  We define a Heegaard-Scharlemann-Thompson (HST) splitting of a 3-manifold M
to be a sequence of pairwise-disjoint, embedded surfaces, {F_i}, such that for
each odd value of i, F_i is a Heegaard splitting of the submanifold of M
cobounded by F_{i-1} and F_{i+1}. Our main result is the following: Suppose M
(\neq B^3 or S^3) is an irreducible submanifold of a triangulated 3-manifold,
bounded by a normal or almost normal surface, and containing at most one
maximal normal 2-sphere. If {F_i} is a strongly irreducible HST splitting of M
then we may isotope it so that for each even value of i the surface F_i is
normal and for each odd value of i the surface F_i is almost normal.
  We then show how various theorems of Rubinstein, Thompson, Stocking and
Schleimer follow from this result. We also show how our results imply the
following: (1) a manifold that contains a non-separating surface contains an
almost normal one, and (2) if a manifold contains a normal Heegaard surface
then it contains two almost normal ones that are topologically parallel to it.


  We present simple, self-contained proofs of correctness for algorithms for
linearity testing and program checking of linear functions on finite subsets of
integers represented as n-bit numbers. In addition we explore a generalization
of self-testing to homomorphisms on a multidimensional vector space. We show
that our self-testing algorithm for the univariate case can be directly
generalized to vector space domains. The number of queries made by our
algorithms is independent of domain size.


  {\bf Abstract.} Let $D$ be a convex body of diameter $\delta$, where $0 <
\delta < \frac{\pi}{2}$, on the $d$-dimensional sphere. We prove that $D$ is of
constant diameter $\delta$ if and only if it is of constant width $\delta$ in
the following two cases. The first case is when $D$ is smooth. The second case
is when $d=2$.


  We generalize the concept of locally symmetric spaces to parabolic contact
structures. We show that symmetric normal parabolic contact structures are
torsion--free and some types of them have to be locally flat. We prove that
each symmetry given at a point with non--zero harmonic curvature is involutive.
Finally we give restrictions on number of different symmetries which can exist
at such a point.


  We show that a secure quantum protocol for coin tossing exist. The existence
of quantum coin tossing support the conjecture of D.Mayers [Phys.Rev.Lett. 78,
3414(1997)] that only asymmetrical tasks as quantum bit commitment are
impossible.


  Numerically solving the semiconductor Bloch equations within a
phenomenological relaxation time approximation, we extract both the linear and
nonlinear optical conductivities of doped graphene and gapped graphene under
excitation by a laser pulse. We discuss in detail the dependence of second
harmonic generation, third harmonic generation, and the Kerr effects on the
doping level, the gap, and the electric field amplitude. The numerical results
for weak electric fields agree with those calculated from available analytic
perturbation formulas. For strong electric fields when saturation effects are
important, all the effective third order nonlinear response coefficients show a
strong field dependence.


  The massive amounts of digitized historical documents acquired over the last
decades naturally lend themselves to automatic processing and exploration.
Research work seeking to automatically process facsimiles and extract
information thereby are multiplying with, as a first essential step, document
layout analysis. If the identification and categorization of segments of
interest in document images have seen significant progress over the last years
thanks to deep learning techniques, many challenges remain with, among others,
the use of finer-grained segmentation typologies and the consideration of
complex, heterogeneous documents such as historical newspapers. Besides, most
approaches consider visual features only, ignoring textual signal. In this
context, we introduce a multimodal approach for the semantic segmentation of
historical newspapers that combines visual and textual features. Based on a
series of experiments on diachronic Swiss and Luxembourgish newspapers, we
investigate, among others, the predictive power of visual and textual features
and their capacity to generalize across time and sources. Results show
consistent improvement of multimodal models in comparison to a strong visual
baseline, as well as better robustness to high material variance.


  The tradeoff between cost of the access network and quality of offered
service to IoT devices, in terms of reliability and durability of
communications, is investigated. We first develop analytical tools for
reliability evaluation in uplink-oriented large-scale IoT networks. These tools
comprise modeling of interference from heterogeneous interfering sources with
time-frequency asynchronous radio-resource usage patterns, and benefit from
realistic distribution processes for modeling channel fading and locations of
interfering sources. We further present a cost model for the access network as
a function of provisioned resources like density of access points (APs), and a
battery lifetime model for IoT devices as a function of intrinsic parameters,
e.g. level of stored energy, and network parameters, e.g. reliability of
communication. The derived models represent the ways in which a required level
of reliability can be achieved by either sacrificing battery lifetime
(durability), e.g. increasing number of replica transmissions, or sacrificing
network cost and increasing provisioned resources, e.g. density of the APs.
Then, we investigate optimal resource provisioning and operation control
strategies, where the former aims at finding the optimized investment in the
access network based on the cost of each resource; while the latter aims at
optimizing data transmission strategies of IoT devices. The simulation results
confirm tightness of derived analytical expressions, and show how the derived
expressions can be used in finding optimal operation points of IoT networks.


  The aim of this paper is to introduce a general way to stabilize the
perturbative QCD computations of heavy quarkonium production in the boosted or
high-momentum transferring region with tree-level generators only. Such an
approach is possible by properly taking into account the power-enhanced
perturbative contributions in a soft and collinear safe manner without
requiring any complete higher-order computations. The complicated NLO results
for inclusive quarkonium hadroproduction can be well reproduced within our
approach based on a tree-level generator {\sc\small HELAC-Onia}. We have
applied it to estimate the last missing leading-twist contribution from the
spin-triplet color-singlet S-wave production at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^5)$,
which is a NNLO term in the $\alpha_s$ expansion for the quarkonium $P_T$
spectrum. We conclude that the missing NNLO contribution will not change the
order of the magnitude of the short-distance coefficient. Such an approach is
also quite appealing as it foresees broad applications in quarkonium-associated
production processes, which are mostly absent of complete higher-order
computations and fragmentation functions.


  Given a Calder\'{o}n--Zygmund (C--Z for short) operator $T$, which satisfies
H\"ormander condition, we prove that: if $T$ maps all the characteristic atoms
to $WL^{1}$, then $T$ is continuous from $L^{p}$ to $L^{p}(1<p<\infty)$. So the
study of strong continuity on arbitrary function in $L^{p}$ has been changed
into the study of weak continuity on characteristic functions.


  We present the calculation of the cross section and invariant mass
distribution for Higgs boson pair production in gluon fusion at next-to-leading
order (NLO) in QCD. Top-quark masses are fully taken into account throughout
the calculation. The virtual two-loop amplitude has been generated using an
extension of the program GoSam supplemented with an interface to Reduze for the
integral reduction. The occurring integrals have been calculated numerically
using the program SecDec. Our results, including the full top-quark mass
dependence for the first time, allow us to assess the validity of various
approximations proposed in the literature, which we also recalculate. We find
substantial deviations between the NLO result and the different approximations,
which emphasizes the importance of including the full top-quark mass dependence
at NLO.


  We present the first measurements and simulations of recombination
fluorescence in ultracold neutral plasmas. In contrast with previous work,
experiment and simulation are in significant disagreement. Comparison with a
recombination model suggests that the disagreement could be due to the high
energy portion of the electron energy distribution or to large energy changes
in electron/Rydberg scattering. Recombination fluorescence opens a new
diagnostic window in ultracold plasmas because it probes the deeply-bound
Rydberg levels, which depend critically on electron energetics.


  An experimental investigation of secondary atomization of spray in plain-jet
airblast atomizers with a circular array of six liquid jets is studied.
Crossflow of air with controlled velocity and pressure is applied to transverse
jets. The liquid jets (Re=12000) are injected into airflow (Weg of 1250-3000)
analyzed experimentally for different injection diameters of 0.8-1.6 mm.
Particle size distribution measurement is carried out by Malvern Mastersizer X
in the fully atomized region of the atomizer. The droplet size distribution in
the secondary or final atomization stage is also modeled by the Finite
stochastic Breakup model, which requires 4 parameters to be defined i.e.
initial droplet diameter, maximum stable droplet size, minimum mass ratio, and
droplet breakup probability. The modeling approximation is in very good
agreement with the experimental result. This remarkable consistency between
model and experiment is quite useful in terms of optimal atomization
performance by considering the dynamics of the liquid jet.


  We propose a scheme to exhibit a Stern-Gerlach effect of n-component (n > 2)
high-dimensional ultraslow optical solitons in a coherent atomic system with (n
+ 1)-pod level configuration via electromagnetically induced transparency
(EIT). Based on Maxwell-Bloch equations, we derive coupled (3+1)-dimensional
nonlinear Schrodinger equations governing the spatial-temporal evolution of n
probe-field envelopes. We show that under EIT condition significant deflections
of the n components of coupled ultraslow optical solitons can be achieved by
using a Stern-Gerlach gradient magnetic field. The stability of the ultraslow
optical solitons can be realized by an optical lattice potential contributed
from a far-detuned laser field.


  Backward photoproduction of $\omega$ off a proton target is investigated in a
Reggeized model where the $u$-channel nucleon Reggeon is constructed from the
nucleon Born terms in a gauge invariant way. The $t$-channel meson exchanges
are considered as a background. While the $N_\alpha$ trajectory of the nucleon
Reggeon reproduces the overall shape of NINA data measured at the Daresbury
Laboratory in the range of $u$-channel momentum transfer squared $-1.7<u<0.02$
GeV$^2$ and energies at $E_\gamma=2.8$, 3.5 and 4.7 GeV, a possibility of
parton contributions is searched for through the nucleon isoscalar form factor
which is parameterized in terms of parton distributions at the $\omega NN$
vertex. Detailed analysis is presented for NINA data to understand the reaction
mechanism that could fill up the deep dip from the nucleon Reggeon at momentum
squared $u=-0.15$ GeV$^2$. The angle dependence of differential cross sections
at the NINA energies above are reproduced in the overall range of $u$ including
the CLAS data at forward angles in addition. The energy dependence of the
differential cross section is investigated based on the NINA data and the
recent LEPS data. A feature of the present approach that implicates parton
contributions via nucleon form factor is illustrated in the total and
differential cross sections provided by GRAAL and CB-ELSA Collaborations.


