  The uniform electron gas (UEG) at finite temperature is of key relevance for
many applications in the warm dense matter regime, e.g. dense plasmas and laser
excited solids. Also, the quality of density functional theory calculations
crucially relies on the availability of accurate data for the
exchange-correlation energy. Recently, new benchmark results for the N = 33
spin-polarized electrons at high density, r_s = r/a_B <= 4 and low temperature,
have been obtained with the configuration path integral Monte Carlo (CPIMC)
method [T. Schoof et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 130402 (2015)]. To achieve
these results, the original CPIMC algorithm [T. Schoof et al., Contrib. Plasma
Phys. 51, 687 (2011)] had to be further optimized to cope with the fermion sign
problem (FSP). It is the purpose of this paper to give detailed information on
the manifestation of the FSP in CPIMC simulations of the UEG and to demonstrate
how it can be turned into a controllable convergence problem. In addition, we
present new thermodynamic results for higher temperatures. Finally, to overcome
the limitations of CPIMC towards strong coupling, we invoke an independent
method|the recently developed permutation blocking path integral Monte Carlo
approach [T. Dornheim et al., accepted for publication in J. Chem Phys.,
arXiv:1508.03221]. The combination of both approaches is able to yield ab
initio data for the UEG over the entire density range, above a temperature of
about one half of the Fermi temperature. Comparison with restricted path
integral Monte Carlo data [E. W. Brown et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 146405
(2013)] allows us to quantify the systematic error arising from the free
particle nodes.


  We propose a simple system of optically driven colloids that convert light
into heat and move in response to self- and collectively- generated thermal
gradients. We show that the system exhibits self-organization into a moving
comet-like swarm and characterize the structure and response of the swarm to a
light intensity dependent external tuning parameter. We observe many
interesting features in this nonequilibrium system including circulation and
evaporation, intensity-dependent shape, density and temperature fluctuations,
and ejection of hot colloids from the swarm tip.


  Red horizontal-branch (RHB) stars have been selected from the HIPPARCOS
catalogue to investigate their kinematics and spatial distribution. HIPPARCOS
parallaxes, literature radial velocities and HIPPARCOS proper motions, together
with models for the gravitational potential of the Milky Way allow a
calculation of the actual velocity vectors and the orbits of the RHB stars. The
velocity characteristics are used to define a halo population sample (HPS) in
the collection of RHBs. The orbits lead statistically to an overall z-distance
probability distribution, showing that the RHBs exhibit two populations, a disk
one having a scale height of h_disk ~0.6 kpc and a halo one of ~4 kpc. We have
investigated the influence on our results of parallax accuracy and of a
demarcation line in the HRD between the RHB and the red-giant (RG) star region.
Neither of them show marked effects. We have performed the orbit analysis using
the potential model of Allen & Santillan as well as of Dehnen & Binney. The
results differ only slightly for the disk population, showing that these
potential models are not a critical part of such orbit investigations. RHB
scale height values are smaller than those found earlier for sdB stars, most
likely because the samples of stars used had different spatial distributions a
priori. The data do not allow us to specify a trend in the kinematic behaviour
of star types along the horizontal branch.


  We study the Kolmogorov 0-1 law for a random sequence with prescribed radii
so that it generates a Carleson measure almost surely, both for the Hardy space
on the polydisc and the Hardy space on the unit ball, thus providing improved
versions of previous results of the first two authors and of a separate result
of Massaneda. In the polydisc, the geometry of such sequences is not well
understood, so we proceed by studying the random Gramians generated by random
sequences, using tools from the theory of random matrices. Another result we
prove, and that is of its own relevance, is the 0-1 law for a random sequence
to be partitioned into M separated sequences with respect to the
pseudo-hyperbolic distance, which is used also to describe the random sequences
that are interpolating for the Bloch space on the unit disc almost surely.


  We here study the level of albedo variegation on the nucleus of Comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This is done by fitting the parameters of a standard
photometric phase function model to disk-average radiance factor data in images
acquired by the Rosetta/OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera in the orange filter. Local
discrepancies between the observed radiance factor and the disk-average
solution are interpreted as a proxy W of the local single-scattering albedo. We
find a wide range 0.02<W<0.09 around an average of W=0.055. The observed albedo
variegation is strongly correlated with nucleus morphology - smooth terrain is
brighter, and consolidated terrain is darker, than average. Furthermore, we
find that smooth terrain darken prior to morphological changes, and that
stratigraphically low terrain (with respect to the centre of each nucleus lobe)
is brighter than stratigraphically high terrain. We propose that the observed
albedo variegation is due to differences in porosity and the coherent effect:
compaction causes small brighter particles to act collectively as larger
optically effective particles, that are darker. Accordingly, we consider the
dark consolidated terrain materials more compacted than smooth terrain
materials, and darkening of the latter is due to subsidence.


