  This paper reviews some recent work on the properties of the outer halos of
galaxies. I particularly focus on recent and upcoming advances made with the
study of globular clusters. Globular clusters can be observed out to ~100 kpc
from the centers of galaxies, allowing the study of galactic halos well beyond
the regions probed by many other techniques such as observations of the
integrated light of galaxies. In the few well-studied cases to date, the study
of globular cluster systems has provided dynamical evidence for dark matter
halos around elliptical galaxies, and demonstrated kinematic differences
between different globular cluster populations that shed light on the formation
history of their host galaxies.


  Projective measurements of a single two-level quantum mechanical system (a
qubit) evolving under a time-independent Hamiltonian produce a probability
distribution that is periodic in the evolution time. The period of this
distribution is an important parameter in the Hamiltonian. Here, we explore how
to design experiments so as to minimize error in the estimation of this
parameter. While it has been shown that useful results may be obtained by
minimizing the risk incurred by each experiment, such an approach is
computationally intractable in general. Here, we motivate and derive heuristic
strategies for experiment design that enjoy the same exponential scaling as
fully optimized strategies. We then discuss generalizations to the case of
finite relaxation times, T_2 < \infty.


  Kernel learning forward backward SDE filter is an iterative and adaptive
meshfree approach to solve the nonlinear filtering problem. It builds from
forward backward SDE for Fokker-Planker equation, which defines evolving
density for the state variable, and employs KDE to approximate density. This
algorithm has shown more superior performance than mainstream particle filter
method, in both convergence speed and efficiency of solving high dimension
problems.
  However, this method has only been shown to converge empirically. In this
paper, we present a rigorous analysis to demonstrate its local and global
convergence, and provide theoretical support for its empirical results.


  We deal with the Brill-Noether problem for stable vector bundles of slope
between one and two.


  In this paper, some properties of multi-qubit states traveling in
non-inertial frames are investigated, where we assume that all particles are
accelerated. These properties are including fidelities, capacities and
entanglement of the accelerated channels for three different states, namely,
Greeberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, GHZ-like state and W-state. It is shown
here that all these properties are decreased as the accelerations of the moving
particles are increased. The obtained results show that the GHZ-state is the
most robust one comparing to the others, where the degradation rate is less
than that for the other states particularly in the second Rindler region. Also,
it is shown here that the entangled property doesn't change in the accelerated
frames. Additionally, the paper shows that the degree of entanglement decreases
as the accelerations of the particles increase in the first Rindler region.
However in the second region, where all subsystems are disconnected at zero
acceleration, entangled channels are generated as the acceleration increases.
Keywords: Multi-qubit states, Non-inertial frame, Fidelity, Capacity,
Entanglement, GHZ state, GHZ-like state, W-state.


  We use the dynamical mean field method to study a model of electrons
Jahn-Teller coupled to localized classical oscillators and ferromagnetically
coupled to ``core spins'', which, we argue, contains the essential physics of
the ``colossal magnetoresistance'' manganites $Re_{1-x} A_x MnO_3$. We
determine the different regimes of the model and present results for the
temperature and frequency dependence of the conductivity, the electron spectral
function and the root mean square lattice parameter fluctuations. We compare
our results to data, and give a qualitative discussion of important physics not
included in the calculation. Extensive use is made of results from a companion
paper titled: ``On the Fermi Liquid to Polaron Crossover I: General Results''.


  Decays of the fully beauty four-quark structures $X_{\mathrm{4b}}$ and $T_{
\mathrm{4b}}$ to $B$ meson pairs are investigated in the framework of QCD
three-point sum rule method. We model the scalar exotic mesons $X_{\mathrm{4b
}}$ and $T_{\mathrm{4b}}$ as diquark-antidiquark systems composed of the
axial-vector and pseudoscalar diquarks, respectively. The masses $m=(18540 \pm
50)~\mathrm{MeV}$ and $\widetilde{m}=(18858 \pm 50)~\mathrm{MeV}$ of these
compounds calculated in our previous articles, fix possible decay channels of
these particles. In the present work, we consider their decays to
$B_{q}\overline{B}_{q}$ and $B_{q}^{\ast }\overline{B}_{q}^{\ast } (q=u,d,s,c)$
mesons. In the case of $X_{\mathrm{4b}}$ the mass of which is below the
$2\eta_{b}$ threshold, these channels determine essential part of its full
width $\Gamma_{\mathrm{4b}}$. The tetraquark $T_{\mathrm{4b}}$ can decay to the
pair $\eta_{b}\eta_{b}$, therefore partial widths of processes with $B
(B^{\ast})$ mesons in the final state permit us to refine our estimate for the
full width of this particle. The predictions $\Gamma_{ \mathrm{4b}}=(9.6\pm
1.1)~\mathrm{MeV}$ and $\widetilde{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{4b} }^{\mathrm{Full}}=(144
\pm 29)~\mathrm{MeV}$ obtained in this article can be used in future
experimental investigations of four $b$-quark mesons.


  The inspiral and merger of black-hole binary systems are a promising source
of gravitational waves. The most effective method to look for a signal with a
well understood waveform, such as the binary black hole signal, is matched
filtering against a library of model waveforms. Current model waveforms are
comprised solely of the dominant radiation mode, the quadrupole mode, although
it is known that there can be significant power in the higher-order modes. The
binary black hole waveforms produced by numerical relativity are accurate
through late inspiral, merger, and ringdown and include the higher-order modes.
The available numerical-relativity waveforms span an increasing portion of the
physical parameter space of unequal mass, spin and precession. In this paper,
we investigate the degree to which gravitational-wave searches could be
improved by the inclusion of higher modes in the model waveforms, for signals
with a variety of initial mass ratios and generic spins. Our investigation
studies how well the quadrupole-only waveform model matches the signal as a
function of the inclination and orientation of the source and how the modes
contribute to the distance reach into the Universe of Advanced LIGO for a fixed
set of internal source parameters. The mismatch between signals and
quadrupole-only waveform can be large, dropping below 0.97 for up to 65% of the
source-sky for the non-precessing cases we studied, and over a larger area in
one precessing case. There is a corresponding 30% increase in detection volume
that could be achieved by adding higher modes to the search; however, this is
mitigated by the fact that the mismatch is largest for signals which radiate
the least energy and to which the search is therefore least sensitive.
Likewise, the mismatch is largest in directions from the source along which the
least energy is radiated.


  The field of quantum sensing explores the use of quantum phenomena to measure
a broad range of physical quantities, of both static and time-dependent types.
An important figure of merit for sensing time dependent signals is the spectral
resolution, i.e. the ability to resolve two different frequencies. Here we
study this problem, and develop new superresolution methods that rely on
quantum features. We first formulate a general criterion for superresolution in
quantum problems. Inspired by this, we show that quantum detectors can resolve
two frequencies from incoherent segments of the signal, irrespective of their
separation, in contrast to what is known about classical detection schemes. The
main idea behind these methods is to overcome the vanishing distinguishability
in resolution problems by nullifying the projection noise.


  Localizing objects in an unsupervised manner poses significant challenges due
to the absence of key visual information such as the appearance, type and
number of objects, as well as the lack of labeled object classes typically
available in supervised settings. While recent approaches to unsupervised
object localization have demonstrated significant progress by leveraging
self-supervised visual representations, they often require computationally
intensive training processes, resulting in high resource demands in terms of
computation, learnable parameters, and data. They also lack explicit modeling
of visual context, potentially limiting their accuracy in object localization.
To tackle these challenges, we propose a single-stage learning framework,
dubbed PEEKABOO, for unsupervised object localization by learning context-based
representations at both the pixel- and shape-level of the localized objects
through image masking. The key idea is to selectively hide parts of an image
and leverage the remaining image information to infer the location of objects
without explicit supervision. The experimental results, both quantitative and
qualitative, across various benchmark datasets, demonstrate the simplicity,
effectiveness and competitive performance of our approach compared to
state-of-the-art methods in both single object discovery and unsupervised
salient object detection tasks. Code and pre-trained models are available at:
https://github.com/hasibzunair/peekaboo


  We argue that there is no consistent quantisation of the two BPS SU(2)
magnetic monopole dynamical system compatible with the correspondence
principle.


  Our very-first high resolution spectra of SV Cen close binary system obtained
in the H alpha line reveal its absorption and emmision components, changing
with orbital phase. An accretion disk surrounding the component eclipsed at the
primary minimum is the most plausible explanation of this complex structure.


  As a classic parameter from the binomial distribution, the binomial
proportion has been well studied in the literature owing to its wide range of
applications. In contrast, the reciprocal of the binomial proportion, also
known as the inverse proportion, is often overlooked, even though it also plays
an important role in various fields including clinical studies and random
sampling. The maximum likelihood estimator of the inverse proportion suffers
from the zero-event problem, and to overcome it, alternative methods have been
developed in the literature. Nevertheless, there is little work addressing the
optimality of the existing estimators, as well as their practical performance
comparison. Inspired by this, we propose to further advance the literature by
developing an optimal estimator for the inverse proportion in a family of
shrinkage estimators. We further derive the explicit and approximate formulas
for the optimal shrinkage parameter under different settings. Simulation
studies show that the performance of our new estimator performs better than, or
as well as, the existing competitors in most practical settings. Finally, to
illustrate the usefulness of our new method, we also revisit a recent
meta-analysis on COVID-19 data for assessing the relative risks of physical
distancing on the infection of coronavirus, in which six out of seven studies
encounter the zero-event problem.