  We have explored the low-temperature linear and non-linear electrical
conductance $G$ of metallic carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which were grown by the
chemical-vapor deposition method. The high transparency of the contacts allows
to study these two-terminal devices in the high conductance regime. We observe
the expected four-fold shell pattern together with Kondo physics at
intermediate transparency {$G\alt 2e^2/h$} and a transition to the open regime
in which the maximum conductance is doubled and bound by $G_{max}=4e^2/h$. In
the high-$G$ regime, at the transition from a quantum dot to a weak link, the
CNT levels are strongly broadened. Nonetheless, sharp resonances appear
superimposed on the background which varies slowly with gate voltage. The
resonances are identified by their lineshape as Fano resonances. The origin of
Fano resonances is discussed along the modelling.


  Adapter layers are lightweight, learnable units inserted between transformer
layers. Recent work explores using such layers for neural machine translation
(NMT), to adapt pre-trained models to new domains or language pairs, training
only a small set of parameters for each new setting (language pair or domain).
In this work we study the compositionality of language and domain adapters in
the context of Machine Translation. We aim to study, 1) parameter-efficient
adaptation to multiple domains and languages simultaneously (full-resource
scenario) and 2) cross-lingual transfer in domains where parallel data is
unavailable for certain language pairs (partial-resource scenario). We find
that in the partial resource scenario a naive combination of domain-specific
and language-specific adapters often results in `catastrophic forgetting' of
the missing languages. We study other ways to combine the adapters to alleviate
this issue and maximize cross-lingual transfer. With our best adapter
combinations, we obtain improvements of 3-4 BLEU on average for source
languages that do not have in-domain data. For target languages without
in-domain data, we achieve a similar improvement by combining adapters with
back-translation. Supplementary material is available at
https://tinyurl.com/r66stbxj


  We characterize weak* closed unital vector spaces of operators on a Hilbert
space $H$. More precisely, we first show that an operator system, which is the
dual of an operator space, can be represented completely isometrically and
weak* homeomorphically as a weak* closed operator subsystem of $B(H)$. An
analogous result is proved for unital operator spaces. Finally, we give some
somewhat surprising examples of dual unital operator spaces.


  We develop a new halo-independent strategy for analyzing emerging DM hints,
utilizing the method of extended maximum likelihood. This approach does not
require the binning of events, making it uniquely suited to the analysis of
emerging DM direct detection hints. It determines a preferred envelope, at a
given confidence level, for the DM velocity integral which best fits the data
using all available information and can be used even in the case of a single
anomalous scattering event. All of the halo-independent information from a
direct detection result may then be presented in a single plot, allowing simple
comparisons between multiple experiments. This results in the halo-independent
analogue of the usual mass and cross-section plots found in typical direct
detection analyses, where limit curves may be compared with best-fit regions in
halo-space. The method is straightforward to implement, using
already-established techniques, and its utility is demonstrated through the
first unbinned halo-independent comparison of the three anomalous events
observed in the CDMS-Si detector with recent limits from the LUX experiment.


  Wikipedia is a prime example of today's value production in a collaborative
environment. Using this example, we model the emergence, persistence and
resolution of severe conflicts during collaboration by coupling opinion
formation with article editing in a bounded confidence dynamics. The complex
social behavior involved in editing articles is implemented as a minimal model
with two basic elements; (i) individuals interact directly to share information
and convince each other, and (ii) they edit a common medium to establish their
own opinions. Opinions of the editors and that represented by the article are
characterised by a scalar variable. When the pool of editors is fixed, three
regimes can be distinguished: (a) a stable mainstream article opinion is
continuously contested by editors with extremist views and there is slow
convergence towards consensus, (b) the article oscillates between editors with
extremist views, reaching consensus relatively fast at one of the extremes, and
(c) the extremist editors are converted very fast to the mainstream opinion and
the article has an erratic evolution. When editors are renewed with a certain
rate, a dynamical transition occurs between different kinds of edit wars, which
qualitatively reflect the dynamics of conflicts as observed in real Wikipedia
data.


  An optimal control for a dynamical system optimizes a certain objective
function. Here we consider the construction of an optimal control for a
stochastic dynamical system with a random structure, Poisson perturbations and
random jumps, which makes the system stable in probability. Sufficient
conditions of the stability in probability are obtained, using the second
Lyapunov method, in which the construction of the corresponding functions plays
an important role. Here we provide a solution to the problem of optimal
stabilization in a general case. For a linear system with a quadratic quality
function, we give a method of synthesis of optimal control based on the
solution of Riccati equations. Finally, in an autonomous case, a system of
differential equations was constructed to obtain unknown matrices that are used
for the building of an optimal control. The method of a small parameter is
justified for the algorithmic search of an optimal control. This approach
brings a novel solution to the problem of optimal stabilization for a
stochastic dynamical system with a random structure, Markov switches and
Poisson perturbations.


  In the case that a dense medium is created in a heavy ions collision,
high-E_t jets are expected to be broadened by medium-modified gluon emission.
This broadening is directly related, through geometry, to the energy loss
measured in inclusive high-p_t particle suppression. We present here the
modifications of jet observables due to the presence of a medium for the case
of azimuthal jet energy distributions and k_t-differential multiplicities
inside the jets.


  In an electron wakefield accelerator, an intense laser pulse or charged
particle beam excites plasma waves. Under proper conditions, electrons from the
background plasma are trapped in the plasma wave and accelerated to
ultra-relativistic velocities. We present recent results from a
proof-of-principle wakefield acceleration experiment that reveal a unique
synergy between a laser-driven and particle-driven accelerator: a high-charge
laser-wakefield accelerated electron bunch can drive its own wakefield while
simultaneously drawing energy from the laser pulse via direct laser
acceleration. This process continues to accelerate electrons beyond the usual
decelerating phase of the wakefield, thus reaching much higher energies. We
find that the 10-centimeter-long nanoparticle-assisted wakefield accelerator
can generate 340 pC, 10.4+-0.6 GeV electron bunches with 3.4 GeV RMS convolved
energy spread and 0.9 mrad RMS divergence. It can also produce bunches with
lower energy, a few percent energy spread, and a higher charge. This
synergistic mechanism and the simplicity of the experimental setup represent a
step closer to compact tabletop particle accelerators suitable for applications
requiring high charge at high energies, such as free electron lasers or
radiation sources producing muon beams.


  Recent pump-probe experiments demonstrate the possibility that Dirac
materials may be driven into transient excited states describable by two
chemical potentials, one for the electrons and one for the holes. Given the
Dirac nature of the spectrum, such an inverted population allows the optical
tunability of the density of states of the electrons and holes, effectively
offering control of the strength of the Coulomb interaction. Here we discuss
the feasibility of realizing transient excitonic instabilities in
optically-pumped Dirac materials. We demonstrate, theoretically, the reduction
of the critical coupling leading to the formation of a transient condensate of
electron-hole pairs and identify signatures of this state. Furthermore, we
provide guidelines for experiments by both identifying the regimes in which
such exotic many-body states are more likely to be observed and estimating the
magnitude of the excitonic gap for a few important examples of existing Dirac
materials. We find a set of material parameters for which our theory predicts
large gaps and high critical temperatures and which could be realized in future
Dirac materials. We also comment on transient excitonic instabilities in
three-dimensional Dirac and Weyl semimetals. This study provides the first
example of a transient collective instability in driven Dirac materials.


  The environments of explosive transients link their progenitors to the
underlying stellar population, providing critical clues for their origins.
However, some Ca-rich supernovae (SNe) and short gamma ray burst (sGRBs) appear
to be located at remote locations, far from the stellar population of their
host galaxy, challenging our understanding of their origin and/or physical
evolution. These findings instigated models suggesting that either large
velocity kicks were imparted to their progenitors, allowing them to propagate
to large distances and attain their remote locations; or that they formed in
dense globular clusters residing in the halos. Here we show that instead, the
large spatial-offsets of these transients are naturally explained by the
observations of highly extended underlying stellar populations in (mostly early
type) galaxy halos, typically missed since they can only be identified through
ultra-deep/stacked images. Consequently, no large velocity kicks, nor halo
globular cluster environments are required in order to explain the origin of
these transients. These findings support thermonuclear explosions on
white-dwarfs, for the origins of Ca-rich SNe progenitors, and
no/small-natal-kicks given to sGRB progenitors. Since early-type galaxies
contain older stellar populations, transient arising from older stellar
populations would have larger fractions of early-type galaxy hosts, and
consequently larger fractions of transients at large offsets. This is verified
by our results for sGRBs and Ca-rich SNe showing different offset distributions
in early vs. late-type galaxies. Furthermore, once divided between early and
late type galaxies, the offsets' distributions of the different transients are
consistent with each other. Finally, we point out that studies of other
transients' offset distribution (e.g. Ia-SNe or FRBs) should similarly consider
the host galaxy-type.


  In recent years, legged robots based on deep reinforcement learning have made
remarkable progress. Quadruped robots have demonstrated the ability to complete
challenging tasks in complex environments and have been deployed in real-world
scenarios to assist humans. Simultaneously, bipedal and humanoid robots have
achieved breakthroughs in various demanding tasks. Current reinforcement
learning methods can utilize diverse robot bodies and historical information to
perform actions. However, prior research has not emphasized the speed and
energy consumption of network inference, as well as the biological significance
of the neural networks themselves. Most of the networks employed are
traditional artificial neural networks that utilize multilayer perceptrons
(MLP). In this paper, we successfully apply a novel Spiking Neural Network
(SNN) to process legged robots, achieving outstanding results across a range of
simulated terrains. SNN holds a natural advantage over traditional neural
networks in terms of inference speed and energy consumption, and their
pulse-form processing of body perception signals offers improved biological
interpretability. Applying more biomimetic neural networks to legged robots can
further reduce the heat dissipation and structural burden caused by the high
power consumption of neural networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the
first work to implement SNN in legged robots.