  A mutator is an allele that increases the mutation rate throughout the genome
by disrupting some aspect of DNA replication or repair. Mutators that increase
the mutation rate by the order of 100 fold have been observed to spontaneously
emerge and achieve high frequencies in natural populations and in long-term
laboratory evolution experiments with \textit{E. coli}. In principle, the
fixation of mutator alleles is limited by (i) competition with mutations in
wild-type backgrounds, (ii) additional deleterious mutational load, and (iii)
random genetic drift. Using a multiple locus model and employing both
simulation and analytic methods, we investigate the effects of these three
factors on the fixation probability $P_{fix}$ of an initially rare mutator as a
function of population size $N$, beneficial and deleterious mutation rates, and
the strength of mutations $s$. Our diffusion based approximation for $P_{fix}$
successfully captures effects (ii) and (iii) when selection is fast compared to
mutation ($\mu/s \ll 1$). This enables us to predict the conditions under which
mutators will be evolutionarily favored. Surprisingly, our simulations show
that effect (i) is typically small for strong-effect mutators. Our results
agree semi-quantitatively with existing laboratory evolution experiments and
suggest future experimental directions.


  For a Dirac particle in an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) potential, it is shown that the
spin interaction (SI) operator which governs the transitions in the spin sector
of the first order S-matrix is related to one of the generators of rotation in
the spin space of the particle. This operator, which is given by the projection
of the spin operator $\mathbf{\Sigma}$ along the direction of the total
momentum of the system, and the two operators constructed from the projections
of the $\mathbf{\Sigma}$ operator along the momentum transfer and the
z-directions close the SU(2) algebra.It is suggested, then, that these two
directions of the total momentum and the momentum transfer form some sort of
natural intrinsic directions in terms of which the spin dynamics of the
scattering process at first order can be formulated conveniently. A formulation
and an interpretation of the conservation of helicity at first order using the
spin projection operators along these directions is presented .


  In majority bootstrap percolation on a graph G, an infection spreads
according to the following deterministic rule: if at least half of the
neighbours of a vertex v are already infected, then v is also infected, and
infected vertices remain infected forever. Percolation occurs if eventually
every vertex is infected.
  The elements of the set of initially infected vertices, A \subset V(G), are
normally chosen independently at random, each with probability p, say. This
process has been extensively studied on the sequence of torus graphs [n]^d, for
n = 1,2,..., where d = d(n) is either fixed or a very slowly growing function
of n. For example, Cerf and Manzo showed that the critical probability is o(1)
if d(n) < log*(n), i.e., if p = p(n) is bounded away from zero then the
probability of percolation on [n]^d tends to one as n goes to infinity.
  In this paper we study the case when the growth of d to infinity is not
excessively slow; in particular, we show that the critical probability is 1/2 +
o(1) if d > (loglog(n))^2 logloglog(n), and give much stronger bounds in the
case that G is the hypercube, [2]^d.


  Transport of overdamped Brownian particles in a two-dimensional asymmetric
tube is investigated in the presence of nonadiabatic periodic driving forces.
By using Brownian dynamics simulations we can find that the phenomena in
nonadiabatic regime differ from that in adiabatic case. The direction of the
current can be reversed by tuning the driving frequency. Remarkably, the
current as a function of the driving amplitude exhibits several local maxima at
finite driving frequency.


  At the end of the twentieth century, J.-B. Bost developped a slope theory of
hermitian vector bundles over number fields. A new method of diophantine
approximation, the so-called slope method, has emerged from his research. Our
article proposes a generalisation to adelic vector bundles over global fields.
The norms at the archimedean places are no longer supposed to be hermitian. The
link with adelic successive minima is also mentioned. To get these results, we
use several concepts from the geometry of finite dimensional Banach spaces.


  Motivated by LHC results, we modify the usual criterion for naturalness by
ignoring the uncomputable power divergences. The Standard Model satisfies the
modified criterion ('finite naturalness') for the measured values of its
parameters. Extensions of the SM motivated by observations (Dark Matter,
neutrino masses, the strong CP problem, vacuum instability, inflation) satisfy
finite naturalness in special ranges of their parameter spaces which often
imply new particles below a few TeV. Finite naturalness bounds are weaker than
usual naturalness bounds because any new particle with SM gauge interactions
gives a finite contribution to the Higgs mass at two loop order.


