  Doubled topological phases introduced by Kitaev, Levin and Wen supported on
two dimensional lattices are Hamiltonian versions of three dimensional
topological quantum field theories described by the Turaev-Viro state sum
models. We introduce the latter with an emphasis on obtaining them from
theories in the continuum. Equivalence of the previous models in the ground
state are shown in case of the honeycomb lattice and the gauge group being a
finite group by means of the well-known duality transformation between the
group algebra and the spin network basis of lattice gauge theory. An analysis
of the ribbon operators describing excitations in both types of models and the
three dimensional geometrical interpretation are given.


  We show a method, for direct numerical simulations, to trigger and maintain
turbulent bands directly at low Reynolds numbers in channel flow. The key is to
impose a moving localised force which induces a local flow with sufficiently
strong inflectional instability. With the method, we can trigger and maintain
turbulent bands at Reynolds numbers down to $Re \simeq 500$. More importantly,
we can generate any band patterns with desired relative position and
orientation. The usual perturbation approach resorts to turbulent fields
simulated at higher Reynolds numbers, random noise, or localised vortical
perturbation, which neither assures a successful generation of bands at low
Reynolds numbers nor offers a control on the orientation of the generated
bands. A precise control on the position and orientation of turbulent bands is
important for the investigation of all possible types of band interaction and
for understanding the transition in channel flow at low Reynolds numbers.


  Soft robotic hand shows considerable promise for various grasping
applications. However, the sensing and reconstruction of the robot pose will
cause limitation during the design and fabrication. In this work, we present a
novel 3D pose reconstruction approach to analyze the grasping motion of a
bidirectional soft robotic hand using experiment videos. The images from top,
front, back, left, right view were collected using an
one-camera-multiple-mirror imaging device. The coordinate and orientation
information of soft fingers are detected based on deep learning methods. Faster
RCNN model is used to detect the position of fingertips, while U-Net model is
applied to calculate the side boundary of the fingers. Based on the kinematics,
the corresponding coordinate and orientation databases are established. The 3D
pose reconstructed result presents a satisfactory performance and good
accuracy. Using efficacy coefficient method, the finger contribution of the
bending angle and distance between fingers of soft robot hand is analyzed by
compared with that of human hand. The results show that the soft robot hand
perform a human-like motion in both single-direction and bidirectional
grasping.


  Sentiment Analysis is the task of classifying documents based on the
sentiments expressed in textual form, this can be achieved by using lexical and
semantic methods. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of
semantics to perform sentiment analysis based on probabilistic graphical models
and recurrent neural networks. In the empirical evaluation, the classification
performance of the graphical models was compared with some traditional machine
learning classifiers and a recurrent neural network. The datasets used for the
experiments were IMDB movie reviews, Amazon Consumer Product reviews, and
Twitter Review datasets. After this empirical study, we conclude that the
inclusion of semantics for sentiment analysis tasks can greatly improve the
performance of a classifier, as the semantic feature extraction methods reduce
uncertainties in classification resulting in more accurate predictions.


  In recent years, the steerable needles have attracted significant interest in
Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS). Amongst these, the flexible
Programmable-bevel tip needle (PBN) concept has successfully achieved an
in-vivo demonstration to evaluate the feasibility of Convection Enhanced
Delivery (CED) of chemotherapeutics within the ovine model, with a 2.5 mm PBN
prototype. However, further size reduction is necessary for other diagnostic
and therapeutic procedures involving deep-seated tissue structures. Since PBNs
have a complex cross-section geometry, standard production methods, such as
extrusion, fails as the outer diameter is reduced further. This paper presents
our first attempt to demonstrate a new manufacturing method for the PBN that
employs thermal drawing technology. Experimental characterisation tests were
performed for the 2.5 mm PBN and a new 1.3 mm Thermally Drawn (TD) PBN
prototype described here. The results show that thermal drawing presents a
significant advantage in miniaturising complex needle structures. However, the
steering behaviour is affected due to the choice of material in this first
attempt, a limitation which will be addressed in future work.


  The linear response to temperature variations is well characterised for
equilibrium systems but a similar theory is not available, for example, for
inertial heat conducting systems, whose paradigm is the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU)
model driven by two different boundary temperatures. For models of inertial
systems out of equilibrium, including relaxing systems, we show that Andersen
thermostats are a natural tool for studying the thermal response. We derive a
fluctuation-response relation that allows to predict thermal expansion
coefficients or the heat capacitance in nonequilibrium regimes. Simulations of
the FPU chain of oscillators suggest that estimates of susceptibilities
obtained with our relation are better than those obtained via a small
perturbation.


  We define and solve Volterra equations driven by an irregular signal, by
means of a variant of the rough path theory allowing to handle generalized
integrals weighted by an exponential coefficient. The results are applied to
the fractional Brownian motion with Hurst coefficient greater than 1/3


  We study the phenomenology of the \tau^- \to \pi^- \nu_\tau \ell^+ \ell^-
decays (\ell = e, \mu), predicting the respective branching ratios and
di-lepton invariant-mass spectra. In addition to the model-independent (QED)
contributions, we investigate the structure-dependent (SD) terms, encoding
features of the hadronization of QCD currents. The relevant form factors are
evaluated by supplementing Chiral Perturbation Theory with the inclusion of the
lightest (axial-)vector resonance multiplet as dynamical fields. The Lagrangian
couplings are fully predicted requiring the known QCD asymptotic behavior to
the relevant Green functions and associated form factors in the limit of an
infinite number of colours. As a consequence we predict that the \tau^- \to
\pi^- \nu_\tau e^+ e^- decays should be discovered soon while this is not
granted for the \ell = \mu case.


  The Onfp class of rotationally broadened, hot spectra was defined some time
ago in the Galaxy, where its membership to date numbers only eight. The
principal defining characteristic is a broad, centrally reversed He II
$\lambda$4686 emission profile; other emission and absorption lines are also
rotationally broadened. Recent surveys in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) have
brought the class membership there, including some related spectra, to 28. We
present a survey of the spectral morphology and rotational velocities, as a
first step toward elucidating the nature of this class. Evolved, rapidly
rotating hot stars are not expected theoretically, because the stellar winds
should brake the rotation. Luminosity classification of these spectra is not
possible, because the principal criterion (He II $\lambda$4686) is peculiar;
however, the MCs provide reliable absolute magnitudes, which show that they
span the entire range from dwarfs to supergiants. The Onfp line-broadening
distribution is distinct and shifted toward larger values from those of normal
O dwarfs and supergiants with >99.99% confidence. All cases with multiple
observations show line-profile variations, which even remove some objects from
the class temporarily. Some of them are spectroscopic binaries; it is possible
that the peculiar profiles may have multiple causes among different objects.
The origin and future of these stars are intriguing; for instance, they could
be stellar mergers and/or gamma-ray-burst progenitors.


  In this paper, we propose van del Waals heterostructure-based thermionic
devices for the applications in cooling and power generation in the temperature
range of 300 to 400 K. By using two-dimensional materials of low cross-plane
thermal conductivity as the barrier materials and graphene as electrodes, our
calculation demonstrates that our proposed device will have a higher efficiency
as compared to other methods such as thermoelectric device and the traditional
thermionic devices. By using the parameters within the current technology, we
predict a cooling capability at more than 50$\%$ of the Carnot efficiency, and
a 10 to 20 $\%$ efficiency in harvesting the wasted heat at 400 K.


  In a previous work, the meaning of the Planck constant $h = \left( e^2 / 2
\alpha \right) \sqrt{\mu_0 / \epsilon_0}$, accomplished by solving Maxwell's
electrodynamics laws with specific electric $1 / \tau_C = 1 / R_q C_q$ and
magnetic $1/ \tau_L = R_q / L_q$ quantum rates for the ground-state dynamics,
was reinterpreted. $R_q$, $C_q$ and $L_q$ are the resistance, capacitance and
inductance quantum of the ground-state dynamics, respectively. Based on this
quantum electromagnetic rate approach, here it is demonstrated that the
intrinsic massless character that complies with Dirac quantum electrodynamics
of the electron in its ground-state energy level is a consequence of a quantum
electromagnetic phase coherence between $\tau_C$ and $\tau_L$ time constants of
the oscillatory motion. The quantum mechanical uncertainties associated with
$h$ are interpreted to be a consequence of perturbing the inherent
electromagnetic phase coherence of the ground state with the loss of half of a
byte of electromagnetic information per ``experimental'' perturbation, with the
fine-structure constant $\alpha = \sqrt{\pi / 2 \left( \tau_L / \tau_C \right)}
\sim 1/137$ playing a prominent role in the phenomenon.


  Consider a random walk among random conductances on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ with
$d\geq 2$. We study the quenched limit law under the usual diffusive scaling of
the random walk conditioned to have its first coordinate positive. We show that
the conditional limit law is the product of a Brownian meander and a
$(d-1)$-dimensional Brownian motion.


  We give a new definition of Levi-Civita connection for a noncommutative
pseudo-Riemannian metric on a noncommutative manifold given by a spectral
triple. We prove the existence-uniqueness result for a class of modules of one
forms over a large class of noncommutative manifolds, including the matrix
geometry of the fuzzy 3-sphere, the quantum Heisenberg manifolds and
Connes-Landi deformations of spectral triples on the Connes-Dubois
Violette-Rieffel-deformation of a compact manifold equipped with a free toral
action. It is interesting to note that in the example of the quantum Heisenberg
manifold, the definition of metric compatibility given in the paper by Frolich
et al failed to ensure the existence of a unique Levi-Civita connection. In the
case of the matrix geometry, the Levi-Civita connection that we get coincides
with the unique real torsion-less unitary connection obtained by Frolich et al.


  We discuss the self-assembly system of triangular tiles instead of square
tiles, in particular right triangular tiles and equilateral triangular tiles.
We show that the triangular tile assembly system, either deterministic or
non-deterministic, has the same power to the square tile assembly system in
computation, which is Turing universal. By providing counter-examples, we show
that the triangular tile assembly system and the square tile assembly system
are not comparable in general. More precisely, there exists square tile
assembly system S such that no triangular tile assembly system is a division of
S and produces the same shape; there exists triangular tile assembly system T
such that no square tile assembly system produces the same compatible shape
with border glues. We also discuss the assembly of triangles by triangular
tiles and obtain results similar to the assembly of squares, that is to
assemble a triangular of size O(N^2), the minimal number of tiles required is
in O(log N/log log N).


