  We make unexpected predictions for the electrical conductance and local
density of states (LDOS) of a wide class of semi-regular nanodevices, tatty
nanodevices, and nanodevices with atypical but arbitrarily strong disorder.
Disorder is disruptive to electron transport, as it causes coherent electron
scattering. Nevertheless, we predict a wide class of nanodevices which show
order amidst disorder, in that the device Hamiltonians are disordered but when
the device is attached to proper leads the LDOS is ordered. These nanodevices
also are quantum dragons, as they have complete electron transmission, ${\cal
T}(E)=1$ for all electron energies which propagate in the attached leads. We
analyze a conventional single-band tight-binding model by NEGF (Non-Equilibrium
Green's Function) methods. We provide a recipe to allow extensive disorder in
coherent transport through quantum nanodevices based on semi-regular, random,
or tatty 2D, 3D, and 2D+3D underlying graphs with arbitrarily strong disorder
in the tight-binding parameters, while the nanodevice keeps the desired quantum
properties. The tight-binding parameters must be locally correlated to achieve
order amidst disorder and ${\cal T}(E)=1$. Consequently, in addition to the
known regular examples of armchair single-walled carbon nanotubes and zigzag
graphene nanoribbons, we predict a large class of metallic allotropes of carbon
with ${\cal T}(E)=1$. We also provide in two different regimes universal
scaling analysis for the average transmission, ${\cal T}_{\rm ave}(E)$, for
nanodevices which have nearly the desired quantum properties.


  Eisenstein series are ubiquitous in the theory of automorphic forms. The
traditional proofs of the meromorphic continuation of Eisenstein series, due to
Selberg and Langlands, start with cuspidal Eisenstein series as a special case,
and deduce the general case from spectral theory.
  We present a "soft" proof which relies only on rudimentary Fredholm theory
(needed only in the number field case). It is valid for Eisenstein series
induced from an arbitrary automorphic form.
  The proof relies on the principle of meromorphic continuation. It is close in
spirit to Selberg's later proofs.


  Photometry from Kepler has revealed the presence of cool starspots on the
surfaces of thousands of stars, presenting a wide range of spot morphologies
and lifetimes. Understanding the lifetime and evolution of starspots across the
main sequence reveals critical information about the strength and nature of
stellar dynamos. We probe the dynamo by modeling the starspot properties over
time using Kepler light curves. In particular, we use planetary systems like
Kepler 17 that show in-transit starspot crossing features. Spot-occulting
transits probe smaller-scale starspot features on the stellar surface along a
fixed latitude region. Our approach is novel in modeling both the in- and
out-of transit light curve features, allowing us to break fundamental
degeneracies between spot size, latitude, and contrast. With continuous
monitoring from Kepler we are able to observe small changes in the positions
and sizes of spots from many transits, spanning 4 years of data. Additionally,
for stars without transiting planets like GJ 1243, we are able to recover
subtle, long term changes in spot sizes and longitudes, leading to some of the
slowest differential rotation rates yet measured. These studies constrain key
physical parameters including rotation period, differential rotation, and
diffusion timescales, and open the door to ensemble studies of detailed spot
evolution in the future.


  We construct a first order deformation of the complex structure of the cone
over Sasaki-Einstein spaces Y^{p,q} and check supersymmetry explicitly. This
space is a central element in the holographic dual of chiral symmetry breaking
for a large class of cascading quiver theories. We discuss a solution
describing a stack of N D3 branes and M fractional D3 branes at the tip of the
deformed spaces.


  Spiral and antispiral waves are studied numerically in two examples of
oscillatory reaction-diffusion media and analytically in the corresponding
complex Ginzburg-Landau equation (CGLE). We argue that both these structures
are sources of waves in oscillatory media, which are distinguished only by the
sign of the phase velocity of the emitted waves. Using known analytical results
in the CGLE, we obtain a criterion for the CGLE coefficients that predicts
whether antispirals or spirals will occur in the corresponding
reaction-diffusion systems. We apply this criterion to the FitzHugh-Nagumo and
Brusselator models by deriving the CGLE near the Hopf bifurcations of the
respective equations. Numerical simulations of the full reaction-diffusion
equations confirm the validity of our simple criterion near the onset of
oscillations. They also reveal that antispirals often occur near the onset and
turn into spirals further away from it. The transition from antispirals to
spirals is characterized by a divergence in the wavelength. A tentative
interpretaion of recent experimental observations of antispiral waves in the
Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in a microemulsion is given.


  To improve the computational efficiencies of the real-space orbital-free
density functional theory, this work develops a new single-grid solver by
directly providing the closed-form solution to the inner iteration and using an
improved bisection method to accelerate the line search process in the outer
iteration, and extended the single-grid solver to a multi-grid solver.
Numerical examples show that the proposed single-grid solver can improve the
computational efficiencies by two orders of magnitude comparing with the
methods in the literature and the multi-grid solver can improve the
computational efficiencies even once for the cases where high-resolution
electron densities are needed.


  It is shown that all the (p,q) dyon bound states exist and are unique in N=4
and N=2 with four massless flavours supersymmetric SU(2) Yang-Mills theories,
where p and q are any relatively prime integers. The proof can be understood in
the context of field theory alone, and does not rely on any duality assumption.
We also give a general physical argument showing that these theories should
have at least an exact Gamma(2) duality symmetry, and then deduce in particular
the existence of the (2p,2q) vector multiplets in the Nf=4 theory. The
corresponding massive theories are studied in parallel, and it is shown that
though in these cases the spectrum is no longer self-dual at a given point on
the moduli space, it is still in perfect agreement with an exact S duality. We
also discuss the interplay between our results and both the semiclassical
quantization and the heterotic-type II string-string duality conjecture.


  Using the isospin-dependent quantum molecular dynamical (IQMD) model, we
systematically study the role of momentum dependent interactions in global
stopping and analyze the effect of symmetry energy in the presence of momentum
dependent interactions. For this, we simulate the reactions by varying the
total mass of the system from 80 to 394 at different beam energies from 30 to
1000 MeV/nucleon over central and semi-central geometries. The study is carried
in the presence of momentum dependent interactions and symmetry energy by
taking into account hard equation of state. The nuclear stopping is found to be
sensitive towards the momentum dependent interactions and symmetry energy at
low incident energies. The momentum dependent interactions are found to weaken
the finite size effects in nuclear stopping.


  We present the geometry and symmetries of radiative transfer theory. Our
geometrization exploits recent work in the literature that enables to obtain
the Hamiltonian formulation of radiative transfer as the semiclassical limit of
a phase space representation of electromagnetic theory. Cosphere bundle
reduction yields the traditional description over the space of "positions and
directions", and geometrical optics arises as a special case when energy is
disregarded. It is also shown that, in idealized environments, radiative
transfer is a Lie-Poisson system with the group of canonical transformations as
configuration space and symmetry group.


  We present details of characterization and imaging performance of the Cananea
Near-infrared camera (CANICA) at the 2.1m telescope of the Guillermo Haro
Astrophysical Observatory (OAGH) located in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico. CANICA has
a HAWAII array with a HgCdTe detector of 1024 x 1024 pixels covering a field of
view of 5.5 x 5.5 arcmin^2 with a plate scale of 0.32 arcsec/pixel. The camera
characterization involved measuring key detector parameters: conversion gain,
dark current, readout noise, and linearity. The pixels in the detector have a
full-well-depth of 100,000 e- with the conversion gain measured to be 5.8
e-/ADU. The time-dependent dark current was estimated to be 1.2 e-/sec. Readout
noise for correlated double sampled (CDS) technique was measured to be 30
e-/pixel. The detector shows 10% non-linearity close to the full-well-depth.
The non-linearity was corrected within 1% levels for the CDS images. Full-field
imaging performance was evaluated by measuring the point spread function,
zeropoints, throughput, and limiting magnitude. The average zeropoint value in
each filter are J = 20.52, H = 20.63, and K = 20.23. The saturation limit of
the detector is about sixth magnitude in all the primary broadbands. CANICA on
the 2.1m OAGH telescope reaches background-limited magnitudes of J = 18.5, H =
17.6, and K = 16.0 for a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 with an integration time
of 900s.


  O(N) symmetric $\lambda \phi^4$ field theories describe many critical
phenomena in the laboratory and in the early Universe. Given N and $D\leq 3$,
the dimension of space, these models exhibit topological defect classical
solutions that in some cases fully determine their critical behavior. For N=2,
D=3 it has been observed that the defect density is seemingly a universal
quantity at T_c. We prove this conjecture and show how to predict its value
based on the universal critical exponents of the field theory. Analogously, for
general N and D we predict the universal critical densities of domain walls and
monopoles, for which no detailed thermodynamic study exists. This procedure can
also be inverted, producing an algorithm for generating typical defect networks
at criticality, in contrast to the canonical procedure, which applies only in
the unphysical limit of infinite temperature.


  Fuchsian groups with a modular embedding have the richest arithmetic
properties among non-arithmetic Fuchsian groups. But they are very rare, all
known examples being related either to triangle groups or to Teichmueller
curves.
  In Part I of this paper we study the arithmetic properties of the modular
embedding and develop from scratch a theory of twisted modular forms for
Fuchsian groups with a modular embedding, proving dimension formulas,
coefficient growth estimates and differential equations.
  In Part II we provide a modular proof for an Apery-like integrality statement
for solutions of Picard-Fuchs equations. We illustrate the theory on a worked
example, giving explicit Fourier expansions of twisted modular forms and the
equation of a Teichmueller curve in a Hilbert modular surface.
  In Part III we show that genus two Teichmueller curves are cut out in Hilbert
modular surfaces by a product of theta derivatives. We rederive most of the
known properties of those Teichmueller curves from this viewpoint, without
using the theory of flat surfaces. As a consequence we give the modular
embeddings for all genus two Teichmueller curves and prove that the Fourier
developments of their twisted modular forms are algebraic up to one
transcendental scaling constant. Moreover, we prove that Bainbridge's
compactification of Hilbert modular surfaces is toroidal. The strategy to
compactify can be expressed using continued fractions and resembles
Hirzebruch's in form, but every detail is different.