  Small-scale brightenings in solar atmospheric observations are a
manifestation of heating and/or energy transport events. We present statistical
characteristics of brightenings from a new detection method applied to 1330,
1400, and 2796 \AA\ IRIS slitjaw image time series. 2377 events are recorded
which coexist in all three channels, giving high confidence that they are real.
$\approx$1800 of these are spatially coherent, equating to event densities of
$\sim9.7\times10^{-5}$arcsec$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ within a
$90\arcsec\times100\arcsec$ FOV over 34.5 minutes. Power Law indices estimates
are determined for total brightness ($2.78<\alpha<3.71$), maximum brightness
($3.84<\alpha<4.70$), and average area ($4.31<\alpha<5.70$) distributions.
Duration and speed distributions do not obey a power law. A correlation is
found between the events' spatial fragmentation, area, and duration, and a weak
relationship with total brightness, showing that larger/longer-lasting events
are more likely to fragment during their lifetime. Speed distributions show
that all events are in motion, with an average speed of $\sim7$\kms. The
events' spatial trajectories suggest that cooler 2796 \AA\ events tend to
appear slightly later, and occupy a different position/trajectory to the hotter
channel results. This suggests that either many of these are impulsive events
caused by reconnection, with subsequent rapid cooling, or that the triggering
event occurs near the TR, with a subsequent propagating disturbance to cooler
atmospheric layers. The spatial distribution of events is not uniform, with
broad regions devoid of events. A comparison of spatial distribution with
properties of other atmospheric layers shows a tentative connection between
high magnetic field strength, the corona's multithermality, and high IRIS
brightening activity.


  Unconditionally secure non-relativistic bit commitment is known to be
impossible in both the classical and the quantum world. However, when
committing to a string of n bits at once, how far can we stretch the quantum
limits? In this letter, we introduce a framework of quantum schemes where Alice
commits a string of n bits to Bob, in such a way that she can only cheat on a
bits and Bob can learn at most b bits of information before the reveal phase.
Our results are two-fold: we show by an explicit construction that in the
traditional approach, where the reveal and guess probabilities form the
security criteria, no good schemes can exist: a+b is at least n. If, however,
we use a more liberal criterion of security, the accessible information, we
construct schemes where a=4 log n+O(1) and b=4, which is impossible
classically. Our findings significantly extend known no-go results for quantum
bit commitment.


  We generalize the recently proposed $\mathcal{P T}$-symmetric axion haloscope
to a larger array with more $\mathcal{P T}$-symmetric structures. By broadening
the response bandwidth of the signal without increasing the readout noise, the
optimized scan rate of the axion haloscope is significantly enhanced, as well
as is the signal power. Furthermore, we show that the robustness of the
detector towards the variations of the array coupling is the strongest when a
binary tree structure is introduced which contains a largely enhanced
$\mathcal{P T}$ symmetry. The multiple allowed probing sensors can further
increase the scan rate by a factor of the sensors' number due to the
correlation of the signals. This type of array can strongly boost the search
for an axion compared to single-mode resonant detection. The enhancement to the
scan rate becomes the most manifest when applied to the proposed detection
using a superconducting radio-frequency cavity with an ac magnetic field where
most of the parameter space of the QCD axion above kHz can be probed.


  We use the very forward neutron energy spectra measured by the Large Hadron
Collider forward (LHCf) experiment at 7 TeV to extract the $\pi^+ p$ total
cross section at centre-of-mass energies in the range 2.3$-$3.5 TeV. To do this
we have to first isolate the $\pi$-exchange pole in forward neutron production
in $pp$ collisions, by evaluating other possible contributions. Namely, those
from $\rho$ and $a_2$ exchange, from both eikonal and enhanced screening
effects, from migration, from neutron production by $\Delta$-isobar decay and
from diffractive nucleon excitations. We discuss the possible theoretical
uncertainties due to the fact that the data do not exactly reach the $\pi$
pole. We choose the kinematical domain where the pion contribution dominates
and demonstrate the role of the different corrections which could affect the
final result.


  Stars that interact with supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can either be
completely or partially destroyed by tides. In a partial tidal disruption event
(TDE) the high-density core of the star remains intact, and the low-density,
outer envelope of the star is stripped and feeds a luminous accretion episode.
The TDE AT2018fyk, with an inferred black hole mass of $10^{7.7\pm0.4}$
M$_{\odot}$, experienced an extreme dimming event at X-ray (factor of $>$6000)
and UV (factor $\sim$15) wavelengths $\sim$500--600 days after discovery. Here
we report on the re-emergence of these emission components roughly 1200 days
after discovery. We find that the source properties are similar to those of the
pre-dimming accretion state, suggesting that the accretion flow was rejuvenated
to a similar state. We propose that a repeating partial TDE, where the
partially disrupted star is on a $\sim 1200$ day orbit about the SMBH and is
periodically stripped of mass during each pericenter passage, powers its unique
lightcurve. This scenario provides a plausible explanation for AT2018fyk's
overall properties, including the rapid dimming event and the rebrightening at
late times. We also provide testable predictions for the behavior of the
accretion flow in the future: if the second encounter was also a partial
disruption then we predict another strong dimming event around day 1800 (August
2023), and a subsequent rebrightening around day 2400 (March 2025). This source
provides strong evidence of the partial disruption of a star by a SMBH.


  Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) provide an efficient dynamical coupling between
strain and magnetization in micro/nano-metric devices. Using a hybrid device
composed of a piezoelectric, GaAs, and a ferromagnetic Heusler alloy thin film,
Fe$_3$Si, we are able to quantify the amplitude of magnetoacoustic waves
generated with SAWs via magnetic imaging in an X-ray photoelectron microscope.
The cubic anisotropy of the sample together with a low damping coefficient
allows for the observation of resonant and non-resonant magnetoelastic
coupling. Additionally, via micromagnetic simulation, we verify the
experimental behavior and quantify the magnetoelastic shear strain component in
Fe$_3$Si that appears to be very large ($b_2=14\times 10^6$ J/m$^3$), much
larger than the one found in Nickel.


  Room-temperature superconductivity has always been regarded as the ultimate
goal in the fields of solid-state physics and materials science, with its
realization holding revolutionary significance, capable of triggering
significant changes in energy transmission and storage. However, achieving it
poses various challenges. Recent research revealed that material
Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO$_4$)$_6$O displays room-temperature superconductivity
under atmospheric pressure, sparking global interest in further exploration.
Here, we utilized solid-phase synthesis to obtain a polycrystalline sample of
Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO$_4$)$_6$O. X-ray diffraction confirmed its structural
consistency with referenced literature. Zero resistance, which is important
evidence for superconductivity, was observed above 100$^\circ$ K under ambient
pressure in our experiment. Our finding indicates that
Pb$_{10-x}$Cu$_x$(PO$_4$)$_6$O is a possible candidate for searching
high-temperature superconductors.


  Wide-area dynamic studies are of paramount importance to ensure the stability
and reliability of power grids. The rising deployment synchrophasor and other
sensing technologies has made data-driven modeling and analysis possible using
the synchronized fast-rate dynamic measurements. This paper presents a general
model-free framework of inferring the grid dynamic responses using the
ubiquitous ambient data collected during normal grid operations. Building upon
the second-order dynamic model, we have established the connection from the
cross-correlation of various types of angle, frequency, and line flow data at
any two locations, to their corresponding dynamic responses. The theoretical
results enabled a fully data-driven framework for estimating the latter using
real-time ambient data. Numerical results using the WSCC 9-bus system and a
synthetic 2000-bus Texas system have demonstrated the effectiveness of proposed
approaches for dynamic modeling of realistic power systems.


  A parametrization of irreducible unitary representations associated with the
regular adjoint orbits of a hyperspecial compact subgroup of a reductive group
over a non-dyadic non-archimedean local filed is presented. The parametrization
is given by means of (a subset of) the character group of certain finite
abelian groups arising from the reductive group. Our method is based upon
Cliffod's theory and Weil representations over finite fields. It works under an
assumption of the triviality of certain Schur multipliers defined for an
algebraic group over a finite field. The assumption of the triviality has good
evidences in the case of general linear groups and highly probable in general.


  Mazzarella and Scafetta (2016) showed that the seismic activity recorded at
the Bunker-East (BKE) Vesuvian station from 1999 to 2014 suggests a higher
nocturnal seismic activity. However, this station is located at about 50 m from
the main road to the volcano's crater and since 2009 its seismograms also
record a significant diurnal cultural noise due mostly to tourist tours to Mt.
Vesuvius. Herein, we investigate whether the different seismic frequency
between day and night times could be an artifact of the peculiar cultural noise
that affects this station mostly from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm from spring to fall.
This time-distributed cultural noise should evidently reduce the possibility to
detect low magnitude earthquakes during those hours but not high magnitude
events. Using hourly distributions referring to different magnitude thresholds
from M = 0.2 to M = 2.0, the Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency diagram
applied to the day and night-time sub-catalogs and Montecarlo statistical
modeling, we demonstrate that the day-night asymmetry persists despite an
evident disruption induced by cultural noise during day-hours. In particular,
for the period 1999-2017, and for earthquakes with M > 2 we found a
Gutenberg-Richter exponent b = 1.66 +/- 0.07 for the night-time events and b =
2.06 +/- 0.07 for day-time events. Moreover, we repeat the analysis also for an
older BKE catalog covering the period from 1992 to 2000 when cultural noise was
not present. The analysis confirms a higher seismic nocturnal activity that is
also characterized by a smaller Gutenberg-Richter exponent b for M > 2
earthquakes relative to the day-time activity. Thus, the found night-day
seismic asymmetric behavior is likely due to a real physical feature affecting
Mt. Vesuvius.


  In this paper, we define the cohomology of a modified Rota-Baxter Leibniz
algebra with coefficients in a suitable representation. As applications of our
cohomology, we study formal one-parameter deformations and abelian extensions
of modified Rota-Baxter Leibniz algebras.


  Reordering is a preprocessing stage for Statistical Machine Translation (SMT)
system where the words of the source sentence are reordered as per the syntax
of the target language. We are proposing a rich set of rules for better
reordering. The idea is to facilitate the training process by better alignments
and parallel phrase extraction for a phrase-based SMT system. Reordering also
helps the decoding process and hence improving the machine translation quality.
We have observed significant improvements in the translation quality by using
our approach over the baseline SMT. We have used BLEU, NIST, multi-reference
word error rate, multi-reference position independent error rate for judging
the improvements. We have exploited open source SMT toolkit MOSES to develop
the system.


