  In the domain of image processing, often real-time constraints are required.
In particular, in safety-critical applications, such as X-ray computed
tomography in medical imaging or advanced driver assistance systems in the
automotive domain, timing is of utmost importance. A common approach to
maintain real-time capabilities of compute-intensive applications is to offload
those computations to dedicated accelerator hardware, such as Field
Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Programming such architectures is a
challenging task, with respect to the typical FPGA-specific design criteria:
Achievable overall algorithm latency and resource usage of FPGA primitives
(BRAM, FF, LUT, and DSP). High-Level Synthesis (HLS) dramatically simplifies
this task by enabling the description of algorithms in well-known higher
languages (C/C++) and its automatic synthesis that can be accomplished by HLS
tools. However, algorithm developers still need expert knowledge about the
target architecture, in order to achieve satisfying results. Therefore, in
previous work, we have shown that elevating the description of image algorithms
to an even higher abstraction level, by using a Domain-Specific Language (DSL),
can significantly cut down the complexity for designing such algorithms for
FPGAs. To give the developer even more control over the common trade-off,
latency vs. resource usage, we will present an automatic optimization process
where these criteria are analyzed and fed back to the DSL compiler, in order to
generate code that is closer to the desired design specifications. Finally, we
generate code for stereo block matching algorithms and compare it with
handwritten implementations to quantify the quality of our results.


  Decoherence in qubits, caused by their interaction with a noisy environment,
poses a significant challenge to developing reliable quantum processors.
Monitoring the qubit's environment enables not only to identify decoherence
events but also to reverse these errors, thereby restoring the qubit coherence.
This approach is particularly beneficial for superconducting cavity qubits,
whose unavoidable interaction with auxiliary transmons impacts their coherence.
In this work, we uncover the intricate dynamics of cavity decoherence by
tracking the noisy trajectory of a transmon acting as the cavity's environment.
Using real-time feedback, we successfully recover the lost coherence of the
cavity qubit, achieving a fivefold increase in its dephasing time.
Alternatively, by detecting transmon errors and converting them into erasures,
we improve the cavity phase coherence by more than an order of magnitude. These
advances are essential for implementing long-lived cavity qubits with
high-fidelity gates and can enable more efficient bosonic quantum error
correction codes.


  Optical communication achieves high fanout and short delay advantageous for
information integration in neural systems. Superconducting detectors enable
signaling with single photons for maximal energy efficiency. We present designs
of superconducting optoelectronic neurons based on superconducting
single-photon detectors, Josephson junctions, semiconductor light sources, and
multi-planar dielectric waveguides. These circuits achieve complex synaptic and
neuronal functions with high energy efficiency, leveraging the strengths of
light for communication and superconducting electronics for computation. The
neurons send few-photon signals to synaptic connections. These signals
communicate neuronal firing events as well as update synaptic weights.
Spike-timing-dependent plasticity is implemented with a single photon
triggering each step of the process. Microscale light-emitting diodes and
waveguide networks enable connectivity from a neuron to thousands of synaptic
connections, and the use of light for communication enables synchronization of
neurons across an area limited only by the distance light can travel within the
period of a network oscillation. Experimentally, each of the requisite circuit
elements has been demonstrated, yet a hardware platform combining them all has
not been attempted. Compared to digital logic or quantum computing, device
tolerances are relaxed. For this neural application, optical sources providing
incoherent pulses with 10,000 photons produced with efficiency of 10$^{-3}$
operating at 20\,MHz at 4.2\,K are sufficient to enable a massively scalable
neural computing platform with connectivity comparable to the brain and thirty
thousand times higher speed.


  We show that a large family of groups is uniformly stable relative to unitary
groups equipped with submultiplicative norms, such as the operator, Frobenius,
and Schatten $p$-norms. These include lamplighters $\Gamma \wr \Lambda$ where
$\Lambda$ is infinite and amenable, as well as several groups of dynamical
origin such as the classical Thompson groups $F, F', T$ and $V$. We prove this
by means of vanishing results in asymptotic cohomology, a theory introduced by
the second author, Glebsky, Lubotzky and Monod, which is suitable for studying
uniform stability. Along the way, we prove some foundational results in
asymptotic cohomology, and use them to prove some hereditary features of Ulam
stability. We further discuss metric approximation properties of such groups,
taking values in unitary or symmetric groups.


  We show exponential mixing of passive scalars advected by a solution to the
stochastic Navier-Stokes equations with finitely many (e.g. four) forced modes
satisfying a hypoellipticity condition. Our proof combines the asymptotic
strong Feller framework of Hairer and Mattingly with the mixing theory of
Bedrossian, Blumenthal, and Punshon-Smith.


  An effective numerical method is presented for optimizing model parameters
that can be applied to any type of system of non-linear equations and any
number of data-points, which does not require explicit formulation of the
objective function or its partial derivatives. The numerics are reduced to
solving a non-linear least squares problem, which uses the Levenberg-Marquardt
algorithm and the Jacobian is approximated by applying rank-one updates using
Broyden's method. An advantage of this methodology over conventional approaches
is that the partial derivatives of the objective function do not have to be
analytically calculated. For instance, there may be situations where one cannot
formulate the partial derivatives, such as cases involving an objective
function that itself contains a nested optimization problem. Moreover, a line
search algorithm is also described that ensures that the Armijo conditions are
satisfied and that convergence is assured, which makes the success of the
approach insensitive to the initial estimates of the model parameters. The
foregoing numerical methods are described with respect to the development of
the Optima software to solve inverse problems, which are reduced to non-linear
least squares problems. This computational approach has proven to be
particularly useful at solving inverse problems of very complex physical models
that cannot be optimized directly in a practical way.


  The INFN (Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics) has approved a
national theoretical network on "Structure and Reactions with Exotic Nuclei".
The project involves the INFN branches of Laboratorio Nazionale del Sud, Padova
and Pisa. The aim of the project is to start coordinating and to homogenize the
research already performed in Italy in this field and to strengthen and improve
the Italian contribution on the international scenario. Furthermore it aims at
creating a solid theoretical structure to support future experimental
facilities at the INFN national laboratories such as SPES at LNL and EXCYT at
LNS. A review of present and future activities is presented.


  A supercurrent transistor is a superconductor-semiconductor hybrid device in
which the Josephson supercurrent is switched on and off using a gate voltage.
While such devices have been studied using DC transport, radio-frequency
measurements allow for more sensitive and faster experiments. Here a
supercurrent transistor made from a carbon nanotube is measured simultaneously
via DC conductance and radio-frequency reflectometry. The radio-frequency
measurement resolves all the main features of the conductance data across a
wide range of bias and gate voltage, and many of these features are seen more
clearly. These results are promising for measuring other kinds of hybrid
superconducting devices, in particular for detecting the reactive component of
the impedance, which a DC measurement can never detect.


  We study the dynamics of ordering of the nonconserved and conserved
Heisenberg magnet. The dynamics consists of two parts - an irreversible
dissipation into a heat bath and a reversible precession induced by a torque
due to the local molecular field. For quenches both to T=0 and T=T_c, we show
that the torque is irrelevant when the dynamics is nonconserved but relevant
when the dynamics is conserved and is governed by a new nontrivial fixed point.


  We study the composition operators of the Hardy space on D $\infty$ $\cap$
{\ell} 1 , the {\ell} 1 part of the infinite polydisk, and the behavior of
their approximation numbers.


  Phase matching has been studied for the Grover algorithm as a way of
enhancing the efficiency of the quantum search. Recently Li and Li found that a
particular form of phase matching yields, with a single Grover operation, a
success probability greater than 25/27 for finding the equal-amplitude
superposition of marked states when the fraction of the marked states stored in
a database state is greater than 1/3. Although this single operation eliminates
the oscillations of the success probability that occur with multiple Grover
operations, the latter oscillations reappear with multiple iterations of Li and
Li's phase matching. In this paper we introduce a multi-phase matching subject
to a certain matching rule by which we can obtain a multiple Grover operation
that with only a few iterations yields a success probability that is almost
constant and unity over a wide range of the fraction of marked items. As an
example we show that a multi-phase operation with six iterations yields a
success probability between 99.8% and 100% for a fraction of marked states of
1/10 or larger.


  We consider the possibility that some exotic neutrino property is responsible
for reducing the muon neutrino flux at high energies from distant neutrino
sources; specifically, we consider (i) neutrino decay and (ii) neutrinos being
pseudo-Dirac particles. This would provide a mechanism for the lack of high
energy muons in the Icecube detector.


  Finding the ground state of a quantum mechanical system can be formulated as
an optimal control problem. In this formulation, the drift of the optimally
controlled process is chosen to match the distribution of paths in the
Feynman--Kac (FK) representation of the solution of the imaginary time
Schr\"odinger equation. This provides a variational principle that can be used
for reinforcement learning of a neural representation of the drift. Our
approach is a drop-in replacement for path integral Monte Carlo, learning an
optimal importance sampler for the FK trajectories. We demonstrate the
applicability of our approach to several problems of one-, two-, and
many-particle physics.


  Edge localised modes (ELMs) are a concern for future devices, such as ITER,
due to the large transient heat loads they generate on the divertor surfaces
which could limit the operational time of the device. This paper discusses the
application of resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) as a mechanism for ELM
control on MAST. Experiments have been performed using an n=3 toroidal mode
number perturbation and measurements of the strike point splitting performed.
The measurements have been made using both infrared and visible imaging to
measure the heat and particle flux to the divertor. The measured profiles have
shown clear splitting in L-mode which compares well with the predication of the
splitting location from modelling including the effect of screening. The
splitting of the strike point has also been studied as a function of time
during the ELM. The splitting varies during the ELM, being the strongest at the
time of the peak heat flux and becoming more filamentary at the end of the ELM
(200 microseconds after the peak midplane D(alpha) emission). Variation in the
splitting profiles has also been seen, with some ELMs showing clear splitting
and others no splitting. A possible explanation of this effect is proposed, and
supported by modelling, which concerns the relative phase between the RMP field
and the ELM filament location.