  We study under which conditions a scalar particle is a viable WIMP Dark
Matter candidate with Higgs and dilaton interactions. The theory is a composite
Higgs model with top partial compositeness where both the Higgs and the Dark
Matter candidate arise as pseudo Goldstone boson of the coset SO(6)/SO(5) from
a new physics sector. We highlight the role of the dilaton in direct and
indirect searches. We find that a Dark Matter particle with a mass around
200-400 GeV and a relatively light dilaton are a fair prediction of the model.


  A fermion-boson-type Composite Model is proposed.
  Elementary fields are only one kind of spin-1/2 and spin-0 {\bf preon}. Both
are in the global supersymmetric pair with the common electric charge of e/6
and belong to the fundamental representations of (3, 2, 2) under the
spontaneously unbroken SU(3)_C\otimes{SU(2)}_L^{h}\otimes{SU(2)}_R^{h} gauge
symmetry (h means hyper-color gauge). Preons are composed into subquarks which
are intermediate clusters towards quarks and leptons. Weak interactions are
residual ones of hyper-color gauge interactions. W-and Z-boson are also
composite objects of subquarks, which introduces the idea of existence of their
scalar partners (S) by hyper-fine-splitting whose masses would be around
110-120 GeV. The mechanism of making higher generations is obtained by adding
neutral scalar subquark (y) composed of a preon-antipreon pair. Creation or
annihilation of y inside quarks induces the coupling constants of flavor-mixing
weak interactions which are all complex numbers (contrary to CKM-matrix
elements) and then they all become sources of direct and mixing-induced CP
violations. Exchange of y between quark and anti-quark inside neutral
pseudo-scalar meson (P^0) gives indirect CP violation and mass-difference of
P^0 and P^0. Current experimental results of CP violation (Belle, BaBar, CLEO,
KTeV and NA48) are inspected by this Composite Model. This model suggests the
candidates for Dark Energy and Dark Matter.


  The fifth-generation (5G) mobile/cellular technology is a game changer for
industrial systems. Private 5G deployments are promising to address the
challenges faced by industrial networks. Programmability and open-source are
two key aspects which bring unprecedented flexibility and customizability to
private 5G networks. Recent regulatory initiatives are removing barriers for
industrial stakeholders to deploy their own local 5G networks with dedicated
equipment. To this end, this demonstration showcases an open and programmable
5G network-in-a-box solution for private deployments. The network-in-a-box
provides an integrated solution, based on open-source software stack and
general-purpose hardware, for operation in 5G non-standalone (NSA) as well as
4G long-term evolution (LTE) modes. The demonstration also shows the capability
of operation in different sub-6 GHz frequency bands, some of which are
specifically available for private networks. Performance results, in terms of
end-to-end latency and data rates, with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) 5G
device are shown as well.


  This paper studies simplicity, primitivity and semiprimitivity of algebras
associated to \'etale groupoids. Applications to inverse semigroup algebras are
presented. The results also recover the semiprimitivity of Leavitt path
algebras and can be used to recover the known primitivity criterion for Leavitt
path algebras.


  Activator-inhibitor FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) equation is an example for
reaction-diffusion equations with skew-gradient structure. We discretize the
FHN equation using symmetric interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin (SIPG)
method in space and average vector field (AVF) method in time. The AVF method
is a geometric integrator, i.e. it preserves the energy of the Hamiltonian
systems and energy dissipation of the gradient systems. In this work, we show
that the fully discrete energy of the FHN equation satisfies the mini-maximizer
property of the continuous energy for the skew-gradient systems. We present
numerical results with traveling fronts and pulses for one dimensional, two
coupled FHN equations and three coupled FHN equations with one activator and
two inhibitors in skew-gradient form. Turing patterns are computed for fully
discretized two dimensional FHN equation in the form of spots and labyrinths.
Because the computation of the Turing patterns is time consuming for different
parameters, we applied model order reduction with the proper orthogonal
decomposition (POD). The nonlinear term in the reduced equations is computed
using the discrete empirical interpolation (DEIM) with SIPG discretization. Due
to the local nature of the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method, the nonlinear
terms can be computed more efficiently than for the continuous finite elements.
The reduced solutions are very close to the fully discretized ones. The
efficiency and accuracy of the POD and POD-DEIM reduced solutions are shown for
the labyrinth-like patterns.


  In this article we investigate how the drag coefficient $A$ and $\hat{q}$,
the transverse momentum transfer by unit length, of charm quarks are modified
if the QGP is not in complete thermal equilibrium using the dynamical
quasi-particle model (DQPM) which reproduces both, the equation-of-state of the
QGP and the spatial diffusion coefficient of heavy quarks as predicted by
lattice QCD calculations. We study three cases: a) the QGP has an anisotropic
momentum distribution of the partons which leads to an anisotropic pressure b)
the QGP partons have higher or lower kinetic energies as compared to the
thermal expectation value, and c) the QGP partons have larger or smaller pole
masses of their spectral function as compared to the pole mass from the DQPM at
the QGP temperature. In the last two cases we adjust the number density of
partons to obtain the same energy density as in an equilibrated QGP. In the
first scenario we find that if the transverse pressure exceeds the longitudinal
one for small heavy quark momenta $A$ becomes larger and $\hat{q}$ smaller as
compared to an isotropic pressure. For heavy quarks with large momentum both,
$A$ and $\hat{q}$ , approach unity. If the partons have less kinetic energy or
a smaller pole mass as compared to a system in equilibrium charm quarks lose
more energy. In the former case $\hat{q}$ decreases whereas in the latter case
it increases for charm quark with a low or intermediate transverse momentum.
Thus each non-equilibrium scenario affects $A$ and $\hat{q}$ of charm quarks in
a different way. The modifications in our scenarios are of the order 20-50\% at
temperatures relevant for heavy ion reactions. These modifications have to be
considered if one wants to determine these coefficients by comparing heavy ion
data with theoretical predictions from viscous hydrodynamics or Langevin
equations.


  Node-perturbation learning is a type of statistical gradient descent
algorithm that can be applied to problems where the objective function is not
explicitly formulated, including reinforcement learning. It estimates the
gradient of an objective function by using the change in the object function in
response to the perturbation. The value of the objective function for an
unperturbed output is called a baseline. Cho et al. proposed node-perturbation
learning with a noisy baseline. In this paper, we report on building the
statistical mechanics of Cho's model and on deriving coupled differential
equations of order parameters that depict learning dynamics. We also show how
to derive the generalization error by solving the differential equations of
order parameters. On the basis of the results, we show that Cho's results are
also apply in general cases and show some general performances of Cho's model.


  We study the class of networks which can be created in polylogarithmic
parallel time by network constructors: groups of anonymous agents that interact
randomly under a uniform random scheduler with the ability to form connections
between each other. Starting from an empty network, the goal is to construct a
stable network which belongs to a given family. We prove that the class of
trees where each node has any k >= 2 children can be constructed in O(log n)
parallel time with high probability. We show that constructing networks which
are k-regular is Omega(n) time, but a minimal relaxation to (l, k)-regular
networks, where l = k - 1 can be constructed in polylogarithmic parallel time
for any fixed k, where k > 2. We further demonstrate that when the finite-state
assumption is relaxed and k is allowed to grow with n, then k = log log n acts
as a threshold above which network construction is again polynomial time. We
use this to provide a partial characterisation of the class of polylogarithmic
time network constructors.


  We study the relation between the coherence of assistance and the regularized
coherence of assistance introduced by Chitambar et al. [E. Chitambar et al.,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 070402 (2016)]. The necessary and sufficient conditions
that these two quantities coincide are provided. Detailed examples are analyzed
and the optimal pure state decompositions such that the coherence of assistance
equals the regularized coherence of assistance are derived. Moreover, we
present the protocol for obtaining the maximal relative entropy coherence,
assisted by another party under local measurement and one-way communication in
one copy setting.


  The classification problem for simple $\mathfrak{sl}(2)$-modules leads in a
natural way to the study of the category of finite rank torsion free
$\mathfrak{sl}(2)$-modules and its subcategory of rational
$\mathfrak{sl}(2)$-modules. We prove that the rationalization functor induces
an identification between the isomorphism classes of simple modules of these
categories. This raises the question of what is the precise relationship
between other invariants associated with them. We give a complete solution to
this problem for the Grothendieck and Picard groups, obtaining along theway
several new results regarding these categories that are interesting in their
own right.


  Historically, battery is the power source for mobile, embedded and remote
system applications. However, the development of battery techniques does not
follow the Moore's Law. The large physical size, limited electric quantity and
high-cost replacement process always restrict the performance of the
application such as embedded systems, wireless sensors networks and lower-power
electronics. Energy harvesting, a technique which enables the applications to
scavenge energy from RF signal from TV towers, solar energy, piezoelectric
driven by motion of people and thermal energy from the temperature difference,
which could dramatically extend the operating lifetime of applications. Thus,
energy harvesting is important for the sustainable operations of an
application.


  It is a consensus that feature maps in the shallow layer are more related to
image attributes such as texture and shape, whereas abstract semantic
representation exists in the deep layer. Meanwhile, some image information will
be lost in the process of the convolution operation. Naturally, the direct
method is combining them together to gain lost detailed information through
concatenation or adding. In fact, the image representation flowed in feature
fusion can not match with the semantic representation completely, and the
semantic deviation in different layers also destroy the information
purification, that leads to useless information being mixed into the fusion
layers. Therefore, it is crucial to narrow the gap among the fused layers and
reduce the impact of noises during fusion. In this paper, we propose a method
named weight mechanism to reduce the gap between feature maps in concatenation
of series connection, and we get a better result of 0.80% mIoU improvement on
Massachusetts building dataset by changing the weight of the concatenation of
series connection in residual U-Net. Specifically, we design a new architecture
named fused U-Net to test weight mechanism, and it also gains 0.12% mIoU
improvement.