  We present a first and detailed study of the bright and active K0IV-III star
HD 123351. The star is found to be a single-lined spectroscopic binary with a
period of 147.8919+-0.0003 days and a large eccentricity of e=0.8086+-0.0001.
The rms of the orbital solution is just 47 m/s, making it the most precise
orbit ever obtained for an active binary system. The rotation period is
constrained from long-term photometry to be 58.32+-0.01 days. It shows that HD
123351 is a very asynchronous rotator, rotating five times slower than the
expected pseudo-synchronous value. Two spotted regions persisted throughout the
12 years of our observations. Four years of Halpha, CaII H&K and HeI D3
monitoring identifies the same main periodicity as the photometry but dynamic
spectra also indicate that there is an intermittent dependence on the orbital
period, in particular for Ca ii H&K in 2008. Line-profile inversions of a pair
of Zeeman sensitive/insensitive iron lines yield an average surface
magnetic-flux density of 542+-72 G. The time series for 2008 is modulated by
the stellar rotation as well as the orbital motion, such that the magnetic flux
is generally weaker during times of periastron and that the chromospheric
emissions vary in anti-phase with the magnetic flux. We also identify a broad
and asymmetric lithium line profile and measure an abundance of log n(Li) =
1.70+-0.05. The star's position in the H-R diagram indicates a mass of 1.2+-0.1
Msun and an age of 6-7 Gyr. We interpret the anti-phase relation of the
magnetic flux with the chromospheric emissions as evidence that there are two
magnetic fields present at the same time, a localized surface magnetic field
associated with spots and a global field that is oriented towards the
(low-mass) secondary component.


  We present ammonia observations of 193 dense cores and core candidates in the
Perseus molecular cloud made using the Robert F. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. We
simultaneously observed the NH3(1,1), NH3(2,2), CCS (2_1 -> 1_0) and CC34S (2_1
-> 1_0) transitions near 23 GHz for each of the targets with a spectral
resolution of dv ~ 0.024 km/s. We find ammonia emission associated with nearly
all of the (sub)millimeter sources as well as at several positions with no
associated continuum emission. For each detection, we have measured physical
properties by fitting a simple model to every spectral line simultaneously.
Where appropriate, we have refined the model by accounting for low optical
depths, multiple components along the line of sight and imperfect coupling to
the GBT beam. For the cores in Perseus, we find a typical kinetic temperature
of T=11 K, a typical column density of N(NH3)~ 10^14.5 /cm^2 and velocity
dispersions ranging from sigma_v = 0.07 km/s to 0.7 km/s. However, many cores
with velocity dispersions > 0.2 km/s show evidence for multiple velocity
components along the line of sight.


  Generating supersymmetric AdS solutions in non-minimal supergravity in four
dimensions is notoriously difficult. Indeed, it is a longstanding lore that
such solutions exist only for old minimal supergravity. In this paper, we
construct a dual formulation for general N=1 supergravity-matter systems that
avoids the problem. In the case of pure supergravity without a cosmological
constant, it coincides with the usual non-minimal (n=-1) supergravity, but in
the presence of matter (or a cosmological constant) our formulation differs
considerably. We also elaborate upon the framework of conformal superspace and
the compensator method as applied to our theory. In particular, we show that
one can encode the details of the Kahler potential and superpotential entirely
within the geometry of superspace so that the general sigma-model action is
encoded in a single compact term: the supervolume. Finally, we discuss the
issue of supercurrents and propose a general form for the supercurrent in AdS.


  We make observations about constant mean curvature surfaces in Euclidean
3-space and their dual surfaces, and the resulting pairs of surfaces in
hyperbolic 3-space under the Lawson correspondence.


  This work classifies three-dimensional simple evolution algebras over
arbitrary fields. For this purpose, we use tools such as the associated
directed graph, the moduli set, inductive limit group, Zariski topology and the
dimension of the diagonal subspace. Explicitly, in the three-dimensional case,
we construct some models $_i\mathbf{III}_{\lambda_1,\ldots,\lambda_n}^{p,q}$ of
such algebras with $1\le i\le 4$, $\lambda_i\in\mathbb{K}^\times$,
$p,q\in\mathbb{N}$, such that any algebra is isomorphic to one (and only one)
of the given in the models and we further investigate the isomorphic question
within each one. Moreover, we show how to construct simple evolution algebras
of higher-order from known simple evolution algebras of smaller size.


  We report an efficient mechanism to generate a squeezed state of a mechanical
mirror in an optomechanical system. We use especially tuned parametric
amplifier (PA) inside the cavity and the parametric photon phonon processes to
transfer quantum squeezing from photons to phonons with almost 100\%
efficiency. We get 50\% squeezing of the mechanical mirror which is limited by
the PA. We present analytical results for the mechanical squeezing thus
enabling one to understand the dependence of squeezing on system parameters
like gain of PA, cooperativity, temperature. As in cooling experiments the
detrimental effects of mirror's Brownian and zero point noises are strongly
suppressed by the pumping power. By judicious choice of the phases, the cavity
output is squeezed only if the mirror is squeezed thus providing us a direct
measure of the mirror's squeezing. Further considerable larger squeezing of the
mirror can be obtained by adding the known feedback techniques.


  Top-quark physics plays an important role at hadron colliders such as the
Tevatron collider at Fermilab or the upcoming Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at
CERN. Given the planned experimental precision, detailed theoretical
predictions are mandatory. In this article we present analytic results for the
complete electroweak corrections to gluon induced top-quark pair production,
completing our earlier results for the quark-induced reaction. As an
application we discuss top-quark pair production at Tevatron and at LHC. In
particular we show that, although small for inclusive quantities, weak
corrections can be sizeable for differential distribution.


  Localization in GPS-denied environments is critical for autonomous systems,
and traditional methods like SLAM have limitations in generalizability across
diverse environments. Magnetic-based navigation (MagNav) offers a robust
solution by leveraging the ubiquity and unique anomalies of external magnetic
fields. This paper proposes a real-time uncertainty-aware motion planning
algorithm for MagNav, using onboard magnetometers and information-driven
methodologies to adjust trajectories based on real-time localization
confidence. This approach balances the trade-off between finding the shortest
or most energy-efficient routes and reducing localization uncertainty,
enhancing navigational accuracy and reliability. The novel algorithm integrates
an uncertainty-driven framework with magnetic-based localization, creating a
real-time adaptive system capable of minimizing localization errors in complex
environments. Extensive simulations and real-world experiments validate the
method, demonstrating significant reductions in localization uncertainty and
the feasibility of real-time implementation. The paper also details the
mathematical modeling of uncertainty, the algorithmic foundation of the
planning approach, and the practical implications of using magnetic fields for
localization. Future work includes incorporating a global path planner to
address the local nature of the current guidance law, further enhancing the
method's suitability for long-duration operations.


  Experimental hints for lepton-flavor universality violation in the muon's
magnetic moment as well as neutral- and charged-current $B$-meson decays
require Standard-Model extensions by particles such as leptoquarks that
generically lead to unacceptably fast rates of charged lepton flavor violation
and proton decay. We propose a model based on a gauged $U(1)_{L_\mu-L_\tau}$
that eliminates all these unwanted decays by symmetry rather than finetuning
and efficiently explains $(g-2)_\mu$, $R_{K^{(*)}}$, $R_{D^{(*)}}$, and
neutrino masses. The $U(1)_{L_\mu-L_\tau}$ furthermore acts as a stabilizing
symmetry for dark matter and the light $Z'$ gauge boson mediates
velocity-dependent dark-matter self-interactions that resolve the small-scale
structure problems. Lastly, even the Hubble tension can be ameliorated via the
light $Z'$ contribution to the relativistic degrees of freedom.


  We study the interpolation Macdonald functions, remarkable inhomogeneous
generalizations of Macdonald functions, and a sequence $A^1, A^2, \ldots$ of
commuting operators that are diagonalized by them. Such a sequence of operators
arises in the projective limit of finite families of commuting q-difference
operators studied by Okounkov, Knop and Sahi. The main theorem is an explicit
formula for the operators $A^k$. Our formula involves the family of
Hall-Littlewood functions and a new family of inhomogeneous Hall-Littlewood
functions, for which we give an explicit construction and identify as a
degeneration of the interpolation Macdonald functions in the regime $q
\rightarrow 0$. This article is inspired by the recent papers of
Nazarov-Sklyanin on Macdonald and Sekiguchi-Debiard operators, and our main
theorem is an extension of their results.


  We use the United Nations COMTRADE database for analysis of the multiproduct
world trade network. With this data, considered for years 2012-2018, we
determined the world trade impact of the Kernel of EU 9 countries (KEU9), being
Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal,
Spain, considered as one united country. We apply the advanced Google matrix
analysis for investigation of the influence of KEU9 and show that KEU9 takes
the top trade network rank positions thus becoming the main player of the world
trade being ahead of USA and China. Our network analysis provides additional
mathematical grounds in favor of the recent proposal of KEU9 super-union which
is based only on historical, political and economy basis.


  In this work, we explore a data-driven learning-based approach to learning
the kinodynamic model of a small autonomous vehicle, and observe the effect it
has on motion planning, specifically autonomous drifting. When executing a
motion plan in the real world, there are numerous causes for error, and what is
planned is often not what is executed on the actual car. Learning a kinodynamic
planner based off of inertial measurements and executed commands can help us
learn the world state. In our case, we look towards the realm of drifting; it
is a complex maneuver that requires a smooth enough surface, high enough speed,
and a drastic change in velocity. We attempt to learn the kinodynamic model for
these drifting maneuvers, and attempt to tighten the slip of the car. Our
approach is able to learn a kinodynamic model for high-speed circular
navigation, and is able to avoid obstacles on an autonomous drift at high speed
by correcting an executed curvature for loose drifts. We seek to adjust our
kinodynamic model for success in tighter drifts in future work.


  The task of person re-identification (ReID) has attracted growing attention
in recent years leading to improved performance, albeit with little focus on
real-world applications. Most SotA methods are based on heavy pre-trained
models, e.g. ResNet50 (~25M parameters), which makes them less practical and
more tedious to explore architecture modifications. In this study, we focus on
a small-sized randomly initialized model that enables us to easily introduce
architecture and training modifications suitable for person ReID. The outcomes
of our study are a compact network and a fitting training regime. We show the
robustness of the network by outperforming the SotA on both Market1501 and
DukeMTMC. Furthermore, we show the representation power of our ReID network via
SotA results on a different task of multi-object tracking.