  We report on the first detection of a global change in the X-ray emitting
properties of a wind-wind collision, thanks to XMM-Newton observations of the
massive SMC system HD5980. While its lightcurve had remained unchanged between
2000 and 2005, the X-ray flux has now increased by a factor of ~2.5, and
slightly hardened. The new observations also extend the observational coverage
over the entire orbit, pinpointing the lightcurve shape. It has not varied much
despite the large overall brightening, and a tight correlation of fluxes with
orbital separation is found, without any hysteresis effect. Moreover, the
absence of eclipses and of absorption effects related to orientation suggests a
large size for the X-ray emitting region. Simple analytical models of the
wind-wind collision, considering the varying wind properties of the eruptive
component in HD5980, are able to reproduce the recent hardening and the
flux-separation relationship, at least qualitatively, but they predict a
hardening at apastron and little change in mean flux, contrary to observations.
The brightness change could then possibly be related to a recently theorized
phenomenon linked to the varying strength of thin-shell instabilities in
shocked wind regions.


  The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the "brane") embedded in a
1+3+d-dimensional spacetime (the "bulk"), with standard-model particles and
fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the bulk. At least
one of the d extra spatial dimensions could be very large relative to the
Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale, possibly even down to
the electroweak (~ TeV) level. This revolutionary picture arises in the
framework of recent developments in M theory. The 1+10-dimensional M theory
encompasses the known 1+9-dimensional superstring theories, and is widely
considered to be a promising potential route to quantum gravity. General
relativity cannot describe gravity at high enough energies and must be replaced
by a quantum gravity theory, picking up significant corrections as the
fundamental energy scale is approached. At low energies, gravity is localized
at the brane and general relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity
"leaks" into the bulk, behaving in a truly 1+3+d-dimensional way. This
introduces significant changes to gravitational dynamics and perturbations,
with interesting testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black
holes and cosmology. Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test
some of the novel predictions and corrections to general relativity that are
implied by M theory. This review discusses the geometry, dynamics and
perturbations of simple brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics,
mainly focusing on warped 5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the
Randall-Sundrum models.


  We briefly introduce tweed, which is found above the martensitic transition
in a variety of shape-memory, high-T_c, and other materials. Based on our
previous mapping of the problem onto a spin-glass model, we conjecture that the
two-way shape-memory effect is due to tweed.


  Let $(R, {\mathfrak m})$ be a Noetherian local ring and let $I$ be an
$R$-ideal. Inspired by the work of H\"ubl and Huneke, we look for conditions
that guarantee the Cohen-Macaulayness of the special fiber ring ${\mathcal
F}={\mathcal R}/{\mathfrak m}{\mathcal R}$ of $I$, where ${\mathcal R}$ denotes
the Rees algebra of $I$. Our key idea is to require `good' intersection
properties as well as `few' homogeneous generating relations in low degrees. In
particular, if $I$ is a strongly Cohen-Macaulay $R$-ideal with $G_{\ell}$ and
the expected reduction number, we conclude that ${\mathcal F}$ is always
Cohen-Macaulay. We also obtain a characterization of the Cohen-Macaulayness of
${\mathcal R}/K{\mathcal R}$ for any ${\mathfrak m}$-primary ideal $K$: This
result recovers a well-known criterion of Valabrega and Valla whenever $K=I$.
Furthermore, we study the relationship among the Cohen-Macaulay property of the
special fiber ring ${\mathcal F}$ and the one of the Rees algebra ${\mathcal
R}$ and the associated graded ring ${\mathcal G}$ of $I$. Finally, we focus on
the integral closedness of ${\mathfrak m}I$. The latter question is motivated
by the theory of evolutions.


  A micro-pulse lidar at eye-safe wavelength is constructed based on an
up-conversion single-photon detector. The ultralow noise detector enables using
integration technique to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the atmospheric
backscattering even at daytime. With the pulse energy of 110uJ, the pulse
repetition rate of 15 kHz, the optical antenna diameter of 100 mm and
integration time of 5 minutes, a horizontal detection range of 7 km is
realized. In the demonstration experiment, atmospheric visibility over 24 hours
is monitored continuously, with results in accordance with the weather
forecasts.


  We compute the decay rates for the exclusive decays $B^{\pm} \to
(\eta^{\prime},\eta) (K^{\pm}, K^{*\pm})$ and $B^{0}\to (\eta^{\prime},\eta)
(K^{0}, K^{*0})$ in a QCD-improved factorization framework by including the
contribution from the process $b\to sgg \to s (\eta^{\prime}, \eta)$ through
the QCD anomaly. This method provides an alternative estimate of the
contribution $b \to s c\bar{c} \to s(\eta,\eta^\prime)$ to these decays as
compared to the one using the intrinsic charm content of the $\eta^{\prime}$
and $\eta$ mesons determined through the decays $J/\psi \to (\eta,\eta^\prime
,\eta_c) \gamma$. The resulting branching ratios are compared with the CLEO
data on $B^{\pm} \to \eta^{\prime} K^{\pm}$ and $B^{0} \to \eta^{\prime} K^{0}$
and predictions are made for the rest.


  In the framework of Husimi and Bethe lattices, we investigate a generalized
polymer model that incorporates as special cases different models previously
studied in the literature, namely, the standard interacting self-avoiding walk,
the interacting self-avoiding trail, and the vertex-interacting self-avoiding
walk. These models are characterized by different microscopic interactions,
giving rise, in the two-dimensional case, to collapse transitions of an
apparently different nature. We expect that our results, even though of a
mean-field type, could provide some useful information to elucidate the role of
such different theta points in the polymer phase diagram. These issues are at
the core of a long-standing unresolved debate.


  Holonomy R-matrices parametrized by finite-dimensional representations are
constructed for quantized universal enveloping algebras of simple Lie algebras
at roots of 1.


  In a previous paper published in this journal, we described a new
relativistic wave equation that accounts for the propagation of light from a
source to an observer in two different inertial frames. This equation, which is
based on the primacy of the Doppler effect, can account for the relativity of
simultaneity and the observation that charged particles cannot exceed the speed
of light. In contrast to the Special Theory of Relativity, it does so without
the necessity of introducing the relativity of space and time. Here we show
that the new relativistic wave equation based on the primacy of the Doppler
effect is quantitatively more accurate than the standard theory based on the
Fresnel drag coefficient or the relativity of space and time in accounting for
the results of Fizeau's experiment on the optics of moving media - the very
experiment that Einstein considered to be "a crucial test in favour of the
theory of relativity." The new relativistic wave equation quantitatively
describes other observations involving the optics of moving bodies, including
stellar aberration and the null results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. In
this paper, we propose an experiment to test the influence of the refractive
index on the interference fringe shift generated by moving media. The Special
Theory of Relativity, which is based on the relativity of space and time, and
the new relativistic wave equation, which is based on the primacy of the
Doppler effect, make different predictions concerning the influence of the
refractive index on the optics of moving media.


  We present necessary and sufficient conditions for the termination of linear
homogeneous programs. We also develop a complete method to check termination
for this class of programs. Our complete characterization of termination for
such programs is based on linear algebraic methods. We reduce the verification
of the termination problem to checking the orthogonality of a well determined
vector space and a certain vector, both related to loops in the program.
Moreover, we provide theoretical results and symbolic computational methods
guaranteeing the soundness, completeness and numerical stability of the
approach. Finally, we show that it is enough to interpret variable values over
a specific countable number field, or even over its ring of integers, when one
wants to check termination over the reals.


  Solar-analog stars provide an excellent opportunity to study the Sun's
evolution, i.e. the changes with time in stellar structure, activity, or
rotation for solar-like stars. The unparalleled photometric data from the NASA
space telescope Kepler allows us to study and characterise solar-like stars
through asteroseismology. We aim to spectroscopically investigate the
fundamental parameter and chromospheric activity of solar analogues and twins,
based on observations obtained with the HERMES spectrograph and combine them
with asteroseismology. Therefore, we need to build a solar atlas for the
spectrograph, to provide accurate calibrations of the spectroscopically
determined abundances of solar and late type stars observed with this
instrument and thus perform differential spectral comparisons. We acquire
high-resolution and high signal-to-noise spectroscopy to construct three solar
reference spectra by observing the reflected light of Vesta and Victoria
asteroids and Europa (100<S/N<450) with the \Hermes spectrograph. We then
observe the Kepler solar analog KIC3241581 (S/N~170). We constructed three
solar spectrum atlases from 385 to 900 nm obtained with the Hermes spectrograph
from observations of two bright asteroids and Europa. A comparison between our
solar spectra atlas to the Kurucz and HARPS solar spectrum shows an excellent
agreement. KIC3241581 was found to be a long-periodic binary system. The
fundamental parameter for the stellar primary component are Teff=5689+/-11K,
logg=4.385+/-0.005, [Fe/H]=+0.22+/-0.01, being in agreement with the published
global seismic values confirming its status of solar analogue. KIC 3241581 is a
metal rich solar analogue with a solar-like activity level in a binary system
of unknown period. The chromospheric activity level is compatible to the solar
magnetic activity.


  Weighted minwise hashing is a standard dimensionality reduction technique
with applications to similarity search and large-scale kernel machines. We
introduce a simple algorithm that takes a weighted set $x \in \mathbb{R}_{\geq
0}^{d}$ and computes $k$ independent minhashes in expected time $O(k \log k +
\Vert x \Vert_{0}\log( \Vert x \Vert_1 + 1/\Vert x \Vert_1))$, improving upon
the state-of-the-art BagMinHash algorithm (KDD '18) and representing the
fastest weighted minhash algorithm for sparse data. Our experiments show
running times that scale better with $k$ and $\Vert x \Vert_0$ compared to ICWS
(ICDM '10) and BagMinhash, obtaining $10$x speedups in common use cases. Our
approach also gives rise to a technique for computing fully independent
locality-sensitive hash values for $(L, K)$-parameterized approximate near
neighbor search under weighted Jaccard similarity in optimal expected time
$O(LK + \Vert x \Vert_0)$, improving on prior work even in the case of
unweighted sets.


  Interplay between magnetization dynamics and electric current in a conducting
ferromagnet is theoretically studied based on a microscopic model calculation.
First, the effects of the current on magnetization dynamics (spin torques) are
studied with special attention to the "dissipative" torques arising from
spin-relaxation processes of conduction electrons. Next, an analysis is given
of the "spin motive force", namely, a spin-dependent 'voltage' generation due
to magnetization dynamics, which is the reaction to spin torques. Finally, an
attempt is presented of a unified description of these effects.