  Based on the observed behavior of the superconformal index in
three-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ theories, we propose a quantity that can be
considered as an analogue of the "effective central charge." We discuss the
general properties of this quantity and ways of computing it in a variety of
different theories, including simple Lagrangian theories as well as more
interesting strongly coupled examples that come from 3d-3d correspondence.


  We report a nano-infrared (IR) imaging study of trilayer graphene (TLG) with
both ABA (Bernal) and ABC (rhombohedral) stacking orders using the
scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope (s-SNOM). With s-SNOM
operating in the mid-IR region, we mapped in real space the surface plasmon
polaritons (SPPs) of ABA-TLG and ABC-TLG, which are tunable with electrical
gating. Through quantitative modeling of the plasmonic imaging data, we found
that the plasmon wavelength of ABA-TLG is significantly larger than that of
ABC-TLG, resulting in a sizable impedance mismatch and hence a strong plasmon
reflection at the ABA/ABC lateral junction. Further analysis indicates that the
different plasmonic responses of the two types of TLG are directly linked to
their electronic structures and carrier properties. Our work uncovers the
physics behind the stacking-dependent plasmonic responses of TLG and sheds
light on future applications of TLG and the ABA/ABC junctions in IR plasmonics
and planar nano-optics.


  The main result of this paper is a negative answer to the question: are all
transversal knot types transversally simple? An explicit infinite family of
examples is given of closed 3-braids that define transversal knot types that
are not transversally simple. The method of proof is topological and indirect.


  Self-assembled arrays of atomic chains on Si(111) represent a fascinating
family of nanostructures with quasi-one-dimensional electronic properties.
These surface reconstructions are stabilized by a variety of adsorbates ranging
from alkali and alkaline earth metals to noble and rare earth metals. Combining
the complementary strength of dynamical low-energy electron diffraction,
scanning tunneling microscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we
recently showed that besides monovalent and divalent adsorbates, trivalent
adsorbates are also able to stabilize silicon honeycomb chains. Consequently
silicon honeycomb chains emerge as a most stable, universal building block
shared by many atomic chain structures. We here present the systematics behind
the self-assembly mechanism of these chain systems and relate the valence state
of the adsorbate to the accessible symmetries of the chains.


  Investigating the overall brightness of planets (and moons) provides insight
into their envelopes and energy budgets [1, 2, 3, 4]. Titan phase curves (a
representation of overall brightness vs. Sun-object-observer phase angle) have
been published over a limited range of phase angles and spectral passbands [5,
6]. Such information has been key to the study of the stratification,
microphysics and aggregate nature of Titan's atmospheric haze [7, 8], and has
complemented the spatially-resolved observations first showing that the haze
scatters efficiently in the forward direction [7, 9]. Here we present Cassini
Imaging Science Subsystem whole-disk brightness measurements of Titan from
ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths. The observations reveal that Titan's
twilight (loosely defined as the view when the phase angle 150deg) outshines
its daylight at various wavelengths. From the match between measurements and
models, we show that at even larger phase angles the back-illuminated moon will
appear much brighter than when fully illuminated. This behavior is unique to
Titan in our solar system, and is caused by its extended atmosphere and the
efficient forward scattering of sunlight by its atmospheric haze. We infer a
solar energy deposition rate (for a solar constant of 14.9 Wm-2) of
(2.84+/-0.11)x10^14 W, consistent to within 1-2 standard deviations with
Titan's time-varying thermal emission spanning 2007- 2013 [10, 11]. We propose
that a forward scattering signature may also occur at large phase angles in the
brightness of exoplanets with extended hazy atmospheres, and that this
signature has valuable diagnostic potential for atmospheric characterization.


  Proponents of the Distributed Morphology framework have posited the existence
of two levels of morphological word formation: a lower one, leading to loose
input-output semantic relationships; and an upper one, leading to tight
input-output semantic relationships. In this work, we propose to test the
validity of this assumption in the context of Hebrew word embeddings. If the
two-level hypothesis is borne out, we expect state-of-the-art Hebrew word
embeddings to encode (1) a noun, (2) a denominal derived from it (via an
upper-level operation), and (3) a verb related to the noun (via a lower-level
operation on the noun's root), in such a way that the denominal (2) should be
closer in the embedding space to the noun (1) than the related verb (3) is to
the same noun (1). We report that this hypothesis is verified by four embedding
models of Hebrew: fastText, GloVe, Word2Vec and AlephBERT. This suggests that
word embedding models are able to capture complex and fine-grained semantic
properties that are morphologically motivated.


  We describe a refinement of the general theory of higher rank Euler,
Kolyvagin and Stark systems in the setting of the multiplicative group over
arbitrary number fields. We use the refined theory to prove new results
concerning the Galois structure of ideal class groups and the validity of both
the equivariant Tamagawa number conjecture and of the `refined class number
formula' that has been conjectured by Mazur and Rubin and by Sano. In contrast
to previous work in this direction, these results require no hypotheses on the
decomposition behaviour of places that are intended to rule out the existence
of `trivial zeroes'.