  The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), launched in
2002, continues its successful work in observing the sky at energies E>20 keV.
The legacy of the mission already includes a large number of discovered or
previously poorly studied hard X-ray sources. The growing INTEGRAL archive
allows one to conduct an all-sky survey including a number of deep
extragalactic fields and the deepest ever hard X-ray survey of the Galaxy.
Taking advantage of the data gathered over 17 years with the IBIS coded-mask
telescope of INTEGRAL, we conducted survey of hard X-ray sources, providing
flux information from 17 to 290 keV. The catalog includes 929 objects, 890 of
which exceed a detection threshold of 4.5 sigma and the rest are detected at
4.0-4.5 sigma and belong to known cataloged hard X-ray sources. Among the
identified sources of known or suspected nature, 376 are associated with the
Galaxy and Magellanic clouds, including 145 low-mass and 115 high-mass X-ray
binaries, 79 cataclysmic variables, and 37 of other types; and 440 are
extragalactic, including 429 active galactic nuclei (AGNs), 2 ultra-luminous
sources, one supernova (AT2018cow) and 8 galaxy clusters. 113 sources remain
unclassified. 46 objects are detected in the hard X-ray band for the first
time. The LogN-LogS distribution of 356 non-blazar AGNs is measured down to a
flux of 2E-12 erg/s/cm2 and can be described by a power law with a slope of
1.44 +/- 0.09 and normalization 8E-3/deg2 at 1E-11 erg/s/cm2. The LogN-LogS
distribution of unclassified sources indicates that the majority of them are of
extragalactic origin.


  We investigate bounds for the multiplicities $m(\beta+i\gamma)$, where
$\beta+i\gamma\,$ ($\beta\ge \1/2, \gamma>0)$ denotes complex zeros of
$\zeta(s)$. It is seen that the problem can be reduced to the estimation of the
integrals of the zeta-function over "very short" intervals. A new, explicit
bound for $m(\beta+i\gamma)$ is also derived, which is relevant when $\beta$ is
close to unity. The related Karatsuba conjectures are also discussed.


  Let $\mathcal H$ be the class of algebras verifying Han's conjecture. In this
paper we analyse two types of algebras with the aim of providing an inductive
step towards the proof of this conjecture. Firstly we show that if an algebra
$\Lambda$ is triangular with respect to a system of non necessarily primitive
idempotents, and if the algebras at the idempotents belong to $\mathcal H$,
then $\Lambda$ is in $\mathcal H$. Secondly we consider a $2\times 2$ matrix
algebra, with two algebras on the diagonal, two projective bimodules in the
corners, and zero corner products. They are not triangular with respect to the
system of the two diagonal idempotents. However, the analogous result holds,
namely if both algebras on the diagonal belong to $\mathcal H$, then the
algebra itself is in $\mathcal H$.


  We examine the clustering of quasars over a wide luminosity range, by
utilizing 901 quasars at $\overline{z}_{\rm phot}\sim3.8$ with $-24.73<M_{\rm
1450}<-22.23$ photometrically selected from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru
Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) S16A Wide2 date release and 342 more luminous
quasars at $3.4<z_{\rm spec}<4.6$ having $-28.0<M_{\rm 1450}<-23.95$ from the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) that fall in the HSC survey fields. We measure
the bias factors of two quasar samples by evaluating the cross-correlation
functions (CCFs) between the quasar samples and 25790 bright $z\sim4$ Lyman
Break Galaxies (LBGs) in $M_{\rm 1450}<-21.25$ photometrically selected from
the HSC dataset. Over an angular scale of \timeform{10.0"} to
\timeform{1000.0"}, the bias factors are $5.93^{+1.34}_{-1.43}$ and
$2.73^{+2.44}_{-2.55}$ for the low and high luminosity quasars, respectively,
indicating no luminosity dependence of quasar clustering at $z\sim4$. It is
noted that the bias factor of the luminous quasars estimated by the CCF is
smaller than that estimated by the auto-correlation function (ACF) over a
similar redshift range, especially on scales below \timeform{40.0"}. Moreover,
the bias factor of the less-luminous quasars implies the minimal mass of their
host dark matter halos (DMHs) is $0.3$-$2\times10^{12}h^{-1}M_{\odot}$,
corresponding to a quasar duty cycle of $0.001$-$0.06$.


  An earlier work of the author's showed that it was possible to adapt the
Alekseev-Meinrenken Chern-Weil proof of the Duflo isomorphism to obtain a
completely combinatorial proof of the Wheeling isomorphism. That work depended
on a certain combinatorial identity, which said that a certain composition of
elementary combinatorial operations arising from the proof was precisely the
Wheeling operation. The identity can be summarized as follows: The Wheeling
operation is just a graded averaging map in a space enlarging the space of
Jacobi diagrams. The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed and
self-contained proof of this identity. The proof broadly follows similar
calculations in the Alekseev-Meinrenken theory, though the details here are
somewhat different, as the algebraic manipulations in the original are replaced
with arguments concerning the enumerative combinatorics of formal power series
of graphs with graded legs.


  We introduce a type affine $C$ analogue of the nil Temperley--Lieb algebra,
in terms of generators and relations. We show that this algebra $T(n)$, which
is a quotient of the positive part of a Kac--Moody algebra of type
$D_{n+1}^{(2)}$, has an easily described faithful representation as an algebra
of creation and annihilation operators on particle configurations, reminiscent
of the open TASEP model in statistical physics. The centre of $T(n)$ consists
of polynomials in a certain element $Q$, and $T(n)$ is a free module of finite
rank over its centre. We show how to localize $T(n)$ by adjoining an inverse of
$Q$, and prove that the resulting algebra is a full matrix ring over a ring of
Laurent polynomials over a field. Although $T(n)$ has wild representation type,
over an algebraically closed field we can classify all the finite dimensional
indecomposable representations of $T(n)$ in which $Q$ acts invertibly.


  Advances in molecular biology are enabling rapid and efficient analyses for
effective intervention in domains such as biology research, infectious disease
management, food safety, and biodefense. The emergence of microfluidics and
nanotechnologies has enabled both new capabilities and instrument sizes
practical for point-of-care. It has also introduced new functionality, enhanced
sensitivity, and reduced the time and cost involved in conventional molecular
diagnostic techniques. This chapter reviews the application of microfluidics
for molecular diagnostics methods such as nucleic acid amplification,
next-generation sequencing, high resolution melting analysis, cytogenetics,
protein detection and analysis, and cell sorting. We also review microfluidic
sample preparation platforms applied to molecular diagnostics and targeted to
sample-in, answer-out capabilities.


  Due the alarming rate of climate change, the implementation of efficient
CO$_2$ capture has become crucial. This project aims to create an algorithm
that predicts the uptake of CO$_2$ adsorbing Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) by
using Machine Learning. These values will in turn gauge the efficiency of these
MOFs and provide scientists who are looking to maximize the uptake a way to
know whether or not the MOF is worth synthesizing. This algorithm will save
resources such as time and equipment as scientists will be able to disregard
hypothetical MOFs with low efficiencies. In addition, this paper will also
highlight the most important features within the data set. This research will
contribute to enable the rapid synthesis of CO$_2$ adsorbing MOFs.


  In this paper we obtain the flux of Hawking radiation from Rotating BTZ black
holes from gauge and gravitational anomalies point of view. Then we show that
the gauge and gravitational anomaly in the BTZ spacetime is cancelled by the
total flux of a 2-dimensional blackbody at the Hawking temperature of the
spacetime.


  Accurate weight estimation and morphometric analyses are useful in
aquaculture for optimizing feeding, predicting harvest yields, identifying
desirable traits for selective breeding, grading processes, and monitoring the
health status of production animals. However, the collection of phenotypic data
through traditional manual approaches at industrial scales and in real-time is
time-consuming, labour-intensive, and prone to errors. Digital imaging of
individuals and subsequent training of prediction models using Deep Learning
(DL) has the potential to rapidly and accurately acquire phenotypic data from
aquaculture species. In this study, we applied a novel DL approach to automate
weight estimation and morphometric analysis using the black tiger prawn
(Penaeus monodon) as a model crustacean. The DL approach comprises two main
components: a feature extraction module that efficiently combines low-level and
high-level features using the Kronecker product operation; followed by a
landmark localization module that then uses these features to predict the
coordinates of key morphological points (landmarks) on the prawn body. Once
these landmarks were extracted, weight was estimated using a weight regression
module based on the extracted landmarks using a fully connected network. For
morphometric analyses, we utilized the detected landmarks to derive five
important prawn traits. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was also used to
identify landmark-derived distances, which were found to be highly correlated
with shape features such as body length, and width. We evaluated our approach
on a large dataset of 8164 images of the Black tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon)
collected from Australian farms. Our experimental results demonstrate that the
novel DL approach outperforms existing DL methods in terms of accuracy,
robustness, and efficiency.


  A Higgsless model for strong, electro-weak and gravitational interactions is
proposed. This model is based on the local symmetry group SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1)xC
where C is the local conformal symmetry group. The natural minimal conformally
invariant form of total lagrangian is postulated. It contains all Standard
Model fields and gravitational interaction. Using the unitary gauge and the
conformal scale fixing conditions we can eliminate all four real components of
the Higgs doublet in this model. However the masses of vector mesons, leptons
and quarks are automatically generated and are given by the same formulas as in
the conventional Standard Model. The gravitational sector is analyzed and it is
shown that the model admits in the classical limit the Einsteinian form of
gravitational interactions. No figures.


  This paper studies the difference in computational power between the
mesh-connected parallel computers equipped with dynamically reconfigurable bus
systems and those with static ones. The mesh with separable buses (MSB) is the
mesh-connected parallel computer with dynamically reconfigurable row/column
buses. The broadcast buses of the MSB can be dynamically sectioned into smaller
bus segments by program control. We show that the MSB of size $n \times n$ can
work with$O(\log^2 n)$ step even if its dynamic reconfigurable function is
disabled. Here, we assume the word-model broadcast buses, and use the relation
between the word-model bus and the bit-model bus.


  Solar cells based on organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites show
efficiencies close to highly-optimized silicon solar cells. However, ion
migration in the perovskite films leads to device degradation and impedes large
scale commercial applications. We use transient ion-drift measurements to
quantify activation energy, diffusion coefficient, and concentration of mobile
ions in methylammonium lead triiodide (MAPbI3) perovskite solar cells, and find
that their properties change close to the tetragonal-to-orthorhombic phase
transition temperature. We identify three migrating ion species which we
attribute to the migration of iodide (I-) and methylammonium (MA+). We find
that the concentration of mobile MA+ ions is one order of magnitude higher than
the one of mobile I- ions, and that the diffusion coefficient of mobile MA+
ions is three orders of magnitude lower than the one for mobile I- ions. We
furthermore observe that the activation energy of mobile I- ions (0.29 eV) is
highly reproducible for different devices, while the activation energy of
mobile MA+ depends strongly on device fabrication. This quantification of
mobile ions in MAPbI3 will lead to a better understanding of ion migration and
its role in operation and degradation of perovskite solar cells.