  In logistic regression modeling, Firth's modified estimator is widely used to
address the issue of data separation, which results in the nonexistence of the
maximum likelihood estimate. Firth's modified estimator can be formulated as a
penalized maximum likelihood estimator in which Jeffreys' prior is adopted as
the penalty term. Despite its widespread use in practice, the formal
verification of the corresponding estimate's existence has not been
established. In this study, we establish the existence theorem of Firth's
modified estimate in binomial logistic regression models, assuming only the
full column rankness of the design matrix. We also discuss other binomial
regression models obtained through alternating link functions and prove the
existence of similar penalized maximum likelihood estimates for such models.


  In this paper, we bring together results about the existence of a somewhere
dense (resp. dense) orbit and the minimal number of generators for abelian
semigroups of matrices on $\mathbb{R}^n$. We solve the problem of determining
the minimal number of matrices in normal form over $\mathbb{R}$ which form a
hypercyclic abelian semigroup on R^n. In particular, we show that no abelian
semigroup generated by $[\frac{n+1}{2}]$ matrices on $\mathbb{R}^n$ can be
hypercyclic. ([ ] denotes the integer part). This is a corrected version of the
paper published in Topology and its Applications 210 (2016), 29-45 (see also
[4]). The differences between this version and the published version are
explained at the end of the Introduction.


  We consider the Online Boolean Matrix-Vector Multiplication (OMV) problem
studied by Henzinger et al. [STOC'15]: given an $n \times n$ Boolean matrix
$M$, we receive $n$ Boolean vectors $v_1,\ldots,v_n$ one at a time, and are
required to output $M v_i$ (over the Boolean semiring) before seeing the vector
$v_{i+1}$, for all $i$. Previous known algorithms for this problem are
combinatorial, running in $O(n^3/\log^2 n)$ time. Henzinger et al. conjecture
there is no $O(n^{3-\varepsilon})$ time algorithm for OMV, for all $\varepsilon
> 0$; their OMV conjecture is shown to imply strong hardness results for many
basic dynamic problems.
  We give a substantially faster method for computing OMV, running in
$n^3/2^{\Omega(\sqrt{\log n})}$ randomized time. In fact, after seeing
$2^{\omega(\sqrt{\log n})}$ vectors, we already achieve
$n^2/2^{\Omega(\sqrt{\log n})}$ amortized time for matrix-vector
multiplication. Our approach gives a way to reduce matrix-vector multiplication
to solving a version of the Orthogonal Vectors problem, which in turn reduces
to "small" algebraic matrix-matrix multiplication. Applications include faster
independent set detection, partial match retrieval, and 2-CNF evaluation.
  We also show how a modification of our method gives a cell probe data
structure for OMV with worst case $O(n^{7/4}/\sqrt{w})$ time per query vector,
where $w$ is the word size. This result rules out an unconditional proof of the
OMV conjecture using purely information-theoretic arguments.


  With the advent of high power lasers, new opportunities have opened up for
simulating astrophysical processes in the laboratory. We show that 2nd-order
Fermi acceleration can be directly investigated at the National Ignition
Facility, Livermore. This requires measuring the momentum-space diffusion of 3
MeV protons produced within a turbulent plasma generated by a laser. Treating
Fermi acceleration as a biased diffusion process, we show analytically that a
measurable broadening of the initial proton distribution is then expected for
particles exiting the plasma.


  The success of high energy physics programs relies heavily on accurate
detector simulations and beam interaction modeling. The increasingly complex
detector geometries and beam dynamics require sophisticated techniques in order
to meet the demands of current and future experiments. Common software tools
used today are unable to fully utilize modern computational resources, while
data-recording rates are often orders of magnitude larger than what can be
produced via simulation. In this paper, we describe the state, current and
future needs of high energy physics detector and beamline simulations and
related challenges, and we propose a number of possible ways to address them.


  Using the Callan-Klebanov bound state model for hyperons simulated on crystal
lattice to describe strange baryonic matter, we argue that to ${\cal O} (1)$ in
the large $N_c$ counting to which the theory is robust, hyperons can figure
only when -- or after -- kaons condense in compact-star matter. We also discuss
how the skyrmion-half-skyrmion topological transition affects the equation of
state (EoS) of dense baryonic matter. The observations made in this note open
wide the issue of how to theoretically access the EoS of compact stars.


  We report an unusual temperature (T) dependent electrical resistivity($\rho$)
behavior in a class of ternary intermetallic compounds of the type RCuAs$_2$
(R= Rare-earths). For some rare-earths (Sm, Gd, Tb and Dy) with negligible
4f-hybridization, there is a pronounced minimum in $\rho$(T) far above
respective N\'eel temperatures (T$_N$). However, for the rare-earths which are
more prone to exhibit such a $\rho$(T) minimum due to 4f-covalent mixing and
the Kondo effect, this minimum is depressed. These findings, difficult to
explain within the hither-to-known concepts, present an interesting scenario in
magnetism.


  The Ensemble Kalman inversion (EKI) method is a method for the estimation of
unknown parameters in the context of (Bayesian) inverse problems. The method
approximates the underlying measure by an ensemble of particles and iteratively
applies the ensemble Kalman update to evolve (the approximation of the) prior
into the posterior measure.
  For the convergence analysis of the EKI it is common practice to derive a
continuous version, replacing the iteration with a stochastic differential
equation. In this paper we validate this approach by showing that the
stochastic EKI iteration converges to paths of the continuous-time stochastic
differential equation by considering both the nonlinear and linear setting, and
we prove convergence in probability for the former, and convergence in moments
for the latter. The methods employed can also be applied to the analysis of
more general numerical schemes for stochastic differential equations in
general.


  We systematically perform numerical-relativity simulations for low-mass black
hole-neutron star mergers for the models with seven mass ratios $Q=M_{\rm
BH}/M_{\rm NS}$ ranging from 1.5 to 4.4, and three neutron-star equations of
state, focusing on properties of matter remaining outside the black hole and
ejected dynamically during the merger. We pay particular attention to the
dependence on the mass ratio of the binaries. It is found that the rest mass
remaining outside the apparent horizon after the merger depends only weakly on
the mass ratio for the models with low mass ratios. It is also clarified that
the rest mass of the ejecta has a peak at $Q \sim 3$, and decreases steeply as
the mass ratio decreases for the low mass-ratio case. We present a novel
analysis method for the behavior of matter during the merger, focusing on the
matter distribution in the phase space of specific energy and specific angular
momentum. Then we model the matter distribution during and after the merger.
Using the result of the analysis, we discuss the properties of the ejecta.


  We investigate the problem of algorithmic fairness in the case where
sensitive and non-sensitive features are available and one aims to generate
new, `oblivious', features that closely approximate the non-sensitive features,
and are only minimally dependent on the sensitive ones. We study this question
in the context of kernel methods. We analyze a relaxed version of the Maximum
Mean Discrepancy criterion which does not guarantee full independence but makes
the optimization problem tractable. We derive a closed-form solution for this
relaxed optimization problem and complement the result with a study of the
dependencies between the newly generated features and the sensitive ones. Our
key ingredient for generating such oblivious features is a Hilbert-space-valued
conditional expectation, which needs to be estimated from data. We propose a
plug-in approach and demonstrate how the estimation errors can be controlled.
While our techniques help reduce the bias, we would like to point out that no
post-processing of any dataset could possibly serve as an alternative to
well-designed experiments.


  Motivated by recent work of Dijkgraaf and Vafa, we study anomalies and the
chiral ring structure in a supersymmetric U(N) gauge theory with an adjoint
chiral superfield and an arbitrary superpotential. A certain generalization of
the Konishi anomaly leads to an equation which is identical to the loop
equation of a bosonic matrix model. This allows us to solve for the expectation
values of the chiral operators as functions of a finite number of ``integration
constants.'' From this, we can derive the Dijkgraaf-Vafa relation of the
effective superpotential to a matrix model. Some of our results are applicable
to more general theories. For example, we determine the classical relations and
quantum deformations of the chiral ring of $\N=1$ super Yang-Mills theory with
SU(N) gauge group, showing, as one consequence, that all supersymmetric vacua
of this theory have a nonzero chiral condensate.


  We describe the shear flow of a disordered granular material in the presence
of grain fracture using the shear-transformation-zone (STZ) theory of amorphous
plasticity adapted to systems with a hard-core inter-particle interaction. To
this end, we develop the equations of motion for this system within a
statistical-thermodynamic framework analogous to that used in the analysis of
molecular glasses. For hard-core systems, the amount of internal,
configurational disorder is characterized by the compactivity $X = \partial V /
\partial S_C$, where $V$ and $S_C$ are respectively the volume and
configurational entropy. Grain breakage is described by a constitutive equation
for the temporal evolution of a characteristic grain size $a$, based on
fracture mechanics. We show that grain breakage is a weakening mechanism,
significantly lowering the flow stress at large strain rates, if the material
is rate-strengthening in character. We show in addition that if the granular
material is sufficiently aged, spatial inhomogeneity in configurational
disorder results in strain localization. We also show that grain splitting
contributes significantly to comminution at small shear strains, while grain
abrasion becomes dominant at large shear displacements.


  Faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling is a promising non-orthogonal physical
layer transmission technique to improve the spectral efficiency of future
communication systems but at the expense of intersymbol-interference (ISI). In
this paper, we investigate the detection problem of FTN signaling and formulate
the sequence estimation problem of any $M$-ary phase shift keying (PSK) FTN
signaling as an optimization problem that turns out to be non-convex and
nondeterministic polynomial time (NP)-hard to solve. We propose a novel
algorithm, based on concepts from semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and Gaussian
randomization, to detect any $M$-ary PSK FTN signaling in polynomial time
complexity regardless of the constellation size $M$ or the ISI length.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm strikes a balance between
the achieved performance and the computational complexity. Additionally,
results show the merits of the proposed algorithm in improving the spectral
efficiency when compared to Nyquist signaling and the state-of-the-art schemes
from the literature. In particular, when compared to Nyquist signaling at the
same error rate and signal-to-noise ratio, our scheme provides around $17\%$
increase in the spectral efficiency at a roll-off factor of 0.3.


