some
unperturbed disks having an almost flat rotation curve, an exponential disk and
a non-zero velocity dispersion. The influence of the velocity dispersion, halo
mass and anisotropy on the stability is further discussed.


  Calculations and mechanistic explanations for the probabilistic movement of
objects at the highly relevant cm length scales has been lacking and overlooked
due to the complexity of current techniques. Predicting the final-configuration
probability of flipping cars for example remains extremely challenging. In this
paper we introduce new statistical methodologies to solve these challenging
macroscopic problems. Boltzmann's principles in statistical mechanics have been
well recognized for a century for their usefulness in explaining thermodynamic
properties of matter in gas, liquid and solid phases. Studied systems usually
involve a large number of particles at the atomic scales. However, it is
unusual for Boltzmann's principles to be applied to individual objects at
centimeter to human-size length scales. We show that the concept of statistical
mechanics still holds for describing the probability of a tossed dice landing
on a particular face. For regular dice, the one in six probability that the
dice land on each face is well known. In the case of orthorhombic dice, this
symmetry is broken and hence we need new tools to predict the probability of
landing on each face. We propose a new method based on Boltzmann's principles
which uses synthetic temperature term. Surprisingly, this approach requires
only the dimensions of the thrown object for calculating potential energy as
the input, with no other fitting parameters needed. The statistical predictions
for landing fit well to experimental data of over fifty-thousand samplings of
dice in 23 different dimensions. We believe that the ability to predict, in a
simple and tractable manner, the outcomes of macroscopic movement of large
scale probabilistic phenomena opens up a new line of approach for explaining
many phenomena in the critical centimeter length scale.


  Linear bandit algorithms yield $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(n\sqrt{T})$ pseudo-regret
bounds on compact convex action sets $\mathcal{K}\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ and two
types of structural assumptions lead to better pseudo-regret bounds. When
$\mathcal{K}$ is the simplex or an $\ell_p$ ball with $p\in]1,2]$, there exist
bandits algorithms with $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{nT})$ pseudo-regret bounds.
Here, we derive bandit algorithms for some strongly convex sets beyond $\ell_p$
balls that enjoy pseudo-regret bounds of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{nT})$,
which answers an open question from [BCB12, \S 5.5.]. Interestingly, when the
action set is uniformly convex but not necessarily strongly convex, we obtain
pseudo-regret bounds with a dimension dependency smaller than
$\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{n})$. However, this comes at the expense of asymptotic rates
in $T$ varying between $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{T})$ and
$\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(T)$.


  We present new parametrisations of energy spectra of secondary particles,
$\pi$-mesons, gamma-rays, electrons and neutrinos, produced in inelastic
proton-proton collisions. The simple analytical approximations based on
imulations of proton-proton interactions using the public available SIBYLL
code, provide very good accuracy for energy distributions of secondary products
in the energy range above 100 GeV. Generally, the recommended analytical
formulae deviate from the simulated distributions within a few percent over a
large range of $x=E_i/E_p$ - the fraction of energy of the incident proton
transferred to the secondaries. Finally, we describe an approximate procedure
of continuation of calculations towards low energies, down to the threshold of
$\pi$-meson production.


  We report on the results of our calculation of meson correlators in a finite
volume. The calculation is carried out in the quenched approximation near the
chiral limit (down to Mq = 2.6 MeV) using the overlap fermion. For these small
quark masses, the scalar and pseudo-scalar correlators are well approximated
with a few hundred eigenmodes. The results for both connected and disconnected
correlators are compared with the theoretical predictions of quenched chiral
perturbation theory.


  Deep learning within the context of point clouds has gained much research
interest in recent years mostly due to the promising results that have been
achieved on a number of challenging benchmarks, such as 3D shape recognition
and scene semantic segmentation. In many realistic settings however, snapshots
of the environment are often taken from a single view, which only contains a
partial set of the scene due to the field of view restriction of commodity
cameras. 3D scene semantic understanding on partial point clouds is considered
as a challenging task. In this work, we propose a processing approach for 3D
point cloud data based on a multiview representation of the existing 360{\deg}
point clouds. By fusing the original 360{\deg} point clouds and their
corresponding 3D multiview representations as input data, a neural network is
able to recognize partial point sets while improving the general performance on
complete point sets, resulting in an overall increase of 31.9% and 4.3% in
segmentation accuracy for partial and complete scene semantic understanding,
respectively. This method can also be applied in a wider 3D recognition context
such as 3D part segmentation.