  We construct a new analytic phenomenological model for the extended
circumgalactic material (CGM) of $L^*$ galaxies. Our model reproduces the
OVII/OVIII absorption observations of the Milky Way (MW) and the OVI
measurements reported by the COS-Halos and eCGM surveys. The warm/hot gas is in
hydrostatic equilibrium in a MW gravitational potential, and we adopt a
barotropic equation of state, resulting in a temperature variation as a
function of radius. A pressure component with an adiabatic index of
$\gamma=4/3$ is included to approximate the effects of a magnetic field and
cosmic rays. We introduce a metallicity gradient motivated by the enrichment of
the inner CGM by the Galaxy. We then present our fiducial model for the corona,
tuned to reproduce the observed OVI-OVIII column densities, and with a total
mass of $M_{\rm gas} \approx 5.5 \times 10^{10}~{\rm M_{\odot}}$ inside $r_{\rm
cgm} \approx 280$ kpc. The gas densities in the CGM are low ($n_{\rm H} =
10^{-5} - 3 \times 10^{-4}~{\rm cm^{-3}}$) and its collisional ionization state
is modified by the metagalactic radiation field (MGRF). We show that for
OVI-bearing warm/hot gas with typical observed column densities $N_{\rm OVI}
\sim 3 \times 10^{14}~{\rm cm^{-2}}$ at large ($\gtrsim 100$ kpc) impact
parameters from the central galaxies, the ratio of the cooling to dynamical
times, $t_{\rm cool}/t_{\rm dyn}$, has a model-independent upper limit of
$\lesssim 4$. In our model, $t_{\rm cool}/t_{\rm dyn}$ at large radii is $\sim
2-3$. We present predictions for a wide range of future observations of the
warm/hot CGM, from UV/X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy, to dispersion
measure (DM) and Sunyaev-Zeldovich CMB measurements. We provide the model
outputs in machine-readable data files, for easy comparison and analysis.


  We compute the effects of the centrifugal pressure supported shock waves on
the emitted spectrum from an accretion disk primarily consisting of low angular
momentum matter. Electrons are very efficiently accelerated by the accretion
shock and acquire power-law distribution. The accelerated particles in turn
emit synchrotron radiation in presence of a stochastic magnetic field in
equipartition with the gas. Efficient cooling of the electrons by these soft
photons reduces its temperature in comparison to the protons. We explore the
nature of the broadband spectra by using Comptonization, bremsstrahlung and
synchrotron emission. We then show that there could be two crossing points in a
broadband spectrum, one near $\sim 10 keV$ and the other $\sim 300-400$KeV.


  Baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is a model organism for studying the
morphology that emerges at the scale of multi-cell colonies. To look at how
morphology develops, we collect a dataset of time-lapse photographs of the
growth of different strains of S. cerevisiae. We discuss the general
statistical challenges that arise when using time-lapse photographs to extract
time-dependent features. In particular, we show how texture-based feature
engineering and representative clustering can be successfully applied to
categorize the development of yeast colony morphology using our dataset. The
local binary pattern (LBP) from image processing is used to score the surface
texture of colonies. This texture score develops along a smooth trajectory
during growth. The path taken depends on how the morphology emerges. A
hierarchical clustering of the colonies is performed according to their texture
development trajectories. The clustering method is designed for practical
interpretability; it obtains the best representative colony image for any
hierarchical sub-cluster.


  The arrow of time refers to the curious asymmetry that distinguishes the
future from the past. Reversing the Arrow of Time argues that there is an
intimate link between the symmetries of 'time itself' and time reversal
symmetry in physical theories, which has wide-ranging implications for both
physics and its philosophy. This link helps to clarify how we can learn about
the symmetries of our world; how to understand the relationship between
symmetries and what is real, and how to overcome pervasive illusions about the
direction of time. Roberts explains the significance of time reversal in a way
that intertwines physics and philosophy, to establish what the arrow of time
means and how we can come to know it. This book is both mathematically and
philosophically rigorous yet remains accessible to advanced undergraduates in
physics and philosophy of physics.


  By using a characterization of the Morse index and the degeneracy in terms of
a singular one dimensional eigenvalue problem given in a previous paper, we
give a lower bound for the Morse index of radial solutions to H\'enon type
problems
  \[
  \left\{\begin{array}{ll}
  -\Delta u = |x|^{\alpha}f(u) \qquad & \text{ in } \Omega,
  u= 0 & \text{ on } \partial \Omega,
  \end{array} \right. \] where $\Omega$ is a bounded radially symmetric domain
of $\mathbb R^N$ ($N\ge 2$), $\alpha>0$ and $f$ is a real function. From this
estimate we get that the Morse index of nodal radial solutions to this problem
goes to $\infty$ as $\alpha\to \infty$. Concerning the real H\'enon problem,
$f(u)= |u|^{p-1}u$, we prove radial nondegeneracy, we show that the radial
Morse index is equal to the number of nodal zones and we get that a least
energy nodal solution is not radial.


  We prove that any C^{1+} transformation, possibly with a (non-flat) critical
or singular region, admits an invariant probability measure absolutely
continuous with respect to any expanding measure whose Jacobian satisfies a
mild distortion condition. This is an extension to arbitrary dimension of a
famous theorem of Keller for maps of the interval with negative Schwarzian
derivative.
  We also show how to construct an induced Markov map F such that every
expanding probability of the initial transformation lifts to an invariant
probability of F. The induced time is bounded at each point by the
corresponding first hyperbolic time (the first time the dynamics exhibits
hyperbolic behavior). In particular, F may be used to study decay of
correlations and others statistical properties of the initial map, relative to
any expanding probability.


  We study the asymptotic stability properties of nonlinear switched systems
under the assumption of the existence of a common weak Lyapunov function. We
consider the class of nonchaotic inputs, which generalize the different notions
of inputs with dwell-time, and the class of general ones. For each of them we
provide some sufficient conditions for asymptotic stability in terms of the
geometry of certain sets. The results, which extend those of Balde, Jouan about
linear systems, are illustrated by many examples.


  We show that for every separable Banach space $X$, either $\spw(X)$ (the set
of all spreading models of $X$ generated by weakly-null sequences in $X$,
modulo equivalence) is countable, or $\spw(X)$ contains an antichain of the
size of the continuum. This answers a question of S. J. Dilworth, E. Odell and
B. Sari.


  Continual Novel Class Discovery (CNCD) aims to continually discover novel
classes without labels while maintaining the recognition capability for
previously learned classes. The main challenges faced by CNCD include the
feature-discrepancy problem, the inter-session confusion problem, etc. In this
paper, we propose a novel Feature Enhancement and Adaptation method for the
CNCD to tackle the above challenges, which consists of a guide-to-novel
framework, a centroid-to-samples similarity constraint (CSS), and a
boundary-aware prototype constraint (BAP). More specifically, the
guide-to-novel framework is established to continually discover novel classes
under the guidance of prior distribution. Afterward, the CSS is designed to
constrain the relationship between centroid-to-samples similarities of
different classes, thereby enhancing the distinctiveness of features among
novel classes. Finally, the BAP is proposed to keep novel class features aware
of the positions of other class prototypes during incremental sessions, and
better adapt novel class features to the shared feature space. Experimental
results on three benchmark datasets demonstrate the superiority of our method,
especially in more challenging protocols with more incremental sessions.


  The self-destructive percolation model is defined as follows: Consider
percolation with parameter $p > p_c$. Remove the infinite occupied cluster.
Finally, give each vertex (or, for bond percolation, each edge) that at this
stage is vacant, an extra chance $\delta$ to become occupied. Let $\delta_c(p)$
be the minimal value of $\delta$, needed to obtain an infinite occupied cluster
in the final configuration. This model was introduced some years ago by van den
Berg and Brouwer. They showed that, for the site model on the square lattice
(and a few other 2D lattices satisfying a special technical condition) that
$\delta_c(p)\geq\frac{(p-p_c)}{p}$. In particular, $\delta_c(p)$ is at least
linear in $p-p_c$.
  Although the arguments used by van den Berg and Brouwer look quite rigid, we
show that they can be suitably modified to obtain similar linear lower bounds
for $\delta_c(p)$ (with $p$ near $p_c$) for a much larger class of 2D lattices,
including bond percolation on the square and triangular lattices, and site
percolation on the star lattice (or matching lattice) of the square lattice.


  In previous definition of $\mathrm{E}$-theory, separability of the
$\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras is needed either to construct the composition product
or to prove the long exact sequences. Considering the latter, the potential
failure of the long exact sequences can be traced back to the fact that these
$\mathrm{E}$-theory groups accommodate information about asymptotic processes
in which one real parameter goes to infinity, but not about more complicated
asymptotics parametrized by directed sets. We propose a definition for
$\mathrm{E}$-theory which also incorporates this additional information by
generalizing the notion of asymptotic algebras. As a consequence, it not only
has all desirable products but also all long exact sequences, even for
non-separable $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras. More precisely, our construction yields
equivariant $\mathrm{E}$-theory for $\mathbb{Z}_2$-graded
$G$-$\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras for arbitrary discrete groups $G$. We suspect that
our model for $\mathrm{E}$-theory could be the right entity to investigate
index theory on infinite dimensional manifolds.


  Observations of the 21cm Epoch of Reionization (EoR) signal are dominated by
Galactic and extragalactic foregrounds. The need for foreground removal has led
to the development of two main techniques, often referred to as "foreground
avoidance" and "foreground subtraction." Avoidance is associated with filtering
foregrounds in Fourier space, while subtraction uses an explicit foreground
model that is removed. Using 1088 hours of data from the 64-element PAPER
array, we demonstrate that subtraction of a foreground model prior to
delay-space foreground filtering results in a modest but measurable improvement
of the performance of the filter. This proof-of-concept result shows that
improvement stems from the reduced dynamic range requirements needed for the
foreground filter: subtraction of a foreground model reduces the total
foreground power, so for a fixed dynamic range, the filter can push towards
fainter limits. We also find that the choice of window function used in the
foreground filter can have an appreciable affect on the performance near the
edges of the observing band. We demonstrate these effects using a smaller 3
hour sampling of data from the MWA, and find that the hybrid filtering and
subtraction removal approach provides similar improvements across the band as
seen in the case with PAPER-64.