  Nowadays, most mobile devices are equipped with multiple wireless interfaces,
causing an emerging research interest in device to device (D2D) communication:
the idea behind the D2D paradigm is to exploit the proper interface to directly
communicate with another user, without traversing any network infrastructure. A
first issue related to this paradigm consists in the need for a coordinator,
called controller, able to decide when activating a D2D connection is
appropriate and eventually able to manage such connection. In this view, the
paradigm of Software Defined Networking (SDN), can be exploited both to handle
the data flows among the devices and to interact directly with every device.
  This work is focused on a scenario where a device is selected by the SDN
controller, in order to become the master node of a WiFi-Direct network. The
remaining nodes, called clients, can exchange data with other nodes through the
master. The objective is to infer, through different Machine Learning
approaches, the number of nodes actively involved in receiving data, exploiting
only the information available at the client side and without modifying any
standard communication protocol. The information about the number of client
nodes is crucial when, e.g., a user desires a precise prediction of the
transmission estimated time of arrival (ETA) while downloading a file.


  The design of the Quantum Internet protocol stack is at its infancy and
early-stage conceptualization. And different heterogeneous proposals are
currently available in the literature. The underlying assumption of the
existing proposals is that they implicitly mimic classical Internet Protocol
design principles: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where
it is. A route indicates how to get there''. Hence the network nodes are
labeled with classical addresses, constituted by classical bits, and these
labels aim at reflecting the node location within the network topology. In this
paper, we argue that this twofold assumption of classical and location-aware
addressing constitutes a restricting design option, which prevents to scale the
quantumness to the network functionalities, beyond simple information
encoding/decoding. On the contrary, by embracing quantumness within the node
addresses, quantum principles and phenomena could be exploited for enabling a
quantum native functioning of the entire communication network. This will
unleash the ultimate vision and capabilities of the Quantum Internet.


  In this paper we discuss the entropy of quantum black holes in the LQG
formalism when the number of punctures on the horizon is treated as a quantum
hair, that is we compute the black hole entropy in the grand canonical (area)
ensemble. The entropy is a function of both the average area and the average
number of punctures and bears little resemblance to the Bekenstein-Hawking
entropy. In the thermodynamic limit, both the "temperature" and the chemical
potential can be shown to be functions only of the average area per puncture.
At a fixed temperature, the average number of punctures becomes proportional to
the average area and we recover the Bekenstein-Hawking area-entropy law to
leading order provided that the Barbero-Immirzi parameter, $\gamma$, is
appropriately fixed. This also relates the chemical potential to $\gamma$. We
obtain a sub-leading correction, which differs in signature from that obtained
in the microcanonical and canonical ensembles in its sign but agrees with
earlier results in the grand canonical ensemble.


  We use a numerical solution of the deterministic TDGL equations to determine
the response induced by a probe field in a material quenched into a
superconducting state. We characterize differences in response according to
whether the probe is applied before, during, or after the phase stiffness has
built up to its final steady state value.


  A genoid is a category of two objects such that one is the product of itself
with the other. A genoid may be viewed as an abstract substitution algebra. It
is a remarkable fact that such a simple concept can be applied to present a
unified algebraic approach to lambda calculus and first order logic.


  Previous works on deformed graphene predict the existence of valley-polarized
states, however, optimal conditions for their detection remain challenging. We
show that in the quantum Hall regime, edge-like states in strained regions can
be isolated in energy within Landau gaps. We identify precise conditions for
new conducting edges-like states to be valley polarized, with the flexibility
of positioning them at chosen locations in the system. A map of local density
of states as a function of energy and position reveals a unique braid pattern
that serves as a fingerprint to identify valley polarization.


  We present a material (strength) model for describing the deformation of PBX
under quasistatic mechanical and thermal loadings. It is a
viscoelastic-viscoplastic model incorporating the effects of pressure and
temperature on the strength of PBX. The model is calibrated using uniaxial
tension and compression tests. Using FEM simulations in Ls-Dyna, we validated
the model with creep and relaxation tests. To further validate the model, we
performed an experiment with thermally loaded, biaxially strained, sample and
measured its deformation using Digital Image Correlation method.


  Let $G$ be a connected reductive linear algebraic group over a field $k$.
Using ideas from geometric invariant theory, we study the notion of
$G$-complete reducibility over $k$ for a Lie subalgebra $\mathfrak h$ of the
Lie algebra $\mathfrak g = Lie(G)$ of $G$ and prove some results when
$\mathfrak h$ is solvable or $char(k)= 0$. We introduce the concept of a
$k$-semisimplification $\mathfrak h'$ of $\mathfrak h$; $\mathfrak h'$ is a Lie
subalgebra of $\mathfrak g$ associated to $\mathfrak h$ which is $G$-completely
reducible over $k$. This is the Lie algebra counterpart of the analogous notion
for subgroups studied earlier by the first, third and fourth authors. As in the
subgroup case, we show that $\mathfrak h'$ is unique up to $Ad(G(k))$-conjugacy
in $\mathfrak g$. Moreover, we prove that the two concepts are compatible: for
$H$ a closed subgroup of $G$ and $H'$ a $k$-semisimplification of $H$, the Lie
algebra $Lie(H')$ is a $k$-semisimplification of $Lie(H)$.


  In a scenario where the constituent quarks are composite systems, Generalized
Parton Distributions (GPDs) are built from wave functions to be evaluated in a
Constituent Quark Model (CQM), convoluted with the GPDs of the constituent
quarks themselves. The approach permits to access the kinematical range
corresponding to the DGLAP and ERBL regions, so that cross sections for deeply
virtual Compton scattering could be estimated.


  Deviations from geodesic motion caused by gravitational radiation have been
discussed in the last decades to describe the motion of particles or photons in
strong fields around collapsed objects. On cosmological scale this effect,
which in the first order is caused by the finite speed of gravitational
interaction, is important also in the weak field limit. In this paper the
energy loss by transfer to the gravitational potential is determined in a
quasi-Newtonian approximation for the examples of a static Einstein universe
and for an expanding universe with flat metric. In both cases the resulting red
shift is a considerable fraction of the total red shift and requires an
adjustment of the age and the matter composition in our models of the universe.


  In the last two decades, tools have been implemented to more formally specify
the semantic analysis phase of a compiler instead of relying on handwritten
code. In this paper, we introduce patterns and a method to translate a formal
definition of a language's type system into a specification for JastAdd, which
is one of the aforementioned tools based on Reference Attribute Grammars. This
methodological approach will help language designers and compiler engineers to
more systematically use such tools for semantic analysis. As an example, we use
a simple, yet complete imperative language and provide an outlook on how the
method can be extended to cover further language constructs or even type
inference.


  We present the calculation of the stability region of a perfect diamagnet
levitated in a magnetic field created by a circular current loop. We make use
of the machine learning technique of automatic differentiation to illustrate
the calculations with the elliptic integrals involved.


  Obtaining meaningful quality scores for machine translation systems through
human evaluation remains a challenge given the high variability between human
evaluators, partly due to subjective expectations for translation quality for
different language pairs. We propose a new metric called XSTS that is more
focused on semantic equivalence and a cross-lingual calibration method that
enables more consistent assessment. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these
novel contributions in large scale evaluation studies across up to 14 language
pairs, with translation both into and out of English.


  In an increasingly digitalized commerce landscape, the proliferation of
credit card fraud and the evolution of sophisticated fraudulent techniques have
led to substantial financial losses. Automating credit card fraud detection is
a viable way to accelerate detection, reducing response times and minimizing
potential financial losses. However, addressing this challenge is complicated
by the highly imbalanced nature of the datasets, where genuine transactions
vastly outnumber fraudulent ones. Furthermore, the high number of dimensions
within the feature set gives rise to the ``curse of dimensionality". In this
paper, we investigate subspace learning-based approaches centered on One-Class
Classification (OCC) algorithms, which excel in handling imbalanced data
distributions and possess the capability to anticipate and counter the
transactions carried out by yet-to-be-invented fraud techniques. The study
highlights the potential of subspace learning-based OCC algorithms by
investigating the limitations of current fraud detection strategies and the
specific challenges of credit card fraud detection. These algorithms integrate
subspace learning into the data description; hence, the models transform the
data into a lower-dimensional subspace optimized for OCC. Through rigorous
experimentation and analysis, the study validated that the proposed approach
helps tackle the curse of dimensionality and the imbalanced nature of credit
card data for automatic fraud detection to mitigate financial losses caused by
fraudulent activities.


  We study a thermally induced spin flip of an electron spin located in a
semiconductor quantum dot. This interesting effect arises from an intriguing
interplay between the Zeeman coupling to an external magnetic field and the
hyperfine interaction with the surrounding nuclear spins. By considering a
minimal model, we explain the main mechanism driving this spin flip and analyze
its dependence on the strength of the external magnetic field, the number of
nuclear spins and the ratio of the electron and nuclear Zeeman energies,
respectively. Finally we show, that this minimal model can be applied to
experimentally relevant QDs in III-V heterostructures, where we explicitly
predict the temperature at which the spin flip occurs.


  We derive tight lower bounds on the smallest eigenvalue of a sample
covariance matrix of a centred isotropic random vector under weak or no
assumptions on its components.