  In the standard difference-in-differences research design, the parallel
trends assumption may be violated when the relationship between the exposure
trend and the outcome trend is confounded by unmeasured confounders. Progress
can be made if there is an exogenous variable that (i) does not directly
influence the change in outcome means (i.e. the outcome trend) except through
influencing the change in exposure means (i.e. the exposure trend), and (ii) is
not related to the unmeasured exposure - outcome confounders on the trend
scale. Such exogenous variable is called an instrument for
difference-in-differences. For continuous outcomes that lend themselves to
linear modelling, so-called instrumented difference-in-differences methods have
been proposed. In this paper, we will suggest novel multiplicative structural
mean models for instrumented difference-in-differences, which allow one to
identify and estimate the average treatment effect on count and rare binary
outcomes, in the whole population or among the treated, when a valid instrument
for difference-in-differences is available. We discuss the identifiability of
these models, then develop efficient semi-parametric estimation approaches that
allow the use of flexible, data-adaptive or machine learning methods to
estimate the nuisance parameters. We apply our proposal on health care data to
investigate the risk of moderate to severe weight gain under sulfonylurea
treatment compared to metformin treatment, among new users of antihyperglycemic
drugs.


  We revisit the problem of stationary distribution of vorticity in
three-dimensional turbulence. Using Clebsch variables we construct an explicit
invariant measure on stationary solutions of Euler equations with the extra
condition of fixed energy flow/dissipation. The asymptotic solution for large
circulation around large loops is studied as a WKB limit (instanton). The
Clebsch fields are discontinuous across minimal surface bounded by the loop,
with normal vorticity staying continuous. There is also a singular tangential
vorticity component proportional to $\delta(z)$ where $z$ is the normal
direction. Resulting flow has nontrivial topology. This singular tangent
vorticity component drops from the flux but dominates the energy dissipation as
well as the Biot-Savart integral for velocity field. This leads us to a
modified equation for vorticity distribution along the minimal surface compared
to that assumed in a loop equations, where the singular terms were not noticed.
In addition to describing vorticity distribution over the minimal surface, this
approach provides formula for the circulation PDF, which was elusive in the
Loop Equations.


  The variability inherent in solar wind composition has implications for the
variability of the physical conditions in its coronal source regions, providing
constraints on models of coronal heating and solar wind generation. We present
a generalized prescription for constructing a wavelet power significance
measure (confidence level) for the purpose of characterizing the effects of
missing data in high cadence solar wind ionic composition measurements. We
describe the data gaps present in the 12-minute ACE/SWICS observations of
O7+/O6+ during 2008. The decomposition of the in-situ observations into a `good
measurement' and a `no measurement' signal allows us to evaluate the
performance of a filler signal, i.e., various prescriptions for filling the
data gaps. We construct Monte Carlo simulations of synthetic O7+/O6+
composition data and impose the actual data gaps that exist in the observations
in order to investigate two different filler signals: one, a linear
interpolation between neighboring good data points, and two, the constant mean
value of the measured data. Applied to these synthetic data plus filler signal
combinations, we quantify the ability of the power spectra significance level
procedure to reproduce the ensemble-averaged time-integrated wavelet power per
scale of an ideal case, i.e. the synthetic data without imposed data gaps.
Finally, we present the wavelet power spectra for the O7+/O6+ data using the
confidence levels derived from both the Mean Value and Linear Interpolation
data gap filling signals and discuss the results.


  We present results from the largest systematic investigation of broad
absorption line (BAL) acceleration to date. We use spectra of 140 quasars from
three Sloan Digital Sky Survey programs to search for global velocity offsets
in BALs over timescales of ~2.5-5.5 years in the quasar rest frame. We
carefully select acceleration candidates by requiring monolithic velocity
shifts over the entire BAL trough, avoiding BALs with velocity shifts that
might be caused by profile variability. The CIV BALs of two quasars show
velocity shifts consistent with the expected signatures of BAL acceleration,
and the BAL of one quasar shows a velocity-shift signature of deceleration. In
our two acceleration candidates, we see evidence that the magnitude of the
acceleration is not constant over time; the magnitudes of the change in
acceleration for both acceleration candidates are difficult to produce with a
standard disk-wind model or via geometric projection effects. We measure upper
limits to acceleration and deceleration for 76 additional BAL troughs and find
that the majority of BALs are stable to within about 3% of their mean
velocities. The lack of widespread acceleration/deceleration could indicate
that the gas producing most BALs is located at large radii from the central
black hole and/or is not currently strongly interacting with ambient material
within the host galaxy along our line of sight.