  The Langlands Programme, formulated by Robert Langlands in the 1960s and
since much developed and refined, is a web of interrelated theory and
conjectures concerning many objects in number theory, their interconnections,
and connections to other fields. At the heart of the Langlands Programme is the
concept of an L-function.
  The most famous L-function is the Riemann zeta-function, and as well as being
ubiquitous in number theory itself, L-functions have applications in
mathematical physics and cryptography. Two of the seven Clay Mathematics
Million Dollar Millennium Problems, the Riemann Hypothesis and the Birch and
Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, deal with their properties. Many different
mathematical objects are connected in various ways to L-functions, but the
study of those objects is highly specialized, and most mathematicians have only
a vague idea of the objects outside their specialty and how everything is
related. Helping mathematicians to understand these connections was the
motivation for the L-functions and Modular Forms Database (LMFDB) project. Its
mission is to chart the landscape of L-functions and modular forms in a
systematic, comprehensive and concrete fashion. This involves developing their
theory, creating and improving algorithms for computing and classifying them,
and hence discovering new properties of these functions, and testing
fundamental conjectures.
  In the lecture I gave a very brief introduction to L-functions for
non-experts, and explained and demonstrated how the large collection of data in
the LMFDB is organized and displayed, showing the interrelations between linked
objects, through our website www.lmfdb.org. I also showed how this has been
created by a world-wide open source collaboration, which we hope may become a
model for others.


  In the last decade, Direct Dark Matter searches has become a very active
research program, spawning dozens of projects world wide and leading to
contradictory results. It is on this stage that the Dark matter Experiment with
liquid Argon and Pulse shape discrimination (DEAP) is about to enter. With a
3600~kg liquid argon target and a 1000~kg fiducial mass, it is designed to run
background free during 3 years, reaching an unprecedented sensitivity of
10$^{-46}$~cm$^2$ for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV. In order to achieve this
impressive feat, the collaboration followed a two-pronged approach: a careful
selection of every material entering the construction of the detector in order
to suppress the backgrounds, and optimum use of the pulse shape discrimination
(PSD) technique to separate the nuclear recoils from the electronic recoils.
Using the experience acquired ffrom the 7~kg-prototype DEAP-1, a 3600~kg
detector is being completed at SNOLAB (Sudbury, CANADA) and is expected to
start taking data in mid-2014.


  We study the number of random permutations needed to invariably generate the
symmetric group, $S_n$, when the distribution of cycle counts has the strong
$\alpha$-logarithmic property. The canonical example is the Ewens sampling
formula, for which the number of $k$-cycles relates to a conditioned Poisson
random variable with mean $\alpha/k$. The special case $\alpha =1$ corresponds
to uniformly random permutations, for which it was recently shown that exactly
four are needed. For strong $\alpha$-logarithmic measures, and almost every
$\alpha$, we show that precisely $\left\lceil ( 1- \alpha \log 2 )^{-1}
\right\rceil$ permutations are needed to invariably generate $S_n$. A corollary
is that for many other probability measures on $S_n$ no bounded number of
permutations will invariably generate $S_n$ with positive probability. Along
the way we generalize classic theorems of Erd\H{o}s, Tehran, Pyber, Luczak and
Bovey to permutations obtained from the Ewens sampling formula.


  Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas have experienced increased rates of
seismicity in recent years, providing new datasets of earthquake recordings to
develop ground motion prediction models for this particular region of the
Central and Eastern North America (CENA). This paper outlines a framework for
using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to develop attenuation models from the
ground motion recordings in this region. While attenuation models exist for the
CENA, concerns over the increased rate of seismicity in this region necessitate
investigation of ground motions prediction models particular to these states.
To do so, an ANN-based framework is proposed to predict peak ground
acceleration (PGA) and peak ground velocity (PGV) given magnitude, earthquake
source-to-site distance, and shear wave velocity. In this framework,
approximately 4,500 ground motions with magnitude greater than 3.0 recorded in
these three states (Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas) since 2005 are considered.
Results from this study suggest that existing ground motion prediction models
developed for CENA do not accurately predict the ground motion intensity
measures for earthquakes in this region, especially for those with low
source-to-site distances or on very soft soil conditions. The proposed ANN
models provide much more accurate prediction of the ground motion intensity
measures at all distances and magnitudes. The proposed ANN models are also
converted to relatively simple mathematical equations so that engineers can
easily use them to predict the ground motion intensity measures for future
events. Finally, through a sensitivity analysis, the contributions of the
predictive parameters to the prediction of the considered intensity measures
are investigated.


  Let $k$ be a field, $m$ a positive integer, $\mathbb{V}$ an affine subvariety
of $\mathbb{A}^{m+3}$ defined by a linear relation of the form
$x_{1}^{r_{1}}\cdots x_{m}^{r_{m}}y=F(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{m},z,t)$, $A$ the
coordinate ring of $\mathbb{V}$ and $G= X_1^{r_1}\cdots X_m^{r_m}Y-F(X_1,
\dots, X_m,Z,T)$. In \cite{com}, the second author had studied the case $m=1$
and had obtained several necessary and sufficient conditions for $\mathbb{V}$
to be isomorphic to the affine 3-space and $G$ to be a coordinate in $k[X_1,
Y,Z,T]$. In this paper, we study the general higher-dimensional variety
$\mathbb{V}$ for each $m \geqslant 1$ and obtain analogous conditions for
$\mathbb{V}$ to be isomorphic to $\mathbb{A}^{m+2}$ and $G$ to be a coordinate
in $k[X_1, \dots, X_m, Y,Z,T]$, under a certain hypothesis on $F$. Our main
theorem immediately yields a family of higher-dimensional linear hyperplanes
for which the Abhyankar-Sathaye Conjecture holds. We also describe the
isomorphism classes and automorphisms of integral domains of the type $A$ under
certain conditions. These results show that for each $d \geqslant 3$, there is
a family of infinitely many pairwise non-isomorphic rings which are
counterexamples to the Zariski Cancellation Problem for dimension $d$ in
positive characteristic.


  Software startup companies develop innovative, software-intensive products
within limited time frames and with few resources, searching for sustainable
and scalable business models. Software startups are quite distinct from
traditional mature software companies, but also from micro-, small-, and
medium-sized enterprises, introducing new challenges relevant for software
engineering research. This paper's research agenda focuses on software
engineering in startups, identifying, in particular, 70+ research questions in
the areas of supporting startup engineering activities, startup evolution
models and patterns, ecosystems and innovation hubs, human aspects in software
startups, applying startup concepts in non-startup environments, and
methodologies and theories for startup research. We connect and motivate this
research agenda with past studies in software startup research, while pointing
out possible future directions. While all authors of this research agenda have
their main background in Software Engineering or Computer Science, their
interest in software startups broadens the perspective to the challenges, but
also to the opportunities that emerge from multi-disciplinary research. Our
audience is therefore primarily software engineering researchers, even though
we aim at stimulating collaborations and research that crosses disciplinary
boundaries. We believe that with this research agenda we cover a wide spectrum
of the software startup industry current needs.


  We extend the classicial notion of an outer action $\alpha$ of a group $G$ on
a unital ring $A$ to the case when $\alpha$ is a partial action on ideals, all
of which have local units. We show that if $\alpha$ is an outer partial action
of an abelian group $G$, then its associated partial skew group ring $A
\star_\alpha G$ is simple if and only if $A$ is $G$-simple. This result is
applied to partial skew group rings associated with two different types of
partial dynamical systems.


  Herein we employed high-resolution spectroscopic techniques in combination
with periodic ab initio density functional theory (DFT) calculations to
establish the different polarization processes for a porous copper-based MOF,
termed HKUST-1. We used alternating current measurements to determine its
dielectric response between 4 Hz and 1.5 MHz where orientational polarization
is predominant, while synchrotron infrared (IR) reflectance was used to probe
the far-IR, mid-IR, and near-IR dielectric response across the 1.2 THz to 150
THz range (ca. 40 - 5000 cm^-1) where vibrational and optical polarizations are
principal contributors to its dielectric permittivity. We demonstrate the role
of pressure on the evolution of broadband dielectric response, where THz
vibrations reveal distinct blue and red shifts of phonon modes from structural
deformation of the copper paddle-wheel and the organic linker, respectively. We
also investigated the effect of temperature on dielectric constants in the MHz
region pertinent to microelectronics, to study temperature-dependent dielectric
losses via dissipation in an alternating electric field. The DFT calculations
offer insights into the physical mechanisms responsible for dielectric
transitions observed in the experiments and enable us to explain the frequency
shifts phenomenon detected under pressure. Together, the experiments and theory
have enabled us to glimpse into the complex dielectric response and mechanisms
underpinning a prototypical MOF subject to pressure, temperature, and vast
frequencies.


  Stoquastic Hamiltonians are characterized by the property that their
off-diagonal matrix elements in the standard product basis are real and
non-positive. Many interesting quantum models fall into this class including
the Transverse field Ising Model (TIM), the Heisenberg model on bipartite
graphs, and the bosonic Hubbard model. Here we consider the problem of
estimating the ground state energy of a local stoquastic Hamiltonian $H$ with a
promise that the ground state of $H$ has a non-negligible correlation with some
`guiding' state that admits a concise classical description. A formalized
version of this problem called Guided Stoquastic Hamiltonian is shown to be
complete for the complexity class MA (a probabilistic analogue of NP). To prove
this result we employ the Projection Monte Carlo algorithm with a variable
number of walkers. Secondly, we show that the ground state and thermal
equilibrium properties of the ferromagnetic TIM can be simulated in polynomial
time on a classical probabilistic computer. This result is based on the
approximation algorithm for the classical ferromagnetic Ising model due to
Jerrrum and Sinclair (1993).


  We present a new tool for colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) studies,
$Powerful~CMD$. This tool is built on the basis of the advanced stellar
population synthesis (ASPS) model, in which single stars, binary stars,
rotating stars, and star formation history have been taken into account. Via
$Powerful~CMD$, the distance modulus, colour excess, metallicity, age, binary
fraction, rotating star fraction, and star formation history of star clusters
can be determined simultaneously from observed CMDs. The new tool is tested via
both simulated and real star clusters. Five parameters of clusters NGC6362,
NGC6652, NGC6838 and M67 are determined and compared to other works. It is
shown that this tool is useful for CMD studies, in particular for those with
the data of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Moreover, we find that the
inclusion of binaries in theoretical stellar population models may lead to
smaller colour excess compared to the case of single star population models.