  While depth tends to improve network performances, it also makes
gradient-based training more difficult since deeper networks tend to be more
non-linear. The recently proposed knowledge distillation approach is aimed at
obtaining small and fast-to-execute models, and it has shown that a student
network could imitate the soft output of a larger teacher network or ensemble
of networks. In this paper, we extend this idea to allow the training of a
student that is deeper and thinner than the teacher, using not only the outputs
but also the intermediate representations learned by the teacher as hints to
improve the training process and final performance of the student. Because the
student intermediate hidden layer will generally be smaller than the teacher's
intermediate hidden layer, additional parameters are introduced to map the
student hidden layer to the prediction of the teacher hidden layer. This allows
one to train deeper students that can generalize better or run faster, a
trade-off that is controlled by the chosen student capacity. For example, on
CIFAR-10, a deep student network with almost 10.4 times less parameters
outperforms a larger, state-of-the-art teacher network.


  We summarize recent results on B+ -> tau+ nu setting constraints on the
charged Higgs mass, discuss the CP puzzle in B -> K pi decays and present
searches for a light neutral Higgs in radiative Upsilon(2S) and
Upsilon(3S)decays.


  We provide analytical solutions to the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz equations
in the large and small density approximations. We extend results previously
obtained for leading order behaviour of the scaling function of affine Toda
field theories related to simply laced Lie algebras to the non-simply laced
case. The comparison with semi-classical methods shows perfect agreement for
the simply laced case. We derive the Y-systems for affine Toda field theories
with real coupling constant and employ them to improve the large density
approximations. We test the quality of our analysis explicitly for the
Sinh-Gordon model and the $(G_2^{(1)},D_4^{(3)})$-affine Toda field theory.


  Present day mathematics is a human construct, where computers are used more
and more but do not play a creative role. This situation may change however:
computers may become creative, and since they function very differently from
the human brain they may produce a very different sort of mathematics. We
discuss what this post-human mathematics may look like, and the philosophical
consequences that this may entail.


  We have studied the thermal properties of bended graphene nanoribbons (GNRs)
using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The thermal conductivity
of bended GNRs shows a non-monotonous relationship with the bending angle, due
to the influence of chirality and Kapitza conductance. When a constant heat
flux is allowed to flow, sharp temperature jump is observed at the inside
corner. On the basis of the magnitude of these jumps, we have computed the
Kapitza conductance as a function of bending angles. Besides, modification of
the inside corner is applied to change the ability of heat transfer at the
bending place. Equations to obtain the thermal conductivity of the whole
structure from the thermal conductivity of each part have been derived to guide
us for GNR-interconnected circuits design.


  We derive an explicit $k-$dependence in $W^{m,p}$ error estimates for $P_k$
Lagrange finite elements. Two laws of probability are established to measure
the relative accuracy between $P_{k_1}$ and $P_{k_2}$ finite elements ($k_1 <
k_2$) in terms of $W^{m,p}$-norms. We further prove a weak asymptotic relation
in $D'(R)$ between these probabilistic laws when difference $k_2-k_1$ goes to
infinity. Moreover, as expected, one finds that $P_{k_2}$ finite element is
{\em surely more accurate} than $P_{k_1}$, for sufficiently small values of the
mesh size $h$. Nevertheless, our results also highlight cases where $P_{k_1}$
is {\em more likely accurate} than $P_{k_2}$, for a range of values of $h$.
Hence, this approach brings a new perspective on how to compare two finite
elements, which is not limited to the rate of convergence.


  In this work we show that two absorbing microbeads can briefly share the same
optical trap. Optical forces pull the particles towards the waist of the
trapping beam. However, once a particle reaches the vicinity of the waist, the
surrounding liquid is superheated creating an explosion or cavitation bubble
that pushes the particle away while lengthening or shortening the trajectories
of the surrounding particles. In this way each particle briefly interacts with
the beam waist at different times. We find that when two microbeads reach the
waist simultaneously, a larger explosion might result in ejection from the
trap. We measure the characteristic timescale of two particle coalescence near
the waist and find a Poisson decaying exponential probability distribution. The
results are consistent with a simple simulation and show why the characteristic
timescales for transient trapping of multiple absorbing particles decrease as
more objects are added.


  Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy (CLE), an optical imaging technique allowing
non-invasive examination of the mucosa on a (sub)cellular level, has proven to
be a valuable diagnostic tool in gastroenterology and shows promising results
in various anatomical regions including the oral cavity. Recently, the
feasibility of automatic carcinoma detection for CLE images of sufficient
quality was shown. However, in real world data sets a high amount of CLE images
is corrupted by artifacts. Amongst the most prevalent artifact types are
motion-induced image deteriorations. In the scope of this work, algorithmic
approaches for the automatic detection of motion artifact-tainted image regions
were developed. Hence, this work provides an important step towards clinical
applicability of automatic carcinoma detection. Both, conventional machine
learning and novel, deep learning-based approaches were assessed. The deep
learning-based approach outperforms the conventional approaches, attaining an
AUC of 0.90.


  Display advertising has traditionally been sold via guaranteed contracts -- a
guaranteed contract is a deal between a publisher and an advertiser to allocate
a certain number of impressions over a certain period, for a pre-specified
price per impression. However, as spot markets for display ads, such as the
RightMedia Exchange, have grown in prominence, the selection of advertisements
to show on a given page is increasingly being chosen based on price, using an
auction. As the number of participants in the exchange grows, the price of an
impressions becomes a signal of its value. This correlation between price and
value means that a seller implementing the contract through bidding should
offer the contract buyer a range of prices, and not just the cheapest
impressions necessary to fulfill its demand.
  Implementing a contract using a range of prices, is akin to creating a mutual
fund of advertising impressions, and requires {\em randomized bidding}. We
characterize what allocations can be implemented with randomized bidding,
namely those where the desired share obtained at each price is a non-increasing
function of price. In addition, we provide a full characterization of when a
set of campaigns are compatible and how to implement them with randomized
bidding strategies.


  We present the results of a search for UV and optical counterparts of the SSS
population in M31. We find that out of the 56 sources we included in our
search, 16 are associated with regions of ongoing or recent star formation. We
discuss two particularly interesting sources that are identified optically as
early type stars, one of which displayed long term X-ray evolution similar to
that observed in classical novae. We discuss the physical origin of supersoft
X-rays in these and the other SSS in young regions, and their possible link to
the so-called "prompt" component of the Type Ia supernova population.


  The effect of thermally generated bulk stochastic forces on the statistical
growth dynamics of forwards bifurcating propagating macroscopic patterns is
compared with the influence of fluctuations at the boundary of a semiinfinite
system, $0<x$. To that end the linear complex Ginzburg-Landau amplitude
equation with additive stochastic forcing is solved by a spatial Laplace
transformation in the presence of arbitrary boundary conditions for the
fluctuations of the pattern amplitude at $x=0$. A situation where the latter
are advected with an imposed through-flow from an outside upstream part towards
the inlet boundary at $x=0$ is investigated in more detail. The spatiotemporal
growth behavior in the convectively unstable regime is compared with recent
work by Swift, Babcock, and Hohenberg [Physica A 204, 625 (1994)] where a
special boundary condition is imposed.


  We study a proximity junction between a conventional s-wave superconductor
and a conductor with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, with a specific focus on the
spin structure of the induced pairing amplitude. We find that spin-triplet
pairing correlations are induced by spin-orbit coupling in both one- and
two-dimensional systems due to the lifted spin degeneracy. Additionally, this
induced triplet pairing has a component with an odd frequency dependence that
is robust to disorder. Our predictions are based on the solutions of the exact
Gor'kov equations and are beyond the quasiclassical approximation.


  We compute the weighted enumeration of plane partitions contained in a given
box with complementation symmetry where adding one half of an orbit of cubes
and removing the other half of the orbit changes the weight by -1 as proposed
by Kuperberg. We use nonintersecting lattice path families to accomplish this
for transpose-complementary, cyclically symmetric transpose-complementary and
totally symmetric self-complementary plane partitions. For symmetric
transpose-complementary and self-complementary plane partitions we get partial
results. We also describe Kuperberg's proof for the case of cyclically
symmetric self-complementary plane partitions.


  This document accompanies fluid dyanmics video entry V83911 for APS DFD 2012
meeting. In this video, we present experiments on how drop oscillations can be
"frozen" using hydrophobic powders.


  Our study of the evolution of transmission eigenvalues, due to changes in
various physical parameters in a disordered region of arbitrary dimensions,
results in a generalization of the celebrated DMPK equation. The evolution is
shown to be governed by a single complexity parameter which implies a deep
level of universality of transport phenomena through a wide range of disordered
regions. We also find that the interaction among eigenvalues is of many body
type that has important consequences for the statistical behavior of transport
properties.


  Quantum oscillation phenomenon is an essential tool to understand the
electronic structure of quantum matter. Here we report a systematic study of
quantum oscillations in the electronic specific heat $C_{el}$ in natural
graphite. We show that the crossing of a single spin Landau level and the Fermi
energy give rise to a double-peak structure, in striking contrast to the single
peak expected from Lifshitz-Kosevich theory. Intriguingly, the double-peak
structure is predicted by the kernel term for $C_{el}/T$ in the free electron
theory. The $C_{el}/T$ represents a spectroscopic tuning fork of width 4.8 $k_B
T$ which can be tuned at will to resonance. Using a coincidence method, the
double-peak structure can be used to accurately determine the Lande $g$-factor
of quantum materials. More generally, the tuning fork can be used to reveal any
peak in fermionic density of states tuned by magnetic field, such as Lifshitz
transition in heavy-fermion compounds.


  We study the localization of vibrational modes of frictionless granular
media. We introduce a new method, motivated by earlier work on non-Hermitian
quantum problems, which works well both in the localized regime where the
localization length $\xi$ is much less than the linear size $L$ and in the
regime $\xi$ grater or of order $L$ when modes are extended throughout our
finite system. Our very lowest frequency modes show "quasi-localized"
resonances away from the jamming point; the spatial extent of these regions
increases as the jamming point is approached, as expected theoretically.
Throughout the remaining frequency range, our data show no signature of the
nearness of the jamming point and collapse well when properly rescaled with the
system size. Using Random Matrix Theory we derive the scaling relation $\xi$ ~
$L^{d/2}$ for the regime $\xi$ >> $L$ in $d$ dimensions.