  We establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for constructing
gradient Einstein-type warped metrics. One of these conditions leads us to a
general Lichnerowicz equation with analytic and geometric coefficients for this
class of metrics on the space of warping functions. In this way, we prove
gradient estimates for positive solutions of a nonlinear elliptic differential
equation on a complete Riemannian manifold with associated Bakry-\'Emery Ricci
tensor bounded from below. As an application, we provide nonexistence and
rigidity results for a large class of gradient Einstein-type warped metrics.
Furthermore, we show how to construct gradient Einstein-type warped metrics,
and then we give explicit examples which are not only meaningful in their own
right, but also help to justify our results.


  Covariance matrix estimation is a persistent challenge for cosmology. We
focus on a class of model covariance matrices that can be generated with high
accuracy and precision, using a tiny fraction of the computational resources
that would be required to achieve comparably precise covariance matrices using
mock catalogues. In previous work, the free parameters in these models were
determined using sample covariance matrices computed using a large number of
mocks, but we demonstrate that those parameters can be estimated consistently
and with good precision by applying jackknife methods to a single survey
volume. This enables model covariance matrices that are calibrated from data
alone, with no reference to mocks.


  We present a simple web search engine for indexing and searching html
documents using python programming language. Because python is well known for
its simple syntax and strong support for main operating systems, we hope it
will be beneficial for learning information retrieval techniques, especially
web search engine technology.


  Simulation offers a simple and flexible way to estimate the power of a
clinical trial when analytic formulae are not available. The computational
burden of using simulation has, however, restricted its application to only the
simplest of sample size determination problems, minimising a single parameter
(the overall sample size) subject to power being above a target level. We
describe a general framework for solving simulation-based sample size
determination problems with several design parameters over which to optimise
and several conflicting criteria to be minimised. The method is based on an
established global optimisation algorithm widely used in the design and
analysis of computer experiments, using a non-parametric regression model as an
approximation of the true underlying power function. The method is flexible,
can be used for almost any problem for which power can be estimated using
simulation, and can be implemented using existing statistical software
packages. We illustrate its application to three increasingly complicated
sample size determination problems involving complex clustering structures,
co-primary endpoints, and small sample considerations.


  For $s_1,s_2\in(0,1)$ and $p,q \in (1, \infty)$, we study the following
nonlinear Dirichlet eigenvalue problem with parameters $\alpha, \beta \in
\mathbb{R}$ driven by the sum of two nonlocal operators:
  \begin{equation*}
  (-\Delta)^{s_1}_p u+(-\Delta)^{s_2}_q
u=\alpha|u|^{p-2}u+\beta|u|^{q-2}u\;\;\text{in }\Omega, \quad u=0\;\;\text{in }
\mathbb{R}^d \setminus \Omega, \ \ \ \qquad \quad \mathrm{(P)}
  \end{equation*} where $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ is a bounded open set.
Depending on the values of $\alpha,\beta$, we completely describe the existence
and non-existence of positive solutions to (P). We construct a continuous
threshold curve in the two-dimensional $(\alpha, \beta)$-plane, which separates
the regions of the existence and non-existence of positive solutions. In
addition, we prove that the first Dirichlet eigenfunctions of the fractional
$p$-Laplace and fractional $q$-Laplace operators are linearly independent,
which plays an essential role in the formation of the curve. Furthermore, we
establish that every nonnegative solution of (P) is globally bounded.


  The Kerr spinning particle has a remarkable analytical twistorial structure.
Analyzing electromagnetic excitations of the Kerr circular string which are
aligned to this structure, we obtain a simple stringy skeleton of the spinning
particle which is formed by a topological coupling of the Kerr circular
singular string and by an axial singular stringy system.
  We show that the chiral traveling waves, related to an orientifold
world-sheet of the axial stringy system, are described by the massive Dirac
equation, so we argue that the axial string may play the part of a stringy
carrier of wave function and play also a dominant role in the scattering
processes.
  A key role of the third, {\it complex} Kerr string is discussed. We
conjecture that it may be one more alternative to the Witten twistor string,
and a relation to the spinor helicity formalism is also discussed.


  Resistive memories have limited lifetime caused by limited write endurance
and highly non-uniform write access patterns. Two main techniques to mitigate
endurance-related memory failures are 1) wear-leveling, to evenly distribute
the writes across the entire memory, and 2) fault tolerance, to correct memory
cell failures. However, one of the main open challenges in extending the
lifetime of existing resistive memories is to make both techniques work
together seamlessly and efficiently. To address this challenge, we propose
WoLFRaM, a new mechanism that combines both wear-leveling and fault tolerance
techniques at low cost by using a programmable resistive address decoder
(PRAD). The key idea of WoLFRaM is to use PRAD for implementing 1) a new
efficient wear-leveling mechanism that remaps write accesses to random physical
locations on the fly, and 2) a new efficient fault tolerance mechanism that
recovers from faults by remapping failed memory blocks to available physical
locations. Our evaluations show that, for a Phase Change Memory (PCM) based
system with cell endurance of 108 writes, WoLFRaM increases the memory lifetime
by 68% compared to a baseline that implements the best state-of-the-art
wear-leveling and fault correction mechanisms. WoLFRaM's average / worst-case
performance and energy overheads are 0.51% / 3.8% and 0.47% / 2.1%
respectively.


  We consider the tree-reduced path of symmetric random walk on $\ZZ^{d}$. It
is interesting to ask about the number of turns $T_n$ in the reduced path after
$n$ steps. This question arises from inverting signature for lattice paths. We
show that, when $n$ is large, the mean and variance of $T_n$ have the same
order as $n$, while the second order terms are O(1). We then use these
estimates to obtain limit theorems for $T_n$. Similar results hold for any
other finite patterns as well.


  We have investigated the dynamic critical behavior of the two-dimensional
Z(5)-symmetric spin model by using short-time Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We
have obtained estimates of some critical points in its rich phase diagram and
included, among the usual critical lines the study of first-order (weak)
transition by looking into the order-disorder phase transition. Besides, we
also investigated the soft-disorder phase transition by considering empiric
methods. A study of the behavior of $\beta /\nu z$ along the self-dual critical
line has been performed and special attention has been devoted to the critical
bifurcation point, or FZ (Fateev-Zamolodchikov) point. Firstly, by using a
refinement method and taking into account simulations out-of-equilibrium, we
were able to localize parameters of this point. In a second part of our study,
we turned our attention to the behavior of the model at the early stage of its
time evolution in order to find the dynamic critical exponent z as well as the
static critical exponents $\beta $ and $% \nu $ of the FZ-point on square
lattices. The values of the static critical exponents and parameters are in
good agreement with the exact results, and the dynamic critical exponent
$z\approx 2.28$ very close of the 4-state Potts model ($z\approx 2.29$).


  We study the dissipative properties of a harmonic oscillator subject to two
independent heat baths, one of which couples to its position and the other one
to its momentum. This model describes a large spin impurity in a ferromagnet.
We find that some effects of the two heat baths partially cancel each other.
Most notably, oscillations may remain underdamped for arbitrarily strong
coupling. This effect is a direct consequence of the mutually conjugate
character of position and momentum. For a single dissipative bath coupled
linearly to both position and momentum, no underdamped regime is possible for
strong coupling. The dynamics of purity loss for one and two wave packets is
also investigated.


  A number of studies have revealed variability from neutron star low-mass
X-ray binaries during quiescence. Such variability is not well characterised,
or understood, but may be a common property that has been missed due to lack of
multiple observations. One such source where variability has been observed is
Aql X-1. Here, we analyse 14 Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of Aql X-1 in
quiescence, covering a period of approximately 2 years. There is clear
variability between the epochs, with the most striking feature being a
flare-like increase in the flux by a factor of 5. Spectral fitting is
inconclusive as to whether the power-law and/or thermal component is variable.
We suggest that the variability and flare-like behaviour during quiescence is
due to accretion at low rates which might reach the neutron star surface.


  Stealth addresses are a privacy-enhancing technology that provides recipient
anonymity on blockchains. In this work, we investigate the recipient anonymity
and unlinkability guarantees of Umbra, the most widely used implementation of
the stealth address scheme on Ethereum, and its three off-chain scalability
solutions, e.g., Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. We define and evaluate four
heuristics to uncover the real recipients of stealth payments. We find that for
the majority of Umbra payments, it is straightforward to establish the
recipient, hence nullifying the benefits of using Umbra. Specifically, we find
the real recipient of $48.5\%$, $25.8\%$, $65.7\%$, and $52.6\%$ of all Umbra
transactions on the Ethereum main net, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism
networks, respectively. Finally, we suggest easily implementable
countermeasures to evade our deanonymization and linking attacks.


  Two-color multiphoton emission from polycrystalline tungsten nanotips has
been demonstrated using two-color laser fields. The two-color photoemission is
assisted by a three-photon multicolor quantum channel, which leads to a twofold
increase in quantum efficiency. Weak-field control of two-color multiphoton
emission was achieved by changing the efficiency of the quantum channel with
pulse delay. The result of this study complements two-color tunneling
photoemission in strong fields, and has potential applications for
nanowire-based photonic devices. Moreover, the demonstrated two-color
multiphoton emission may be important for realizing ultrafast spin-polarized
electron sources via optically injected spin current.


  Brillouin spectroscopy is a century-old technique that has recently received
renewed interest, as modern instrumentation has transformed it into a powerful
contactless and label-free probe of micromechanical properties for biomedical
applications. In particular, to fully harness the non-contact and
non-destructive nature of Brillouin imaging, there is strong motivation to
develop a fibre-integrated device and extend the technology into the domain of
in vivo and in situ operation, such as for medical diagnostics. This work
presents the first demonstration of a fibre optic Brillouin probe that is
capable of mapping the mechanical properties of a tissue-mimicking phantom.
This is achieved through combination of miniaturised optical design, advanced
hollow-core fibre fabrication and high-resolution 3D printing. The protype
probe is compact, background-free and possesses the highest collection
efficiency to date, thus provides the foundation of a fibre-based Brillouin
device for remote in situ measurements in challenging and otherwise
difficult-to-reach environments, for biomedical, material science and
industrial applications.