  Let $\mathscr{L}(S^1)$ be the Lagrange spectrum arising from intrinsic
Diophantine approximation on the unit circle $S^1$ by its rational points. We
give a complete description of the structure of $\mathscr{L}(S^1)$ below its
smallest accumulation point. To this end, we use digit expansions of points on
$S^1$, which were originally introduced by Romik in 2008 as an analogue of
simple continued fraction of a real number. We prove that the smallest
accumulation point of $\mathscr{L}(S^1)$ is 2. Also we characterize the points
on $S^1$ whose Lagrange numbers are less than 2 in terms of Romik's digit
expansions. Our theorem is the analogue of the celebrated theorem of Markoff on
badly approximable real numbers.


  The effect of the laser linewidth on the resonance fluorescence spectrum of a
two-level atom is revisited. The novel spectral features, such as hole-burning
and dispersive profiles at line centre of the fluorescence spectrum are
predicted when the laser linewidth is much greater than its intensity. The
unique features result from quantum interference between different
dressed-state transition channels.


  We aim to study the spatial distribution of the physical and chemical
properties of the X-ray emitting plasma of the supernova remnant G272.2-3.2, in
order to get important constraints on its ionization stage, on the progenitor
supernova explosion, and the age of the remnant. We report combined XMM-Newton
and Chandra images, median photon energy map, silicon and sulfur equivalent
width maps, and a spatially resolved spectral analysis for a set of regions of
the remnant. Complementary radio and H{\alpha} observations, available in the
literature, are also used to study the multi-wavelength connection of all
detected emissions. The X-ray morphology of the remnant displays an overall
structure with an almost circular appearance, a centrally brightened hard
region, with a peculiar elongated hard structure oriented along the
northwest-southeast direction of the central part. The X-ray spectral study of
the regions shows distinct K{\alpha} emission-line features of metal elements,
confirming the thermal origin of the emission. The X-ray spectra are well
represented by an absorbed VNEI thermal plasma model, which produces elevated
abundances of Si, S, and Fe in the circular central region, typical of ejecta
material. The values of abundances found in the central region of the SNR favor
a Type Ia progenitor for this remnant. The outer region shows abundances below
the solar value, as expected if the emission arises from the shocked ISM. The
relatively low ionization timescales suggests non-equilibrium ionization. We
identify the location of the contact discontinuity. Its distance to the outer
shock is higher than expected for expansion in a uniform media, what suggests
that the remnant spent most of its time in a more dense medium.


  This paper describes a fully covariant approach to harmonic superspace. It is
based on the conformal superspace description of conformal supergravity and
involves extending the supermanifold M^{4|8} by the tangent bundle of CP^1. The
resulting superspace M^{4|8} x TCP^1 can be identified in a certain gauge with
the conventional harmonic superspace M^{4|8} x S^2. This approach not only
makes the connection to projective superspace transparent, but simplifies
calculations in harmonic superspace significantly by eliminating the need to
deal directly with supergravity prepotentials. As an application of the
covariant approach, we derive from harmonic superspace the full component
action for the sigma model of a hyperkahler cone coupled to conformal
supergravity. Further applications are also sketched.


  We present the first results of the observations of the X-ray pulsars LMC
X-4, 4U0352+309 and EXO1722-363 performed with the INTEGRAL observatory. The
LMC X-4 was investigated during the whole superorbital cycle ($\sim$30 days)
and it was found that its period was not stable at this time scale. We detected
a variable X-ray flux (18-60 keV) from the pulsar EXO1722-363, which could be
connected with the orbital motion in the binary system. A more accurate
position and the estimate of the orbital period for this source are reported.
We also investigated a hard X-ray spectrum of 4U0352+309 (X Persei) measured
with INTEGRAL and report the detection of the cyclotron absorption line at
about 29 keV.


  In this paper, we present GRASP, a novel graph generative model based on 1)
the spectral decomposition of the graph Laplacian matrix and 2) a diffusion
process. Specifically, we propose to use a denoising model to sample
eigenvectors and eigenvalues from which we can reconstruct the graph Laplacian
and adjacency matrix. Our permutation invariant model can also handle node
features by concatenating them to the eigenvectors of each node. Using the
Laplacian spectrum allows us to naturally capture the structural
characteristics of the graph and work directly in the node space while avoiding
the quadratic complexity bottleneck that limits the applicability of other
methods. This is achieved by truncating the spectrum, which as we show in our
experiments results in a faster yet accurate generative process. An extensive
set of experiments on both synthetic and real world graphs demonstrates the
strengths of our model against state-of-the-art alternatives.


  A cosheaf is the dual notion of a sheaf, but we cannot define its homology as
the formal dual of sheaf cohomology, in general, because of the lack of the
cosheafification. A cellular cosheaf is a contravariant functor from the face
poset of a CW complex to the category of abelian groups. We show that given a
cellular cosheaf $F$, there is a natural way to associate a cosheaf
$\widehat{F}$, for which we can define homology as the formal dual of sheaf
cohomology, such that the Borel-Moore homology of $F$ is isomorphic to the
homology of $\widehat{F}$ whenever the underlying CW complex of $F$ is a
simplicial complex.


  The graph Fourier transform (GFT) is an important tool for graph signal
processing, with applications ranging from graph-based image processing to
spectral clustering. However, unlike the discrete Fourier transform, the GFT
typically does not have a fast algorithm. In this work, we develop new
approaches to accelerate the GFT computation. In particular, we show that Haar
units (Givens rotations with angle $\pi/4$) can be used to reduce GFT
computation cost when the graph is bipartite or satisfies certain symmetry
properties based on node pairing. We also propose a graph decomposition method
based on graph topological symmetry, which allows us to identify and exploit
butterfly structures in stages. This method is particularly useful for graphs
that are nearly regular or have some specific structures, e.g., line graphs,
cycle graphs, grid graphs, and human skeletal graphs. Though butterfly stages
based on graph topological symmetry cannot be used for general graphs, they are
useful in applications, including video compression and human action analysis,
where symmetric graphs, such as symmetric line graphs and human skeletal
graphs, are used. Our proposed fast GFT implementations are shown to reduce
computation costs significantly, in terms of both number of operations and
empirical runtimes.


  In this paper we study recurrences concerning the combinatorial sum
$[n,r]_m=\sum_{k\equiv r (mod m)}\binom {n}{k}$ and the alternate sum
$\sum_{k\equiv r (mod m)}(-1)^{(k-r)/m}\binom{n}{k}$, where m>0, $n\ge 0$ and r
are integers. For example, we show that if $n\ge m-1$ then
$$\sum_{i=0}^{\lfloor(m-1)/2\rfloor}(-1)^i\binom{m-1-i}i
[n-2i,r-i]_m=2^{n-m+1}.$$ We also apply such results to investigate Bernoulli
and Euler polynomials. Our approach depends heavily on an identity established
by the author [Integers 2(2002)].


  The 23 Myr young star $\beta$ Pictoris is a laboratory for planet formation
studies given its observed debris disk, its two directly imaged super-Jovian
planets, and the evidence of transiting extrasolar comets. The most recent
evidence of exocometary transits around $\beta$ Pic came from the TESS space
mission. Previous analyses of these transits constrained the orbital
distribution of the underlying exocomet population to range between about 0.03
and 1.3 AU assuming a fixed transit impact parameter. Here we examine the
distribution of the observed transit durations (${\Delta}t$) to infer the
orbital surface density distribution ($\delta$) of the underlying exocomet
sample. We show that a narrow belt of exocomets around $\beta$ Pic, in which
the transit impact parameters are randomized but the orbital semimajor axes are
equal, results in a pile-up of long transit durations. This is contrary to
observations, which reveal a pile-up of short transit durations (${\Delta}t
\approx 0.1$ d) and a tail of only a few transits with ${\Delta}t > 0.4$ d. A
flat density distribution of exocomets between about 0.03 and 2.5 AU results in
a better match between the resulting ${\Delta}t$ distribution and the
observations but the slope of the predicted ${\Delta}t$ histogram is not
sufficiently steep. An even better match to the observations can be produced
with a $\delta \propto a^{\beta}$ power law. Our modeling reveals a best fit
between the observed and predicted ${\Delta}t$ distribution for $\beta =
-0.15_{-0.10}^{+0.05}$. A more reasonable scenario in which the exocometary
trajectories are modeled as hyperbolic orbits can also reproduce the observed
${\Delta}t$ distribution to some extent. Our results imply that cometary
material exists on highly eccentric orbits with a more extended range of
semimajor axes than suggested by previous spectroscopic observations.


  Motivated by the study of deletion channels, this work presents improved
bounds on the number of subsequences obtained from a binary sting X of length n
under t deletions. It is known that the number of subsequences in this setting
strongly depends on the number of runs in the string X; where a run is a
maximal sequence of the same character. Our improved bounds are obtained by a
structural analysis of the family of r-run strings X, an analysis in which we
identify the extremal strings with respect to the number of subsequences.
Specifically, for every r, we present r-run strings with the minimum
(respectively maximum) number of subsequences under any t deletions; and
perform an exact analysis of the number of subsequences of these extremal
strings.


  Extremely high energy (up to 10**(22) eV) cosmic neutrino beams initiate high
energy particle cascades in the background of relic neutrinos from the Big
Bang. We perform numerical calculations to show that such cascades could
contribute more than 10% to the observed cosmic ray flux above 10**(19) eV if
neutrinos have masses in the electron volt range. The required intensity of
primary neutrinos could be consistent with astrophysical models for their
production if the maximum neutrino energy reaches to 10**(22) eV and the
massive neutrino dark matter is locally clustered. Future observations of ultra
high energy cosmic rays will lead to an indirect but practical search for
neutrino dark matter.


  For any graph inverse semigroup $G(E)$ we describe subsemigroups
$D^0=D\cup\{0\}$ and $J^0=J\cup\{0\}$ of $G(E)$ where $D$ and $J$ are arbitrary
$\mathcal{D}$-class and $\mathcal{J}$-class of $G(E)$, respectively. In
particular, we prove that for each $\mathcal{D}$-class $D$ of a graph inverse
semigroup over an acyclic graph the semigroup $D^0$ is isomorphic to a
semigroup of matrix units. Also we show that for any elements $a,b$ of a graph
inverse semigroup $G(E)$, $J_a\cdot J_b\cup J_b\cdot J_a\subset J_b^0$ if there
exists a path $w$ such that $s(w)\in J_a$ and $r(w)\in J_b$.