  For any hyperbolic genus one 2-bridge knot in the 3-sphere, we show that the
resulting manifold by $r$-surgery on the knot has left-orderable fundamental
group if the slope $r$ lies in some range which depends on the knot.


  Information sharing is vital in resisting cyberattacks, and the volume and
severity of these attacks is increasing very rapidly. Therefore responders must
triage incoming warnings in deciding how to act. This study asked a very
specific question: "how can the addition of confidence information to alerts
and warnings improve overall resistance to cyberattacks." We sought, in
particular, to identify current practices, and if possible, to identify some
"best practices." The research involved literature review and interviews with
subject matter experts at every level from system administrators to persons who
develop broad principles of policy. An innovative Modified Online Delphi Panel
technique was used to elicit judgments and recommendations from experts who
were able to speak with each other and vote anonymously to rank proposed
practices.


  The EDGES low-band experiment has measured an absorption feature in the
cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), corresponding to the 21 cm
hyperfine transition of hydrogen at redshift $z \simeq 17$, before the era of
cosmic reionization. The amplitude of this absorption is connected to the ratio
of singlet and triplet hyperfine states in the hydrogen gas, which can be
parametrized by a spin temperature. The EDGES result suggests that the spin
temperature is lower than the expected temperatures of both the CMB and the
hydrogen gas. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed in order to explain
this signal, for example by lowering the kinetic temperature of the hydrogen
gas via dark matter interactions. We introduce an alternative mechanism, by
which a sub-GeV dark matter particle with spin-dependent coupling to nucleons
or electrons can cause hyperfine transitions and lower the spin temperature
directly, with negligible reduction of the kinetic temperature of the hydrogen
gas. We consider a model with an asymmetric dark matter fermion and a light
pseudo-vector mediator. Significant reduction of the spin temperature by this
simple model is excluded, most strongly by coupling constant bounds coming from
stellar cooling. Perhaps an alternative dark sector model, subject to different
sets of constraints, can lower the spin temperature by the same mechanism.


  We consider the linear dissipative Boltzmann equation describing inelastic
interactions of particles with a fixed background. For the simplified model of
Maxwell molecules first, we give a complete spectral analysis, and deduce from
it the optimal rate of exponential convergence to equilibrium. Moreover we show
the convergence to the heat equation in the diffusive limit and compute
explicitely the diffusivity. Then for the physical model of hard spheres we use
a suitable entropy functional for which we prove explicit inequality between
the relative entropy and the production of entropy to get exponential
convergence to equilibrium with explicit rate. The proof is based on
inequalities between the entropy production functional for hard spheres and
Maxwell molecules. Mathematical proof of the convergence to some heat equation
in the diffusive limit is also given. From the last two points we deduce the
first explicit estimates on the diffusive coefficient in the Fick's law for
(inelastic hard-spheres) dissipative gases.


  In this paper, we relate the complexity for a holographic state to a simple
gravitational object of which the growth rate at late times is equal to
temperature times black hole entropy. We show that if this is correct, the
thermodynamics of AdS black holes implies that for generic holographic states
dual to static AdS black holes, the complexity growth rate at late times will
saturate the Lloyd bound at high temperature limit. In particular, for AdS
planar black holes, the result holds at lower temperatures as well. We
conjecture that the complexity growth is bounded above as $d\mathcal{C}/dt\leq
\alpha T S/\pi\hbar$ or $d\mathcal{C}/dt\leq \alpha \big(T_+
S_+-T_-S_-\big)/\pi\hbar$ for black holes with inner horizons, where $\alpha$
is an overall coefficient for our new proposal. The conjecture passes a number
of nontrivial tests for black holes in Einstein's gravity. However, we also
find that the bound may be violated in the presence of stringy corrections.


  When an unmagnetized plasma comes in contact with a material surface, the
difference in mobility between the electrons and the ions creates a nonneutral
layer known as the Debye sheath (DS). However, in magnetic fusion devices, the
open magnetic field lines intersect the structural elements of the device with
near grazing incidence angles. The magnetic field tends to align the particle
flow along its own field lines, thus counteracting the mechanism that leads to
the formation of the DS. Recent work using a fluid model [P. Stangeby, Nucl.
Fusion {\bf 52}, 083012 (2012)] showed that the DS disappears when the
incidence angle is smaller than a critical value (around $5^\circ$ for
ITER-like parameters). Here, we study this transition by means of numerical
simulations of a kinetic model both in the collisionless and weakly collisional
regimes. We show that the main features observed in the fluid model are
preserved: for grazing incidence, the space charge density near the wall is
reduced, the ion flow is subsonic, and the electric field and plasma density
profiles are spread out over several ion Larmor radii instead of a few Debye
lengths as in the unmagnetized case. As there is no singularity at the DS
entrance in the kinetic model, this phenomenon depends smoothly on the magnetic
field incidence angle and no particular critical angle arises. The simulation
results and the predictions of the fluid model are in good agreement, although
some discrepancies subsist, mainly due to the assumptions of isothermal closure
and diagonality of the pressure tensor in the fluid model.


  In recent years, Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) type photocathodes have become
widely used as electron sources in modern Energy Recovery Linac based light
sources such as the Accelerators and Lasers in Combined Experiments (ALICE) at
Daresbury Laboratory and as polarised electron source for the proposed
International Linear Collider (ILC). Once activated to a Low Electron Affinity
(LEA) state and illuminated by a laser, these materials can be used as a
high-brightness source of both polarised and un-polarised electrons. This paper
presents an effective multi-stage preparation procedure including heat
cleaning, atomic hydrogen cleaning and the activation process for a GaAs
photocathode. The stability of quantum efficiency (QE) and lifetime of
activated to LEA state GaAs photocathode have been studied in the ALICE
load-lock photocathode preparation facility which has a base pressure in the
order of 10^-11 mbar. These studies are supported by further experimental
evidence from surface science techniques such as X-ray Photoelectron
Spectroscopy (XPS) to demonstrate the processes at the atomic level.


  The $WW\gamma$ gauge boson couplings were measured using $p\bar{p}\to
\ell\nu\gamma+X$ ($\ell=e,\mu$) events at $\sqrt{s}=1.8$ TeV observed with the
{D\O} detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The signal, obtained from the
data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $13.8 {\rm pb}^{-1}$, agrees
well with the Standard Model prediction. A fit to the photon transverse energy
spectrum yields limits at the 95% confidence level on the CP--conserving
anomalous coupling parameters of $-1.6<\Delta\kappa<1.8$ ($\lambda$ = 0) and
$-0.6<\lambda<0.6$ ($\Delta\kappa$ = 0).


  Elucidating the phase diagram of solid hydrogen is a key objective in
condensed matter physics. Several decades ago, it was proposed that at low
temperatures and high pressures, solid hydrogen would be a metal with a high
superconducting transition temperature. This transition to a metallic state can
happen through the closing of the energy gap in the molecular solid or through
a transition to an atomic solid. Recent experiments have managed to reach
pressures in the range of 400-500 GPa, providing valuable insights. There is
strong evidence suggesting that metallization via either of these mechanisms
occurs within this pressure range. Computational and experimental studies have
identified multiple promising crystal phases, but the limited accuracy of
calculations and the limited capabilities of experiments prevent us from
determining unequivocally the observed phase or phases. Therefore, it is
crucial to investigate the superconducting properties of all the candidate
phases. Recently, we reported the superconducting properties of the C2/c-24,
Cmca-12, Cmca-4 and I41/amd-2 phases, including anharmonic effects. Here, we
report the effects of anisotropy on superconducting properties using Eliashberg
theory. Then, we investigate the superconducting properties of deuterium and
estimate the size of the isotope effect for each phase. We find that the
isotope effect on superconductivity is diminished by anharmonicity in the
C2/c-24 and Cmca-12 phases and enlarged in the Cmca-4 and I41/amd-2 phases. Our
anharmonic calculations of the C2/c-24 phase of deuterium agree closely with
the most recent experiment by Loubeyre et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 29, 035501
(2022)], indicating that the C2/c-24 phase remains the leading candidate in
this pressure range, and has a strong anharmonic character. These
characteristics can serve to distinguish among crystal phases in experiment.


  Heterogenous cellular networks (HCN) introduce small cells within the
transmission range of a macrocell. For the efficient operation of HCNs it is
essential that the high power macrocell shuts off its transmissions for an
appropriate amount of time in order for the low power small cells to transmit.
This is a mechanism that allows time-domain resource partitioning (TDRP) and is
critical to be optimized for maximizing the throughput of the complete HCN. In
this paper, we investigate video communication in HCNs when TDRP is employed.
After defining a detailed system model for video streaming in such a HCN, we
consider the problem of maximizing the experienced video quality at all the
users, by jointly optimizing the TDRP for the HCN, the rate allocated to each
specific user, and the selected video quality transmitted to a user. The
NP-hard problem is solved with a primal-dual approximation algorithm that
decomposes the problem into simpler subproblems, making them amenable to fast
well-known solution algorithms. Consequently, the calculated solution can be
enforced in the time scale of real-life video streaming sessions. This last
observation motivates the enhancement of the proposed framework to support
video delivery with dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH). Our extensive
simulation results demonstrate clearly the need for our holistic approach for
improving the video quality and playback performance of the video streaming
users in HCNs.


  In medical imaging, there is a growing interest to provide real-time images
with good quality for large anatomical structures. To cope with this issue, we
developed a library that allows to replace, for some specific clinical
applications, more robust systems such as Computer Tomography (CT) and Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI). Our python library Py3DFreeHandUS is a package for
processing data acquired simultaneously by ultra-sonographic systems (US) and
marker-based optoelectronic systems. In particular, US data enables to
visualize subcutaneous body structures, whereas the optoelectronic system is
able to collect the 3D position in space for reflective objects, that are
called markers. By combining these two measurement devices, it is possible to
reconstruct the real 3D morphology of body structures such as muscles, for
relevant clinical implications. In the present research work, the different
steps which allow to obtain a relevant 3D data set as well as the procedures
for calibrating the systems and for determining the quality of the
reconstruction.