  The spin-memory effect in the GaAs / InGaAs heterostructures with
$\delta$<Mn> layer in GaAs barrier have been investigated. The effect consists
in spin polarization of Mn atoms due to interaction with photogenerated
spin-polarized holes. The investigation of the effect was carried out by
analyzing the polarization of the probe photoluminescence pulse in the
pump-probe technique. It was shown that the circular polarization degree of
probe pulse generated photoluminescence is strongly affected by the interaction
of hole spins with spins of Mn atoms polarized by the pump pulse. The latter
leads to decrease of circular polarization degree as compared with single pulse
excitation ($\delta P$ effect). The amplitude of $\delta P$-effect is most
strongly affected by the concentration of resident electrons in the quantum
well which is believed to be due the specific compliance with selection rules
for optical transition with the participation of unpolarized resident
electrons. The rest of the sample's parameters including the spatial separation
between $\delta$<Mn> layer and InGaAs quantum well ($d_s$) have a minor effect
on the $\delta P$ value which leads to a paradoxical situation of decreasing
$\delta P$-effect with the decrease of $d_s$. The proposed experimental
technique consisting in creating the significant concentration of resident
electrons in the QW may serve as a reliable photoluminescence method
determining the strength of this effect as well as the Mn spin relaxation time
in a particular nanostructure.


  Triplet loss, one of the deep metric learning (DML) methods, is to learn the
embeddings where examples from the same class are closer than examples from
different classes. Motivated by DML, we propose an effective BP-Triplet Loss
for unsupervised domain adaption (UDA) from the perspective of Bayesian
learning and we name the model as BP-Triplet Net. In previous metric learning
based methods for UDA, sample pairs across domains are treated equally, which
is not appropriate due to the domain bias. In our work, considering the
different importance of pair-wise samples for both feature learning and domain
alignment, we deduce our BP-Triplet loss for effective UDA from the perspective
of Bayesian learning. Our BP-Triplet loss adjusts the weights of pair-wise
samples in intra domain and inter domain. Especially, it can self attend to the
hard pairs (including hard positive pair and hard negative pair). Together with
the commonly used adversarial loss for domain alignment, the quality of target
pseudo labels is progressively improved. Our method achieved low joint error of
the ideal source and target hypothesis. The expected target error can then be
upper bounded following Ben-David s theorem. Comprehensive evaluations on five
benchmark datasets, handwritten digits, Office31, ImageCLEF-DA, Office-Home and
VisDA-2017 demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for UDA.


  We calculated the azimuthal angle dependence of the local spin polarization
of hyperons in 200 GeV Au+Au and 2.76 TeV Pb+Pb collisions in the framework of
the (3+1)D viscous hydrodynamic model CLVisc with AMPT initial conditions
encoding initial orbital angular momenta. We find that the azimuthal angle
dependence of the hyperon polarization strongly depends on the choice of the
spin chemical potential $\Omega_{\mu\nu}$. With $\Omega_{\mu\nu}$ chosen to be
proportional to the temperature vorticity, our simulation shows coincidental
results with the recent measurements at RHIC.


  In this paper we extend the notion of a Lorentz cone. We call a closed convex
set isotone projection set with respect to a pointed closed convex cone if the
projection onto the set is isotone (i.e., monotone) with respect to the order
defined by the cone. We determine the isotone projection sets with respect to
an extended Lorentz cone. In particular a Cartesian product between an
Euclidean space and any closed convex set in another Euclidean space is such a
set. We use this property to find solutions of general mixed complementarity
problems in an iterative way.


  Visco-elasticity is the essential ingredient for quantitative seismic imaging
and geological interpretation in a number of contexts, such as in the presence
of gas clouds. Decades of developments of numerical simulation of visco-elastic
wave equations in seismology are mainly based on constant Q model, leading to
numerous different forms of time-domain visco-elastic wave equations. Based on
rheological models, Emmerich and Korn (1987) adopted the Generalized Maxwell
body (GMB) to implement visco-elastic wave equations in time domain. Carcione,
Kosloff, and Kosloff (1988a) incorporated the Generalized Zener body (GZB) into
the time-domain visco-elastic wave equation. Moczo and Kristek (2005) proved
that visco-elastic complex modulus based on GMB and GZB are equivalent.
However, from the rheological point of view, this formalism can not incorporate
the fractional visco-elastic wave equations based on the constant Q model
(Kjartansson, 1979). Mainardi (2010) first mentioned that the constant Q model
is based on a fractional Scott-Blair model. The stress-strain relationship of
the Scott-Blair model is between a spring and a dashpot. Therefore, we review
the various visco-elastic wave equations in the text of seismology. Based on
the stress-strain constitutive law of rheological models, we propose a
unification way to describe the existed visco-elastic wave equations. The
unification formalism indicates that each kind of visco-elastic wave equation
is composed by the combination of basic rheological elements, e.g., GMB, GZB.
In this paper, we gather knowledge usually available in separated papers in the
fields of fractional calculus, rheology, mechanics, and seismology. By
unification formalism, we can establish more clearly links between different
approaches used in seismology.