  We investigate a new two-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes hydrodynamic
model design to explain and study large scale ice swirls formation at the
surface of the ocean. The linearized model generates a basis of Bessel
solutions from where various types of spiral patterns can be generated and
their evolution and stability in time analyzed. By restricting the nonlinear
system of equations to its quadratic terms we obtain swirl solutions
emphasizing logarithmic spiral geometry. The resulting solutions are analyzed
and validated using three mathematical approaches: one predicting the formation
of patterns as Townes solitary modes, another approach mapping the nonlinear
system into a sine-Gordon equation, and a third approach uses a series
expansion. Pure radial, azimuthal and spiral modes are obtained from the fully
nonlinear equations. Combinations of multiple-spiral solutions are also
obtained, matching the experimental observations. The nonlinear stability of
the spiral patterns is analyzed by Arnold's convexity method, and the
Hamiltonian of the solutions is plotted versus some order parameters showing
the existence of geometric phase transitions.


  A Lorenz map is a Poincar\'e map for a three-dimensional Lorenz flow. We
describe the theory of renormalization for Lorenz maps with a critical point
and prove that a restriction of the renormalization operator acting on such
maps has a hyperbolic fixed point. The proof is computer assisted and we
include a detailed exposition on how to make rigorous estimates using a
computer as well as the implementation of the estimates.


  The spectral properties of the quantum mechanical system consisting of a
quantum dot with a short-range attractive impurity inside the dot are
investigated in the zero-range limit. The Green function of the system is
obtained in an explicit form. In the case of a spherically symmetric quantum
dot, the dependence of the spectrum on the impurity position and the strength
of the impurity potential is analyzed in detail. It is proven that the
confinement potential of the dot can be recovered from the spectroscopy data.
The consequences of the hidden symmetry breaking by the impurity are
considered. The effect of the positional disorder is studied.


  Let $Q_n$ be the poset that consists of all subsets of a fixed $n$-element
set, ordered by set inclusion. The poset cube Ramsey number $R(Q_n,Q_n)$ is
defined as the least $m$ such that any 2-coloring of the elements of $Q_m$
admits a monochromatic copy of $Q_n$. The trivial lower bound $R(Q_n,Q_n)\ge
2n$ was improved by Cox and Stolee, who showed $R(Q_n,Q_n)\ge 2n+1$ for $3\le
n\le 8$ and $n\ge 13$ using a probabilistic existence proof. In this paper, we
provide an explicit construction that establishes $R(Q_n,Q_n)\ge 2n+1$ for all
$n\ge 3$. The best known upper bound, due to Lu and Thompson, is $ R(Q_n, Q_n)
\le n^2 - 2n + 2$.


  The heteroscedastic probabilistic principal component analysis (PCA)
technique, a variant of the classic PCA that considers data heterogeneity, is
receiving more and more attention in the data science and signal processing
communities. In this paper, to estimate the underlying low-dimensional linear
subspace (simply called \emph{ground truth}) from available heterogeneous data
samples, we consider the associated non-convex maximum-likelihood estimation
problem, which involves maximizing a sum of heterogeneous quadratic forms over
an orthogonality constraint (HQPOC). We propose a first-order method --
generalized power method (GPM) -- to tackle the problem and establish its
\emph{estimation performance} guarantee. Specifically, we show that, given a
suitable initialization, the distances between the iterates generated by GPM
and the ground truth decrease at least geometrically to some threshold
associated with the residual part of certain "population-residual
decomposition". In establishing the estimation performance result, we prove a
novel local error bound property of another closely related optimization
problem, namely quadratic optimization with orthogonality constraint (QPOC),
which is new and can be of independent interest. Numerical experiments are
conducted to demonstrate the superior performance of GPM in both Gaussian noise
and sub-Gaussian noise settings.


  An elliptic partial differential equation Lu=f with a zero Dirichlet boundary
condition is converted to an equivalent elliptic equation on the unit ball. A
spectral Galerkin method is applied to the reformulated problem, using
multivariate polynomials as the approximants. For a smooth boundary and smooth
problem parameter functions, the method is proven to converge faster than any
power of 1/n with n the degree of the approximate Galerkin solution. Examples
in two and three variables are given as numerical illustrations. Empirically,
the condition number of the associated linear system increases like O(N), with
N the order of the linear system.


  We study particle decay as the origin of dark radiation. After elaborating
general properties and useful parametrisations we provide model-independent and
easy-to-use constraints from nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background
and structure formation. Bounds on branching ratios and mass hierarchies depend
in a unique way on the time of decay. We demonstrate their power to exclude
well-motivated scenarios taking the example of the lightest ordinary sparticle
decaying into the gravitino. We point out signatures and opportunities in
cosmological observations and structure formation. For example, if there are
two dark decay modes, dark radiation and the observed dark matter with
adjustable free-streaming can originate from the same decaying particle,
solving small-scale problems of structure formation. Hot dark matter mimicking
a neutrino mass scale as deduced from cosmological observations can arise and
possibly be distinguished after a discovery. Our results can be used as a
guideline for model building.


  Statistical inference of the dependence between objects often relies on
covariance matrices. Unless the number of features (e.g. data points) is much
larger than the number of objects, covariance matrix cleaning is necessary to
reduce estimation noise. We propose a method that is robust yet flexible enough
to account for fine details of the structure covariance matrix. Robustness
comes from using a hierarchical ansatz and dependence averaging between
clusters; flexibility comes from a bootstrap procedure. This method finds
several possible hierarchical structures in DNA microarray gene expression
data, and leads to lower realized risk in global minimum variance portfolios
than current filtering methods when the number of data points is relatively
small.


  We analyse the power counting renormalizability of scalar theory in Lifshitz
spacetime in D+2 dimensions. We show the spectral dimension becomes 2+(D/z) (z
is the critical exponent) after integrating out the radion field. We comment on
the AdS/CFT correspondence, and on how to avoid the Lifshitz singularity by
flowing into AdS spacetime in the infrared. We also comment on the quantum
gravity in Lifshitz spacetime.


  Eigendecomposition of the Laplace-Beltrami operator is instrumental for a
variety of applications from physics to data science. We develop a numerical
method of computation of the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the
Laplace-Beltrami operator on a smooth bounded domain based on the relaxation to
the Schr\"odinger operator with finite potential on a Riemannian manifold and
projection in a special basis. We prove spectral exactness of the method and
provide examples of calculated results and applications, particularly, in
quantum billiards on manifolds.


  Interstellar dust is a key physical ingredient of galaxies, obscuring star
formation, regulating the heating and cooling of the gas, and building-up
chemical complexity. In this manuscript, I give a wide review of interstellar
dust properties and some of the modern techniques used to study it. I start
with a general introduction presenting the main concepts, in molecular and
solid-state physics, required to understand the contemporary literature on the
subject. I then review the empirical evidence we currently use to constrain
state-of-the-art dust models. Follows a long discussion about our current
understanding of the grain properties of nearby galaxies, with an emphasis on
the results from spectral energy distribution modeling. The following chapter
presents dust evolution at all scales. I review the different microphysical
evolution processes, and the way they are accounted for in cosmic dust
evolution models. I give my take on the origin of interstellar dust in galaxies
of different metallicities. The last chapter focusses on methodology. I give an
introduction to the Bayesian method and compare it to frequentist techniques. I
discuss the epistemological consequences of the two approaches, and show why
the field of interstellar dust requires a probabilistic viewpoint. I end the
manuscript with a summary of the major breakthroughs achieved in the past
decade, and delineate a few prospectives for the next decade.


  We consider black $p$-brane solutions of the low energy string action,
computing scalar perturbations. Using standard methods, we derive the wave
equations obeyed by the perturbations and treat them analytically and
numerically. We have found that tensorial perturbations obtained via a
gauge-invariant formalism leads to the same results as scalar perturbations. No
instability has been found. Asymptotically, these solutions typically reduce to
a $AdS_{(p+2)}\times S^{(8-p)}$ space, which, in the framework of Maldacena's
conjecture, can be regarded as a gravitational dual to a conformal field theory
defined in a $(p+1)$-dimensional flat space-time. The results presented open
the possibility of a better understanding the AdS/CFT correspondence, as
originally formulated in terms of the relation among brane structures and gauge
theories.


  Recent advances in the joint processing of images have certainly shown its
advantages over individual processing. Different from the existing works geared
towards co-segmentation or co-localization, in this paper, we explore a new
joint processing topic: image co-skeletonization, which is defined as joint
skeleton extraction of objects in an image collection. Object skeletonization
in a single natural image is a challenging problem because there is hardly any
prior knowledge about the object. Therefore, we resort to the idea of object
co-skeletonization, hoping that the commonness prior that exists across the
images may help, just as it does for other joint processing problems such as
co-segmentation. We observe that the skeleton can provide good scribbles for
segmentation, and skeletonization, in turn, needs good segmentation. Therefore,
we propose a coupled framework for co-skeletonization and co-segmentation tasks
so that they are well informed by each other, and benefit each other
synergistically. Since it is a new problem, we also construct a benchmark
dataset by annotating nearly 1.8k images spread across 38 categories. Extensive
experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves promising results in
all the three possible scenarios of joint-processing: weakly-supervised,
supervised, and unsupervised.


  Applying Prediction-Based Control (PBC) $x_{n+1}=(1-\alpha_n)f(x_n)+\alpha_n
x_{n}$ with stochastically perturbed control coefficient $\alpha_n=\alpha+\ell
\xi_{n+1}$, $n\in \mathbb N$, where $\xi$ are bounded identically distributed
independent random variables, we globally stabilize the unique equilibrium $K$
of the equation $ x_{n+1}=f(x_n) $ in a certain domain. In our results, the
noisy control $\alpha+\ell \xi$ provides both local and global stability, while
the mean value $\alpha$ of the control does not guarantee global stability, for
example, the deterministic controlled system can have a stable two-cycle, and
non-controlled map be chaotic. In the case of unimodal $f$ with a negative
Schwarzian derivative, we get sharp stability results generalizing Singer's
famous statement `local stability implies global' to the case of the stochastic
control. New global stability results are also obtained in the deterministic
settings for variable $\alpha_n$ and, generally, continuous but not
differentiable at $K$ map $f$.