  Measurements of various physical quantities in the symmetry broken phase of
the one component lattice $\phi^4_4$ with standard action, are shown to be
consistent with the critical behavior obtained by renormalization group
analyses. This is in contrast to recent conclusions by another group, who
further claim that the unconventional scaling behavior they observe, when
extended to the complete Higgs sector of the Standard Model, would alter the
conventional triviality bound on the mass of the Higgs.


  In this paper, by invariant-based inverse engineering, we design classical
driving fields to transfer quantum fluctuations between two suspended membranes
in an optomechanical cavity system. The transfer can be quickly attained
through a non-adiabatic evolution path determined by a so-called dynamical
invariant. Such an evolution path allows one to optimize the occupancies of the
unstable "intermediate" states thus the influence of cavity decays can be
suppressed. Numerical simulation demonstrates that a perfect fluctuation
transfer between two membranes can be rapidly achieved in one step, and the
transfer is robust to both the amplitude noises and cavity decays.


  The quark-lepton complementarity (QLC) relations indicate a deep structure
that interrelates quarks and leptons. We propose new scenarios, in a seesaw
framework with discrete $A_4$ flavor symmetry, which can accommodate the QLC
relations and the nonzero neutrino mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ together with all
the available neutrino experimental data, in a consistent way to generate the
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix for the quark mixing. Certain effective
dimension-5 operators are introduced, which induce a deviation of the lepton
mixing matrix from the tribimaximal mixing (TBM) pattern and lead the quark
mixing matrix to the CKM one in form. We explicitly demonstrate three different
possibilities of constructing the charged lepton mixing matrix and point out
that the {\it phases} of whose elements play a crucial role to satisfy the QLC
relations. We find that for the reactor mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ its possible
values can vary around the center value $\sin \theta_{13} \simeq \lambda
/\sqrt{2}$ ($\lambda \simeq 0.22$ being the Cabbibo angle) and have the lower
bound $\theta_{13} \gtrsim 3.5^{\circ}$. We also show that sizable leptonic CP
violation characterized by the Jarlskog invariant $|J_{\rm CP}|\sim{\cal
O}(10^{-2})$ is allowed, which is expected to be tested in the future
experiments such as the upcoming long baseline neutrino oscillation ones.


  X. Huang et al. recently introduced the notion of generalised lush (GL)
spaces, which, at least for separable spaces, is a generalisation of the
concept of lushness introduced by K. Boyko et al. in 2007. The main result of
Huang et al. is that every GL-space has the so called Mazur-Ulam property
(MUP). In this note, we will prove some properties of GL-spaces (further than
those already established by Huang et al.), for example, every $M$-ideal in a
GL-space is again a GL-space, ultraproducts of GL-spaces are again GL-spaces,
and if the bidual $X^{**}$ of a Banach space $X$ is GL, then $X$ itself still
has the MUP.


  Quantum Hall systems are a suitable theme for a case study in the general
area of nanotechnology. In particular, it is a good framework in which to
search for universal principles relevant to nanosystem modeling, and
nanosystem-specific signal processing. Recently, we have been able to construct
a PDE model of a quantum Hall system, which consists of the Schr\"odinger
equation supplemented with a special type nonlinear feedback loop. This result
stems from a novel theoretical approach, which in particular brings to the fore
the notion of quantum information. In this article we undertake to modify the
original model by substituting the dynamics based on the Dirac operator. This
leads to a model that consists of a system of three nonlinearly coupled first
order elliptic equations in the plane.


  In this paper, we study regularizing effects of the composition operator
$S(t)\mathbb{P}\partial$ for the Stokes semigroup $S(t)$ and the Helmholtz
projection $\mathbb{P}$ in a space of bounded functions. We establish new a
priori $L^{\infty}$-estimates of the operator $S(t)\mathbb{P}\partial$ for a
certain class of domains including bounded and exterior domains. They imply
unique existence of mild solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in a space of
bounded functions.


  The widespread adoption of machine learning (ML) across various industries
has raised sustainability concerns due to its substantial energy usage and
carbon emissions. This issue becomes more pressing in adversarial ML, which
focuses on enhancing model security against different network-based attacks.
Implementing defenses in ML systems often necessitates additional computational
resources and network security measures, exacerbating their environmental
impacts. In this paper, we pioneer the first investigation into adversarial
ML's carbon footprint, providing empirical evidence connecting greater model
robustness to higher emissions. Addressing the critical need to quantify this
trade-off, we introduce the Robustness Carbon Trade-off Index (RCTI). This
novel metric, inspired by economic elasticity principles, captures the
sensitivity of carbon emissions to changes in adversarial robustness. We
demonstrate the RCTI through an experiment involving evasion attacks, analyzing
the interplay between robustness against attacks, performance, and carbon
emissions.


  Graph-based neural network models are producing strong results in a number of
domains, in part because graphs provide flexibility to encode domain knowledge
in the form of relational structure (edges) between nodes in the graph. In
practice, edges are used both to represent intrinsic structure (e.g., abstract
syntax trees of programs) and more abstract relations that aid reasoning for a
downstream task (e.g., results of relevant program analyses). In this work, we
study the problem of learning to derive abstract relations from the intrinsic
graph structure. Motivated by their power in program analyses, we consider
relations defined by paths on the base graph accepted by a finite-state
automaton. We show how to learn these relations end-to-end by relaxing the
problem into learning finite-state automata policies on a graph-based POMDP and
then training these policies using implicit differentiation. The result is a
differentiable Graph Finite-State Automaton (GFSA) layer that adds a new edge
type (expressed as a weighted adjacency matrix) to a base graph. We demonstrate
that this layer can find shortcuts in grid-world graphs and reproduce simple
static analyses on Python programs. Additionally, we combine the GFSA layer
with a larger graph-based model trained end-to-end on the variable misuse
program understanding task, and find that using the GFSA layer leads to better
performance than using hand-engineered semantic edges or other baseline methods
for adding learned edge types.


  Terrorist attacks on transportation networks have traumatized modern
societies. With a single blast, it has become possible to paralyze airline
traffic, electric power supply, ground transportation or Internet
communication. How and at which cost can one restructure the network such that
it will become more robust against a malicious attack? We introduce a unique
measure for robustness and use it to devise a method to mitigate economically
and efficiently this risk. We demonstrate its efficiency on the European
electricity system and on the Internet as well as on complex networks models.
We show that with small changes in the network structure (low cost) the
robustness of diverse networks can be improved dramatically while their
functionality remains unchanged. Our results are useful not only for improving
significantly with low cost the robustness of existing infrastructures but also
for designing economically robust network systems.


  In this letter, we consider the problem of distributed Bayesian detection in
the presence of data falsifying Byzantines in the network. The problem of
distributed detection is formulated as a binary hypothesis test at the fusion
center (FC) based on 1-bit data sent by the sensors. Adopting Chernoff
information as our performance metric, we study the detection performance of
the system under Byzantine attack in the asymptotic regime. The expression for
minimum attacking power required by the Byzantines to blind the FC is obtained.
More specifically, we show that above a certain fraction of Byzantine attackers
in the network, the detection scheme becomes completely incapable of utilizing
the sensor data for detection. When the fraction of Byzantines is not
sufficient to blind the FC, we also provide closed form expressions for the
optimal attacking strategies for the Byzantines that most degrade the detection
performance.


  We study ring-theoretic (in)finiteness properties -- such as
\emph{Dedekind-finiteness} and \emph{proper infiniteness} -- of ultraproducts
(and more generally, reduced products) of Banach algebras.
  Whilst we characterise when an ultraproduct has these ring-theoretic
properties in terms of its underlying sequence of algebras, we find that,
contrary to the $C^*$-algebraic setting, it is not true in general that an
ultraproduct has a ring-theoretic finiteness property if and only if
"ultrafilter many" of the underlying sequence of algebras have the same
property. This might appear to violate the continuous model theoretic
counterpart of {\L}o\'s's Theorem; the reason it does not is that for a general
Banach algebra, the ring theoretic properties we consider cannot be verified by
considering a bounded subset of the algebra of \emph{fixed} bound. For Banach
algebras, we construct counter-examples to show, for example, that each
component Banach algebra can fail to be Dedekind-finite while the ultraproduct
is Dedekind-finite, and we explain why such a counter-example is not possible
for $C^*$-algebras. Finally the related notion of having \textit{stable rank
one} is also studied for ultraproducts.


  The production of weakly relativistic plasma by microwave electric field with
circular polarization has been studied. Electron distribution function obtained
for this produced plasma and shown that it is non-equilibrium and anisotropic.
It is shown that produced plasma accelerated on direction of propagation
microwave electric field. The electron velocity on this direction strongly
depends on electron origination phase during ionization and microwave electric
field phase and it s amplitude. The dielectric tensor obtained for this plasma
and the weibel instability studied for it.


  For the study of citation networks, a challenging problem is modeling the
high clustering. Existing studies indicate that the promising way to model the
high clustering is a copying strategy, i.e., a paper copies the references of
its neighbour as its own references. However, the line of models highly
underestimates the number of abundant triangles observed in real citation
networks and thus cannot well model the high clustering. In this paper, we
point out that the failure of existing models lies in that they do not capture
the connecting patterns among existing papers. By leveraging the knowledge
indicated by such connecting patterns, we further propose a new model for the
high clustering in citation networks. Experiments on two real world citation
networks, respectively from a special research area and a multidisciplinary
research area, demonstrate that our model can reproduce not only the power-law
degree distribution as traditional models but also the number of triangles, the
high clustering coefficient and the size distribution of co-citation clusters
as observed in these real networks.