  The paper continues the investigation of Poincare and Russel's Vicious Circle
Principle (VCP) in the context of the design of logic programming languages
with sets. We expand previously introduced language Alog with aggregates by
allowing infinite sets and several additional set related constructs useful for
knowledge representation and teaching. In addition, we propose an alternative
formalization of the original VCP and incorporate it into the semantics of new
language, Slog+, which allows more liberal construction of sets and their use
in programming rules. We show that, for programs without disjunction and
infinite sets, the formal semantics of aggregates in Slog+ coincides with that
of several other known languages. Their intuitive and formal semantics,
however, are based on quite different ideas and seem to be more involved than
that of Slog+.


  As the basic element of graph-structured data, node has been recognized as
the main object of study in graph representation learning. A single node
intuitively has multiple node-centered subgraphs from the whole graph (e.g.,
one person in a social network has multiple social circles based on his
different relationships). We study this intuition under the framework of graph
contrastive learning, and propose a multiple node-centered subgraphs
contrastive representation learning method to learn node representation on
graphs in a self-supervised way. Specifically, we carefully design a series of
node-centered regional subgraphs of the central node. Then, the mutual
information between different subgraphs of the same node is maximized by
contrastive loss. Experiments on various real-world datasets and different
downstream tasks demonstrate that our model has achieved state-of-the-art
results.


  Following the notion that the Titius-Bode rule (TBR) may also be applicable
to some extra-solar planetary systems, although this number could be relatively
small, it is applied to 55 Cancri, which is a G-type main-sequence star
currently known to host five planets. Following a concise computational
process, we tentatively identify four new hypothetical planetary positions
given as 0.081, 0.41, 1.51 and 2.95 AU from the star. The likelihood that these
positions are occupied by real existing planets is significantly enhanced for
the positions of 1.51 and 2.95 AU in the view of previous simulations on planet
formation and planetary orbital stability. For example, Raymond et al. (2008)
[ApJ 689, 478] argued that additional planets would be possible between 55 Cnc
f and 55 Cnc d, which would include planets situated at 1.51 and 2.95 AU. If
two additional planets are assumed to exist between 55 Cnc f and 55 Cnc d, the
deduced domains of stability would be given as 1.3-1.6 and 2.2-3.3 AU. The
possible planet near 1.5 AU appears to be located at the outskirts of the
stellar habitable zone, which is however notably affected by the stellar
parameters as well as the adopted model of circumstellar habitability. We also
compute the distance of the next possible outer planet in the 55 Cnc system,
which if existing is predicted to be located between 10.9 and 12.2 AU, which is
consistent with orbital stability constraints. The inherent statistical
significance of the TBR is evaluated following the method by Lynch (2003)
[MNRAS 341, 1174]. Yet it is up to future planetary search missions to verify
or falsify the applicability of the TBR to the 55 Cnc system, and to attain
information on additional planets, if existing.


  In this work, we present a family of time and space high order finite volume
schemes for the solution of the full Boltzmann equation. The velocity space is
approximated by using a discrete ordinate approach while the collisional
integral is solved by spectral methods. The space reconstruction is realized by
integrating the distribution function, describing the state of the system, over
arbitrary shaped and closed control volumes using a Central Weighted ENO
(CWENO) technique. Compared to other reconstruction methods, this approach
permits to keep compact stencil sizes which is a remarkable property in the
context of kinetic equations due to the considerable demand of computational
resources. The full discretization is then obtained by combining the previous
phase-space approximation with high order Implicit-Explicit (IMEX) Runge Kutta
schemes. These methods guarantee stability, accuracy and preservation of the
asymptotic state. Comparisons of the Boltzmann model with simpler relaxation
type kinetic models (like BGK) is proposed showing the capability of the
Boltzmann equation to capture different physical solutions. The theoretical
order of convergence is numerically measured in different regimes and the
methods are tested on several standard two-dimensional benchmark problems in
comparison with Direct Simulation Monte Carlo results. The article ends with a
prototype engineering problem consisting of a subsonic and a supersonic flow
around a NACA 0012 airfoil. All test cases are run with MPI parallelization on
several threads, thus making the proposed methods suitable for parallel
distributed memory supercomputers.