  Complex networks are characterized by several topological properties: degree
distribution, clustering coefficient, average shortest path length, etc. Using
a simple model to generate scale-free networks embedded on geographical space,
we analyze the relationship between topological properties of the network and
attributes (fitness and location) of the vertices in the network. We find there
are two crossovers for varying the scaling exponent of the fitness
distribution.


  We present the Multi-vAlue Rule Set (MARS) model for interpretable
classification with feature efficient presentations. MARS introduces a more
generalized form of association rules that allows multiple values in a
condition. Rules of this form are more concise than traditional single-valued
rules in capturing and describing patterns in data. MARS mitigates the problem
of dealing with continuous features and high-cardinality categorical features
faced by rule-based models. Our formulation also pursues a higher efficiency of
feature utilization, which reduces the cognitive load to understand the
decision process. We propose an efficient inference method for learning a
maximum a posteriori model, incorporating theoretically grounded bounds to
iteratively reduce the search space to improve search efficiency. Experiments
with synthetic and real-world data demonstrate that MARS models have
significantly smaller complexity and fewer features, providing better
interpretability while being competitive in predictive accuracy. We conducted a
usability study with human subjects and results show that MARS is the easiest
to use compared with other competing rule-based models, in terms of the correct
rate and response time. Overall, MARS introduces a new approach to rule-based
models that balance accuracy and interpretability with feature-efficient
representations.


  We determine mass and transverse momentum spectra of dileptons produced in
Pb+Au (158 GeV/u) collisions within a pion annihilation model.
  A fit to the data requires simultaneous mass reduction and broadening of the
in-medium rho propagator.
  The introduction of a finite pion width, as required within self-consistent
approaches to the interacting pion gas, further improves the agreement with the
data.


  This paper addresses a full characterization of photon-added coherent states
for shape-invariant potentials. Main properties are investigated and discussed.
A statistical computation of relevant physical quantities is performed,
emphasizing the importance of using generalized hypergeometric functions
$_pF_q$ and Meijer's $G$-functions for such a study.


  Socio-technical systems, where technological and human elements interact in a
goal-oriented manner, provide important, functional support to our societies.
We draw specific attention to the concept of timeliness that has been
ubiquitously and integrally adopted as a quality standard in the {\it modus
operandi\/} of socio-technical systems, but remains an underappreciated aspect.
We point out that a variety of incentives, often reinforced by competitive
pressures, prompt system operators to myopically optimize for cost- and
time-efficiencies, running the risk of inadvertently pushing the systems
towards the proverbial `edge of a cliff'. Invoking a stylized model for
operational delays, we argue that this cliff edge is a true critical point --
identified as {\it temporal criticality\/} -- implying that system efficiency
and robustness to perturbation are in tension with each other. Specifically for
firm-to-firm production networks, we suggest that the proximity to temporal
criticality is a possible route for solving the fundamental ``excess volatility
puzzle'' in economics. Further, in generality for optimizing socio-technical
systems, we propose that system operators incorporate a measure of resilience
in their welfare functions.


  We present astrochemical photo-dissociation region models in which cosmic ray
attenuation has been fully coupled to the chemical evolution of the gas. We
model the astrochemical impact of cosmic rays, including those accelerated by
protostellar accretion shocks, on molecular clouds hosting protoclusters. Our
models with embedded protostars reproduce observed ionization rates. We study
the imprint of cosmic ray attenuation on ions for models with different surface
cosmic ray spectra and different star formation efficiencies. We find that
abundances, particularly ions, are sensitive to the treatment of cosmic rays.
We show the column densities of ions are under predicted by the `classic'
treatment of cosmic rays by an order of magnitude. We also test two common
chemistry approximations used to infer ionization rates. We conclude that the
approximation based on the H$_3^+$ abundance under predicts the ionization rate
except in regions where the cosmic rays dominate the chemistry. Our models
suggest the chemistry in dense gas will be significantly impacted by the
increased ionization rates, leading to a reduction in molecules such as NH$_3$
and causing H$_2$-rich gas to become [C II] bright.


  We present a number of exact relations for the heavy quark limit and develop
an analytical 1/m_Q expansion for heavy mesons in the 't Hooft model. Among the
new results are relation 3\mu_\pi^2=\bar\Lambda^2 - m_{sp}^2+\beta^2, 1/m_Q
corrections to the decay constants, to the kinetic expectation values and
1/m_Q^2 nonperturbative corrections to the B->D amplitude at zero recoil. The
properties of the IW functions are addressed and the small velocity sum rules
are verified.


  A firm cognitive subject or ``individual'' is presupposed for the emergence
of mind. However, with the development of recent information technology, the
``individual'' has become more dispersed in society and the cognitive subject
has become increasingly unstable and adaptive, necessitating an update in our
understanding of the ``individual''. Autopoiesis serves as a model of the
cognitive subject, which is unstable and requires effort to maintain itself to
adapt to the environment. In this study, we evaluated adaptivity for a highly
extensible multi-particle system model Particle Lenia through the response
perturbation. As a result, we found that Particle Lenia has a particle
configuration that is both temporally unstable and has multiple stable states.
This result suggests that Particle Lenia can express adaptive characteristics
and is expected to be used as a computational model toward building an
autopoietic cognitive agent.


  Polynomial interpretations are a useful technique for proving termination of
term rewrite systems. They come in various flavors: polynomial interpretations
with real, rational and integer coefficients. As to their relationship with
respect to termination proving power, Lucas managed to prove in 2006 that there
are rewrite systems that can be shown polynomially terminating by polynomial
interpretations with real (algebraic) coefficients, but cannot be shown
polynomially terminating using polynomials with rational coefficients only. He
also proved the corresponding statement regarding the use of rational
coefficients versus integer coefficients. In this article we extend these
results, thereby giving the full picture of the relationship between the
aforementioned variants of polynomial interpretations. In particular, we show
that polynomial interpretations with real or rational coefficients do not
subsume polynomial interpretations with integer coefficients. Our results hold
also for incremental termination proofs with polynomial interpretations.


  We investigate the quantum temporal steering (TS), i.e., a temporal analogue
of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, in a dephasing channel which is modeled by
a central spin half surrounded by a spin-1/2 \textit{XY} chain where quantum
phase transition happens. The TS parameter $S_{\text{TS}}$ and the TS weight
$W_{\text{TS}}$ are employed to characterize the TS dynamics. We analytically
obtain the dependence of $S_{\text{TS}}$ on the decoherence factor. The
numerical results show an obvious suppression of $S_{\text{TS}}$ and
$W_{\text{TS}}$ when the \textit{XY} chain approaches to the critical point. In
view of the significance of quantum channel, we develop a new concept,
\textit{TS weight power}, in order to quantify the capacity of the quantum
channel in dominating TS behavior. This new quantity enables us to indicate the
quantum criticality of the environment by the quantum correlation of TS in the
coupled system.


  Recent works aiming at understanding magnetotransport phenomena in
ferromagnetic III-V and II-VI semiconductors are described. Theory of the
anomalous Hall effect in p-type magnetic semiconductors is discussed, and the
relative role of side-jump and skew-scattering mechanisms assessed for
(Ga,Mn)As and (Zn,Mn)Te. It is emphasized that magnetotransport studies of
ferromagnetic semiconductors in high magnetic fields make it possible to
separate the contributions of the ordinary and anomalous Hall effects, to
evaluate the role of the spins in carrier scattering and localization as well
as to determine the participation ratio of the ferromagnetic phase near the
metal-insulator transition. A sizable negative magnetoresistance in the regime
of strong magnetic fields is assigned to the weak localization effect.


  We applied soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy to study the Ti L-edge in
ferroelectric capacitors using a modified total electron yield method. The
inner photo currents and the X-ray absorption spectra were polarization state
dependent. The results are explained on the basis of photo electric effects and
the inner potential in the ferroelectric capacitors as a result of back-to-back
Schottky barriers superimposed by the potential due to the depolarization
field. In general, the presented method offers the opportunity to investigate
the electronic structure of buried metal-insulator and metal-semiconductor
interfaces in thin film devices. Corresponding author:
<EMAIL_ADDRESS>


  An exploratory study of two-particle wave function is carried out with a four
dimensional simple model. The wave functions not only for two-particle ground
and first excited states but also for an unstable state are calculated from
three- and four-point functions using the diagonalization method suggested by
L\"uscher and Wolff. The scattering phase shift is evaluated from these wave
functions.


  Groote and Wijs recently described an algorithm for deciding stuttering
equivalence and branching bisimulation equivalence, acclaimed to run in
$\mathcal{O}(m \log n)$ time. Unfortunately, the algorithm does not always meet
the acclaimed running time. In this paper, we present two counterexamples where
the algorithms uses $\Omega(md)$ time. A third example shows that the
correction is not trivial. In order to analyse the problem we present
pseudocode of the algorithm, and indicate the time that can be spent on each
part of the algorithm in order to meet the desired bound. We also propose fixes
to the algorithm such that it indeed runs in $\mathcal{O}(m \log n)$ time.


  The main purpose of this paper is to give a generalization of
Dijkgraaf-Witten theory. Consider a morphism from a smash product of spectra
E,F to another spectrum G. We construct a TQFT for E-oriented manifolds using a
representative of an F-cohomology class of the classifying space of a finite
group. For the case that each of spectra E,F,G is given as the K-theory
spectrum KU, we further generalize our construction based on non-commutative
settings.