  Large self-supervised models are effective feature extractors, but their
application is challenging under on-device budget constraints and biased
dataset collection, especially in keyword spotting. To address this, we
proposed a knowledge distillation-based self-supervised speech representation
learning (S3RL) architecture for on-device keyword spotting. Our approach used
a teacher-student framework to transfer knowledge from a larger, more complex
model to a smaller, light-weight model using dual-view cross-correlation
distillation and the teacher's codebook as learning objectives. We evaluated
our model's performance on an Alexa keyword spotting detection task using a
16.6k-hour in-house dataset. Our technique showed exceptional performance in
normal and noisy conditions, demonstrating the efficacy of knowledge
distillation methods in constructing self-supervised models for keyword
spotting tasks while working within on-device resource constraints.


  We present an overview on our project to study the extended atmospheres and
dust formation zones of Mira stars using coordinated observations with the Very
Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), and
the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX). The data are interpreted using an
approach of combining recent dynamic model atmospheres with a radiative
transfer model of the dust shell, and combining the resulting model structure
with a maser propagation model.


  We calculate the orbital magnetization of single and double quantum dots
coupled both by Coulomb interaction and by electron tunneling. The electronic
states of the quantum dots are calculated in a tight-binding model and the
magnetization is discussed in relation to the energy spectrum and to the edge
and bulk states. We identify effects of chirality of the electronic orbits and
of the anti-crossing of the energy levels when the magnetic field is varied. We
also consider the effects of detuning the energy spectra of the quantum dots by
an external gate potential. We compare our results with the recent experiments
of Oosterkamp et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4951 (1998).


  We study a recently proposed model, where a codimension one brane is wrapped
around the axis of symmetry of an internal two dimensional space compactified
by a flux. This construction is free from the problems which plague delta-like,
codimension two branes, where only tension can be present. In contrast,
arbitrary fields can be localized on this extended brane, and their
gravitational interaction is standard 4d gravity at large distance. In the
first part of this note, we study the de Sitter (dS) vacua of the model. The
landscape of these vacua is characterized by discrete points labeled by two
integer numbers, related to the flux responsible for the compactification and
to the current of a brane field. A Minkowski external space emerges only for a
special ratio between these two integers, and it is therefore (topologically)
isolated from the nearby dS solutions. In the second part, we show that the
Minkowski vacua are stable under the most generic axially-symmetric
perturbations (we argue that this is sufficient to ensure the overall
stability).


  The production of a Standard Model Higgs boson in association with a top
quark pair at the upcoming high luminosity run (15 inverse fb integrated
luminosity) of the Fermilab Tevatron (root s = 2.0 TeV) is revisited. For Higgs
masses below 140 GeV we demonstrate that the production cross section times
branching ratio for H->B Bbar decays yields a significant number of events and
that this mode is competitive with and complementary to the searches using P
Pbar -> WH, ZH associated production. For higher mass Higgs bosons the H -> W+
W- decays are more difficult but have the potential to provide a few
spectacular events.


  We introduce the nil-Brauer category and prove a basis theorem for its
morphism spaces. This basis theorem is an essential ingredient required to
prove that nil-Brauer categorifies the split $\imath$-quantum group of rank
one. As this $\imath$-quantum group is a basic building block for
$\imath$-quantum groups of higher rank, we expect that the nil-Brauer category
will play a role in future developments related to the categorification of
quantum symmetric pairs.


  We demonstrate that the ``sub-keplerian'' rotation curve of maser spots in
NGC 1068 can be explained by the gravitational attraction of the disc orbiting
the central black hole. Possible parameters matching observations are: black
hole mass of 12 million solar masses, disc outer edge > 1.3 pc, aspect ratio in
the range 0.003 to 0.3, surface density varying approximately as 1/R, and disc
mass of about 9.4 million solar masses. The physical conditions required for
the excitation of masers are fulfilled, and the outer disc would stand in a
gravitationally marginally stable state.


  Neutral hydrogen observations of the nearby, edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891
reveal the presence of an HI halo extending up to at least 5 kpc from the
plane. This halo gas appears to rotate 25 to 100 km/s more slowly than the gas
in the plane. If this velocity difference is due to the gradient in the
gravitational potential, then it may serve to discriminate between disk and
spheroidal mass models. The classic picture of a large outer flare in the HI
layer of NGC 891 may no longer be valid. A correlation is seen between the
distributions of HI, Halpha and radio continuum emission, which supports, in
accordance with galactic fountain models, the picture of a substantial
disk-halo circulation related to the star formation activity in the disk of NGC
891. There is now also clear evidence for the presence of a rapidly rotating
(v_rot ~ 230 km/s) disk or ring of HI in the central part of NGC 891.


  Single-objective bilevel optimization is a specialized form of constraint
optimization problems where one of the constraints is an optimization problem
itself. These problems are typically non-convex and strongly NP-Hard. Recently,
there has been an increased interest from the evolutionary computation
community to model bilevel problems due to its applicability in the real-world
applications for decision-making problems. In this work, a partial nested
evolutionary approach with a local heuristic search has been proposed to solve
the benchmark problems and have outstanding results. This approach relies on
the concept of intermarriage-crossover in search of feasible regions by
exploiting information from the constraints. A new variant has also been
proposed to the commonly used convergence approaches, i.e., optimistic and
pessimistic. It is called extreme optimistic approach. The experimental results
demonstrate the algorithm converges differently to known optimum solutions with
the optimistic variants. Optimistic approach also outperforms pessimistic
approach. Comparative statistical analysis of our approach with other recently
published partial to complete evolutionary approaches demonstrates very
competitive results.


  The paper proposes a vector generalization of the basic concepts of the
theory of complex variable: the concept of modulus and argument of complex
number. The author introduces some generalizations of the notion of holomorphic
functions and mappings to the case of infinite-dimensional complex spaces. This
approach allows us to generalize several well-known results of geometric
function theory to the case of infinite-dimensional complex spaces. In
particular, the author summarizes a number of known theorems on the theory of
functions of class S on infinite-dimensional complex space.


  The first measurement of $J/\psi$ and $D^0$ production in PbNe collisions by
the LHCb experiment in its fixed-target configuration is reported. The
production of $J/\psi$ and $D^0$ mesons is studied with a beam of lead ions
with an energy of 2.5 TeV per nucleon colliding on gaseous neon targets at
rest, corresponding to a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_{\rm
NN}}$ = 68.5 GeV. The $J/\psi/D^0$ production cross-section ratio is studied as
a function of rapidity, transverse momentum and collision centrality. These
data are compared with measurements from $p$Ne collisions at the same energy
and show no difference in the observed $J/\psi$ suppresion trend when comparing
$p$Ne and PbNe peripheral collisions with PbNe central collisions.


  Agent-based models are a natural choice for modeling complex social systems.
In such models simple stochastic interaction rules for a large population of
individuals can lead to emergent dynamics on the macroscopic scale, for
instance a sudden shift of majority opinion or behavior. Here, we are concerned
with studying noise-induced tipping between relevant subsets of the agent state
space representing characteristic configurations. Due to the large number of
interacting individuals, agent-based models are high-dimensional, though
usually a lower-dimensional structure of the emerging collective behaviour
exists. We therefore apply Diffusion Maps, a non-linear dimension reduction
technique, to reveal the intrinsic low-dimensional structure. We characterize
the tipping behaviour by means of Transition Path Theory, which helps gaining a
statistical understanding of the tipping paths such as their distribution, flux
and rate. By systematically studying two agent-based models that exhibit a
multitude of tipping pathways and cascading effects, we illustrate the
practicability of our approach.


  Pedestrians adjust both speed and stride length when they navigate difficult
situations such as tight corners or dense crowds. They try to avoid collisions
and to preserve their personal space. State-of-the-art pedestrian motion models
automatically reduce speed in dense crowds simply because there is no space
where the pedestrians could go. The stride length and its correct adaptation,
however, are rarely considered. This leads to artefacts that impact macroscopic
observation parameters such as densities in front of bottlenecks and, through
this, flow. Hence modelling stride adaptation is important to increase the
predictive power of pedestrian models. To achieve this we reformulate the
problem as an optimisation problem on a disk around the pedestrian. Each
pedestrian seeks the position that is most attractive in a sense of balanced
goals between the search for targets, the need for individual space and the
need to keep a distance from obstacles. The need for space is modelled
according to findings from psychology defining zones around a person that, when
invaded, cause unease. The result is a fully automatic adjustment that allows
calibration through meaningful social parameters and that gives visually
natural results with an excellent fit to measured experimental data.


  The time-dependent density functional (TDDFT) equations may be written either
for the Kohn-Sham orbitals in Hilbert space or for the single electron density
matrix in Liouville space. A collective-oscillator, quasiparticle,
representation of the density response of many-electron systems which
explicitly reveals the relevant electronic coherence sizes is developed using
the Liouville space representation of adiabatic TDDFT. Closed expressions for
the nonlinear density-density response are derived, eliminating the need to
solve nonlinear integral equations, as required in the Hilbert space
formulation of the response.


  The two function theories of monogenic and of slice monogenic functions have
been extensively studied in the literature and were developed independently;
the relations between them, e.g. via Fueter mapping and Radon transform, have
been studied. The main purpose of this article is to describe a new function
theory which includes both of them as special cases. This theory allows to
prove nice properties such as the identity theorem, a Representation Formula,
the Cauchy (and Cauchy-Pompeiu) integral formula, the maximum modulus
principle, a version of the Taylor and Laurent series expansions. As a
complement, we shall also offer two approaches to these functions via slice
functions and via global differential operators. In addition, we discuss the
conformal invariance property under a proper group of M\"{o}bius
transformations preserving the partial symmetry of the involved domains.


  In this article, we consider the weighted ergodic optimization problem Axiom
A attractors of a $C^2$ flow on a compact smooth manifold. The main result
obtained in this paper is that for a generic observable from function space
$\mc C^{0,\a}$ ($\a\in(0,1]$) or $\mc C^1$ the minimizing measure is unique and
is supported on a periodic orbit.