  The ability to induce a sizable gap in the excitation spectrum of a normal
layer placed in contact with a conventional superconductor has become
increasingly important in recent years in the context of engineering a
topological superconductor. The quasiclassical theory of the proximity effect
shows that Andreev reflection at the superconductor/normal interface induces a
nonzero pairing amplitude in the metal but does not endow it with a gap.
Conversely, when the normal layer is atomically thin, the tunneling of Cooper
pairs induces an excitation gap that can be as large as the bulk gap of the
superconductor. We study how these two seemingly different views of the
proximity effect evolve into one another as the thickness of the normal layer
is changed. We show that a fully quantum-mechanical treatment of the problem
predicts that the induced gap is always finite but falls off with the thickness
of the normal layer, $d$. If $d$ is less than a certain crossover scale, which
is much larger than the Fermi wavelength, the induced gap is comparable to the
bulk gap. As a result, a sizable excitation gap can be induced in normal layers
that are much thicker than the Fermi wavelength.


  The contextual integrity model is a widely accepted way of analyzing the
plurality of norms that are colloquially called "privacy norms". Contextual
integrity systematically describes such norms by distinguishing the type of
data concerned, the three social agents involved (subject, sender, and
recipient) and the transmission principle governing the transfer of
information. It allows analyzing privacy norms in terms of their impact on the
interaction of those agents with one another.
  This paper places contextual integrity in a strict game theoretic framework.
When such description is possible it has three key advantages: Firstly, it
allows indisputable utilitarian justification of some privacy norms. Secondly,
it better relates privacy to topics which are well understood by stakeholders
whose education is predominantly quantitative, such as engineers and
economists. Thirdly, it is an absolute necessity when describing ethical
constraints to machines such as AI agents.
  In addition to describing games which capture paradigmatic informational
norms, the paper also analyzes cases in which the game, per se, does not
encourage normative behavior. The paper discusses two main forms of mechanisms
which can be applied to the game in such cases, and shows that they reflect
accepted privacy regulation and technologies.


  We consider the problem of filling in missing spatio-temporal regions of a
video. We provide a novel flow-based solution by introducing a generative model
of images in relation to the scene (without missing regions) and mappings from
the scene to images. We use the model to jointly infer the scene template, a 2D
representation of the scene, and the mappings. This ensures consistency of the
frame-to-frame flows generated to the underlying scene, reducing geometric
distortions in flow based inpainting. The template is mapped to the missing
regions in the video by a new L2-L1 interpolation scheme, creating crisp
inpaintings and reducing common blur and distortion artifacts. We show on two
benchmark datasets that our approach out-performs state-of-the-art
quantitatively and in user studies.


  2-field functional integrals (2FFI) are an important class of solution
methods for generating functions of dissipative processes, including
discrete-state stochastic processes, dissipative dynamical systems, and
decohering quantum densities. The stationary trajectories of these integrals
describe a conserved current by Liouville's theorem, despite the fact that
there is no conserved phase space current in the underlying stochastic process.
We develop the information geometry of generating functions for discrete-state
classical stochastic processes in the Doi-Peliti 2FFI form, showing that the
conserved current is a Fisher information between the underlying distribution
of the process and the tilting weight of the generating function. To give an
interpretation to the time invertibility implied by current conservation, we
use generating functions to represent importance sampling protocols, and show
that the conserved Fisher information is the differential of a sample volume
under deformations of the nominal distribution and the likelihood ratio. We
derive a new pair of dual Riemannian connections respecting the symplectic
structure of transport along stationary rays that gives rise to Liouville's
theorem, and show that dual flatness in the affine coordinates of the
coherent-state basis captures the special role played by coherent states in
many 2FFI theories. The covariant convective derivative under time translation
correctly represents the geometric invariants of generating functions under
canonical transformations of the 2FFI field variables of integration.


  We show that topological superfluid strings/vortices with flux tubes exist in
the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase of color superconductors. Using a
Ginzburg-Landau free energy we find the configurations of these strings. These
strings can form during the transition from the normal phase to the CFL phase
at the core of very dense stars. We discuss an interesting scenario for a
network of strings and its evolution at the core of dense stars.


  In this work, we use the classical moment method to find a practical and
simple criterion to determine if a family of linearized Dispersive equations on
a periodic domain is exactly controllable and exponentially stabilizable with
any given decay rate in $H^{s}_{p}(\mathbb{T})$ with $s\in \mathbb{R}$. We
apply these results to prove that the linearized Smith equation, the linearized
dispersion-generalized Benjamin-Ono equation, the linearized fourth-order
Schr\"odinger equation, and the Higher-order Schr\"odinger equations are
exactly controllable and exponentially stabilizable with any given decay rate
in $H^{s}_{p}(\mathbb{T})$ with $s\in \mathbb{R}$.