  We examine four WTC 7 descent curves, labeled "C," "E," "N," and "O," either
anonymously published, or confidentially communicated to us. Descent curve
describes apparent height of a collapsing building as a function of time. The
set "C" suggests that there are three active phases of collapse. Phase I is a
free fall for the first $H_1\simeq28$m or $T_1\simeq2.3$s, during which the
acceleration $a$ is that of the gravity, $a=g=9.8$m/s$^2$. In Phase II, which
continues until drop $H_2\simeq68$m, or $T_2\simeq3.8$s, the acceleration is
$a\simeq5$m/s$^2$, while in Phase III which continues for the remaining of the
data set, $a \simeq -1$m/s$^2$. We propose that the collapse of WTC 7 is
initiated by a total and sudden annihilation of the base (section of the
building from the ground level to $H_1$), which then allows the top section
(building above $H_1$) to free fall during Phase I, and then collide with the
ground in Phase II and III. The total duration of the collapse, assuming that
Phase III continues to the end, is in the range $7.8-8.6$s. We derive a
physical model for collision of the building with the ground, in which we
correct the "crush-up" model of Ba\v{z}ant and Verdure, J. Engr. Mech. ASCE,
{\bf 133} (2006) 308, and estimate the magnitude of the resistive force in the
top section. We compare our findings to those of NIST investigators and find an
agreement with respect to the distribution of damage in the primary zone. We
conclude that the building was destroyed in a highly controlled fashion.


  We show that for every $0 < \epsilon \leq 1$ and integer $k\geq 1$, there
exists an integer $n = n(\epsilon,k)$ so that for all primes $p$, and integers
$0 \leq a \leq p-1$, there exist integers $1 \leq x_1 < ... < x_n \leq
p^\epsilon$ such that $a \equiv x_1^{-1} + ... + x_n^{-1} \pmod{p}$. This
extends a result of I. Shparlinski.


  Under non-commutative Stone duality, there is a correspondence between second
countable Hausdorff \'etale groupoids which have a Cantor space of identities
and what we call Tarski inverse monoids: that is, countable Boolean inverse
$\wedge$-monoids with semilattices of idempotents which are countable and
atomless. Tarski inverse monoids are therefore the algebraic counterparts of
the \'etale groupoids studied by Matui and provide a natural setting for many
of his calculations. Under this duality, we prove that natural properties of
the \'etale groupoid correspond to natural algebraic properties of the Tarski
inverse monoid: effective groupoids correspond to fundamental Tarski inverse
monoids and minimal groupoids correspond to $0$-simplifying Tarski inverse
monoids. Particularly interesting are the principal groupoids which correspond
to Tarski inverse monoids where every element is a finite join of
infinitesimals and idempotents. Here an infinitesimal is simply a non-zero
element with square zero. Such inverse monoids are natural infinite
generalizations of finite symmetric inverse monoids. The groups of units of
fundamental Tarski inverse monoids generalize the finite symmetric groups and
include amongst their number the Thompson groups $G_{n,1}$ as well as the
groups of units of what we term AF inverse monoids, Krieger's ample groups
being examples. We characterize such groups as subgroups of particular kinds of
the group of homeomorphisms of the Cantor space.


  We review the projective-superspace construction of four-dimensional N=2
supersymmetric sigma models on (co)tangent bundles of the classical Hermitian
symmetric spaces.


  We report on a study of the decay B0bar -> D*+ omega pi- with the BABAR
detector at the PEP-II B-factory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Based on a sample of 232 million BBbar decays, we measure the branching
fraction BF(B0bar -> D*+ omega pi-) = (2.88 +/- 0.21(stat.) +/- 0.31(syst.))
\times 10^{-3}. We study the invariant mass spectrum of the omega pi- system in
this decay. This spectrum is in good agreement with expectations based on
factorization and the measured spectrum in tau- -> omega pi- nu_tau. We also
measure the polarization of the D*+ as a function of the omega pi- mass. In the
mass region 1.1 to 1.9 GeV we measure the fraction of longitudinal polarization
of the D*+ to be Gamma_L/Gamma = 0.654 +/- 0.042(stat.) +/- 0.016(syst.). This
is in agreement with the expectations from heavy-quark effective theory and
factorization assuming that the decay proceeds as B0bar -> D*+ rho(1450),
rho(1450) -> omega pi-.


  We consider the optimization problem of seeding a spreading process on a
temporal network so that the expected size of the resulting outbreak is
maximized. We frame the problem for a spreading process following the rules of
the susceptible-infected-recovered model with temporal scale equal to the one
characterizing the evolution of the network topology. We perform a systematic
analysis based on a corpus of 12 real-world temporal networks and quantify the
performance of solutions to the influence maximization problem obtained using
different level of information about network topology and dynamics. We find
that having perfect knowledge of the network topology but in a static and/or
aggregated form is not helpful in solving the influence maximization problem
effectively. Knowledge, even if partial, of the early stages of the network
dynamics appears instead essential for the identification of quasioptimal sets
of influential spreaders.


  With the help of a unified description of the nuclear structure and of the
direct reaction mechanism we show that a recent 1H(11Li,9Li)3H experiment
provides, for the first time in nuclear physics, direct evidence of phonon
mediated pairing.


  The main purpose of this paper is to provide a solution of the consistent
fuzzy linear system and a generalized solution of the inconsistent fuzzy linear
system involving the core-EP inverse of an associated matrix. Before this can
be achieved, it is necessary to study the block structure of the core-EP
inverse. Finally, results are illustrated with some numerical examples.


  In this paper, we deform a uniquely-extremal Beltrami differential into
different non-decreasable Beltrami differentials, and then construct non-unique
extremal Beltrami differentials such that they are both non-landslide and
non-decreasable.


  Path Integral Control methods were developed for stochastic optimal control
covering a wide class of finite horizon formulations with control affine
nonlinear dynamics. Characteristic for this class is that the HJB equation is
linear and consequently the value function can be expressed as a conditional
expectation of the exponentially weighted cost-to-go evaluated over
trajectories with uncontrolled system dynamics, hence the name. Subsequently it
was shown that under the same assumptions Path Integral Control generalises to
finite horizon risk sensitive stochastic optimal control problems. Here we
study whether the HJB of infinite horizon formulations can be made linear as
well. Our interest in infinite horizon formulations is motivated by the
stationarity of the associated value function and their inherent dynamic
stability seeking nature. Technically a stationary value function may ease the
solution of the associated linear HJB. Second we argue this may offer an
interesting starting point for off-linear Reinforcement Learning applications.
We show formally that the discounted and average cost formulations are
respectively intractable and tractable.


  Current radio systems are currently optimized for capacity and range.
However, certain applications of wireless systems require fast and reliable
communication over short distances. The challenge of these systems is to
communicate with a minimum time delay (latency) while at the same time being
very reliable and resilient to interference. This paper describes the concept
and the proposed abstract architecture of a wireless technology that allows
highly reliable and ultra low latency transmission of data between moving units
over a few meters, the applications of which can be found in multitude of
domains such as Train Communicaion Networks (TCNs), Truck/Tractor - Trailer
Communication, Platooning, and in smart industry in the form of co-ordinating
machines. The paper also describes the set of novelties that were planned to be
realized as part of the final demo hardware


  An overview is presented of the main properties of the interstellar medium.
Evidence is summarized that the interstellar medium is highly turbulent, driven
on different length scales by various energetic processes. Large-scale
turbulence determines the formation of structures like filaments and shells in
the diffuse interstellar medium. It also regulates the formation of dense, cold
molecular clouds. Molecular clouds are now believed to be transient objects
that form on timescales of order 1e7 yrs in regions where HI gas is compressed
and cools. Supersonic turbulence in the compressed HI slab is generated by a
combination of hydrodynamical instabilities, coupled with cooling. Turbulent
dissipation is compensated by the kinetic energy input of the inflow. Molecular
hydrogen eventually forms when the surface density in the slab reaches a
threshold value of 1e21 cm^-2 at which point further cooling triggers the onset
of star formation by gravitational collapse. A few Myrs later, the newly formed
stars and resulting supernovae will disperse their molecular surrounding and
generate new expanding shells that drive again turbulence in the diffuse gas
and trigger the formation of a next generation of cold clouds. Although a
consistent scenario of interstellar medium dynamics and star formation is
emerging many details are still unclear and require more detailed work on
microphysical processes as well as a better understanding of supersonic,
compressible turbulence.


  Finite valued constraint satisfaction problems are a formalism for describing
many natural optimization problems, where constraints on the values that
variables can take come with rational weights and the aim is to find an
assignment of minimal cost. Thapper and Zivny have recently established a
complexity dichotomy for finite valued constraint languages. They show that
each such language either gives rise to a polynomial-time solvable optimization
problem, or to an NP-hard one, and establish a criterion to distinguish the two
cases. We refine the dichotomy by showing that all optimization problems in the
first class are definable in fixed-point language with counting, while all
languages in the second class are not definable, even in infinitary logic with
counting. Our definability dichotomy is not conditional on any
complexity-theoretic assumption.


  LEP and SLC provide accurate data on the process (e^+e^- -> f bar f) at the Z
resonance. The GigaZ option at a future linear e^+e^- collider (ILC) will
further improve these measurements. As a consequence, theory predictions with
sufficiently smaller errors are necessary in order to fully exploit the
experimental accuracies and to derive indirect bounds on the scales of new
physics. Here we review the currently most accurate predictions of the Z pole
observables (e.g. sin^2 theta_eff, Gamma_Z, sigma^0_had) in the context of the
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). These predictions contain the
complete one-loop results including the full complex phase dependence, all
available MSSM two-loop corrections, as well as all relevant Standard Model
contributions.


  For the classification of rotating compact stars with two high density phases
a phase diagram in the angular velocity (Omega) - baryon number (N) plane is
investigated. The dividing line N_crit(Omega) between configurations with one
and two phases is correlated to a local maximum of the moment of inertia and
can thus be subject to experimental verification by observation of the
rotational behavior of accreting compact stars. Another characteristic line,
which also can be measured is the transition line to black holes that of the
maximum mass configurations. The positions and the shape of these lines are
sensitive to changes in the equation of state (EoS) of stellar matter. A
comparison of the regional structure of phase diagrams is performed for
polytropic and relativistic mean field type EoS and correlations between the
topology of the transition lines and the properties of two-phase EoS are
obtained. Different scenarios of compact star evolution are discussed as
trajectories in the phase diagram. It is shown that a population gap in the
Omega - N plane for accreting compact stars would signal a high density phase
transition and could be observed in the distribution of so called Z sources of
quasi periodic oscillations in low-mass X-ray binaries.