  In this paper, we study a special type of compact Hermitian manifolds that
are Strominger K\"ahler-like, or SKL for short. This condition means that the
Strominger connection (also known as Bismut connection) is K\"ahler-like, in
the sense that its curvature tensor obeys all the symmetries of the curvature
of a K\"ahler manifold. Previously, we have shown that any SKL manifold
$(M^n,g)$ is always pluriclosed, and when the manifold is compact and $g$ is
not K\"ahler, it can not admit any balanced or strongly Gauduchon (in the sense
of Popovici) metric. Also, when $n=2$, the SKL condition is equivalent to the
Vaisman condition. In this paper, we give a classification for compact
non-K\"ahler SKL manifolds in dimension $3$ and those with degenerate torsion
in higher dimensions. We also present some properties about SKL manifolds in
general dimensions, for instance, given any compact non-K\"ahler SKL manifold,
its K\"ahler form represents a non-trivial Aeppli cohomology class, the metric
can never be locally conformal K\"ahler when $n\geq 3$, and the manifold does
not admit any Hermitian symplectic metric.


  An attempt to obtain market directional information from non-stationary
solution of the dynamic equation: "future price tends to the value maximizing
the number of shares traded per unit time" is presented. A remarkable feature
of the approach is an automatic time scale selection. It is determined from the
state of maximal execution flow calculated on past transactions. Both lagging
and advancing prices are calculated.


  Insider threats continue to present a major challenge for the information
security community. Despite constant research taking place in this area; a
substantial gap still exists between the requirements of this community and the
solutions that are currently available. This paper uses the CERT dataset r4.2
along with a series of machine learning classifiers to predict the occurrence
of a particular malicious insider threat scenario - the uploading sensitive
information to wiki leaks before leaving the organization. These algorithms are
aggregated into a meta-classifier which has a stronger predictive performance
than its constituent models. It also defines a methodology for performing
pre-processing on organizational log data into daily user summaries for
classification, and is used to train multiple classifiers. Boosting is also
applied to optimise classifier accuracy. Overall the models are evaluated
through analysis of their associated confusion matrix and Receiver Operating
Characteristic (ROC) curve, and the best performing classifiers are aggregated
into an ensemble classifier. This meta-classifier has an accuracy of
\textbf{96.2\%} with an area under the ROC curve of \textbf{0.988}.


  The prospects for using asteroseismology of rapidly oscillating Ap (roAp)
stars are hampered by the large uncertainty in fundamental stellar parameters.
Results in the literature for the effective temperature (Teff) often span a
range of 1000 K. Our goal is to reduce systematic errors and improve the Teff
calibration of Ap stars based on new interferometric measurements. We obtained
long-baseline interferometric observations of beta CrB using the CHARA/FLUOR
instrument. To disentangle the flux contributions of the two components of this
binary star, we obtained VLT/NACO adaptive optics images. We determined limb
darkened angular diameters of 0.699+-0.017 mas for beta CrB A (from
interferometry) and 0.415+-0.017 mas for beta CrB B (from surface brightness-
color relations), corresponding to radii of 2.63+-0.09 Rsun (3.4 percent
uncertainty) and 1.56+-0.07 Rsun (4.5 percent). The combined bolometric flux of
the A and B components was determined from satellite UV data, spectrophotometry
in the visible and broadband data in the infrared. The flux from the B
component constitutes 16+-4 percent of the total flux and was determined by
fitting an ATLAS9 model atmosphere to the broad-band NACO J and K magnitudes.
Combining the flux of the A component with its measured angular diameter, we
determine the effective temperature Teff(A) = 7980+-180 K (2.3 percent). Our
new interferometric and imaging data enable a nearly model-independent
determination of the effective temperature of beta CrB A. Including our recent
study of alpha Cir, we now have direct Teff measurements of two of the
brightest roAp stars, providing a strong benchmark for an improved calibration
of the Teff scale for Ap stars. This will support the use of potentially strong
constraints imposed by asteroseismic studies of roAp stars.


  A number of recent studies have hypothesized that sense-antisense RNA
transcript pairs create dsRNA duplexes that undergo extensive A-to-I RNA
editing. Here we studied human and mouse genomic antisense regions, and found
that the editing level in these areas is negligible. This observation puts in
question the scope of sense-antisense duplexes formation in-vivo, which is the
basis for a number of proposed regulatory mechanisms.


  We report on the observation of stable electrical oscillation in Pt/VO2
bilayer strips, in which the Pt overlayer serves the dual purposes of heating
up the VO2 and weakening the electric field in the VO2 layer. Systematic
measurements in an ultrahigh vacuum nanoprobe system show that the oscillation
frequency increases with the bias current and/or with decreasing device
dimension. In contrast to most VO2-based oscillators reported to date, which
are electrically triggered, current-induced Joule heating in the Pt overlayer
is found to play a dominant role in the generation of oscillation in Pt/VO2
bilayers. A simple model involving thermally triggered transition of VO2 on a
heat sink is able to account for the experimental observations. The results in
this work provide an alternative view of the triggering mechanism in VO2-based
oscillators.


  Solving the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation numerically, we
investigate the effect of the potential landscape on the attempt frequency of
magnetization in nanomagnets with the thin-film geometry. Numerical estimates
of the attempt frequency are analyzed in comparison with theoretical
predictions from the Fokker-Planck equation for the Neel-Brown model. It is
found that for a nanomagnet with the thin-film geometry, theoretically
predicted values for the universal case are in excellent agreement with
numerical estimates.


  We give an account of model theory in the context of compactly generated
triangulated and tensor-triangulated categories ${\cal T}$. We describe pp
formulas, pp-types and free realisations in such categories and we prove
elimination of quantifiers and elimination of imaginaries. We compare the ways
in which definable subcategories of ${\cal T}$ may be specified. Then we link
definable subcategories of ${\cal T}$ and finite-type torsion theories on the
category of modules over the compact objects of ${\cal T}$. We briefly consider
spectra and dualities. If ${\cal T}$ is tensor-triangulated then new features
appear, in particular there is an internal duality in rigidly-compactly
generated tensor-triangulated categories.


  We examine five dimensional extreme black holes with three charges in the
matrix model. We build configurations of the 5+1 super Yang-Mills theory which
correspond to black holes with transverse momentum charge. We calculate their
mass and entropy from the super Yang-Mills theory and find that they match the
semi-classical black hole results. We extend our results to nonextreme black
holes in the dilute gas approximation.


  Utilizing multi-view inputs to synthesize novel-view images, Neural Radiance
Fields (NeRF) have emerged as a popular research topic in 3D vision. In this
work, we introduce a Generalizable Semantic Neural Radiance Field (GSNeRF),
which uniquely takes image semantics into the synthesis process so that both
novel view images and the associated semantic maps can be produced for unseen
scenes. Our GSNeRF is composed of two stages: Semantic Geo-Reasoning and
Depth-Guided Visual rendering. The former is able to observe multi-view image
inputs to extract semantic and geometry features from a scene. Guided by the
resulting image geometry information, the latter performs both image and
semantic rendering with improved performances. Our experiments not only confirm
that GSNeRF performs favorably against prior works on both novel-view image and
semantic segmentation synthesis but the effectiveness of our sampling strategy
for visual rendering is further verified.


  We extend the strong multiplicity one theorem of Jacquet, Piatetski-Shapiro
and Shalika. Let $\pi$ be a unitary, cuspidal, automorphic representation of
$GL_n(\A_K)$. Let $S$ be a set of finite places of $K$, such that the sum
$\sum_{v\in S}Nv^{-2/(n^2+1)}$ is convergent. Then $\pi$ is uniquely determined
by the collection of the local components $\{\pi_v\mid v\not\in S, ~v
\~\text{finite}\}$ of $\pi$. Combining this theorem with base change, it is
possible to consider sets $S$ of positive density, having appropriate splitting
behavior with respect to solvable extensions of $K$, and where $\pi$ is
determined upto twisting by a character of the Galois group of $L$ over $K$.


  It is common in Physiological Optics to fit the corneal and the lens surfaces
to conic-based surfaces (usually ellipse-based surfaces), obtaining their
characteristic radius of curvature and asphericity. Here we show that the
variation in radius and asphericity due to experimental noise is strongly
correlated. This correlation is seen both in experimental data of the corneal
topographer Pentacam and in simulations. We also show that the effect is a
characteristic of the geometry of ellipses, and not restricted to any
experimental device or fitting procedure.


  RNA folding is a kinetic process governed by the competition of a large
number of structures stabilized by the transient formation of base pairs that
may induce complex folding pathways and the formation of misfolded structures.
Despite of its importance in modern biophysics, the current understanding of
RNA folding kinetics is limited by the complex interplay between the weak
base-pair interactions that stabilize the native structure and the disordering
effect of thermal forces. The possibility of mechanically pulling individual
molecules offers a new perspective to understand the folding of nucleic acids.
Here we investigate the folding and misfolding mechanism in RNA secondary
structures pulled by mechanical forces. We introduce a model based on the
identification of the minimal set of structures that reproduce the patterns of
force-extension curves obtained in single molecule experiments. The model
requires only two fitting parameters: the attempt frequency at the level of
individual base pairs and a parameter associated to a free energy correction
that accounts for the configurational entropy of an exponentially large number
of neglected secondary structures. We apply the model to interpret results
recently obtained in pulling experiments in the three-helix junction S15 RNA
molecule (RNAS15). We show that RNAS15 undergoes force-induced misfolding where
force favors the formation of a stable non-native hairpin. The model reproduces
the pattern of unfolding and refolding force-extension curves, the distribution
of breakage forces and the misfolding probability obtained in the experiments.


  We investigate the effect of inverse-Compton scattering of flares of soft
radiation in different geometries of a hot, Comptonizing region and a colder
accretion disk around a solar-mass black hole. The photon-energy dependent
light curves, their Fourier transforms, power spectra and Fourier-period
dependent time lags of hard photons with respect to softer photons are
discussed. On the basis of a comparison with existing data we find arguments
against Comptonization of external soft radiation as well as Comptonization in
a homogeneous medium as dominant mechanisms for the rapid aperiodic variability
in Galactic black-hole candidates. Possible further observational tests for the
influence of Comptonization on the rapid aperiodic variability of Galactic
black-hole candidates are suggested.