  This paper presents the results of a rheological study of thermotropic
nematic colloids aggregated into cellular structures. Small sterically
stabilised PMMA particles dispersed in a liquid crystal matrix densely pack on
cell interfaces, but reversibly mix with the matrix when the system is heated
above Tni. We obtain a remarkably high elastic modulus, G'~10^5 Pa, which is a
nearly linear function of particle concentration. A characteristic yield stress
is required to disrupt the continuity of cellular structure and liquify the
response. The colloid aggregation in a ``poor nematic'' MBBA has the same
cellular morphology as in the ``good nematic'' 5CB, but the elastic strength is
at least an order of magnitude lower. These findings are supported by
theoretical arguments based on the high surface tension interfaces of a
foam-like cellular system, taking into account the local melting of nematic
liquid and the depletion locking of packed particles on interfaces.


  The {\pi}-tangle is used to study the behavior of entanglement of a
nonmaximal tripartite state of both Dirac and scalar fields in accelerated
frame. For Dirac fields, the degree of degradation with acceleration of both
one-tangle of accelerated observer and {\pi}-tangle, for the same initial
entanglement, is different by just interchanging the values of probability
amplitudes. A fraction of both one-tangles and the {\pi}-tangle always survives
for any choice of acceleration and the degree of initial entanglement. For
scalar field, the one-tangle of accelerated observer depends on the choice of
values of probability amplitudes and it vanishes in the range of infinite
acceleration, whereas for {\pi}-tangle this is not always true. The dependence
of {\pi}-tangle on probability amplitudes varies with acceleration. In the
lower range of acceleration, its behavior changes by switching between the
values of probability amplitudes and for larger values of acceleration this
dependence on probability amplitudes vanishes. Interestingly, unlike bipartite
entanglement, the degradation of {\pi}-tangle against acceleration in the case
of scalar fields is slower than for Dirac fields.


  A generalized dynamics is postulated in a product space ${\cal R}^{3}\times
{\cal S}^{1}$ with ${\cal R}^3$ representing the configuration space of a one
particle system to which is attached the U(1) fibre bundle represented by the
manifold ${\cal S}^{1}$. The manifold ${\cal S}^{1}$ is chosen to correspond to
the action phase, with the action being the principal function corresponding to
the associated classical dynamical system. A Hilbert space representation of
the flow equation representing the dynamics in the above product space is then
obtained, which is found to yield a probability amplitude formalism in terms of
a generalized set of equations of the Schr\"odinger form which constitutes a
covering formalism for both quantum and classical mechanics. Being labelled by
an integral index $n$, the equation corresponding to $n=1$ is identified with
the Schr\"odinger equation, while equations corresponding to $n\rightarrow
large$ yield the classical dynamics through the WKB limit. Equations with lower
indices n=2,3,4,... predict the existence of new modes of non-classical
behaviour, the observational implications of which are discussed. Some
preliminary experimental results are presented which point to the existence of
these modes of non-classical behaviour.


  Relativistic and QED corrections to the recently discovered first vibrational
$2p\sigma_u$ state are presented. This state has an extremely small
nonrelativistic binding energy $E_B=1.085045252(1)\times10^{-9}$ a.u. Its wave
functions has a maximum at $R\approx100$ a.u. and extends up to several
hundreds. It is shown that this state does not disappear if higher order
relativistic and QED corrections, including the Casimir--Polder effect, are
taken into account.


  1T-VSe$_2$ is a narrow band transition metal chalcogenide that shows charge
density wave (CDW) state below $T_{CDW}$ = 110 K. Here, we have explored the
relevance of Kohler's rule and the thermal transport properties of VSe$_2$
across the CDW state. The magnetoresistance (MR) follows Kohler's rule above
$T_{CDW}$, while an extended Kohler's rule is employed below $T_{CDW}$.
Interestingly, we observed an anomaly in MR at T = 20 K, below which MR value
decreases on lowering temperature. This anomaly is also reflected in the slope
($\kappa$) of Kohler's plots and the relative change in the thermal excitation
induced carrier density ($n_T$) also. The $T_{CDW}$ remains largely unaffected
in both electrical resistivity ($\rho(T)$) and longitudinal Seebeck coefficient
($\it{S_{xx}}$) even under a strong magnetic field of 14 Tesla. However, the
application of magnetic field enhances the peak intensity of $\it{S_{xx}}$ at T
$\sim$ 60 K. Additionally, $\it{S_{xx}(T)}$ curves measured at different fields
exhibit a crossover at T = 20 K, which suggest the existence of unique feature
in the CDW state of VSe$_2$ \textit{i.e.} a locally exact isosbestic point.