  While there has been substantial empirical work identifying factors that
influence the contribution to, and use of open source software, we have as yet
little theory that identifies the key constructs and relationships that would
allow us to explain and predict how open source ecosystems function. What is
needed is a clearly articulated and empirically validated theory of open source
ecosystems. Such a theory should: $\bullet$ Explain why, how, and when key
resources---primarily the work of developers---are attracted to or depart from
a project or an ecosystem. $\bullet$ Explain why, how, and when projects and
ecosystems move through a life cycle, from initiation, growth, maturity, and
decline and death. $\bullet$ Explain how decisions about use are made, and how
the cumulatively influence the socio-technical position of a project within an
ecosystem, and the relations of ecosystems to each other.The remainder of this
chapter provides a sketch of such a theory in the form of a set of
propositions, which may form the foundation for future empirical work


  Multi-color light curves and radial velocities for TYC\,1031\,1262\,1 have
been obtained and analyzed. TYC\,1031\,1262\,1 includes a Cepheid with a period
of 4.15270$\pm$0.00061 days. The orbital period of the system is about
51.2857$\pm$0.0174 days. The pulsation period indicates a secular period
increase with an amount of 2.46$\pm$0.54 min/yr. The observed B, V, and R
magnitudes were cleaned for the intrinsic variations of the primary star. The
remaining light curves, consisting of eclipses and proximity effects, are
obtained and analyzed for orbital parameters. The system consists of two
evolved stars, F8II+G6II, with masses of M$_1$=1.640$\pm$0.151 {\Msun} and
M$_2$=0.934$\pm$0.109 {\Msun} and radii of R$_1$=26.9$\pm$0.9 {\Rsun} and
R$_2$=15.0$\pm$0.7 {\Rsun}. The pulsating star is almost filling its
corresponding Roche lobe which indicates the possibility of mass loss or
transfer having taken place. We find an average distance of d=5070$\pm$250\,pc
using the BVR and JHK magnitudes and also the V-band extinction. Kinematic
properties and the distance to the galactic plane with an amount of 970 pc
indicate that it belongs to the thick-disk population. Most of the observed and
calculated parameters of the TYC\,1031\,1262\,1 lead to a classification of an
Anomalous Cepheid.


  Putting a watermark into digital circuitry has its own set of challenges.
Creating a secure watermark in printed matter usually involves including
graphics that are difficult to reproduce. In circuitry, including additional
circuitry that is hard to produce, one must contend with the prospect of
increasing power consumption of the circuit, decreasing the speed of the
circuit, and introducing watermark circuitry that is easily reproduced. In this
paper we present a watermark method for sequential circuitry. It allows for
several degrees of calibration, allowing the user to tune the complexity of the
watermark to requirements of speed, power, and efficacy. Our method uses an
encryption technique to introduce secrets about the watermark circuit, at
several levels. It also employs a boundary scan testing protocol as a means to
protect the watermark circuitry. Our discussion starts by describing the
different tools needed in our watermark scheme. We then discuss the difficulty
of the problem associated with cracking our watermark circuit. This analysis
shows that, with full implementation, our method can be made quite secure.


  I describe a method, particularly suitable to implementation by computer
algebra, for the derivation of low-dimensional models of dynamical systems. The
method is systematic and is based upon centre manifold theory. Computer code
for the algorithm is relatively simple, robust and flexible. The method is
applied to two examples: one a straightforward pitchfork bifurcation, and one
being the dynamics of thin fluid films.


  Digital scans of analogue photographic film typically contain artefacts such
as dust and scratches. Automated removal of these is an important part of
preservation and dissemination of photographs of historical and cultural
importance.
  While state-of-the-art deep learning models have shown impressive results in
general image inpainting and denoising, film artefact removal is an
understudied problem. It has particularly challenging requirements, due to the
complex nature of analogue damage, the high resolution of film scans, and
potential ambiguities in the restoration. There are no publicly available
high-quality datasets of real-world analogue film damage for training and
evaluation, making quantitative studies impossible.
  We address the lack of ground-truth data for evaluation by collecting a
dataset of 4K damaged analogue film scans paired with manually-restored
versions produced by a human expert, allowing quantitative evaluation of
restoration performance. We construct a larger synthetic dataset of damaged
images with paired clean versions using a statistical model of artefact shape
and occurrence learnt from real, heavily-damaged images. We carefully validate
the realism of the simulated damage via a human perceptual study, showing that
even expert users find our synthetic damage indistinguishable from real. In
addition, we demonstrate that training with our synthetically damaged dataset
leads to improved artefact segmentation performance when compared to previously
proposed synthetic analogue damage.
  Finally, we use these datasets to train and analyse the performance of eight
state-of-the-art image restoration methods on high-resolution scans. We compare
both methods which directly perform the restoration task on scans with
artefacts, and methods which require a damage mask to be provided for the
inpainting of artefacts.


  Pair atomic density fitting (PADF) is a promising strategy to reduce the
scaling with system size of quantum chemical methods for the calculation of the
correlation energy like the direct random phase approximation (RPA) or
second-order M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2). PADF can however
introduce large errors in correlation energies as the two-electron interaction
energy is not guaranteed to be bounded from below. This issue can be partially
alleviated by using very large fit sets, but this comes at the price of reduced
efficiency and having to deal with near-linear dependencies in the fit set. In
this work, we introduce an alternative methodology to overcome this problem
that preserves the intrinsically favourable scaling of PADF. We first
regularize the Fock matrix by projecting out parts of the basis set which gives
rise to orbital products that are hard to describe by PADF. We then also apply
this projector to the orbital coefficient matrix to improve the precision of
PADF-MP2 and PADF-RPA. We systematically assess the accuracy of this new
approach in a numerical atomic orbital framework using Slater Type Orbitals
(STO) and correlation consistent Gaussian type basis sets up to
quintuple-$\zeta$ quality for systems with more than 200 atoms. For the small
and medium systems in the S66 database we show the maximum deviation of
PADF-MP2 and PADF-RPA relative correlation energies to DF-MP2 and DF-RPA
reference results to be 0.07 and 0.14 kcal/mol respectively. When the new
projector method is used, the errors only slightly increase for large molecules
and also when moderately sized fit sets are used the resulting errors are well
under control. Finally, we demonstrate the computational efficiency of our
algorithm by calculating the interaction energies of non-covalently bound
complexes with more than 1000 atoms and 20000 atomic orbitals at the
RPA@PBE/CC-pVTZ level of theory.


  The sixth generation (6G) wireless communication nowadays is seeking a new
spectrum to inherit the pros and discard the cons of sub-6 GHz, millimeter-wave
(mmWave), and sub-terahertz (THz) bands. To this end, an upper mid-band with a
Frequency Range (FR) spanning from 7 GHz to 24 GHz, also known as FR3, has
emerged as a focal point in 6G communications. Thus, as an inevitable
prerequisite, a comprehensive investigation encompassing spectrum utilization
and channel characteristics is the first step to exploiting potential
applications and prospects of using FR3 in the 6G ecosystem. In this article,
we provide FR3 synergies with emerging technologies including non-terrestrial
network (NTN), massive multi-input multi-output (mMIMO), reconfigurable
intelligent surface (RIS), and integrated sensing and communications (ISAC).
Furthermore, leveraging ray-tracing simulations, our investigation unveils the
similarity of channel characteristics in FR3 with other FRs. The analysis of
RIS-aided communication shows the insight of higher spectral efficiency
achieved in FR3 compared to other FRs when using the same RIS size. Finally,
challenges and promising directions are discussed for wireless systems in FR3.


  In this paper we consider an initial boundary value problem for a semilinear
parabolic equation with nonlinear nonlocal boundary condition. We prove
comparison principle, the existence theorem of a local solution and study the
problem of uniqueness and nonuniqueness


  We use new equations for the interstitial impurity diffusion fluxes under
strain to study impurity atom redistribution in the vicinity of dislocations.
Two levels of simulation are applied. The first one is evaluation of
coefficients that determine the influence of strain tensor components on
interstitial diffusion fluxes in FCC structures. For this purpose we have
developed a model into the framework of a molecular static method taking into
account an atom environment both near the interstitial site and for the
saddle-point configuration. The second level is modeling the interstitial
segregation formation based on nonlinear diffusion equations that take strains
generated by defects into account. The results show that the distributions of
the interstitials near the dislocations have quite complicated characters and
the vacancy distribution has a qualitatively different character as compared
with the carbon distribution.


  String graphs, that is, intersection graphs of curves in the plane, have been
studied since the 1960s. We provide an expository presentation of several
results, including very recent ones: some string graphs require an exponential
number of crossings in every string representation; exponential number is
always sufficient; string graphs have small separators; and the current best
bound on the crossing number of a graph in terms of the pair-crossing number.
For the existence of small separators, unwrapping the complete proof include
generally useful results on approximate flow-cut dualities.


  Red supergiant stars represent a late stage of the evolution of stars more
massive than about nine solar masses, in which they develop complex,
multi-component atmospheres. Bright spots have been detected in the atmosphere
of red supergiants using interferometric imaging. Above the photosphere of a
red supergiant, the molecular outer atmosphere extends up to about two stellar
radii. Furthermore, the hot chromosphere (5,000 to 8,000 kelvin) and cool gas
(less than 3,500 kelvin) of a red supergiant coexist at about three stellar
radii. The dynamics of such complex atmospheres has been probed by ultraviolet
and optical spectroscopy. The most direct approach, however, is to measure the
velocity of gas at each position over the image of stars as in observations of
the Sun. Here we report the mapping of the velocity field over the surface and
atmosphere of the nearby red supergiant Antares. The two-dimensional velocity
field map obtained from our near-infrared spectro-interferometric imaging
reveals vigorous upwelling and downdrafting motions of several huge gas clumps
at velocities ranging from about -20 to +20 kilometres per second in the
atmosphere, which extends out to about 1.7 stellar radii. Convection alone
cannot explain the observed turbulent motions and atmospheric extension,
suggesting that an unidentified process is operating in the extended
atmosphere.


  A recently developed technique known as analogue transformation acoustics has
allowed the extension of the transformational paradigm to general spacetime
transformations under which the acoustic equations are not form invariant. In
this paper, we review the fundamentals of analogue transformation acoustics and
show how this technique can be applied to build a device that increases the
density of events within a given spacetime region by simultaneously compressing
space and time.


  The two-dimensional elastodynamic Green tensor is the primary building block
of solutions of linear elasticity problems dealing with nonuniformly moving
rectilinear line sources, such as dislocations. Elastodynamic solutions for
these problems involve derivatives of this Green tensor, which stand as
hypersingular kernels. These objects, well defined as distributions, prove
cumbersome to handle in practice. This paper, restricted to isotropic media,
examines some of their representations in the framework of distribution theory.
A particularly convenient regularization of the Green tensor is introduced,
that amounts to considering line sources of finite width. Technically, it is
implemented by an analytic continuation of the Green tensor to complex times.
It is applied to the computation of regularized forms of certain integrals of
tensor character that involve the gradient of the Green tensor. These integrals
are fundamental to the computation of the elastodynamic fields in the problem
of nonuniformly moving dislocations. The obtained expressions indifferently
cover cases of subsonic, transonic, or supersonic motion. We observe that for
faster-than-wave motion, one of the two branches of the Mach cone(s) displayed
by the Cartesian components of these tensor integrals is extinguished for some
particular orientations of source velocity vector.