  Masked Image Modeling (MIM) is a promising self-supervised learning approach
that enables learning from unlabeled images. Despite its recent success,
learning good representations through MIM remains challenging because it
requires predicting the right semantic content in accurate locations. For
example, given an incomplete picture of a dog, we can guess that there is a
tail, but we cannot determine its exact location. In this work, we propose to
incorporate location uncertainty into MIM by using stochastic positional
embeddings (StoP). Specifically, we condition the model on stochastic masked
token positions drawn from a Gaussian distribution. StoP reduces overfitting to
location features and guides the model toward learning features that are more
robust to location uncertainties. Quantitatively, StoP improves downstream MIM
performance on a variety of downstream tasks, including $+1.7\%$ on ImageNet
linear probing using ViT-B, and $+2.5\%$ for ViT-H using $1\%$ of the data.


  This paper proposes a distributed deep learning framework for
privacy-preserving medical data training. In order to avoid patients' data
leakage in medical platforms, the hidden layers in the deep learning framework
are separated and where the first layer is kept in platform and others layers
are kept in a centralized server. Whereas keeping the original patients' data
in local platforms maintain their privacy, utilizing the server for subsequent
layers improves learning performance by using all data from each platform
during training.


  We propose the non-accelerator non-low-temperature simulator of quantum-field
effects which is based on the feeder circuits with the special feedback. By
means of it one can study the field models which contain fundamental concepts
in the modern field theory but do not exist in nature in a separate form.
Besides, several field phenomena might find technological applications by
virtue of the electrical analogy.


  We present three-dimensional (3D) electron-positron momentum densities in Mg
and Cd, reconstructed from 2D angular correlation of annihilation radiation
data. By folding densities from the extended momentum space into the first
Brillouin zone, we separated Fermi surfaces in various bands. Our results are
in good agreement with band structure LMTO calculations.
  In order to examine how many 1D profiles give us a possibility to reproduce
the same details of the Fermi surfaces and Umklapp components of electron
densities, various sets of 1D spectra were created for special directions in
the Brillouin zone. Finally, corresponding 3D densities were reconstructed to
show how many details one can get depending on the number of 1D profiles.


  The matrix Sturm-Liouville equation on a finite interval with a Bessel-type
singularity in the end of the interval is studied. Special fundamental systems
of solutions for this equation are constructed: analytic Bessel-type solutions
with the prescribed behavior at the singular point and Birkhoff-type solutions
with the known asymptotics for large values of the spectral parameter. The
asymptotic formulas for Stokes multipliers, connecting these two fundamental
systems of solutions, are derived. We also set boundary conditions and obtain
asymptotic formulas for the spectral data (the eigenvalues and the weight
matrices) of the boundary value problem. Our results will be useful in the
theory of direct and inverse spectral problems.


  We show that the arithmetic D-module associated to an overconvergent
F-isocrystal over a smooth curve is holonomic. We first prove that unipotent
F-isocrystals are holonomic D-module by using the fact that such F-isocrystals
come from logarithmic F-isocrystals. We deduce the general case from the
semi-stable theorem for F-isocrystals over curves of Matsuda-Trihan which
relies on the p-adic monodromy theorem independently proved by Andr\'e, Kedlaya
and Mebkhout. The main result has already been proved by D. Caro.


  We analyze the photo-excitation of atoms with a single valence electron by
cylindrically polarized Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Theoretical analysis is
performed within the framework of first-order perturbation theory and by
expanding the vector potential of the Laguerre-Gaussian beam in terms of its
multipole components. For cylindrically polarized Laguerre-Gaussian beams, we
show that the (magnetic) sub-components of electric-quadrupole field vary
significantly in the beam cross-section with beam waist and radial distance
from the beam axis. We discuss the influence of varying magnetic multipole
component in the beam cross-section on the sub-level population of a localized
atomic target. In addition, we calculate the total excitation rate of electric
quadrupole transition ($4s \;^{2}S_{1/2} \rightarrow 3d \;^{2}D_{5/2}$) in a
mesoscopic target of Ca$^{+}$ ion. These calculations shows that the total rate
of excitation is sensitive to the beam waist and the distance between center of
the target and the beam axis. However, the excitation by cylindrically
polarized Laguerre-Gaussian beam is found more efficient in driving electric
quadrupole transition in the mesoscopic atomic target than the circularly
polarized beams.


  Geometrical objects describing the material geometry of continuously
defective graphene sheets are introduced and their compatibility conditions are
formulated. Effective edge dislocations embedded in the Riemann-Cartan material
space and defined by their scalar density and by local Burgers vectors, are
considered. The case of secondary curvature-type defects created by this
distribution of dislocations is analysed in terms of the material space. The
variational geometry of the material space closely related with the existence
of a characteristic length parameter is proposed. The formula which describes,
in a reference temperature, the influence of dislocations on the material
Riemannian metric, is given.


  We derive general relations between maximum power, maximum efficiency, and
minimum dissipation regimes from linear irreversible thermodynamics. The
relations simplify further in the presence of a particular symmetry of the
Onsager matrix, which can be derived from detailed balance. The results are
illustrated on a periodically driven system and a three terminal device subject
to an external magnetic field.


  We report on experimental evidence of universality in ultracold 7Li atoms'
three-body recombination loss in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. We
observe a recombination minimum and an Efimov resonance in regions of positive
and negative scattering lengths, respectively, which are connected through the
pole of the Feshbach resonance. Both observed features lie deeply within the
range of validity of the universal theory and we find that the relations
between their properties, i.e. widths and locations, are in an excellent
agreement with the theoretical predictions.


  We present an explicit difference operator diagonalized by the Macdonald
polynomials associated with an (arbitrary) admissible pair of irreducible
reduced crystallographic root systems. By the duality symmetry, this gives rise
to an explicit Pieri formula for the Macdonald polynomials in question. The
simplest examples of our construction recover Macdonald's celebrated difference
operators and associated Pieri formulas pertaining to the minuscule and
quasi-minuscule weights. As further by-products, explicit expansions and
Littlewood-Richardson type formulas are obtained for the Macdonald polynomials
associated with a special class of small weights.


  We take a new look at dilation theory for nonself-adjoint operator algebras.
Among the extremal (co)extensions of a representation, there is a special
property of being fully extremal. This allows a refinement of some of the
classical notions which are important when one moves away from standard
examples. We show that many algebras including graph algebras and tensor
algebras of C*-correspondences have the semi-Dirichlet property which collapses
these notions and explains why they have a better dilation theory. This leads
to variations of the notions of commutant lifting and Ando's theorem. This is
applied to the study of semicrossed products by automorphisms, and
endomorphisms which lift to the C*-envelope. In particular, we obtain several
general theorems which allow one to conclude that semicrossed products of an
operator algebra naturally imbed completely isometrically into the semicrossed
product of its C*-envelope, and the C*-envelopes of these two algebras are the
same.


  Acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a popular now user-friendly
living substrate for designing of future and emergent sensing and computing
devices. P. polycephalum exhibits regular patterns of oscillations of its
surface electrical potential. The oscillation patterns are changed when the
slime mould is subjected to mechanical, chemical, electrical or optical
stimuli. We evaluate feasibility of slime-mould based colour sensors by
illuminating Physarum with red, green, blue and white colours and analysing
patterns of the slime mould's electrical potential oscillations. We define that
the slime mould recognises a colour if it reacts to illumination with the
colour by a unique changes in amplitude and periods of oscillatory activity. In
laboratory experiments we found that the slime mould recognises red and blue
colour. The slime mould does not differentiate between green and white colours.
The slime mould also recognises when red colour is switched off. We also map
colours to diversity of the oscillations: illumination with a white colour
increases diversity of amplitudes and periods of oscillations, other colours
studied increase diversity either of amplitude or period.


  This paper studies the covariance based activity detection problem in a
multi-cell massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, where the
active devices transmit their signature sequences to multiple base stations
(BSs), and the BSs cooperatively detect the active devices based on the
received signals. The scaling law of covariance based activity detection in the
single-cell scenario has been thoroughly analyzed in the literature. This paper
aims to analyze the scaling law of covariance based activity detection in the
multi-cell massive MIMO system. In particular, this paper shows a quadratic
scaling law in the multi-cell system under the assumption that the exponent in
the classical path-loss model is greater than 2, which demonstrates that in the
multi-cell MIMO system the maximum number of active devices that can be
correctly detected in each cell increases quadratically with the length of the
signature sequence and decreases logarithmically with the number of cells (as
the number of antennas tends to infinity). This paper also characterizes the
distribution of the estimation error in the multi-cell scenario.


  In recent experiments ultra-relativistic femtosecond electron bunches were
generated by a Laser Wakefield Accelerator (LWFA) in different regimes. Here we
predict that even attosecond bunches can be generated by an LWFA due to the
fast betatron phase mixing within a femtosecond electron bunch. The attosecond
bunches are stable outside the LWFA and can propagate in vacuum many tens of
centimeter without significant change in their duration. Our calculations show
that evidence for the formation of attosecond bunches can be found in the
spectrum of coherent betatron radiation from LWFA's.


  Approximate inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGMs) can be grouped
into deterministic methods and Monte-Carlo-based methods. The former can often
provide accurate and rapid inferences, but are typically associated with biases
that are hard to quantify. The latter enjoy asymptotic consistency, but can
suffer from high computational costs. In this paper we present a way of
bridging the gap between deterministic and stochastic inference. Specifically,
we suggest an efficient sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm for PGMs which
can leverage the output from deterministic inference methods. While generally
applicable, we show explicitly how this can be done with loopy belief
propagation, expectation propagation, and Laplace approximations. The resulting
algorithm can be viewed as a post-correction of the biases associated with
these methods and, indeed, numerical results show clear improvements over the
baseline deterministic methods as well as over "plain" SMC.