  We revisit the population of normal pulsars in the Galactic field in an
`evolutionary' approach. By comparing the distributions of various parameters
of synthetic pulsars detectable by the Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey, the
Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array Survey, and two Swinburne Multibeam surveys
with those of the real pulsars detected by the same surveys, we find that a
good and physically realistic model can be obtained by using a uniform
distribution of the braking index in the range of 2.5 to 3.0, a uniform
distribution of the cosine of the angle between the spin and the magnetic axis
in the range of 0 to 1, a log-normal birth distribution of the surface magnetic
field with the mean and the standard deviation as 12.85 and 0.55 respectively
while keeping the distributions of other parameters unchanged from the ones
most commonly used in the literature. We have also replaced the universal
'death-line' by a `death-condition' specific to each individual pulsar. We find
that our model is better than the most popular model. With our improved model,
we predict that an all-sky pulsar survey with phase-I SKA-MID will detect about
nine thousand normal pulsars in the Galactic field. Among these pulsars, a
considerable number will produce continuous gravitational waves in the
operational range of the future ground-based gravitational waves detectors like
LIGO A$+$, and in certain cases, the spin-down limit of the gravitational wave
strains will be well below the detection sensitivity limit. We also provide a
fit for the present-day distributions of the spin periods and 1400 MHz
luminosities of the whole normal pulsar population in the Galactic field (which
are potentially observable) and those can be used in future population studies
under the snapshot approach.


  A possible explanation for the apparent phase stability of the 11.07-year
Schwabe cycle of the solar dynamo was the subject of a series of recent papers.
The synchronization of the helicity of an instability with azimuthal wavenumber
m=1 by a tidal m=2 perturbation played a key role here. To analyze this type of
interaction in a paradigmatic set-up, we study a thermally driven
Rayleigh-B\'enard Convection (RBC) of a liquid metal under the influence of a
tide-like electromagnetic forcing. As shown previously, the time-modulation of
this forcing emerges as a peak frequency in the m=2 mode of the radial flow
velocity component. In this paper we present new numerical results on the
interplay between the Large Scale Circulation (LSC) of a RBC flow and the time
modulated electromagnetic forcing.


  This paper studies a novel user cooperation model in a wireless powered
mobile edge computing system where two wireless users harvest wireless power
transferred by one energy node and can offload part of their computation tasks
to an edge server (ES) for remote execution. In particular, we consider that
the direct communication link between one user to the ES is blocked, such that
the other user acts as a relay to forward its offloading data to the server.
Meanwhile, instead of forwarding all the received task data, we also allow the
helping user to compute part of the received task locally to reduce the
potentially high energy and time cost on task offloading to the ES. Our aim is
to maximize the amount of data that can be processed within a given time frame
of the two users by jointly optimizing the amount of task data computed at each
device (users and ES), the system time allocation, the transmit power and CPU
frequency of the users. We propose an efficient method to find the optimal
solution and show that the proposed user cooperation can effectively enhance
the computation performance of the system compared to other representative
benchmark methods under different scenarios.


  We present results of a long-term spectroscopic monitoring program (since mid
2009) of Luminous Blue Variables with the new HERMES echelle spectrograph on
the 1.2 m Mercator telescope at La Palma (Spain). We investigate
high-resolution (R=80,000) optical spectra of two LBVs, P Cyg and HD 168607,
the LBV candidates MWC 930 and HD 168625, and the LBV binary MWC 314. In P Cyg
we observe flux changes in the violet wings of the Balmer H{\alpha}, H{\beta},
and He I lines between May and Sep 2009. The changes around 200 km/s to 300
km/s are caused by variable opacity at the base of the supersonic wind from the
blue supergiant. We observe in MWC 314 broad double-peaked metal emission lines
with invariable radial velocities over time. On the other hand, we measure in
the photospheric S II {\lambda}5647 absorption line, with lower excitation
energy of ~14 eV, an increase of the heliocentric radial velocity centroid from
37 km/s to 70 km/s between 5 and 10 Sep 2009 (and 43 km/s on 6 Apr 2010). The
increase of radial velocity of ~33 km/s in only 5 days can confirm the binary
nature of this LBV close to the Eddington luminosity limit. A comparison with
VLT-UVES and Keck-Hires spectra observed over the past 13 years reveals strong
flux variability in the violet wing of the H{\alpha} emission line of HD
168625, and in the absorption portion of the H{\beta} line of HD 168607. In HD
168625 we observe H{\alpha} wind absorption at velocities exceeding 200 km/s
which develops between Apr and June 2010.


  We present a probabilistic programmed deep kernel learning approach to
personalized, predictive modeling of neurodegenerative diseases. Our analysis
considers a spectrum of neural and symbolic machine learning approaches, which
we assess for predictive performance and important medical AI properties such
as interpretability, uncertainty reasoning, data-efficiency, and leveraging
domain knowledge. Our Bayesian approach combines the flexibility of Gaussian
processes with the structural power of neural networks to model biomarker
progressions, without needing clinical labels for training. We run evaluations
on the problem of Alzheimer's disease prediction, yielding results that surpass
deep learning in both accuracy and timeliness of predicting neurodegeneration,
and with the practical advantages of Bayesian nonparametrics and probabilistic
programming.


  'Dual' is a promising key word in the particle physics at present. The string
theory is dual in any sense. The observed sector and the hidden sector are dual
on the 10-dim. $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic string. We find $Z_6$ orbifold models
preserving the duality under a torus compactification and realizing $SO(10)$
SUSY GUT in the obserbed sector under a twist division.


  Various applications of quantum devices call for an accurate calibration of
cryogenic amplification chains. To this end, we present a convenient
calibration scheme and use it to accurately measure the total gain and noise
temperature of an amplification chain by employing
normal-metal--insulator--superconductor (NIS) junctions. Our method is based on
the radiation emitted by inelastic electron tunneling across voltage-biased NIS
junctions. We derive an analytical equation that relates the generated power to
the applied bias voltage which is the only control parameter of the device.
After the setup has been characterized using a standard voltage reflection
measurement, the total gain and the noise temperature are extracted by fitting
the analytical equation to the microwave power measured at the output of the
amplification chain. The 1$\sigma$ uncertainty of the total gain of 51.84 dB
appears to be of the order of 0.1 dB.


  This paper explores the integration of graph knowledge from linguistic
ontologies into multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) using adapters to
improve performance for low-resource languages (LRLs) in sentiment analysis
(SA) and named entity recognition (NER). Building upon successful
parameter-efficient fine-tuning techniques, such as K-ADAPTER and MAD-X, we
propose a similar approach for incorporating knowledge from multilingual
graphs, connecting concepts in various languages with each other through
linguistic relationships, into multilingual LLMs for LRLs. Specifically, we
focus on eight LRLs -- Maltese, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Nepali, Javanese,
Uyghur, Tibetan, and Sinhala -- and employ language-specific adapters
fine-tuned on data extracted from the language-specific section of ConceptNet,
aiming to enable knowledge transfer across the languages covered by the
knowledge graph. We compare various fine-tuning objectives, including standard
Masked Language Modeling (MLM), MLM with full-word masking, and MLM with
targeted masking, to analyse their effectiveness in learning and integrating
the extracted graph data. Through empirical evaluation on language-specific
tasks, we assess how structured graph knowledge affects the performance of
multilingual LLMs for LRLs in SA and NER, providing insights into the potential
benefits of adapting language models for low-resource scenarios.


  Iterated games are a fundamental component of economic and evolutionary game
theory. They describe situations where two players interact repeatedly and have
the possibility to use conditional strategies that depend on the outcome of
previous interactions. In the context of evolution of cooperation, repeated
games represent the mechanism of reciprocation. Recently a new class of
strategies has been proposed, so called 'zero determinant strategies'. These
strategies enforce a fixed linear relationship between one's own payoff and
that of the other player. A subset of those strategies are 'extortioners' which
ensure that any increase in the own payoff exceeds that of the other player by
a fixed percentage. Here we analyze the evolutionary performance of this new
class of strategies. We show that in reasonably large populations they can act
as catalysts for the evolution of cooperation, similar to tit-for-tat, but they
are not the stable outcome of natural selection. In very small populations,
however, relative payoff differences between two players in a contest matter,
and extortioners hold their ground. Extortion strategies do particularly well
in co-evolutionary arms races between two distinct populations: significantly,
they benefit the population which evolves at the slower rate - an instance of
the so-called Red King effect. This may affect the evolution of interactions
between host species and their endosymbionts.


  In inverse optimization problems, the goal is to modify the costs in an
underlying optimization problem in such a way that a given solution becomes
optimal, while the difference between the new and the original cost functions,
called the deviation vector, is minimized with respect to some objective
function. The $\ell_1$- and $\ell_\infty$-norms are standard objectives used to
measure the size of the deviation. Minimizing the $\ell_1$-norm is a natural
way of keeping the total change of the cost function low, while the
$\ell_\infty$-norm achieves the same goal coordinate-wise. Nevertheless, none
of these objectives is suitable to provide a balanced or fair change of the
costs.
  In this paper, we initiate the study of a new objective that measures the
difference between the largest and the smallest weighted coordinates of the
deviation vector, called the weighted span. We give a min-max characterization
for the minimum weighted span of a feasible deviation vector, and provide a
Newton-type algorithm for finding one that runs in strongly polynomial time in
the case of unit weights.


  Despite their potential, markerless hand tracking technologies are not yet
applied in practice to the diagnosis or monitoring of the activity in
inflammatory musculoskeletal diseases. One reason is that the focus of most
methods lies in the reconstruction of coarse, plausible poses, whereas in the
clinical context, accurate, interpretable, and reliable results are required.
Therefore, we propose ShaRPy, the first RGB-D Shape Reconstruction and hand
Pose tracking system, which provides uncertainty estimates of the computed
pose, e.g., when a finger is hidden or its estimate is inconsistent with the
observations in the input, to guide clinical decision-making. Besides pose,
ShaRPy approximates a personalized hand shape, promoting a more realistic and
intuitive understanding of its digital twin. Our method requires only a
light-weight setup with a single consumer-level RGB-D camera yet it is able to
distinguish similar poses with only small joint angle deviations in a
metrically accurate space. This is achieved by combining a data-driven dense
correspondence predictor with traditional energy minimization. To bridge the
gap between interactive visualization and biomedical simulation we leverage a
parametric hand model in which we incorporate biomedical constraints and
optimize for both, its pose and hand shape. We evaluate ShaRPy on a keypoint
detection benchmark and show qualitative results of hand function assessments
for activity monitoring of musculoskeletal diseases.