  In this paper, we test the weak cosmic censorship conjecture (WCCC) for n >=
4 dimensional nearly extremal RN-AdS black holes with non-trivial topologies,
namely plane and hyperbola, using the new version of gedanken experiment
proposed by Sorce and Wald. Provided that the non-electromagnetic part of the
stress tensor of matter fields satisfies the null energy condition and the
linear stability condition holds, we find that the black holes cannot be
overcharged under the second-order perturbation approximation, which includes
the self-force and finite-size effects. As a result, we conclude that the
violation of Hubeny type never occurs and the WCCC holds for the topological
RN-AdS black hole.


  Answer set programming (ASP) is a popular declarative programming paradigm
with various applications. Programs can easily have many answer sets that
cannot be enumerated in practice, but counting still allows quantifying
solution spaces. If one counts under assumptions on literals, one obtains a
tool to comprehend parts of the solution space, so-called answer set
navigation. However, navigating through parts of the solution space requires
counting many times, which is expensive in theory. Knowledge compilation
compiles instances into representations on which counting works in polynomial
time. However, these techniques exist only for CNF formulas, and compiling ASP
programs into CNF formulas can introduce an exponential overhead. This paper
introduces a technique to iteratively count answer sets under assumptions on
knowledge compilations of CNFs that encode supported models. Our anytime
technique uses the inclusion-exclusion principle to improve bounds by over- and
undercounting systematically. In a preliminary empirical analysis, we
demonstrate promising results. After compiling the input (offline phase), our
approach quickly (re)counts.


  In several areas of knowledge, self-efficacy is related to the perfomance of
individuals, including in Software Engineering. However,it is not clear how
self-efficacy can be modified in training conducted by the industry.
Furthermore, we still do not understand how self-efficacy can impact an
individual's team and career in the industry. This lack of understanding can
negatively impact how companies and individuals perceive the importance of
self-efficacy in the field. Therefore, We present a research proposal that aims
to understand the relationship between self-efficacy and training in Software
Engineering. Moreover, we look to understand the role of self-efficacy at
Software Development industry. We propose a longitudinal case study with
software engineers at Zup Innovation that participating of our bootcamp
training. We expect to collect data to support our assumptions that
self-efficacy can be related to training in Software Engineering. The other
assumption is that self-efficacy at the beginning of training is higher than
the middle, and that self-efficacy at the end of training is higher than the
middle. We expect that the study proposed in this article will motivate a
discussion about self-efficacy and the importance of training employers in the
industry of software development.


  High-order perturbative calculations for thermodynamic quantities in QCD are
complicated by the physics of dynamical screening that affects the soft,
long-wavelength modes of the system. Here, we provide details for the
evaluation of this soft contribution to the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading
order (N3LO) pressure of high-density, zero-temperature quark matter (QM),
complementing our accompanying paper in arXiv:2103.05658. Our calculation
requires the determination of the pressure of the hard-thermal-loop (HTL)
effective theory to full two-loop order at zero temperature, which we go
through in considerable detail. In addition to this, we comprehensively discuss
the structure of the weak-coupling expansion of the QM pressure, and lay out a
roadmap towards the evaluation of the contributions missing from a full N3LO
result for this quantity.


  Spin-dependent fifth-forces are associated with particles beyond the standard
model. In particular, light pseudo-scalar bosons mediate long-range forces,
allowing mass to interact with spins. The search of these interactions can be
performed by periodically varying the distance between a source mass and a spin
ensemble, in order to modulate the force intensity and detect it with precision
magnetometry techniques. In our setup the force arises from room temperature
lead masses and is detected in a paramagnetic crystal at 4.2\,K, whose
magnetisation is monitored by a SQUID-based magnetometer with the sensitivity
of $53\,\mathrm{aT/\sqrt{Hz}}$. Our measurement places the most stringent
constraints on a spin-mass interaction in the ranges 1\,cm to 10\,m and 10\,km
to 300\,km, improving existing limits up to more than two orders of magnitude.
We show that this experimental technique may be further leveraged to explore a
vast region of the fifth force's parameter space, with an interaction range
longer than a few centimetres.


  The semiclassical approach to small-x physics is briefly reviewed, where the
main emphasis is on the determination of the gluon distribution at NLO.


  Using the Mopra telescope, we have undertaken a 3-mm spectral-line imaging
survey of a 5 x 5 arcmin^2 area around Sgr B2. We covered almost the complete
spectral the range from 81.7 to 113.5 GHz, with 2.2 MHz wide spectral channels
or ~ 6 km/s, and have observed 24 lines, with 0.033 MHz wide, or ~ 0.1 km/s
channels. We discuss the distribution of around 50 lines, and present
velocity-integrated emission images for 38 of the lines. In addition, we have
detected around 120 more lines, mostly concentrated at the particularly
spectral line-rich Sgr B2(N) source. There are significant differences in
molecular emission, pointing to both abundance and excitation differences
throughout the region. Seven distinct spatial locations are identified for the
emitting species, including peaks near the prominent star forming cores of Sgr
B2(N), (M) and (S) that are seen in IR-to-radio continuum images. The other
features are a 'North Ridge' and a 'North Cloud' to the north of the Sgr B2
N-M-S cores, a 'South-East Peak' and a 'West Ridge'. The column density, as
evident through C^{18}O, peaks at the Sgr B2(N) and (M) cores, where strong
absorption is also evident in otherwise generally bright lines such as HCO^{+},
HCN and HNC. Most molecules trace a ridge line to the west of the Sgr B2 N-M-S
cores, wrapping around the cores and extending NE to the North Cloud. This is
most clearly evident in the species HC_{3}N, CH_{3}CN, CH_{3}OH and OCS. They
are found to be closer in distribution to the cooler dust traced by the sub-mm
continuum than either the warmer dust seen in the mid-IR or to the radio
continuum. The molecule CN, in contrast, is reasonably uniform over the entire
region mapped, aside from strong absorption at the positions of the Sgr B2(N)
and (M) cores.


  We present a study of the X-ray sources present in the nearby L1551 star
forming region, based on a deep XMM observation complemented with Chandra data
for the brightest sources. All the known pre-main sequence stars in the region
have been detected, most of them with sufficient statistics to allow a detailed
study of the temporal and spectral characteristics of their X-ray emission.
Significant temporal (and spectral) variability on both short and long time
scales is visible for most of the stars. In particular XZ Tau shows
large-amplitude variations on time scales of several hours with large changes
in the intervening absorption, suggestive of the X-ray emission being eclipsed
by the accretion stream (and thus of the X-ray emission being partly or totally
accretion-induced). The coronal metal abundance of the WTTS sources is
clustered around Z = 0.2, while the CTTS sources span almost two orders of
magnitudes in coronal Z, even though the photospheric abundance of all stars in
the L1551 is likely to be very similar. Some individual elements (notably Ne)
appear to be systematically enhanced with respect to Fe in the WTTS stars. The
significant differences between the spectral and temporal characteristics of
the CTTS and WTTS populations suggest that a different emission mechanism is
(at least partly) responsible for the X-ray emission of the two types of stars.


  The first experimental campaigns have proven that, due to the optimization of
the magnetic configuration with respect to neoclassical transport, the
contribution of turbulence is essential to understand and predict the total
particle and energy transport in Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). This has spurred much
work on gyrokinetic modelling for the interpretation of the available
experimental results and for the preparation of the next campaigns. At the same
time, new stellarator gyrokinetic codes have just been or are being developed.
It is therefore desirable to have a sufficiently complete, documented and
verified set of gyrokinetic simulations in W7-X geometry against which new
codes or upgrades of existing codes can be tested and benchmarked. This paper
attemps to provide such a set of simulations in the form of a comprehensive
benchmark between the recently developed code stella and the well-established
code GENE. The benchmark consists of electrostatic gyrokinetic simulations in
W7-X magnetic geometry and includes different flux tubes, linear
ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) and trapped-electron-mode (TEM)} stability
analyses, computation of linear zonal flow responses and calculation of
ITG-driven heat fluxes.


  We examine optical V-band light curves in luminous eclipsing black hole X-ray
binaries, using a supercritical accretion/outflow model that is more realistic
than the formerly used ones. In order to compute the theoretical light curve in
the binary system, we do not only apply the global analytic solution of the
disk, but also include the effect of the optically thick outflow. We found that
the depth of eclipse of the companion star by the disk changes dramatically
when including the effect of the outflow. Due to the effect of outflow, we can
reproduce the optical light curve for typical binary parameters in SS433. Our
model with outflow velocity v~3000 km/s can fit whole shape of the averaged
V-band light curve in SS433, but we found a possible parameter range consistent
with observations, such as \dot{M}~5000-10000 L_E/c^2 (with L_E being the
Eddington luminosity and $c$ being the speed of light) and T_C~10000K-14000 K
for the accretion rate and donor star temperature, respectively. Furthermore,
we briefly discuss observational implications for ultraluminous X-ray sources.


  We study the universality class of the Nishimori point in the 2D +/- J
random-bond Ising model by means of the numerical transfer-matrix method. Using
the domain-wall free-energy, we locate the position of the fixed point along
the Nishimori line at the critical concentration value p_c = 0.1094 +/- 0.0002
and estimate nu = 1.33 +/- 0.03. Then, we obtain the exponents for the moments
of the spin-spin correlation functions as well as the value for the central
charge c = 0.464 +/- 0.004. The main qualitative result is the fact that
percolation is now excluded as a candidate for describing the universality
class of this fixed point.


  In this talk we consider some aspects of the Manohar-Wise extension of the SM
with a colour-octet electroweak-doublet scalar applied to 2HDM. We present
theoretical constraints on the parameters of this extension to both the SM and
the 2HDM and discuss related phenomenology at LHC.