  We present results of a new study of peculiar motions of 7 clusters in the
Perseus-Pisces (PP) region, using the Fundamental Plane as a distance
indicator. The sample is calibrated by reference to 9 additional clusters with
data from the literature. Careful attention is paid to the matching of
spectroscopic and photometric data from several sources. For six clusters in
the PP supercluster no significant peculiar motions are detected. For these
clusters we derive a bulk motion of 60 +/- 220 km/s, in the CMB frame, directed
towards the Local Group. This non-detection is in marginal conflict with
previous Tully-Fisher studies. Two clusters in the background of the
supercluster exhibit significant negative peculiar velocities, characteristic
of backside infall into PP. A bulk-flow fit to all 16 clusters reveals a
statistically insignificant motion of 430 +/- 280 km/s towards l=265, b=26 (CMB
frame). Comparison with the velocity field predicted from the IRAS 1.2Jy survey
yields \beta = 1.0 +/- 0.5. We find no evidence for residual bulk motions
generated by mass concentrations beyond the limiting depth of the IRAS density
field.


  We calculate the equation of state of the Gross-Neveu model in 2+1 dimensions
at order 1/N, where N is the number of fermion species. We make use of a
general formula valid for four-fermion theories, previously applied to the
model in 1+1 dimensions. We consider both the discrete and continuous symmetry
versions of the model. We show that the pion-like excitations give the dominant
contribution at low temperatures. The range of validity for such pion dominance
is analyzed. The complete analysis from low to high temperatures also shows
that in the critical region the role of composite states is relevant, even for
quite large N, and that the free-component behaviour at high T starts at about
twice the mean field critical temperature.


  This paper joins some concepts from Mechanics, Partial Differential Equations
and Control Theory in order to solve bi-time optimization problems related to
stress tensor in plastic deformations. The main goal is to analyze some optimal
control problems constrained by the equilibrium equations of the stress tensor
in perfect plastic plane medium. As consequence of this approach, a natural
split of the constraints arises, leading to integrability conditions and
changes a classical variational problem into an optimal control one. The final
outcomes confirm all the expectations related to the physical features of
plastic deformations phenomenon.


  We present a geometric investigation of curious dynamical behaviors
previously reported in Kuramoto models with two sub-populations. Our study
demonstrates that chimeras and traveling waves in such models are associated
with the birth of geometric phase. Although manifestations of geometric phase
are frequent in various fields of Physics, this is the first time (to our best
knowledge) that such a phenomenon is exposed in ensembles of Kuramoto
oscillators or, more broadly, in complex systems.


  Physical properties of alloys are compared as computed from ``direct'' and
``inverse'' procedures. The direct procedure involves Monte Carlo simulations
of a set of local density approximation (LDA)-derived pair and multibody
interactions {\nu_f}, generating short-range order (SRO), ground states, order-
disorder transition temperatures, and structural energy differences. The
inverse procedure involves ``inverting'' the SRO generated from {\nu_f} via
inverse-Monte-Carlo to obtain a set of pair only interactions {\tilde{\nu}_f}.
The physical properties generated from {\tilde{\nu}_f} are then compared with
those from {\nu_f}. We find that (i) inversion of the SRO is possible (even
when {\nu_f} contains multibody interactions but {\tilde{\nu}_f} does not) but,
(ii) the resulting interactions {\tilde{\nu}_f} agree with the input
interactions {\nu_f} only when the problem is dominated by pair interactions.
Otherwise, {\tilde{\nu}_f} are very different from {\nu_f}. (iii) The same SRO
pattern can be produced by drastically different sets {\nu_f}. Thus, the
effective interactions deduced from inverting SRO are not unique. (iv)
Inverting SRO always misses configuration-independent (but composition-
dependent) energies such as the volume deformation energy G(x); consequently,
the ensuing {\tilde{\nu}_f} cannot be used to describe formation enthalpies or
two-phase regions of the phase diagram, which depend on G(x).


  The development of new techniques such as the molecular beam epitaxy have
enabled the growth of thin films of materials presenting novel properties.
Recently it was made possible to grow a CrAs thin-film in the zinc-blende
structure. In this contribution, the full-potential screened KKR method is used
to study the electronic and magnetic properties of bulk CrAs in this novel
phase as well as the Cr and As terminated (001) surfaces. Bulk CrAs is found to
be half-ferromagnetic for all three GaAs, AlAs and InAs experimental lattice
constants with a total spin magnetic moment of 3 $\mu_B$. The Cr-terminated
surface retains the half-ferromagnetic character of the bulk, while in the case
of the As-termination the surface states destroy the gap in the minority-spin
band.


  In this paper, we present a novel and new file-based communication
architecture using the local filesystem for large scale parallelization. This
new approach eliminates the issues with filesystem overload and resource
contention when using the central filesystem for large parallel jobs. The new
approach incurs additional overhead due to inter-node message file transfers
when both the sending and receiving processes are not on the same node.
However, even with this additional overhead cost, its benefits are far greater
for the overall cluster operation in addition to the performance enhancement in
message communications for large scale parallel jobs. For example, when running
a 2048-process parallel job, it achieved about 34 times better performance with
MPI_Bcast() when using the local filesystem. Furthermore, since the security
for transferring message files is handled entirely by using the secure copy
protocol (scp) and the file system permissions, no additional security measures
or ports are required other than those that are typically required on an HPC
system.


  In this paper, we study the distribution of the digital reverses of prime
numbers, which we call the "reversed primes". We prove the infinitude of
reversed primes in any arithmetic progression satisfying straightforward
necessary conditions provided the base is sufficiently large. We indeed prove
an effective Siegel--Walfisz type result for reversed primes, which has a
larger admissible level of modulus than the classical case.


  Trade-off is one of the main design parameters in the field of electronic
circuit design. Whereas smaller electronics devices which use less hardware due
to techniques like hardware multiplexing or due to smaller devices created due
to techniques developed by nanotechnology and MEMS, are more appealing, a
trade-off between area, power and speed is inevitable. This paper analyses the
trade-off in the design of WiMAX deinterleaver. The main aim is to reduce the
hardware utilization in a deinterleaver but speed and power consumption are
important parameters which cannot be overlooked.


  We classify all positive integers n and r such that (stably) non-rational
complex r-fold quadric bundles over rational n-folds exist. We show in
particular that for any n and r, a wide class of smooth r-fold quadric bundles
over projective n-space are not stably rational if r lies in the interval from
$2^{n-1}-1$ to $2^{n}-2$. In our proofs we introduce a generalization of the
specialization method of Voisin and Colliot-Th\'el\`ene--Pirutka which avoids
universally $CH_0$-trivial resolutions of singularities.


  Umbral calculus can be viewed as an abstract theory of the Heisenberg
commutation relation $[\hat P,\hat M]=1$. In ordinary quantum mechanics $\hat
P$ is the derivative and $\hat M$ the coordinate operator. Here we shall
realize $\hat P$ as a second order differential operator and $\hat M$ as a
first order integral one. We show that this makes it possible to solve large
classes of differential and integro-differential equations and to introduce new
classes of orthogonal polynomials, related to Laguerre polynomials. These
polynomials are particularly well suited for describing so called flatenned
beams in laser theory


  We give an algorithm which calculates the generating function of the
cocharacter sequence of the polynomial identities of the algebra of upper block
triangular (p+2q) x (p+2q) matrices over a field of characteristic zero with
diagonal consisting of p copies of 1 x 1 and q copies of 2 x 2 matrices. We
have found the explicit form of the multiplicities and their asymptotic
behaviour for small values of p and q.


  In this paper, we present MusPy, an open source Python library for symbolic
music generation. MusPy provides easy-to-use tools for essential components in
a music generation system, including dataset management, data I/O, data
preprocessing and model evaluation. In order to showcase its potential, we
present statistical analysis of the eleven datasets currently supported by
MusPy. Moreover, we conduct a cross-dataset generalizability experiment by
training an autoregressive model on each dataset and measuring held-out
likelihood on the others---a process which is made easier by MusPy's dataset
management system. The results provide a map of domain overlap between various
commonly used datasets and show that some datasets contain more representative
cross-genre samples than others. Along with the dataset analysis, these results
might serve as a guide for choosing datasets in future research. Source code
and documentation are available at https://github.com/salu133445/muspy .


  The two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) experimental setup is popular in the
visual perception literature, where practitioners aim to understand how human
observers perceive distances within triplets that consist of a reference image
and two distorted versions of that image. In the past, this had been conducted
in controlled environments, with a tournament-style algorithm dictating which
images are shown to each participant to rank the distorted images. Recently,
crowd-sourced perceptual datasets have emerged, with no images shared between
triplets, making ranking impossible. Evaluating perceptual distances using this
data is non-trivial, relying on reducing the collection of judgements on a
triplet to a binary decision -- which is suboptimal and prone to misleading
conclusions. Instead, we statistically model the underlying decision-making
process during 2AFC experiments using a binomial distribution. We use maximum
likelihood estimation to fit a distribution to the perceptual judgements,
conditioned on the perceptual distance to test and impose consistency and
smoothness between our empirical estimates of the density. This way, we can
evaluate a different number of judgements per triplet, and can calculate
metrics such as likelihoods of judgements according to a set of distances --
key ingredients that neural network counterparts lack.


  With the development of artificial intelligence technology, Federated
Learning (FL) model has been widely used in many industries for its high
efficiency and confidentiality. Some researchers have explored its
confidentiality and designed some algorithms to attack training data sets, but
these algorithms all have their own limitations. Therefore, most people still
believe that local machine learning gradient information is safe and reliable.
In this paper, an algorithm based on gradient features is designed to attack
the federated learning model in order to attract more attention to the security
of federated learning systems. In federated learning system, gradient contains
little information compared with the original training data set, but this
project intends to restore the original training image data through gradient
information. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has excellent performance in
image processing. Therefore, the federated learning model of this project is
equipped with Convolutional Neural Network structure, and the model is trained
by using image data sets. The algorithm calculates the virtual gradient by
generating virtual image labels. Then the virtual gradient is matched with the
real gradient to restore the original image. This attack algorithm is written
in Python language, uses cat and dog classification Kaggle data sets, and
gradually extends from the full connection layer to the convolution layer, thus
improving the universality. At present, the average squared error between the
data recovered by this algorithm and the original image information is
approximately 5, and the vast majority of images can be completely restored
according to the gradient information given, indicating that the gradient of
federated learning system is not absolutely safe and reliable.