  We predict that a photonic crystal fiber whose strands are filled with a
defocusing nonlinear medium can support stable bright and also vortex solitons
if the strength of the defocusing nonlinearity grows toward the periphery of
the fiber. The domains of soliton existence depend on the transverse growth
rate of the filling nonlinearity and nonlinearity of the core. Remarkably,
solitons exist even when the core material is linear.


  In response to recent data regulation requirements, machine unlearning (MU)
has emerged as a critical process to remove the influence of specific examples
from a given model. Although exact unlearning can be achieved through complete
model retraining using the remaining dataset, the associated computational
costs have driven the development of efficient, approximate unlearning
techniques. Moving beyond data-centric MU approaches, our study introduces a
novel model-based perspective: model sparsification via weight pruning, which
is capable of reducing the gap between exact unlearning and approximate
unlearning. We show in both theory and practice that model sparsity can boost
the multi-criteria unlearning performance of an approximate unlearner, closing
the approximation gap, while continuing to be efficient. This leads to a new MU
paradigm, termed prune first, then unlearn, which infuses a sparse model prior
into the unlearning process. Building on this insight, we also develop a
sparsity-aware unlearning method that utilizes sparsity regularization to
enhance the training process of approximate unlearning. Extensive experiments
show that our proposals consistently benefit MU in various unlearning
scenarios. A notable highlight is the 77% unlearning efficacy gain of
fine-tuning (one of the simplest unlearning methods) when using sparsity-aware
unlearning. Furthermore, we demonstrate the practical impact of our proposed MU
methods in addressing other machine learning challenges, such as defending
against backdoor attacks and enhancing transfer learning. Codes are available
at https://github.com/OPTML-Group/Unlearn-Sparse.


  This article consists of two parts. In Part 1, we present a formulation of
two-dimensional topological quantum field theories in terms of a functor from a
category of Ribbon graphs to the endofuntor category of a monoidal category.
The key point is that the category of ribbon graphs produces all Frobenius
objects. Necessary backgrounds from Frobenius algebras, topological quantum
field theories, and cohomological field theories are reviewed. A result on
Frobenius algebra twisted topological recursion is included at the end of Part
1.
  In Part 2, we explain a geometric theory of quantum curves. The focus is
placed on the process of quantization as a passage from families of Hitchin
spectral curves to families of opers. To make the presentation simpler, we
unfold the story using SL_2(\mathbb{C})-opers and rank 2 Higgs bundles defined
on a compact Riemann surface $C$ of genus greater than $1$. In this case,
quantum curves, opers, and projective structures in $C$ all become the same
notion. Background materials on projective coordinate systems, Higgs bundles,
opers, and non-Abelian Hodge correspondence are explained.


  Power-law scaling, a central concept in critical phenomena, is found to be
useful in deep learning, where optimized test errors on handwritten digit
examples converge as a power-law to zero with database size. For rapid decision
making with one training epoch, each example is presented only once to the
trained network, the power-law exponent increased with the number of hidden
layers. For the largest dataset, the obtained test error was estimated to be in
the proximity of state-of-the-art algorithms for large epoch numbers. Power-law
scaling assists with key challenges found in current artificial intelligence
applications and facilitates an a priori dataset size estimation to achieve a
desired test accuracy. It establishes a benchmark for measuring training
complexity and a quantitative hierarchy of machine learning tasks and
algorithms.


  We present a perturbative approach to the problem of computation of
mixed-state fidelity susceptibility (MFS) for thermal states. The mathematical
techniques used provides an analytical expression for the MFS as a formal
expansion in terms of the thermodynamic mean values of successively higher
commutators of the Hamiltonian with the operator involved through the control
parameter. That expression is naturally divided into two parts: the usual
isothermal susceptibility and a constituent in the form of an infinite series
of thermodynamic mean values which encodes the noncommutativity in the problem.
If the symmetry properties of the Hamiltonian are given in terms of the
generators of some (finite dimensional) algebra, the obtained expansion may be
evaluated in a closed form. This issue is tested on several popular models, for
which it is shown that the calculations are much simpler if they are based on
the properties from the representation theory of the Heisenberg or SU(1, 1) Lie
algebra.


  Recently, Bich et al. (Int. J. Theor. Phys. 51: 2272, 2012) proposed two
deterministic joint remote state preparation (JRSP) protocols of an arbitrary
single-qubit state: one is for two preparers to remotely prepare for a receiver
by using two Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (ERP) pairs; the other is its generalized
form in the case of arbitrary N>2 preparers via N ERP pairs. In this paper,
Through reviewing and analyzing Bich et al.'s second protocols with N>2
preparers, we find that the success probability P_{suc}=1/4 < 1. In order to
solve the problem, we firstly constructed two sets of projective measurement
bases: the real-coefficient basis and the complex-coefficient one, and further
proposed an improved deterministic N-to-one JRSP protocol for an arbitrary
single-qubit state with unit success probability (i.e, P_{suc}=1). Morever, our
protocol is also flexible and convenient, and it can be used in a practical
network.


  Let $H$ be a composition of an $\mathbb{R}$-linear planar mapping and
$z\mapsto z^n$. We classify the dynamics of $H$ in terms of the parameters of
the $\mathbb{R}$-linear mapping and the degree by associating a certain finite
Blaschke product. We apply this classification to this situation where $z_0$ is
a fixed point of a planar quasiregular mapping with constant complex dilatation
in a neighbourhood of $z_0$. In particular we find how many curves there are
that are fixed by $f$ and that land at $z_0$.


  We explore the possibility that the recently discovered white dwarf pulsar AR
Sco acquired its high spin and magnetic field due to repeated episodes of
accretion and spin-down. An accreting white dwarf can lead to a larger mass and
consequently a smaller radius thus causing an enhanced rotation period and
magnetic field. This spinning magnetic white dwarf temporarily can inhibit
accretion, spin down, and, eventually, the accretion can start again due to the
shrinking of the binary period by gravitational radiation. A repeat of the
above cycle can eventually lead to a high magnetic field white dwarf, recently
postulated to be the reason for over-luminous type Ia supernovae. We also point
out that these high magnetic field spinning white dwarfs are attractive sites
for gravitational radiation.


  We study a phenomenon that electric charges are "teleported" between two
spatially separated objects without exchanging charged particles at all. For
example, this phenomenon happens between a magnetic monopole and an axion
string in four dimensions, two vortices in three dimensions, and two M5-branes
in M-theory in which M2-charges are teleported. This is realized by anomaly
inflow into these objects in the presence of cubic Chern-Simons terms. In
particular, the Witten effect on magnetic monopoles can be understood as a
general consequence of anomaly inflow, which implies that some anomalous
quantum mechanics must live on them. Charge violation occurs in the anomalous
theories living on these objects, but it happens in such a way that the total
charge is conserved between the two spatially separated objects. We derive a
formula for the amount of the charge which is teleported between the two
objects in terms of the linking number of their world volumes in spacetime.


  Magnetic properties of single crystals of the heterometallic complex
[Cu(bpy)$_3$]$_2$[Cr(C$_2$O$_4$)$_3$]NO$_3\cdot $9H$_2$O (bpy =
2,2'-bipyridine) have been investigated. From the recorded EPR spectra, the
spin-Hamiltonian parameters have been determined. The magnetization
measurements have shown magnetic anisotropy at low temperatures, which has been
analysed as a result of the zero-field splitting of the Cr$^{\mathrm{III}}$
ion. By fitting the exactly derived magnetization expression to the measured
magnetization data, the axial zero-field splitting parameter, D, has been
calculated. Comparing to the EPR measurements, it has been confirmed that $D$
can be determined from the measurements of the macroscopic magnetization on the
single crystals.


  Let F be a field of characteristic p. We define and investigate
nonassociative differential extensions of F and of a central simple division
algebra over F and give a criterium for these algebras to be division. As
special cases, we obtain classical results for associative algebras by Amitsur
and Jacobson. We construct families of nonassociative division algebras which
can be viewed as generalizations of associative cyclic extensions of a purely
inseparable field extension of exponent one or a central division algebra.
Division algebras which are nonassociative cyclic extensions of a purely
inseparable field extension of exponent one are particularly easy to obtain.


  Interpretability techniques in NLP have mainly focused on understanding
individual predictions using attention visualization or gradient-based saliency
maps over tokens. We propose using k nearest neighbor (kNN) representations to
identify training examples responsible for a model's predictions and obtain a
corpus-level understanding of the model's behavior. Apart from
interpretability, we show that kNN representations are effective at uncovering
learned spurious associations, identifying mislabeled examples, and improving
the fine-tuned model's performance. We focus on Natural Language Inference
(NLI) as a case study and experiment with multiple datasets. Our method deploys
backoff to kNN for BERT and RoBERTa on examples with low model confidence
without any update to the model parameters. Our results indicate that the kNN
approach makes the finetuned model more robust to adversarial inputs.


  Recommender systems are increasingly successful in recommending personalized
content to users. However, these systems often capitalize on popular content.
There is also a continuous evolution of user interests that need to be
captured, but there is no direct way to systematically explore users'
interests. This also tends to affect the overall quality of the recommendation
pipeline as training data is generated from the candidates presented to the
user. In this paper, we present a framework for exploration in large-scale
recommender systems to address these challenges. It consists of three parts,
first the user-creator exploration which focuses on identifying the best
creators that users are interested in, second the online exploration framework
and third a feed composition mechanism that balances explore and exploit to
ensure optimal prevalence of exploratory videos. Our methodology can be easily
integrated into an existing large-scale recommender system with minimal
modifications. We also analyze the value of exploration by defining relevant
metrics around user-creator connections and understanding how this helps the
overall recommendation pipeline with strong online gains in creator and
ecosystem value. In contrast to the regression on user engagement metrics
generally seen while exploring, our method is able to achieve significant
improvements of 3.50% in strong creator connections and 0.85% increase in novel
creator connections. Moreover, our work has been deployed in production on
Facebook Watch, a popular video discovery and sharing platform serving billions
of users.


  We analytically and numerically clarify the physical origin and the behaviour
of the Norton-wave scattered by a narrow slit, at optical frequencies. This
apparently surface field, which comes in addition to the surface plasmon
polariton and classical cylindrical lightwaves, features its own scattering
lobe associated to oscillating induced currents extending within both
horizontal metal parts forming the slit. Theory is given taking into account
the finite size of the aperture.