  The recent advancement of Blockchain technology consolidates its status as a
viable alternative for various domains. However, evaluating the performance of
blockchain applications can be challenging due to the underlying
infrastructure's complexity and distributed nature. Therefore, a reliable
modelling approach is needed to boost Blockchain-based applications'
development and evaluation. While simulation-based solutions have been
researched, machine learning (ML) model-based techniques are rarely discussed
in conjunction with evaluating blockchain application performance. Our novel
research makes use of two ML model-based methods. Firstly, we train a $k$
nearest neighbour ($k$NN) and support vector machine (SVM) to predict
blockchain performance using predetermined configuration parameters. Secondly,
we employ the salp swarm optimization (SO) ML model which enables the
investigation of optimal blockchain configurations for achieving the required
performance level. We use rough set theory to enhance SO, hereafter called ISO,
which we demonstrate to prove achieving an accurate recommendation of optimal
parameter configurations; despite uncertainty. Finally, statistical comparisons
indicate that our models have a competitive edge. The $k$NN model outperforms
SVM by 5\% and the ISO also demonstrates a reduction of 4\% inaccuracy
deviation compared to regular SO.


  The construction of an alternative electromagnetic theory that preserves
Lorentz and gauge symmetries, is considered. We start off by building up
Maxwell electrodynamics in (3+1)D from the assumption that the associated
Lagrangian is a gauge-invariant functional that depends on the electron and
photon fields and their first derivatives only. In this scenario, as
well-known, it is not possible to set up a Lorentz invariant gauge theory
containing a massive photon. We show nevertheless that there exist two
radically different electrodynamics, namely, the Chern-Simons and the Podolsky
formulations, in which this problem can be overcome. The former is only valid
in odd space-time dimensions, while the latter requires the presence of
higher-order derivatives of the gauge field in the Lagrangian. This theory,
usually known as Podolsky electrodynamics, is simultaneously gauge and Lorentz
invariant; in addition, it contains a massive photon. Therefore, a massive
photon, unlike the popular belief, can be adequately accommodated within the
context of a gauge-invariant electrodynamics.


  Referring expression segmentation aims to segment an object described by a
language expression from an image. Despite the recent progress on this task,
existing models tackling this task may not be able to fully capture semantics
and visual representations of individual concepts, which limits their
generalization capability, especially when handling novel compositions of
learned concepts. In this work, through the lens of meta learning, we propose a
Meta Compositional Referring Expression Segmentation (MCRES) framework to
enhance model compositional generalization performance. Specifically, to handle
various levels of novel compositions, our framework first uses training data to
construct a virtual training set and multiple virtual testing sets, where data
samples in each virtual testing set contain a level of novel compositions
w.r.t. the virtual training set. Then, following a novel meta optimization
scheme to optimize the model to obtain good testing performance on the virtual
testing sets after training on the virtual training set, our framework can
effectively drive the model to better capture semantics and visual
representations of individual concepts, and thus obtain robust generalization
performance even when handling novel compositions. Extensive experiments on
three benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework.


  In the year 2000, in a paper titled Quantum Theory Needs No 'Interpretation',
Chris Fuchs and Asher Peres presented a series of instrumentalist arguments
against the role played by 'interpretations' in QM. Since then --quite
regardless of the publication of this paper-- the number of interpretations has
experienced a continuous growth constituting what Adan Cabello has
characterized as a "map of madness". In this work, we discuss the reasons
behind this dangerous fragmentation in understanding and provide new arguments
against the need of interpretations in QM which --opposite to those of Fuchs
and Peres-- are derived from a representational realist understanding of
theories --grounded in the writings of Einstein, Heisenberg and Pauli.
Furthermore, we will argue that there are reasons to believe that the creation
of 'interpretations' for the theory of quanta has functioned as a trap designed
by anti-realists in order to imprison realists in a labyrinth with no exit.
Taking as a standpoint the critical analysis by David Deutsch to the
anti-realist understanding of physics, we attempt to address the references and
roles played by 'theory' and 'observation'. In this respect, we will argue that
the key to escape the anti-realist trap of interpretation is to recognize that
--as Einstein told Heisenberg almost one century ago-- it is only the theory
which can tell you what can be observed. Finally, we will conclude that what QM
needs is not a new interpretation but instead, a theoretical
(formal-conceptual) consistent, coherent and unified scheme which allows us to
understand what the theory is really talking about.


  The optical properties of a number of supercompact ultraviolet luminous
galaxies (UVLG), recently discovered in the local Universe matching GALEX and
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data, are discussed. Detailed re-analysis of
the SDSS data for these and other similar but nearer galaxies shows that their
surface brightness radial profile in both R and u bands is in most cases well
described by an extended disk plus a central unresolved component (possibly a
bulge). Since the SDSS pipeline used a single disk component to derive the half
light radius of these UVLGs their size was severely underestimated.
Consequently, the average UV surface brightness is much lower that previously
quoted casting doubts on the claim that UVLGs are the local analogs of high
redshift Lyman break galaxies.


  We compute the electroweak S and T parameters induced by SU(2)_L triplet
scalars up to one-loop order. We consider the most general renormalizable
potential for a triplet and the Standard Model Higgs doublet. Our calculation
is performed by integrating out the triplet at the one-loop level and also
includes the one-loop renormalization group running. Effective field theory
framework allows us to work in the phase with unbroken SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y
symmetry. Both S and T parameters exhibit decoupling when all dimensionful
parameters are large while keeping dimensionless ratios fixed. We use bounds on
S and T to constrain the triplet mass and couplings.


  We describe briefly the Palomar-Quest (PQ) digital synoptic sky survey,
including its parameters, data processing, status, and plans. Exploration of
the time domain is now the central scientific and technological focus of the
survey. To this end, we have developed a real-time pipeline for detection of
transient sources. We describe some of the early results, and lessons learned
which may be useful for other, similar projects, and time-domain astronomy in
general. Finally, we discuss some issues and challenges posed by the real-time
analysis and scientific exploitation of massive data streams from modern
synoptic sky surveys.


  The charged fermion mass matrices are always invariant under $U(1)^3$
symmetry linked to the fermion number transformation. A class of two Higgs
doublet models (2HDM) can be identified by requiring that the definition of
this symmetry in an arbitrary weak basis be independent of Higgs parameters
such as the ratio of the Higgs vacuum expectation values. The tree level
flavour changing neutral currents normally present in 2HDM are absent in this
class of models but unlike the type I or type II Higgs doublet models, the
charged Higgs couplings in these models contain additional flavour dependent CP
violating phases. These phases can account for the recent hints of the beyond
standard model CP violation in the $B_d$ and $B_s$ mixing. In particular, there
is a range of parameters in which new phases do not contribute to the $K$ meson
CP violation but give identical new physics contribution to the $B_d$ and $B_s$
meson mixing. Specific model realizations of the above scenario are briefly
discussed.


  We consider a metric-affine extension to the gravitational sector of the
Standard-Model Extension for the Lorentz-violating coefficients $u$ and
$s^{\mu\nu}$. The general results, which are applied to a specific model called
metric--affine bumblebee gravity, are obtained. A Schwarzschild-like solution,
incorporating effects of the Lorentz symmetry breaking through coefficient
$X=\xi b^2$, is found. Furthermore, a complete study of the geodesics
trajectories of particles has been accomplished in this background, emphasizing
the departure from general relativity. We also compute the advance of Mercury's
perihelion and the deflection of light within the context of the weak field
approximation, and we verify that there exist two new contributions ascribed to
the Lorentz symmetry breaking. As a phenomenological application, we compare
our theoretical results with observational data in order to estimate the
coefficient $X$.


  The orientation, chirality, and dynamics of solar eruptive filaments is a key
to understanding the magnetic field of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and
therefore to predicting the geoeffectiveness of CMEs arriving at Earth.
However, confusion and contention remain over the relationship between the
filament chirality, magnetic helicity, and sense of rotation during eruption.
To resolve the ambiguity in observations, in this paper, we used stereoscopic
observations to determine the rotation direction of filament apex and the
method proposed by Chen et al. (2014) to determine the filament chirality. Our
sample of 12 eruptive active-region filaments establishes a strong one-to-one
relationship, i.e., during the eruption, sinistral/dextral filaments (located
in the southern/northern hemisphere) rotate clockwise/counterclockwise when
viewed from above, and corroborates a weak hemispheric preference, i.e., a
filament and related sigmoid both exhibit a forward (reverse) S shape in the
southern (northern) hemisphere, which suggests that the sigmoidal filament is
associated with a low-lying magnetic flux rope with its axis dipped in the
middle. As a result of rotation, the projected S shape of a filament is
anticipated to be reversed during eruption.


  The assumption of group heterogeneity has become popular in panel data
models. We develop a constrained Bayesian grouped estimator that exploits
researchers' prior beliefs on groups in a form of pairwise constraints,
indicating whether a pair of units is likely to belong to a same group or
different groups. We propose a prior to incorporate the pairwise constraints
with varying degrees of confidence. The whole framework is built on the
nonparametric Bayesian method, which implicitly specifies a distribution over
the group partitions, and so the posterior analysis takes the uncertainty of
the latent group structure into account. Monte Carlo experiments reveal that
adding prior knowledge yields more accurate estimates of coefficient and scores
predictive gains over alternative estimators. We apply our method to two
empirical applications. In a first application to forecasting U.S. CPI
inflation, we illustrate that prior knowledge of groups improves density
forecasts when the data is not entirely informative. A second application
revisits the relationship between a country's income and its democratic
transition; we identify heterogeneous income effects on democracy with five
distinct groups over ninety countries.


  The present paper examines the active control of parametric resonance in
modified Rayleigh-Duffing oscillator. We used the method of averaging to obtain
steady-state solutions. We have found the critical value of the parametrical
amplitude which indicates the boundary layer where the control is efficient in
reducing the amplitude vibration. We have also found the effects of excitation
parameters and time-delay on dynamical of this system with the principal
parametric resonance. We have obtained for this oscillator the Hopf bifurcation
and saddle-node bifurcation for certains values of parametric parameters and
time-delay. We have studied the influence of parameter $k_2$ which is one of
the parameters which modify the ordinary Rayleigh-Duffing oscillator. We have
discussed the appropriate choice of the time-delay and control gain. We finally
studied the stability of fixed point and it is found that the appropriate
choice of the time-delay can broaden the stable region of the non-trivial
steady-state solutions which will enhance the control efficiency. Numerical
simulations are performed in order to confirm analytical results.