  Interpreting the predictions of existing Question Answering (QA) models is
critical to many real-world intelligent applications, such as QA systems for
healthcare, education, and finance. However, existing QA models lack
interpretability and provide no feedback or explanation for end-users to help
them understand why a specific prediction is the answer to a question. In this
research, we argue that the evidences of an answer is critical to enhancing the
interpretability of QA models. Unlike previous research that simply extracts
several sentence(s) in the context as evidence, we are the first to explicitly
define the concept of evidence as the supporting facts in a context which are
informative, concise, and readable. Besides, we provide effective strategies to
quantitatively measure the informativeness, conciseness and readability of
evidence. Furthermore, we propose Grow-and-Clip Evidence Distillation (GCED)
algorithm to extract evidences from the contexts by trade-off informativeness,
conciseness, and readability. We conduct extensive experiments on the SQuAD and
TriviaQA datasets with several baseline models to evaluate the effect of GCED
on interpreting answers to questions. Human evaluation are also carried out to
check the quality of distilled evidences. Experimental results show that
automatic distilled evidences have human-like informativeness, conciseness and
readability, which can enhance the interpretability of the answers to
questions.


  In the last three decades, we have seen a significant increase in trading
goods and services through online auctions. However, this business created an
attractive environment for malicious moneymakers who can commit different types
of fraud activities, such as Shill Bidding (SB). The latter is predominant
across many auctions but this type of fraud is difficult to detect due to its
similarity to normal bidding behaviour. The unavailability of SB datasets makes
the development of SB detection and classification models burdensome.
Furthermore, to implement efficient SB detection models, we should produce SB
data from actual auctions of commercial sites. In this study, we first scraped
a large number of eBay auctions of a popular product. After preprocessing the
raw auction data, we build a high-quality SB dataset based on the most reliable
SB strategies. The aim of our research is to share the preprocessed auction
dataset as well as the SB training (unlabelled) dataset, thereby researchers
can apply various machine learning techniques by using authentic data of
auctions and fraud.


  During the last decade bike sharing systems have emerged as a public
transport mode in urban short trips in more than 500 major cities around the
world. For the mobility service mode, many challenges from its operations are
not well addressed yet, for example, how to develop the bike sharing systems to
be able to effectively satisfy the fluctuating demands both for bikes and for
vacant lockers. To this end, it is a key to give performance analysis of the
bike sharing systems. This paper first describes a large-scale bike sharing
system. Then the bike sharing system is abstracted as a closed queueing network
with multi-class customers, where the virtual customers and the virtual nodes
are set up, and the service rates as well as the relative arrival rates are
established. Finally, this paper gives a product-form solution to the steady
state joint probabilities of queue lengths, and gives performance analysis of
the bike sharing system. Therefore, this paper provides a unified framework for
analyzing closed queueing networks in the study of bike sharing systems. We
hope the methodology and results of this paper can be applicable in the study
of more general bike sharing systems.


  In this paper we study the stabilization problem of a general class of
slow-fast systems with one fast and arbitrarily many slow states. Moreover, the
class of systems under study is slowly actuated, meaning that only the slow
states are subject to the action of a controller. Furthermore, we are
particularly interested in the case where normal hyperbolicity is lost. We show
that by using the Geometric Desingularization method, it is possible to design
controllers to locally stabilize non-hyperbolic points of any finite
degeneracy. The main novelty of this paper is that, unlike previous research on
the topic, we make use of more than one chart of the blow up space to enhance
the region of attraction of the operating point. A couple of numerical examples
highlight our contribution.


  We present FourierMask, which employs Fourier series combined with implicit
neural representations to generate instance segmentation masks. We apply a
Fourier mapping (FM) to the coordinate locations and utilize the mapped
features as inputs to an implicit representation (coordinate-based multi-layer
perceptron (MLP)). FourierMask learns to predict the coefficients of the FM for
a particular instance, and therefore adapts the FM to a specific object. This
allows FourierMask to be generalized to predict instance segmentation masks
from natural images. Since implicit functions are continuous in the domain of
input coordinates, we illustrate that by sub-sampling the input pixel
coordinates, we can generate higher resolution masks during inference.
Furthermore, we train a renderer MLP (FourierRend) on the uncertain predictions
of FourierMask and illustrate that it significantly improves the quality of the
masks. FourierMask shows competitive results on the MS COCO dataset compared to
the baseline Mask R-CNN at the same output resolution and surpasses it on
higher resolution.


  Self-supervised learning has enabled significant improvements on natural
image benchmarks. However, there is less work in the medical imaging domain in
this area. The optimal models have not yet been determined among the various
options. Moreover, little work has evaluated the current applicability limits
of novel self-supervised methods. In this paper, we evaluate a range of current
contrastive self-supervised methods on out-of-distribution generalization in
order to evaluate their applicability to medical imaging. We show that
self-supervised models are not as robust as expected based on their results in
natural imaging benchmarks and can be outperformed by supervised learning with
dropout. We also show that this behavior can be countered with extensive
augmentation. Our results highlight the need for out-of-distribution
generalization standards and benchmarks to adopt the self-supervised methods in
the medical imaging community.


  The mean area of two-dimensional unpressurised vesicles, or self-avoiding
loops of fixed length $N$, behaves for large $N$ as $A_0 N^{3/2}$, while their
mean square radius of gyration behaves as $R^2_0 N^{3/2}$. The amplitude ratio
$A_0/R_0^2$ is computed exactly and found to equal $4\pi/5$. The physics of the
pressurised case, both in the inflated and collapsed phases, may be usefully
related to that of a complex O(n) field theory coupled to a U(1) gauge field,
in the limit $n \to 0$.


  The future of ground based gamma ray astronomy lies in large arrays of
Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT) with better capabilities: lower
energy threshold, higher sensitivity, better resolution and background
rejection. Currently, designs for the next generation of IACT arrays are being
explored by various groups. We have studied possible configurations with a
large number of telescopes of various sizes. Here, we present the precision of
source, shower core and energy reconstruction for gamma rays in the GeV-TeV
range for different altitudes of observation. These results were obtained
through tools that we have developed in order to simulate any type of IACT
configuration and evaluate its performance.


  Motivated by the study of heavy-light meson production within the framework
of heavy quark effective theory (HQET) factorization, we extend the
factorization formalism for a rather complicated process $W^+\to
B^+\ell^+\ell^-$ in the limit of a non-zero invariant squared-mass of dilepton,
$q^2$, at the lowest order in $1/m_b$ up to $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$. The
purpose of the current study is to extend the HQET factorization formula for
the $W^+\to B^+\ell^+\ell^-$ process and subsequently compute the form factors
for this channel up to next-to-leading-order corrections in $\alpha_s$. We
explicitly show the amplitude of the $W^+\to B^+\ell^+\ell^-$ process can also
be factorized into a convolution between the perturbatively calculable
hard-scattering kernel and the non-perturbative yet universal light-cone
distribution amplitude (LCDA) defined in HQET. The validity of HQET
factorization depends on the assumed scale hierarchy $m_W \sim m_b \gg
\Lambda_{\mathrm{QCD}}$. Within the HQET framework, we evaluate the form
factors associated with the $W^+ \rightarrow B^+\ell^+\ell^-$ process,
providing insights into its phenomenology. In addition, we also perform an
exploratory phenomenological study on $W^+ \rightarrow B^+\ell^+\ell^-$ by
employing an exponential model for the LCDAs for $B^+$ meson. Our findings
reveal that the branching ratio for $W^+ \rightarrow B^+\ell^+\ell^-$ is below
$10^{-10}$. Although the branching ratios are small, this channel in high
luminosity LHC experiments may serve to further constraints the value of
$\lambda_B$.


  Nowadays, autonomous taxis become a highly promising transportation mode,
which helps relieve traffic congestion and avoid road accidents. However, it
hinders the wide implementation of this service that traditional models fail to
efficiently allocate the available fleet to deal with the imbalance of supply
(autonomous taxis) and demand (trips), the poor cooperation of taxis, hardly
satisfied resource constraints, and on-line platform's requirements. To figure
out such urgent problems from a global and more farsighted view, we employ a
Constrained Multi-agent Markov Decision Processes (CMMDP) to model fleet
allocation decisions, which can be easily split into sub-problems formulated as
a 'Dynamic assignment problem' combining both immediate rewards and future
gains. We also leverage a Column Generation algorithm to guarantee the
efficiency and optimality in a large scale. Through extensive experiments, the
proposed approach not only achieves remarkable improvements over the
state-of-the-art benchmarks in terms of the individual's efficiency (arriving
at 12.40%, 6.54% rise of income and utilization, respectively) and the
platform's profit (reaching 4.59% promotion) but also reveals a time-varying
fleet adjustment policy to minimize the operation cost of the platform.


  We show that the resistivity perpendicular $\rho_c$ and parallel $\rho_a$ to
the basal planes of different graphite samples show similar
magnetic-field-driven metal-insulator-transitions at a field $B_c \sim 0.1 T$
applied parallel to the c-axis. Our results demonstrate the universality of the
recently found scaling in $\rho_a$ of graphite and indicate that the
metallic-like temperature dependence of $\rho_c$ is directly correlated to that
of $\rho_a$. The similar magnetoresistance found for both resistivities, the
violation of Kohler's rule and the field-induced transition indicate that the
semiclassical transport theory is inadecuate to understand the transport
properties of graphite.