  We work out the notion of mirror symmetry for abelian varieties and study its
properties. Our construction are based on the correspondence between two
$Q$--algebraic groups. One is the Hodge (or special Mumford--Tate) group. The
second group $\bar{Spin(A)}$ is defined as follows: the group of
autoequivalences of the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves acts on
the total cohomology $H(A,Q)$ of an abelian variety $A$ via algebraic
correspondences. The group $\bar{Spin(A)}$ is now the Zariski closure of its
image in $GL(H(A,Q))$. Our constructions are compatible with the picture of
mirror symmetry sketched by Kontsevich, Morrison, and others.


  We present the GALEX far FUV and near NUV ultraviolet imaging of three nearby
shell galaxies, namely NGC 2865, NGC 5018 and NGC 7135. The system of shells
and fine structures visible in the optical is detected in the NUV image of NGC
2865 and in both NUV and FUV images of NGC 7135. The NUV image of NGC 5018 does
not present shell structures. We detect absorption features in the nuclear
region of all three galaxies. NGC 2865 has a nearly flat colour profile with
(FUV-NUV)~2 throughout the whole galaxy. NGC 7135 is blue in the center
(FUV-NUV)~0 and as red as (FUV-NUV)~1.5 in the outskirts, including the faint
shell-like feature. We investigate the ability of the nuclear GALEX (FUV-NUV)
colour to provide information about rejuvenation phenomena in the stellar
populations of the shell galaxies. To this aim, we derive from theory the
relationship between the Mg2, Hbeta, HgammaA, HdeltaA Lick line-strength
indices and the (FUV-NUV) colour. We extend the study to a sample of early-type
galaxies with emission lines in their optical spectra (Annibali et al. 2007).
In the index vs.(FUV-NUV) colour diagrams, most of the galaxies are well
explained by passively evolving SSPs. On the average, ages and metallicities of
the galaxies in our sample estimated from optical line-strength indices are
consistent with those inferred from the (FUV-NUV) colour. In general, all the
colours but for (FUV-NUV) and (FUV-V), become nearly age insensitive when 1-2
Gyr have elapsed from the last star forming event. Considering composite
stellar population models with a recent burst of star formation, we suggest
that the position of the NGC 7135 and NGC 2865 nuclei in the (FUV-NUV)-Hbeta
plane could be explained in term of a recent rejuvenation episode. (Abridged)


  We prove a second order identity for the Kirchhoff equation which yields, in
particular, a simple and direct proof of Pokhozhaev's second order conservation
law when the nonlinearity has the special form $(C_1 s +C_2)^{-2}$. As
applications, we give: an estimate of order $\varepsilon^{-4}$ for the lifespan
$T_\varepsilon$ of the solution of the Cauchy problem with initial data of size
$\varepsilon$ in Sobolev spaces when the nonlinearity is given by any $C^2$
function $m(s)>0$; a necessary and sufficient condition for boundedness of a
second order energy of the solutions.


  Paths $P^1,\ldots,P^k$ in a graph $G=(V,E)$ are mutually induced if any two
distinct $P^i$ and $P^j$ have neither common vertices nor adjacent vertices.
For a fixed integer $k$, the $k$-Induced Disjoint Paths problem is to decide if
a graph $G$ with $k$ pairs of specified vertices $(s_i,t_i)$ contains $k$
mutually induced paths $P^i$ such that each $P^i$ starts from $s_i$ and ends at
$t_i$. Whereas the non-induced version is well-known to be polynomial-time
solvable for every fixed integer $k$, a classical result from the literature
states that even $2$-Induced Disjoint Paths is NP-complete. We prove new
complexity results for $k$-Induced Disjoint Paths if the input is restricted to
$H$-free graphs, that is, graphs without a fixed graph $H$ as an induced
subgraph. We compare our results with a complexity dichotomy for Induced
Disjoint Paths, the variant where $k$ is part of the input.


  We present an all speed scheme for the Euler-Korteweg model. We study a
semi-implicit time-discretisation which treats the terms, which are stiff for
low Mach numbers, implicitly and thereby avoids a dependence of the timestep
restriction on the Mach number. Based on this we present a fully discrete
finite difference scheme. In particular, the scheme is asymptotic preserving,
i.e., it converges to a stable discretisation of the incompressible limit of
the Euler-Korteweg model when the Mach number tends to zero.


  In a recent Letter [PRL 96, 226802 (2006)], Dalpian and Chelikowsky claimed
that formation energies of Mn impurities in CdSe nanocrystals increase as the
size of the nanocrystal decreases, and argued that this size dependence leads
to "self-purification" of small nanocrystals. They presented
density-functional-theory (DFT) calculations showing a strong size dependence
for Mn impurity formation energies, and proposed a general explanation. In this
Comment we show that several different DFT codes, pseudopotentials, and
exchange-correlation functionals give a markedly different result: We find no
such size dependence. More generally, we argue that formation energies are not
relevant to substitutional doping in most colloidally grown nanocrystals.


  We determine the integral homology of PSL4(Z) in degrees at most 5 and
determine its p-part in higher degrees for the primes p>=5. Our method applies
to other arithmetic groups; as illustrations we include descriptions of the
integral homology of PGL3(Z[i]) and PGL3(Z[\exp(2\pi{i}/3)]) in degrees at most
5.


  We discuss CLT for the global and local linear statistics of random matrices
from classical compact groups. The main part of our proofs are certain
combinatorial identities much in the spirit of works by Kac and Spohn.


  For every $q\in \mathbb N$ let $\textrm{FO}_q$ denote the class of sentences
of first-order logic FO of quantifier rank at most $q$. If a graph property can
be defined in $\textrm{FO}_q$, then it can be decided in time $O(n^q)$. Thus,
minimizing $q$ has favorable algorithmic consequences. Many graph properties
amount to the existence of a certain set of vertices of size $k$. Usually this
can only be expressed by a sentence of quantifier rank at least $k$. We use the
color-coding method to demonstrate that some (hyper)graph problems can be
defined in $\textrm{FO}_q$ where $q$ is independent of $k$. This property of a
graph problem is equivalent to the question of whether the corresponding
parameterized problem is in the class $\textrm{para-AC}^0$.
  It is crucial for our results that the FO-sentences have access to built-in
addition and multiplication. It is known that then FO corresponds to the
circuit complexity class uniform $\textrm{AC}^0$. We explore the connection
between the quantifier rank of FO-sentences and the depth of
$\textrm{AC}^0$-circuits, and prove that $\textrm{FO}_q \subsetneq
\textrm{FO}_{q+1}$ for structures with built-in addition and multiplication.


  Several complete systems of integrability conditions on a spin chain
Hamiltonian density matrix are presented. The corresponding formulas for
$R$-matrices are also given. The latter is expressed via the local Hamiltonian
density in the form similar to spin one half $XXX$ and $XXZ$ models. The result
is applied to the problem of integrability of $SU(2)\times SU(2)$- and
$SU(2)\times U(1)$-invariant spin-orbital chains (the Kugel-Homskii-Inagaki
model). The eight new integrable cases are found. One of them corresponds to
the Temperley-Lieb algebra, the others three to the algebra associated with the
$XXX$, $XXZ$ and graded $XXZ$ models. The last two $R$-matrices are also
presented.


  In the context of modern software engineering, there is a trend towards
Cloud-native software development involving international teams with members
from all over the world. Cloud-based version management services like GitHub
are commonly used for source code and other files. However, a challenge arises
when developers from different companies or organizations share the platform,
as sensitive data should be encrypted to restrict access to certain developers
only. This paper discusses existing tools addressing this issue, highlighting
their shortcomings. The authors propose their own solution, Encrypted Container
Files, designed to overcome the deficiencies observed in other tools.


  We give a factorization procedure for a strictly hyperbolic partial
differential operator of second order with logarithmic slow scale coefficients.
From this we can microlocally diagonalize the full wave operator which results
in a coupled system of two first-order pseudodifferential equations in a
microlocal sense. Under the assumption that the full wave equation is
microlocal regular in a fixed domain of the phase space, we can approximate the
problem by two one-way wave equations where a dissipative term is added to
suppress singularities outside the given domain. We obtain well-posedness of
the corresponding Cauchy problem for the approximated one-way wave equation
with a dissipative term.


  This paper studies the global well-posedness of the incompressible
magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) system with a velocity damping term. We establish the
global existence and uniqueness of smooth solutions when the initial data is
close to an equilibrium state. In addition, explicit large-time decay rates for
various Sobolev norms of the solutions are also given.


  We show that the Balitsky-JIMWLK equations proposed to describe non-linear
evolution in QCD at high energy fail to include the effects of fluctuations in
the gluon number, and thus to correctly describe both the low density regime
and the approach towards saturation. On the other hand, these fluctuations are
correctly encoded (in the limit where the number of colors is large) in
Mueller's color dipole picture, which however neglects saturation. By combining
the dipole picture at low density with the JIMWLK evolution at high density, we
construct a generalization of the Balitsky hierarchy which includes the
particle number fluctuations, and thus the pomeron loops. After an additional
coarse-graining in impact parameter space, this hierarchy is shown to reduce to
a Langevin equation in the universality class of the stochastic
Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscounov (sFKPP) equation. This equation implies
that the non-linear effects in the evolution become important already in the
high momentum regime where the average density is small, which signals the
breakdown of the BFKL approximation.


  The paper is concerned with the sparse approximation of functions having
hybrid regularity borrowed from the theory of solutions to electronic
Schr\"odinger equations due to Yserentant [43]. We use hyperbolic wavelets to
introduce corresponding new spaces of Besov- and Triebel-Lizorkin-type to
particularly cover the energy norm approximation of functions with dominating
mixed smoothness. Explicit (non-)adaptive algorithms are derived that yield
sharp dimension-independent rates of convergence.


  We prove that any $\mathcal C^{1,1}$ solution to complex Monge-Amp\`ere
equation
  $det(u_{i\bar{j}})=f$ with
  $0<f\in\mathcal C^{\alpha}$ is in $\mathcal C^{2,\alpha}$ for $\alpha\in
(0,1)$.


  Multi-agent path finding in dynamic crowded environments is of great academic
and practical value for multi-robot systems in the real world. To improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of communication and learning process during path
planning in dynamic crowded environments, we introduce an algorithm called
Attention and BicNet based Multi-agent path planning with effective
reinforcement (AB-Mapper)under the actor-critic reinforcement learning
framework. In this framework, on the one hand, we utilize the BicNet with
communication function in the actor-network to achieve intra team coordination.
On the other hand, we propose a centralized critic network that can selectively
allocate attention weights to surrounding agents. This attention mechanism
allows an individual agent to automatically learn a better evaluation of
actions by also considering the behaviours of its surrounding agents. Compared
with the state-of-the-art method Mapper,our AB-Mapper is more effective (85.86%
vs. 81.56% in terms of success rate) in solving the general path finding
problems with dynamic obstacles. In addition, in crowded scenarios, our method
outperforms the Mapper method by a large margin,reaching a stunning gap of more
than 40% for each experiment.