  Combining the quark model, the quark-pair-creation mechanism and $B^{(*)}\bar
K$ interaction, we have investigated the near-threshold $P$-wave $B_s$ states
in the framework of the Hamiltonian effective field theory. With the heavy
quark flavor symmetry, all the parameters are determined in the $D_s$ sector by
fitting the lattice data. The masses of the bottom-strange partners of the
$D^{*}_{s0}(2317)$ and $D^{*}_{s1}(2460)$ are predicted to be
$M_{B^{*}_{s0}}=5730.2_{-1.5}^{+2.4}$ MeV and $M_{B^{*}_{s1}}=
5769.6_{-1.6}^{+2.4}$ MeV, respectively, which are well consistent with the
lattice QCD simulation. The two $P$-wave $B_s$ states are the mixtures of the
bare $\bar b s$ core and $B^{(*)}\bar K$ component. Moreover, we find a
crossing point between the energy levels with and without the interaction
Hamiltonian in the finite volume spectrum in the $0^+$ case, which corresponds
to a CDD (Castillejo-Dalitz-Dyson) zero in the $T$-matrix of the $B\bar K$
scattering. This CDD zero will help deepen the insights of the near-threshold
states and can be examined by future lattice calculation.


  The mathematics of crystalline structures connects analysis, geometry,
algebra, and number theory. The planar crystallographic groups were classified
in the late 19th century. One hundred years later, B\'erard proved that the
fundamental domains of all such groups satisfy a very special analytic
property: the Dirichlet eigenfunctions for the Laplace eigenvalue equation are
all trigonometric functions. In 2008, McCartin proved that in two dimensions,
this special analytic property has both an equivalent algebraic formulation, as
well as an equivalent geometric formulation. Here we generalize the results of
B\'erard and McCartin to all dimensions. We prove that the following are
equivalent: the first Dirichlet eigenfunction for the Laplace eigenvalue
equation on a polytope is real analytic, the polytope strictly tessellates
space, and the polytope is the fundamental domain of a crystallographic Coxeter
group. Moreover, we prove that under any of these equivalent conditions, all of
the eigenfunctions are trigonometric functions. In conclusion, we connect these
topics to the Fuglede and Goldbach conjectures and give a purely geometric
formulation of Goldbach's conjecture.


  The recent discovery of semiconducting two-dimensional materials has led to
the prediction of a revolution in the field of optoelectronics, driven by the
introduction of a series of new components that are just a few atoms thick. Key
remaining challenges for producing practical devices from these materials lie
in improving the coupling of light into and out of single atomic layers, and in
making these layers robust to the influence of their surrounding environment.
We present a solution to tackle both of these problems simultaneously, by
deterministically placing a micro-lens directly onto the surface of these
materials. These lenses are dynamically tuned to increase the coupling of
light, whilst controlling chromatic aberration, before being set in place with
UV light. We show that this approach enhances photoluminescence of tungsten
diselenide (WSe2) monolayers by up to 300%, and nearly doubles the imaging
resolution of the system. Furthermore, this solution fully encapsulates the
monolayer, preventing it from physical damage and degradation in air. The
optical solution we have developed could become a key enabling technology for
the mass production of ultra-thin optical devices, such as quantum light
emitting diodes.


  In this article, a new method for the reconstruction of hit-position and
hit-time of photons in long scintillator detectors is investigated. This
research is motivated by the recent development of the positron emission
tomography scanners based on plastic scintillators. The proposed method
constitutes a new way of signal processing in Multi-Voltage-Technique. It is
based on the determination of the degree of similarity between the registered
signals and the synchronized model signals stored in a library. The library was
established for a set of well defined hit-positions along the length of the
scintillator. The Mahalanobis distance was used as a measure of similarity
between the two compared signals. The method was validated on the experimental
data measured using two-strips J-PET prototype with dimensions of 5x9x300
mm$^3$. The obtained Time-of-Flight (TOF) and spatial resolutions amount to
325~ps (FWHM) and 25~mm (FWHM), respectively. The TOF resolution was also
compared to the results of an analogous study done using Linear Fitting method.
The best TOF resolution was obtained with this method at four pre-defined
threshold levels which was comparable to the resolution achieved from the
Mahalanobis distance at two pre-defined threshold levels. Although the
algorithm of Linear Fitting method is much simpler to apply than the
Mahalanobis method, the application of the Mahalanobis distance requires a
lower number of applied threshold levels and, hence, decreases the costs of
electronics used in PET scanner.


  It has been suggested that the gravitational potential can have a significant
role in suppressing the star formation in the nearby galaxies. To establish
observational constrains on this scenario, we investigate the connection
between the dynamics, through the circular velocity curves (CVCs) as a proxy of
the inner gravitational potential, and star formation quenching in 215
non-active galaxies across Hubble sequence from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral
Field Area (CALIFA) survey. Our results show that galaxies with similar CVCs
tend to have a certain star-formation quenching pattern. To explore these
findings in more details, we construct kpc-resolved relations of the equivalent
width of the H$\alpha$ ($W_{{\rm H}\alpha}$) versus the amplitude ($V_c$) and
shape ($\beta= d\ln V_c/ d\ln R$) of the circular velocity at given radius. We
find that the $W_{{\rm H}\alpha}-V_c$ is a declining relationship, where the
retired regions of the galaxies (the ones with $W_{{\rm H}\alpha}$ values below
3 \r{A}) tend to have higher $V_c$. Differently, $W_{{\rm H}\alpha}-\beta$ is a
bi-modal relationship, characterised by two peaks: concentration of the star
forming regions at a positive $\beta$ (rising CVC) and another one of the
retired regions with a negative $\beta$ (declining CVC). Our results show that
both the amplitude of the CVC, driven by the mass of the galaxies, and the
shape of the CVC, reflecting the internal structure of the galaxies, play an
important role in galaxy's quenching history.


  Considering that words with different characteristic in the text have
different importance for classification, grouping them together separately can
strengthen the semantic expression of each part. Thus we propose a new text
representation scheme by clustering words according to their latent semantics
and composing them together to get a set of cluster vectors, which are then
concatenated as the final text representation. Evaluation on five
classification benchmarks proves the effectiveness of our method. We further
conduct visualization analysis showing statistical clustering results and
verifying the validity of our motivation.


  Oriented object detection is a challenging task in aerial images since the
objects in aerial images are displayed in arbitrary directions and are
frequently densely packed. The mainstream detectors describe rotating objects
using a five-parament or eight-parament representations, which suffer from
representation ambiguity for orientated object definition. In this paper, we
propose a novel representation method based on area ratio of parallelogram,
called ARP. Specifically, ARP regresses the minimum bounding rectangle of the
oriented object and three area ratios. Three area ratios include the area ratio
of a directed object to the smallest circumscribed rectangle and two
parallelograms to the minimum circumscribed rectangle. It simplifies offset
learning and eliminates the issue of angular periodicity or label point
sequences for oriented objects. To further remedy the confusion issue of nearly
horizontal objects, the area ratio between the object and its minimal
circumscribed rectangle is employed to guide the selection of horizontal or
oriented detection for each object. Moreover, the rotated efficient
Intersection over Union (R-EIoU) loss with horizontal bounding box and three
area ratios are designed to optimize the bounding box regression for rotating
objects. Experimental results on remote sensing datasets, including HRSC2016,
DOTA, and UCAS-AOD, show that our method achieves superior detection
performance than many state-of-the-art approaches.


  In this study we performed a feasibility investigation on implementing a fast
and accurate dose calculation based on a deep learning technique. A two
dimensional (2D) fluence map was first converted into a three dimensional (3D)
volume using ray traversal algorithm. A 3D U-Net like deep residual network was
then established to learn a mapping between this converted 3D volume, CT and 3D
dose distribution. Therefore an indirect relationship was built between a
fluence map and its corresponding 3D dose distribution without using
significantly complex neural networks. 200 patients, including nasopharyngeal,
lung, rectum and breast cancer cases, were collected and applied to train the
proposed network. Additional 47 patients were randomly selected to evaluate the
accuracy of the proposed method through comparing dose distributions, dose
volume histograms (DVH) and clinical indices with the results from a treatment
planning system (TPS), which was used as the ground truth in this study.
Results: The proposed deep learning based dose calculation algorithm achieved
good predictive performance. For 47 tested patients, the average per-voxel bias
of the deep learning calculated value and standard deviation (normalized to the
prescription), relative to the TPS calculation, is 0.17%. The average deep
learning calculated values and standard deviations for relevant clinical
indices were compared with the TPS calculated results and the t-test p-values
demonstrated the consistency between them. Conclusions: In this study we
developed a new deep learning based dose calculation method. This approach was
evaluated by the clinical cases with different sites. Our results demonstrated
its feasibility and reliability and indicated its great potential to improve
the efficiency and accuracy of radiation dose calculation for different
treatment modalities


  In this paper it is shown that the nonfeedback capacity of multiple-input
multiple-output (MIMO) additive Gaussian noise (AGN) channels, when the noise
is nonstationary and unstable, is characterized by an asymptotic optimization
problem that involves, a generalized matrix algebraic Riccati equation (ARE) of
filtering theory, and a matrix Lyapunov equation of stability theory of
Gaussian systems. Furthermore, conditions are identified such that, the
characterization of nonfeedback capacity corresponds to the uniform asymptotic
per unit time limit, over all initial distributions, of the characterization of
a finite block or transmission without feedback information (FTwFI) capacity,
which involves, two generalized matrix difference Riccati equations (DREs) and
a matrix difference Lyapunov equation.


  We propose an estimation methodology for a semiparametric quantile factor
panel model. We provide tools for inference that are robust to the existence of
moments and to the form of weak cross-sectional dependence in the idiosyncratic
error term. We apply our method to daily stock return data.


  In this paper, we propose a numerical strategy to define a multiscale
analysis for color and multicomponent images based on the representation of
data on a graph. Our approach consists in computing the graph of an image using
the psychovisual information and analysing it by using the spectral graph
wavelet transform. We suggest introducing color dimension into the computation
of the weights of the graph and using the geodesic distance as a means of
distance measurement. We thus have defined a wavelet transform based on a graph
with perceptual information by using the CIELab color distance. This new
representation is illustrated with denoising and inpainting applications.
Overall, by introducing psychovisual information in the graph computation for
the graph wavelet transform we obtain very promising results. Therefore results
in image restoration highlight the interest of the appropriate use of color
information.