  The detection of olivine on Vesta is interesting because it may provide
critical insights into planetary differentiation early in our Solar System's
history. Ground-based and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of asteroid
(4) Vesta have suggested the presence of olivine on the surface. These
observations were reinforced by the discovery of olivine-rich HED meteorites
from Vesta in recent years. However, analysis of data from NASA's Dawn
spacecraft has shown that this olivine-bearing unit is actually impact melt in
the ejecta of Oppia crater. The lack of widespread mantle olivine, exposed
during the formation of the 19 km deep Rheasilvia basin on Vesta's South Pole,
further complicated this picture. Ammannito et al., (2013a) reported the
discovery of local scale olivine-rich units in the form of excavated material
from the mantle using the Visible and InfraRed spectrometer (VIR) on Dawn. Here
we explore alternative sources for the olivine in the northern hemisphere of
Vesta by reanalyzing the data from the VIR instrument using laboratory spectral
measurements of meteorites. We suggest that these olivine exposures could be
explained by the delivery of olivine-rich exogenic material. Based on our
spectral band parameters analysis, the lack of correlation between the location
of these olivine-rich terrains and possible mantle-excavating events, and
supported by observations of HED meteorites, we propose that a probable source
for olivine seen in the northern hemisphere are remnants of impactors made of
olivine-rich meteorites. Best match suggests these units are HED material mixed
with either ordinary chondrites, or with some olivine-dominated meteorites such
as R-chondrites.


  Radio and near-infrared observations have observed dozens of protoplanetary
disks that host spiral arm features. Numerical simulations have shown that
companions may excite spiral density waves in protoplanetary disks via
companion-disk interaction. However, the lack of direct observational evidence
for spiral-driving companions poses challenges to current theories of
companion-disk interaction. Here we report multi-epoch observations of the
binary system HD 100453 with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet
REsearch (SPHERE) facility at the Very Large Telescope. By recovering the
spiral features via robustly removing starlight contamination, we measure
spiral motion across 4 yr to perform dynamical motion analyses. The spiral
pattern motion is consistent with the orbital motion of the eccentric
companion. With this first observational evidence of a companion driving a
spiral arm among protoplanetary disks, we directly and dynamically confirm the
long-standing theory on the origin of spiral features in protoplanetary disks.
With the pattern motion of companion-driven spirals being independent of
companion mass, here we establish a feasible way of searching for hidden
spiral-arm-driving planets that are beyond the detection of existing
ground-based high-contrast imagers.


  The influence of the isoscalar and isovector L=0 pairing components of the
effective nucleon-nucleon interaction is evaluated for several isobaric chains,
in the framework of full pf shell model calculations. We show that the combined
effect of both isospin channels of the pairing force is responsible for the
appearance of T=1 ground states in N=Z odd-odd nuclei. However, no evidence is
found relating them to the Wigner energy. We study the dependence of their
contributions to the total energy on the rotational frecuency in the deformed
nucleus 48Cr. Both decrease with increasing angular momentum and go to zero at
the band termination. Below the backbending their net effect is a reduction of
the moment of inertia, more than half of which comes from the proton-neutron
channel.


  We discuss a non-perturbative, technically straightforward, easy-to-use, and
computationally affordable method, based on polarization theory, for the
calculation of the electronic dielectric constant of insulating solids at the
first principles level. We apply the method to GaAs, AlAs, InN, SiC, ZnO, GaN,
AlN, BeO, LiF, PbTiO$_3$, and CaTiO$_3$. The predicted $\einf$'s agree well
with those given by Density Functional Perturbation Theory (the reference
theoretical treatment), and they are generally within less than 10 % of
experiment.


  Current end-to-end retrieval-based dialogue systems are mainly based on
Recurrent Neural Networks or Transformers with attention mechanisms. Although
promising results have been achieved, these models often suffer from slow
inference or huge number of parameters. In this paper, we propose a novel
lightweight fully convolutional architecture, called DialogConv, for response
selection. DialogConv is exclusively built on top of convolution to extract
matching features of context and response. Dialogues are modeled in 3D views,
where DialogConv performs convolution operations on embedding view, word view
and utterance view to capture richer semantic information from multiple
contextual views. On the four benchmark datasets, compared with
state-of-the-art baselines, DialogConv is on average about 8.5x smaller in
size, and 79.39x and 10.64x faster on CPU and GPU devices, respectively. At the
same time, DialogConv achieves the competitive effectiveness of response
selection.


  A collection of the physical observables, related to the electromagnetic
properties of a nucleon, to investigate the non--perturbative quantum
fluctuations in the strong interaction vacuum state under the influence of at
least one close by (in energy density) color superconducting phase found in
several QCD motivated model calculations, are studied. It is shown that the
spontaneous breaking of the electromagnetic gauge symmetry in the color
superconducting phase of strong interaction can result in relatively clean
signals in high energy processes, especially in the semi-leptonic deep
inelastic scattering ones, due to a kind of electromagnetic induced strong
interaction. A new type of mechanism, which is a generalization of the Higgs
one, through which the local electromagnetic gauge symmetry is spontaneously
broken by a spontaneous breaking of the global baryon (nucleon) number
conservation, is revealed. A model independent assessment of the question of
how far is the color superconducting phase of the strong interaction from its
vacuum phase is made by studying currently available experimental data on the
electromagnetic responses of a nucleon at high energies. It is shown that based
on our current knowledge about a nucleon, it is quite likely that there is at
least one color superconducting phase for the strong interaction that is close
enough to the vacuum state so that its effects can even be seen in high energy
processes besides heavy ion collisions.


  The (A)CGW categories of Campbell and Zakharevich show how finite sets and
varieties behave like the objects of an exact category for the purpose of
algebraic $K$-theory. We further develop that program by defining chain
complexes and quasi-isomorphisms for any category with suitably nice
coproducts. In particular, chain complexes of finite sets satisfy an analogue
of the Gillet--Waldhausen Theorem: their $K$-theory agrees with the classical
$K$-theory of finite sets. Along the way, we define new double categorical
structures that modify those of Campbell and Zakharevich to include the data of
weak equivalences. These ECGW categories produce $K$-theory spectra which
satisfy analogues of the Additivity and Fibration Theorems. The weak
equivalences are determined by a subcategory of acyclic objects satisfying
minimal conditions, resulting in a Localization Theorem that generalizes
previous versions in the literature.


  The discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method is widely being used to solve
hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) due to its ability to provide
high-order accurate solutions in complex geometries, capture discontinuities,
and exhibit high arithmetic intensity. However, the scalability of DG-based
solvers is impeded by communication bottlenecks arising from the data movement
and synchronization requirements at extreme scales. To address these
challenges, recent studies have focused on the development of asynchronous
computing approaches for PDE solvers. Herein, we introduce the asynchronous DG
(ADG) method, which combines the benefits of the DG method with asynchronous
computing to overcome communication bottlenecks. The ADG method relaxes the
need for data communication and synchronization at a mathematical level,
allowing processing elements to operate independently regardless of the
communication status, thus potentially improving the scalability of solvers.
The proposed ADG method ensures flux conservation and effectively addresses
challenges arising from asynchrony. To assess its stability, Fourier-mode
analysis is employed to examine the dissipation and dispersion behavior of
fully-discrete equations that use the DG and ADG schemes along with the
Runge-Kutta (RK) time integration scheme. Furthermore, an error analysis within
a statistical framework is presented, which demonstrates that the ADG method
with standard numerical fluxes achieves at most first-order accuracy. To
recover accuracy, we introduce asynchrony-tolerant (AT) fluxes that utilize
data from multiple time levels. Extensive numerical experiments were conducted
to validate the performance of the ADG-AT scheme for both linear and nonlinear
problems.


  Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has been widely studied in recent years,
it has emerged as a new technology which can reflect the incident signal by
intelligently configuring the reflection elements, thus changing the signal
propagation environment, enhancing the signals users desire and suppressing the
interference between users. In this paper, we study an IRS aided multi-users
wireless communication where the base station (BS) sends a variety of signals,
each user receives desired signals. In order to guarantee the fairness of
wireless communications, we need to maximize the minimum rates of users,
subject to the power constraint of BS and the phase constraint of IRS. Prior
works on IRS mainly consider optimizing BS beamforming and IRS passive
beamforming, this paper also aims to optimize the IRS location. The considered
problem is shown to be non-convex, we decompose the problem into two
subproblems, transforming the two subproblems into a lower bound problem and
using alternating optimization (AO) and successive convex approximation (SCA)
to solve them, respectively. Finally, the two subproblems are optimized
alternately to make the objective function value converge in an acceptable
range. Simulation results verify the convergence results of our proposed
algorithm, and the performance improvement compared with the benchmark scheme
in wireless communication system.


  The attention mechanisms are playing a boosting role in advancements in
sequence-to-sequence problems. Transformer architecture achieved new state of
the art results in machine translation, and it's variants are since being
introduced in several other sequence-to-sequence problems. Problems which
involve a shared vocabulary, can benefit from the similar semantic and
syntactic structure in the source and target sentences. With the motivation of
building a reliable and fast post-processing textual module to assist all the
text-related use cases in mobile phones, we take on the popular spell
correction problem. In this paper, we propose multi encoder-single decoder
variation of conventional transformer. Outputs from the three encoders with
character level 1-gram, 2-grams and 3-grams inputs are attended in hierarchical
fashion in the decoder. The context vectors from the encoders clubbed with
self-attention amplify the n-gram properties at the character level and helps
in accurate decoding. We demonstrate our model on spell correction dataset from
Samsung Research, and report significant improvement of 0.11\%, 0.32\% and
0.69\% in character (CER), word (WER) and sentence (SER) error rates from
existing state-of-the-art machine-translation architectures. Our architecture
is also trains ~7.8 times faster, and is only about 1/3 in size from the next
most accurate model.


  Primarily this paper presents an expository report on alternatives to the
traditional methods of classifying representations of finite dimensional
algebras. Some new results illustrating such alternatives for algebras with
only finitely many isomorphism types of uniserial modules are included.


  Cognitive theories of human language processing often distinguish between
concrete and abstract concepts. In this work, we analyze the discriminability
of concrete and abstract concepts in fMRI data using a range of analysis
methods. We find that the distinction can be decoded from the signal with an
accuracy significantly above chance, but it is not found to be a relevant
structuring factor in clustering and relational analyses. From our detailed
comparison, we obtain the impression that human concept representations are
more fluid than dichotomous categories can capture. We argue that fluid concept
representations lead to more realistic models of human language processing
because they better capture the ambiguity and underspecification present in
natural language use.