  We propose a novel approach to lifelong learning, introducing a compact
encapsulated support structure which endows a network with the capability to
expand its capacity as needed to learn new tasks while preventing the loss of
learned tasks. This is achieved by splitting neurons with high semantic drift
and constructing an adjacent network to encode the new tasks at hand. We call
this the Plastic Support Structure (PSS), it is a compact structure to learn
new tasks that cannot be efficiently encoded in the existing structure of the
network. We validate the PSS on public datasets against existing lifelong
learning architectures, showing it performs similarly to them but without prior
knowledge of the task and in some cases with fewer parameters and in a more
understandable fashion where the PSS is an encapsulated container for specific
features related to specific tasks, thus making it an ideal "add-on" solution
for endowing a network to learn more tasks.


  We present the results of a survey of galaxies selected by their gas
cross-section which give rise to MgII absorption lines in the spectra of
background quasars. The sample comprises 11 galaxies covering the redshift
range 0.7 < z < 1.2, and is combined with a lower redshift sample of 15 MgII
absorbing galaxies. The spectra range from present-day elliptical to irregular
galaxies. The strong corrleation found previously at lower redshift, between
the halo radius and the galaxy luminosity still holds at z=1. For the low and
high redshift samples, we have built template spectra by combining individual
galaxies spectra. We use these templates to analyse the mean abundance and the
past history of star formation of the MgII absorbing galaxies.


  We utilize the technology of open quantum systems in conjunction with the
recently developed effective field theory for forward scattering to address the
question of massless jet propagation through a weakly-coupled quark-gluon
plasma in thermal equilibrium. We discuss various possible hierarchies of
scales that may appear in this problem, by comparing thermal scales of the
plasma with relevant scales in the effective field theory. Starting from the
Lindblad equation, we derive and solve a master equation for the transverse
momentum distribution of a massless quark jet, at leading orders both in the
strong coupling and in the power counting of the effective field theory.
Markovian approximation is justified in the weak coupling limit. Using the
solution to the master equation, we study the transverse momentum broadening of
a jet as a function of the plasma temperature and the time of propagation. We
discuss the physical origin of infrared sensitivity that arises in the solution
and a way to handle it in the effective field theory formulation. We suspect
that the final measurement constraint can only cut-off leading infrared
singularities and the solution to the Markovian master equation resums a
logarithmic series. This work is a stepping stone towards understanding jet
quenching and jet substructure observables on both light and heavy quark jets
as probes of the quark-gluon plasma.


  This document describes the design and implementation of the Tabletop Games
framework (TAG), a Java-based benchmark for developing modern board games for
AI research. TAG provides a common skeleton for implementing tabletop games
based on a common API for AI agents, a set of components and classes to easily
add new games and an import module for defining data in JSON format. At
present, this platform includes the implementation of seven different tabletop
games that can also be used as an example for further developments.
Additionally, TAG also incorporates logging functionality that allows the user
to perform a detailed analysis of the game, in terms of action space, branching
factor, hidden information, and other measures of interest for Game AI
research. The objective of this document is to serve as a central point where
the framework can be described at length. TAG can be downloaded at:
https://github.com/GAIGResearch/TabletopGames


  An integral domain is called {\em Globalized multiplicatively
pinched-Dedekind domain $($GMPD domain$)$} if every nonzero non-invertible
ideal can be written as $JP_1\cdots P_k$ with $J$ invertible ideal and
$P_1,...,P_k$ distinct ideals which are maximal among the nonzero
non-invertible ideals, cf. \cite{DumII}. The GMPD domains with only finitely
many overrings have been recently studied in \cite{SU}. In this paper we find
the exact number of quasi-local overrings of GMPD domains that only finitely
many overrings. Also we study the effect of quasi-local overrings on the
properties of GMPD domains. Moreover, we consider the structure of the
partially ordered set of prime ideals (ordered under inclusion) in a GMPD
domain.


  We demonstrate a cryogenic scanned probe microscope (SPM) that has been
modified to be controlled with a haptic device, such that the operator can
`feel' the surface of a sample under investigation. This system allows for
direct tactile sensation of the atoms in and on top of a crystal, and we
simulate, by using different SPM modalities, a sensation that is representative
of the relevant atomic forces controlling the SPM. In particular, we operate
the microscope in modes of (1) conventional STM feedback, (2) energy-dependent
electron density imaging, (3) q-plus AFM frequency and amplitude based force
sensing, and (4) atomic manipulation/sliding. We also use software to modify
the haptic feedback sensation to mimic different interatomic forces, including
covalent bonding, Coulomb repulsion, Van der Waals repulsion and a full
Leonard-Jones potential. This manner of SPM control creates new opportunities
for human-based intuition scanning, and it also acts as a novel educational
tool to aid in understanding materials at an atomic level.


  One difficulty in developing numerical methods for hyperbolic systems of
conservation laws is the fact that solutions often contain regions where much
higher resolution is required than elsewhere in the domain, particularly since
the solution may contain discontinuities or other localized features. The
Clawpack software deals with this issue by using block-structured adaptive mesh
refinement to selectively refine around propagating waves. For problems where
only a target area of the total solution is of interest, a method that allows
identifying and refining the grid only in regions that influence this target
area would significantly reduce the computational cost of finding a solution.
  In this work, we show that solving the time-dependent adjoint equation and
using a suitable inner product with the forward solution allows more precise
refinement of the relevant waves. We present acoustics examples in one and two
dimensions and a tsunami propagation example. To perform these simulations, the
use of the adjoint method has been integrated into the adaptive mesh refinement
strategy of the open source Clawpack and GeoClaw software. We also present
results that show that the accuracy of the solution is maintained and the
computational time required is significantly reduced through the integration of
the adjoint method into AMR.


  A mathematical model for time development of metastases and their
distribution in size and carrying capacity is presented. The model is used to
theoretically investigate anti-cancer therapies such as surgery and chemical
treatments (cytotoxic or anti-angiogenic), in monotherapy or in combination.
Quantification of the effect of surgery on the size distribution of metastatic
colonies is derived. For systemic therapies, emphasis is placed on the
differences between the treatment of an isolated lesion and a population of
metastases. Combination therapy is addressed, in particular the problem of the
drugs administration sequence. Theoretical optimal schedules are derived that
show the superiority of a metronomic administration scheme (defined as a
continuous administration of a given amount of drug spread during the whole
therapeutic cycle) on a classical Maximum Tolerated Dose scheme (where the dose
is given as a few concentrated administrations at the beginning of the cycle),
for the total metastatic burden in the organism.


  In this paper, we consider a piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP),
with known flow and deterministic transition measure, and unknown jump rate
$\lambda$. To estimate nonparametrically the jump rate, we first construct an
adaptive estimator of the stationary density, then we derive a quotient
estimator $\hat{\lambda}_n$ of $\lambda$. We provide uniform bounds for the
risk of these estimators, and prove that the estimator of the jump rate is
nearly minimax (up to a $\ln^2(n)$ factor). Simulations illustrate the behavior
of our estimator.


  In January 2019, DeepMind revealed AlphaStar to the world-the first
artificial intelligence (AI) system to beat a professional player at the game
of StarCraft II-representing a milestone in the progress of AI. AlphaStar draws
on many areas of AI research, including deep learning, reinforcement learning,
game theory, and evolutionary computation (EC). In this paper we analyze
AlphaStar primarily through the lens of EC, presenting a new look at the system
and relating it to many concepts in the field. We highlight some of its most
interesting aspects-the use of Lamarckian evolution, competitive co-evolution,
and quality diversity. In doing so, we hope to provide a bridge between the
wider EC community and one of the most significant AI systems developed in
recent times.


  We calculate the dynamic effective electron-electron interaction potential
for a low density disordered two-dimensional electron gas. The disordered
response function is used to calculate the effective potential where the
scattering rate is taken from typical mobilities from recent experiments. We
investigate the development of an effective attractive pair potential for both
disordered and disorder free systems with correlations determined from existing
numerical simulation data. The effect of disorder and correlations on the
superconducting critical temperature Tc is discussed.


  The SDSS-IV MaNGA survey has measured two-dimensional maps of emission line
velocities for a statistically powerful sample of nearby galaxies. The
asymmetric features of these kinematics maps reflect the non-rotational
component of a galaxy's internal motion of ionized gas. In this study, we
present a catalog of kinematic asymmetry measurement of $H\alpha$ velocity map
of a sample of 5353 MaNGA galaxies. Based on this catalog, we find that
`special' galaxies (e.g. merging galaxies, barred galaxies, and AGN host
galaxies) contain more galaxies with highly asymmetric velocity maps. However,
we notice that more than half of galaxies with high kinematic asymmetry in our
sample are quite `regular'. For those `regular' galaxies, kinematic asymmetry
shows a significant anti-correlation with stellar mass at $\log M_\star < 9.7$,
while such a trend becomes very weak at $\log M_\star>9.7$. Moreover, at a
given stellar mass, the kinematic asymmetry shows weak correlations with
photometric morphology, star formation rate, and environment, while it is
independent of HI gas content. We also have quantified the observational
effects in the kinematic asymmetry measurement. We find that both the
signal-to-noise ratio of $H\alpha$ flux and disk inclination angle contribute
to the measures of kinematic asymmetry, while the physical spatial resolution
is an irrelevant factor inside the MaNGA redshift coverage.


  This paper gives some relating results for various concepts of convexity in
metric spaces such as midpoint convexity, convex structure, uniform convexity
and near-uniform convexity, Busemann curvature and its relation to convexity.
Some properties of uniform convexity and near uniform convexity of geodesic
metric spaces are related to the mapping built with the concourse of two
primary mappings and the associated generated sequences by some iterative
schemes.


  This paper considers unitarity and CPT constraints on asymmetric freeze-in,
the use of freeze-in to store baryon number in a dark sector. In this scenario,
Sakharov's out of equilibrium condition is satisfied by placing the visible and
hidden sectors at different temperatures while a net visible baryon number is
produced by storing negative baryon number in a dark sector. It is shown that
unitarity and CPT lead to unexpected cancellations. In particular, the transfer
of baryon number cancels completely at leading order.