  Let X be a general proper and smooth curve of genus 2 (resp. of genus 3)
defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p. When 3\leq p
\leq 7, the action of Frobenius on rank 2 semi-stable vector bundles with
trivial determinant is completely determined by its restrictions to the 30
lines (resp. the 126 Kummer surfaces) that are invariant under the action of
some order 2 line bundle over X. Those lines (resp. those Kummer surfaces) are
closely related to the elliptic curves (resp. the abelian varieties of
dimension 2) that appear as the Prym varieties associated to double \'etale
coverings of X. We are therefore able to compute explicit equations of this
action in these cases. We perform some of these computations and draw some
consequences.


  In this paper, a novel method is proposed to extract rocks from Martian
surface images by using 8 data field. It models the interaction between two
pixels of an image in the context of imagery 9 characteristics. First,
foreground rocks are differed from background information by binarizing 10
image on roughly partitioned images. Second, foreground rocks are grouped into
clusters by 11 locating the centers and edges of clusters in data field via
hierarchical grids. Third, the target 12 rocks are discovered for the Mars
Exploration Rover (MER) to keep healthy paths. The 13 experiment with images
taken by MER shows the proposed method is practical and potential.


  In the Many-visits Path TSP, we are given a set of $n$ cities along with
their pairwise distances (or cost) $c(uv)$, and moreover each city $v$ comes
with an associated positive integer request $r(v)$.
  The goal is to find a minimum-cost path, starting at city $s$ and ending at
city $t$, that visits each city $v$ exactly $r(v)$ times.
  We present a $\frac32$-approximation algorithm for the metric Many-visits
Path TSP, that runs in time polynomial in $n$ and poly-logarithmic in the
requests $r(v)$.
  Our algorithm can be seen as a far-reaching generalization of the
$\frac32$-approximation algorithm for Path TSP by Zenklusen (SODA 2019), which
answered a long-standing open problem by providing an efficient algorithm which
matches the approximation guarantee of Christofides' algorithm from 1976 for
metric TSP.
  One of the key components of our approach is a polynomial-time algorithm to
compute a connected, degree bounded multigraph of minimum cost.
  We tackle this problem by generalizing a fundamental result of Kir\'aly, Lau
and Singh (Combinatorica, 2012) on the Minimum Bounded Degree Matroid Basis
problem, and devise such an algorithm for general polymatroids, even allowing
element multiplicities.
  Our result directly yields a $\frac32$-approximation to the metric
Many-visits TSP, as well as a $\frac32$-approximation for the problem of
scheduling classes of jobs with sequence-dependent setup times on a single
machine so as to minimize the makespan.


  We present a method for linearising classes of matrix-valued nonlinear
partial differential equations with local and nonlocal nonlinearities. Indeed
we generalise a linearisation procedure originally developed by P\"oppe based
on solving the corresponding underlying linear partial differential equation to
generate an evolutionary Hankel operator for the `scattering data', and then
solving a linear Fredholm equation akin to the Marchenko equation to generate
the evolutionary solution to the nonlinear partial differential system. Our
generalisation involves inflating the underlying linear partial differential
system for the scattering data to incorporate corresponding adjoint, reverse
time or reverse space-time data, and it also allows for Hankel operators with
matrix-valued kernels. With this approach we show how to linearise the matrix
nonlinear Schr\"odinger and modified Korteweg de Vries equations as well as
nonlocal reverse time and/or reverse space-time versions of these systems.
Further, we formulate a unified linearisation procedure that incorporates all
these systems as special cases. Further still, we demonstrate all such systems
are example Fredholm Grassmannian flows.


  In this note, we propose a generalized notion of distance between vacua in
the theory of a scalar field $\phi$ with scalar potential $V(\phi)$ coupled to
gravity. We propose the normalized tension of the domain wall connecting
different field values, with a varying normalization relative to a local energy
scale, as the distance. We show this definition reproduces the usual moduli
space distance for zero potential, as well as the $d\propto |\log \Lambda|$
behavior with the vacuum energy $-\Lambda$ in the AdS case, previously proposed
in the literature. In the case of large AdS we also obtain the expected
exponent of mass versus distance in one particular case, when the mass of the
light tower is $m\sim \sqrt \Lambda$ and there is a single extra dimension
decompactifying. We also discuss the features and shortcomings of alternative
but related proposals.


  The Mg II k resonance line is commonly used for diagnosing the solar
chromosphere. We theoretically investigated its intensity and polarization in
solar prominences, taking 3D radiative transfer and Hanle and Zeeman effects
into account. We used an optically thick 3D model representative of a solar
prominence and applied several inversion methods to the synthetic Stokes
profiles, clarifying their pros and cons for inferring prominence magnetic
fields. We conclude that the self-consistent 3D inversion with radiative
transfer is necessary to determine the magnetic field vector, although its
geometry cannot be inferred with full fidelity. We also demonstrate that more
traditional methods, such as those based on the weak field approximation or the
constant-property slab assumption, can offer useful information under certain
conditions.


  In this work, we investigate the electrical conductivity of carbon nanotubes
(CNTs), with a particular focus on the effects of doping. Using a
first-principles approach, we study the electronic structure, phonon
dispersion, and electron-phonon scattering to understand the finite-temperature
electrical transport properties in CNTs. Our study covers both prototypical
metallic and semiconducting CNTs, with special emphasis on the influence of
typical defects such as vacancies and the incorporation of copper or nitrogen,
such as pyridinic N, pyrrolic N, graphitic N, and oxidized N. Our theoretical
study shows significant improvements in the electrical conduction properties of
copper-CNT composites, especially when semiconducting CNTs are functionalized
with nitrogen. Doping is found to cause significant changes in the electronic
density of states near the Fermi level, which affects the electrical
conductivity. Calculations show that certain types of functional groups, such
as N-pyrrolic, result in a ~30-fold increase in the conductivity of
semiconducting CNTs compared to Cu-incorporated CNTs alone. For metallic CNTs,
the conductivity is in agreement with existing experimental data, and our
prediction of significant increases in conductivity with N-pyrrolic functional
group is consistent with recent experimental results, demonstrating the
effectiveness of doping in modifying conductivity. Our study provides valuable
insight into the electronic properties of doped CNTs and contributes to the
development of ultra-high conductivity CNT composites.


  This work presents the design of Stickbug, a six-armed, multi-agent,
precision pollination robot that combines the accuracy of single-agent systems
with swarm parallelization in greenhouses. Precision pollination robots have
often been proposed to offset the effects of a decreasing population of natural
pollinators, but they frequently lack the required parallelization and
scalability. Stickbug achieves this by allowing each arm and drive base to act
as an individual agent, significantly reducing planning complexity. Stickbug
uses a compact holonomic Kiwi drive to navigate narrow greenhouse rows, a tall
mast to support multiple manipulators and reach plant heights, a detection
model and classifier to identify Bramble flowers, and a felt-tipped
end-effector for contact-based pollination. Initial experimental validation
demonstrates that Stickbug can attempt over 1.5 pollinations per minute with a
50% success rate. Additionally, a Bramble flower perception dataset was created
and is publicly available alongside Stickbug's software and design files.


  In recent years deep learning algorithms have shown extremely high
performance on machine learning tasks such as image classification and speech
recognition. In support of such applications, various FPGA accelerator
architectures have been proposed for convolutional neural networks (CNNs) that
enable high performance for classification tasks at lower power than CPU and
GPU processors. However, to date, there has been little research on the use of
FPGA implementations of deconvolutional neural networks (DCNNs). DCNNs, also
known as generative CNNs, encode high-dimensional probability distributions and
have been widely used for computer vision applications such as scene
completion, scene segmentation, image creation, image denoising, and
super-resolution imaging. We propose an FPGA architecture for deconvolutional
networks built around an accelerator which effectively handles the complex
memory access patterns needed to perform strided deconvolutions, and that
supports convolution as well. We also develop a three-step design optimization
method that systematically exploits statistical analysis, design space
exploration and VLSI optimization. To verify our FPGA deconvolutional
accelerator design methodology we train DCNNs offline on two representative
datasets using the generative adversarial network method (GAN) run on
Tensorflow, and then map these DCNNs to an FPGA DCNN-plus-accelerator
implementation to perform generative inference on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 FPGA. Our
DCNN implementation achieves a peak performance density of 0.012 GOPs/DSP.


  Graph-based data models allow for flexible data representation. In
particular, semantic data based on RDF and OWL fuels use cases ranging from
general knowledge graphs to domain specific knowledge in various technological
or scientific domains. The flexibility of such approaches, however, makes
programming with semantic data tedious and error-prone. In particular the
logics-based data descriptions employed by OWL are problematic for existing
error-detecting techniques, such as type systems. In this paper, we present
DOTSpa, an advanced integration of semantic data into programming. We embed
description logics, the logical foundations of OWL, into the type checking
process of a statically typed programming language and provide typed data
access through an embedding of the query language SPARQL. In addition, we
demonstrate a concrete implementation of the approach, by extending the Scala
programming language. We qualitatively compare programs using our approach to
equivalent programs using a state-of-the-art library, in terms of how both
frameworks aid users in the handling of typical failure scenarios.


  We describe some interesting effects observed during the evolution of
nonequilibrium systems, using domain growth and glassy systems as examples. We
breafly discuss the analytical tools that have been recently used to study the
dynamics of these systems. We mainly concentrate on one of the results obtained
from this study, the violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and we
discuss, in particular, its relation to the definition and measurement of
effective temperatures out of equilibrium.


  An infinite set of operator-valued relations that hold for reducible
representations of the sl(2)_k algebra is derived. These relations are
analogous to those recently obtained by Zamolodchikov which involve logarithmic
fields associated to the Virasoro degenerate representations in Liouville
theory. The fusion rules of the sl(2)_k algebra turn out to be a crucial step
in the analysis. The possible relevance of these relations for the boundary
theory in the AdS_3/CFT_2 correspondence is suggested.