  Model predictive control (MPC) is a method to formulate the optimal
scheduling problem for grid flexibilities in a mathematical manner. The
resulting time-constrained optimization problem can be re-solved in each
optimization time step using classical optimization methods such as Second
Order Cone Programming (SOCP) or Interior Point Methods (IPOPT). When applying
MPC in a rolling horizon scheme, the impact of uncertainty in forecasts on the
optimal schedule is reduced. While MPC methods promise accurate results for
time-constrained grid optimization they are inherently limited by the
calculation time needed for large and complex power system models. Learning the
optimal control behaviour using function approximation offers the possibility
to determine near-optimal control actions with short calculation time. A Neural
Predictive Control (NPC) scheme is proposed to learn optimal control policies
for linear and nonlinear power systems through imitation. It is demonstrated
that this procedure can find near-optimal solutions, while reducing the
calculation time by an order of magnitude. The learned controllers are
validated using a benchmark smart grid.


  Although phase diagrams can be leveraged to investigate high transition
temperature (high-$T_c$) superconductivity, the issue has not been discussed
thoroughly. In this study, we elucidate the phase diagram of the overdoped side
of high-$T_c$ cuprates via systematic anisotropic transport measurements for
Pb-doped Bi-2212 single crystals. We demonstrate that the characteristic
temperatures of the "weak" pseudogap opening and electronic coherence cross
each other at a critical doping level, while those of the "strong" pseudogap
merges into that of superconducting fluctuations above the critical doping
level. Our results indicate the importance of Mottness in high-$T_c$
superconductivity.


  It is well known that using the weight lattice of type $E_6$, $P$, and the
lattice construction for vertex operator algebras one can obtain all three
level 1 irreducible $\tilde{g}$-modules with $V_P = V^{\Lamba_0} \oplus
V^{\Lamba_1} \oplus V^{\Lamba_6}$. The Dynkin diagram of type $E_6$ has an
order 2 automorphism, $\tau$, which can be lifted to $\tilde{{\tau}}$, a Lie
algebra automorphism of $\tilde{g}$ of type $E_6^(1)$. The fixed points of
$\tilde{{\tau}}$ are a subalgebra $\tilde{a}$ of type $F_4^(1)$. The
automorphism $\tau$ lifts further to $\hat{{\tau}}$ a vertex operator algebra
automorphism of $V_P$.
  We investigate the branching rules, how these three modules for the affine
Lie algebra $\tilde{g}$ decompose as a direct sum of irreducible
$\tilde{a}$-modules. To complete the decomposition we use the Godard-Kent-Olive
coset construction which gives a $c = \frac{4}{5}$ module for the Virasoro
algebra on $V_P$ which commutes with $\tilde{a}$. We use the irreducible
modules for this coset Virasoro to give the space of highest weight vectors for
$\tilde{a}$ in each $V^{\Lamba_i}$. The character theory related to this
decomposition is examined and we make a connection to one of the famous
Ramanujan identities. This dissertation constructs coset Virasoro operators
$Y(\omg,z)$ by explicitly determining the generator $\omg$. We also give the
explicit highest weight vectors for each $Vir \otimes F_4^(1)$-module in the
decomposition of each $V^{\Lamba_i}$. This explicit work on determining highest
weight vectors gives some insight into the relationship to the Zamolodchikov
$W_3$-algebra.


  The electrostatic interaction between pairs of spherical or macroscopically
long, parallel cylindrical colloids trapped at fluid interfaces is studied
theoretically for the case of small inter-particle separations. Starting from
the effective interaction between two planar walls and by using the Derjaguin
approximation, we address the issue of how the electrostatic interaction
between such particles is influenced by their curvatures and by the wetting
contact angle at their surfaces. Regarding the influence of curvature, our
findings suggest that the discrepancies between linear and nonlinear
Poisson-Boltzmann theory, which have been noticed before for planar walls, also
occur for spheres and macroscopically long, parallel cylinders, though their
magnitude depends on the wetting contact angle. Concerning the influence of the
wetting contact angle $\theta$ simple relations are obtained for equally sized
particles which indicate that the inter-particle force varies significantly
with $\theta$ only within an interval around $90^\circ$. This interval depends
on the Debye length of the fluids and on the size of the particles but not on
their shape. For unequally sized particles, a more complicated relation is
obtained for the variation of the inter-particle force with the wetting contact
angle.


  Whether males outperform females in mathematics is still debated. Such a
gender gap varies across countries, but the determinants of the differences are
unclear and could be produced by heterogeneity in the instructional systems or
cultures and may vary across school grades. To clarify this issue, we took
advantage of the INVALSI dataset, that offered over 13 million observations
covering one single instructional system (i.e., the Italian system) in grades
2, 5, and 8, in the period 2010-2018. Results showed that males outperformed
females in mathematics (and vice versa in reading), with gaps widening from the
2nd through to the 8th grade. The gender gap in mathematics was larger in the
richer northern Italian regions (also characterized by greater gender equality)
than in southern regions. This was not explained by average performance or
fully accounted for by economic factors. No such north-south difference of the
gap emerged in reading. Results are discussed with reference to the literature
showing that the gender gap varies across world regions.


  Early in researchers' careers, it is difficult to assess how good their work
is or how important or influential the scholars will eventually be. Hence,
funding agencies, academic departments, and others often use the Journal Impact
Factor (JIF) of where the authors have published to assess their work and
provide resources and rewards for future work. The use of JIFs in this way has
been heavily criticized, however. Using a large data set with many thousands of
publication profiles of individual researchers, this study tests the ability of
the JIF (in its normalized variant) to identify, at the beginning of their
careers, those candidates who will be successful in the long run. Instead of
bare JIFs and citation counts, the metrics used here are standardized according
to Web of Science subject categories and publication years. The results of the
study indicate that the JIF (in its normalized variant) is able to discriminate
between researchers who published papers later on with a citation impact above
or below average in a field and publication year - not only in the short term,
but also in the long term. However, the low to medium effect sizes of the
results also indicate that the JIF (in its normalized variant) should not be
used as the sole criterion for identifying later success: other criteria, such
as the novelty and significance of the specific research, academic
distinctions, and the reputation of previous institutions, should also be
considered.


  Using video-microscopy imaging we demonstrate the existence of a short-ranged
equilibrium attraction between heavy silica colloids diffusing on soft surfaces
of cross-linked polymer gels. The inter-colloid potential can be tuned by
changing the gel stiffness or by coating the colloids with a polymer layer. On
sufficiently soft substrates, the interaction induced by the polymer matrix
leads to large-scale colloidal aggregation. We correlate the in-plane
interaction with a colloid-surface attraction.


  I report on results from the PHENIX collaboration for the first RHIC run,
where gold ions were collided at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130 GeV$.
  In order to study initial conditions, PHENIX has measured the ratio between
anti-protons and protons, the transverse energy, and charged multiplicity as a
function of collision centrality. These measurements allows us to extract some
information on the initial density of created partons, the baryon density, the
energy density, and particle production. In order to probe the formation of a
possible new state of matter, PHENIX has measured the neutral pion and
unidentified hadron transverse momentum spectra. We find a deficit compared to
the the expectations from simple nucleon-nucleon scaling. These novel results
are consistent with expectations that high $p_T$ leading particles will be
suppressed in the presence of the formation of a plasma.


  The recent pioneering campaigns conducted by the Lead Radius Experiment
(PREX) and the Calcium Radius Experiment (CREX) collaborations have uncovered
major deficiencies in the theoretical description of some fundamental
properties of atomic nuclei. Following a recent refinement to the isovector
sector of covariant energy density functionals [1], we present here additional
improvements to the functional by including both tensor couplings and an
isoscalar-isovector mixing term in the scalar sector. Motivated by the distinct
surface properties of calcium and lead, we expect that the tensor terms that
generate derivative couplings will help break the linear correlation between
the neutron skin thickness of these two nuclei. Moreover, the addition of these
new terms mitigates most of the problems identified in Ref.[1] in describing
the properties of both finite nuclei and neutron stars. While significant
progress has been made in reconciling the PREX-CREX results without
compromising other observables, the final resolution awaits the completion of a
proper calibration for this new class of functionals. We expect that powerful
reduced basis methods used recently to create efficient emulators will be
essential to accomplish this task.


  This paper presents a mobile audio space intended for use by gelled social
groups. In face-to-face interactions in such social groups, conversational
floors change frequently, e.g., two participants split off to form a new
conversational floor, a participant moves from one conversational floor to
another, etc. To date, audio spaces have provided little support for such
dynamic regroupings of participants, either requiring that the participants
explicitly specify with whom they wish to talk or simply presenting all
participants as though they are in a single floor. By contrast, the audio space
described here monitors participant behavior to identify conversational floors
as they emerge. The system dynamically modifies the audio delivered to each
participant to enhance the salience of the participants with whom they are
currently conversing. We report a user study of the system, focusing on
conversation analytic results.


  A significant fraction of stars in globular clusters (about 70%-85%) exhibit
peculiar chemical patterns with strong abundance variations in light elements
along with constant abundances in heavy elements. These abundance anomalies can
be created in the H-burning core of a first generation of fast rotating massive
stars and the corresponding elements are convoyed to the stellar surface thanks
to rotational induced mixing. If the rotation of the stars is fast enough this
matter is ejected at low velocity through a mechanical wind at the equator. It
then pollutes the ISM from which a second generation of chemically anomalous
stars can be formed. The proportion of anomalous to normal star observed today
depends on at least two quantities : (1) the number of polluter stars; (2) the
dynamical history of the cluster which may lose during its lifetime first and
second generation stars in different proportions. Here we estimate these
proportions based on dynamical models for globular clusters. When internal
dynamical evolution and dissolution due to tidal forces are accounted for,
starting from an initial fraction of anomalous stars of 10% produces a present
day fraction of about 25%, still too small with respect to the observed 70-85%.
In case gas expulsion by supernovae is accounted for, much higher fraction is
expected to be produced. In this paper we also address the question of the
evolution of the second generation stars that are He-rich, and deduce
consequences for the age determination of globular clusters.


  We investigate the distillability problem in quantum information in
$\bbC^d\ox\bbC^d$. A special case of the problem has been reduced to proving a
matrix inequality when $d=4$. We investigate the inequality for two families of
non-normal matrices. We prove the inequality for the first family with $d=4$
and two special cases of the second family with $d\ge4$. We also prove the
inequality for all normal matrices with $d>4$.