  An analysis of all possible polarization observables for the case of vector
meson photoproduction from a nucleon target is presented. The question of which
observables are needed to determine completely the basic photoproduction
amplitudes and the relationships between spin observables are addressed.


  We investigate the properties of vacuum decay taking into account a
non-minimal coupling to gravity. We extend the standard thin-wall solution to
include the non-minimal coupling and verify its validity by comparison with a
full numerical study. We also investigate the implications of a~large
cosmological constant whose influence on the geometry boosts the tunneling
rate. Our analysis shows that the influence of the non-minimal coupling differs
significantly between the cases of Minkowski and deSitter backgrounds.


  Motivated by the recent observation of ferromagnetic spin correlations in the
filled skutterudite SrFe$_4$As$_{12}$ [Ding et al., Phys. Rev. B 98, 155149
(2018)], we have carried out $^{75}$As nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and
nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) measurements to investigate the role of
magnetic fluctuations in a newly discovered isostructural superconductor
SrOs$_4$As$_{12}$ with a superconducting transition temperature of $T_{\rm c}$
$\sim$ 4.8 K. Knight shift $K$ determined by the NQR spectrum under a small
magnetic field ($\le$ 0.5 T) is nearly independent of temperature, consistent
with the temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility. The nuclear
spin-lattice relaxation rate divided by temperature, 1/$T_1T$, is nearly
independent of temperature above $\sim$ 50 K and increases slightly with
decreasing temperature below the temperature. The temperature dependence is
reasonably explained by a simple model where a flat band structure with a small
ledge near the Fermi energy is assumed. By comparing the present NMR data with
those in SrFe$_4$As$_{12}$, we found that the values of $|K|$ and $1/T_1T$ in
SrOs$_4$As$_{12}$ are smaller than those in SrFe$_4$As$_{12}$, indicating no
obvious ferromagnetic spin correlations in SrOs$_4$As$_{12}$. From the
temperature dependence of 1/$T_1$ in the superconducting state, an $s$-wave
superconductivity is realized.


  A challenge in image based metrology and forensics is intrinsic camera
calibration when the used camera is unavailable. The unavailability raises two
questions. The first question is how to find the projection model that
describes the camera, and the second is to detect incorrect models. In this
work, we use off-the-shelf extended PnP-methods to find the model from 2D-3D
correspondences, and propose a method for model validation. The most common
strategy for evaluating a projection model is comparing different models'
residual variances - however, this naive strategy cannot distinguish whether
the projection model is potentially underfitted or overfitted. To this end, we
model the residual errors for each correspondence, individually scale all
residuals using a predicted variance and test if the new residuals are drawn
from a standard normal distribution. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our
proposed validation in experiments on synthetic data, simulating 2D detection
and Lidar measurements. Additionally, we provide experiments using data from an
actual scene and compare non-camera access and camera access calibrations.
Last, we use our method to validate annotations in MegaDepth.


  Read-Copy Update (RCU) is a scalable, high-performance Linux-kernel
synchronization mechanism that runs low-overhead readers concurrently with
updaters. Production-quality RCU implementations for multi-core systems are
decidedly non-trivial. Giving the ubiquity of Linux, a rare "million-year" bug
can occur several times per day across the installed base. Stringent validation
of RCU's complex behaviors is thus critically important. Exhaustive testing is
infeasible due to the exponential number of possible executions, which suggests
use of formal verification.
  Previous verification efforts on RCU either focus on simple implementations
or use modeling languages, the latter requiring error-prone manual translation
that must be repeated frequently due to regular changes in the Linux kernel's
RCU implementation. In this paper, we first describe the implementation of Tree
RCU in the Linux kernel. We then discuss how to construct a model directly from
Tree RCU's source code in C, and use the CBMC model checker to verify its
safety and liveness properties. To our best knowledge, this is the first
verification of a significant part of RCU's source code, and is an important
step towards integration of formal verification into the Linux kernel's
regression test suite.


  In this research, we study the nature of $\eta$-Einstein and gradient
$\eta$-Einstein soliton in the framework of almost coK\"{a}hler manifolds and
$(\kappa, \mu)$-almost coK\"{a}hler manifolds. We find some expressions for
scalar curvature of the almost coK\"{a}hler manifold admitting $\eta$-Einstein
soliton in various cases. We also prove that if a $(\kappa, \mu)$-almost
coK\"{a}hler manifold admits a gradient $\eta$-Einstein soliton, then either
the manifold is coK\"{a}hler, or $N(\kappa)$-almost coKahler, or the soliton is
trivial. We present an example which validates our results. Finally, we
investigate the asymptotically harmonic manifolds admitting non-trivial Ricci
solitons and show that they exhibit rigid behavior if for example, scalar
curvature attains maximum.


  We define signed dual volumes at all dimensions for circumcentric dual
meshes. We show that for pairwise Delaunay triangulations with mild boundary
assumptions these signed dual volumes are positive. This allows the use of such
Delaunay meshes for Discrete Exterior Calculus (DEC) because the discrete Hodge
star operator can now be correctly defined for such meshes. This operator is
crucial for DEC and is a diagonal matrix with the ratio of primal and dual
volumes along the diagonal. A correct definition requires that all entries be
positive. DEC is a framework for numerically solving differential equations on
meshes and for geometry processing tasks and has had considerable impact in
computer graphics and scientific computing. Our result allows the use of DEC
with a much larger class of meshes than was previously considered possible.


  Our paradigm for the use of artificial agents to teach requires among other
things that they persist through time in their interaction with human students,
in such a way that they "teleport" or "migrate" from an embodiment at one time
t to a different embodiment at later time t'. In this short paper, we report on
initial steps toward the formalization of such teleportation, in order to
enable an overseeing AI system to establish, mechanically, and verifiably, that
the human students in question will likely believe that the very same
artificial agent has persisted across such times despite the different
embodiments.


  Similar to sperm, where individuals self-organize in space while also
striving for coherence in their tail swinging, several natural and engineered
systems exhibit the emergence of swarming and synchronization. The arising and
interplay of these phenomena have been captured by collectives of hypothetical
particles named swarmalators, each possessing a position and a phase whose
dynamics are affected reciprocally and also by the space-phase states of their
neighbors. In this work, we introduce a solvable model of swarmalators able to
move in two-dimensional spaces. We show that several static and active
collective states can emerge and derive necessary conditions for each to show
up as the model parameters are varied. These conditions elucidate, in some
cases, the displaying of multistability among states. Notably, in the active
regime, individuals behave chaotically, maintaining spatial correlation under
certain conditions, and breaking it under others on what we interpret as a
dimensionality transition.


  The requirements engineering process is a crucial stage of the software
development life cycle. It involves various stakeholders from different
professional backgrounds, particularly in the requirements elicitation phase.
Each stakeholder carries distinct domain knowledge, causing them to differently
interpret certain words, leading to cross-domain ambiguity. This can result in
misunderstanding amongst them and jeopardize the entire project. This paper
proposes a natural language processing approach to find potentially ambiguous
words for a given set of domains. The idea is to apply linear transformations
on word embedding models trained on different domain corpora, to bring them
into a unified embedding space. The approach then finds words with divergent
embeddings as they signify a variation in the meaning across the domains. It
can help a requirements analyst in preventing misunderstandings during
elicitation interviews and meetings by defining a set of potentially ambiguous
terms in advance. The paper also discusses certain problems with the existing
approaches and discusses how the proposed approach resolves them.


  We study the noise effects in a driven system of globally coupled
oscillators, with particular attention to the interplay between driving and
noise. The self-consistency equation for the order parameter, which measures
the collective synchronization of the system, is derived; it is found that the
total order parameter decreases monotonically with noise, indicating overall
suppression of synchronization. Still, for large coupling strengths, there
exists an optimal noise level at which the periodic (ac) component of the order
parameter reaches its maximum. The response of the phase velocity is also
examined and found to display resonance behavior.


  For an efficient performance of Atom Trap Trace Analysis, it is important to
collimate the particles emitted from an effusive source. Their high velocity
limits the interaction time with the cooling laser. Therefore forces beyond the
limits of the scattering force are desirable. The bichromatic force is a
promising candidate for this purpose which is demonstrated here for the first
time on metastable argon-40. The precollimated atoms are detected in one
dimension and the acquired Doppler shift is detected by absorption
spectroscopy. With the experimentally accessible parameters, it was possible to
measure a force three times stronger than the scattering force. Systematic
studies on its dependence on Rabi frequency, phase difference and detuning to
atomic resonance are comparedto the solution of the optical Bloch equations. We
anticipate predictions for a possible application in Atom Trap Trace Analysis
of argon-39 and other noble gas experiments, where a high flux of metastable
atoms is needed.


  Theoretically and experimentally we have proved the existence of optimal
thickness of the porous layer used as an anti-reflection coating in solar
cells. We have taken into account the joint mechanisms of generation and
recombination of electrons and holes stimulated by photons. The porous silicon
surface has been obtained by electrochemical etching. Results of scanning
electron microscopy, measuring short-circuit current, open circuit voltage, and
etching time have shown that in case thickness of the porous layer is
approximately 2/3 of electron diffusion length the solar cell efficiency
increases by 30% in comparison with the corresponding value in the absence of
texturing.


  We shall prove a multiplicity result for semilinear elliptic problems with a
super-critical nonlinearity of the form, \begin{equation}\label{con-c} \left \{
\begin{array}{ll} -\Delta u =|u|^{p-2} u+\mu |u|^{q-2}u, & x \in \Omega\\ u=0,
& x \in \partial \Omega \end{array} \right. \end{equation} where $\Omega\subset
\mathbb{R}^n$ is a bounded domain with $C^2$-boundary and $1<q< 2<p.$ As a
consequence of our results we shall show that, for each $p>2$, there exists
$\mu^*>0$ such that for each $\mu \in (0, \mu^*)$ this problem has a sequence
of solutions with a negative energy. This result was already known for the
subcritical values of $p.$ In this paper, we shall extend it to the
supercritical values of $p$ as well.
  Our methodology is based on a new variational principle established by one of
the authors that allows one to deal with problems beyond the usual locally
compactness structure.