  We review recent developments in differential topology with special concern
for their possible significance to physical theories, especially general
relativity. In particular we are concerned here with the discovery of the
existence of non-standard (``fake'' or ``exotic'') differentiable structures on
topologically simple manifolds such as $S^7$, \R and $S^3\times {\bf R^1}.$
Because of the technical difficulties involved in the smooth case, we begin
with an easily understood toy example looking at the role which the choice of
complex structures plays in the formulation of two-dimensional vacuum
electrostatics. We then briefly review the mathematical formalisms involved
with differentiable structures on topological manifolds, diffeomorphisms and
their significance for physics. We summarize the important work of Milnor,
Freedman, Donaldson, and others in developing exotic differentiable structures
on well known topological manifolds. Finally, we discuss some of the geometric
implications of these results and propose some conjectures on possible physical
implications of these new manifolds which have never before been considered as
physical models.


  This note compares the performance of two multidimensional search and
optimization algorithms: Group Search Optimizer and Central Force Optimization.
GSO is a new state-of-the-art algorithm that has gained some notoriety,
consequently providing an excellent yardstick for measuring the performance of
other algorithms. CFO is a novel deterministic metaheuristic that has performed
well against GSO in previous tests. The CFO implementation reported here
includes architectural improvements in errant probe retrieval and decision
space adaptation that result in even better performance. Detailed results are
provided for the twenty-three function benchmark suite used to evaluate GSO.
CFO performs better than or essentially as well as GSO on twenty functions and
nearly as well on one of the remaining three. Includes update 24 February 2010.


  We report on X-ray and TeV gamma-ray observations of the pulsar/Be star
binary PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213. PSR J2032+4127 is a 143-ms gamma-ray pulsar
which shares a long period (45-50 year) and highly eccentric orbit with the
massive Be star MT91 213. TeV gamma-ray emission was detected from the binary
following a coordinated observing campaign over the fall 2017 periastron with
VERITAS, MAGIC, and X-ray monitoring with Swift-XRT. The discovery of this
gamma-ray binary makes it just the second such source known to contain a pulsar
as the compact object. We report on over 100 hours of extensive TeV
observations across the periastron passage, which reveal variations in the TeV
flux by an order of magnitude over time scales of days. The X-ray flux was also
found to be highly variable, although it was not directly correlated with the
TeV flux. These observations present serious challenges to existing models of
the system, which will require significant revisions. We also discuss the
steady and extended TeV source TeV J2032+4130, which lies in the same direction
as the binary system, and its potential association with the pulsar.


  Using $6.32$ fb$^{-1}$ of $e^{+}e^{-}$ collision data collected at the
center-of-mass energies between 4.178 and 4.226 GeV with the BESIII detector,
we perform an amplitude analysis of the decay $D^+_s \to K^+\pi^+\pi^-$ and
determine the amplitudes of the various intermediate states. The absolute
branching fraction of $D^+_s\to K^+\pi^+\pi^-$ is measured to be
($6.11\pm0.18_{\rm stat.}\pm0.11_{\rm syst.})\times 10^{-3}$. The branching
fractions of the dominant intermediate processes $D_{s}^{+} \to K^+\rho^0,
\rho^0 \to \pi^+\pi^-$ and $D_{s}^{+} \to K^*(892)^0\pi^+, K^*(892)^0 \to
K^+\pi^-$ are determined to be $(1.96\pm0.19_{\rm stat.}\pm0.23_{\rm
syst.})\times 10^{-3}$ and $(1.85\pm0.12_{\rm stat.}\pm0.13_{\rm syst.})\times
10^{-3}$, respectively. The intermediate resonances $f_0(500)$, $f_0(980)$, and
$f_0(1370)$ are observed for the first time in this channel.


  A theory of the anomalous and spin Hall effects, based on the space
distribution of the current densities, is presented. Spin-orbit coupling gives
rise to a space separation of the mass centers, as well as a current density
separation of the quasiparticle states having opposite group velocities. It is
shown that this microscopic property is essential for existence of both Hall
effects.


  We consider walks on a triangular domain that is a subset of the triangular
lattice. We then specialise this by dividing the lattice into two directed
sublattices with different weights. Our central result is an explicit formula
for the generating function of walks starting at a fixed point in this domain
and ending anywhere within the domain. Intriguingly, the specialisation of this
formula to walks starting in a fixed corner of the triangle shows that these
are equinumerous to two-coloured Motzkin paths, and two-coloured
three-candidate Ballot paths, in a strip of finite height.


  We present Mg isotope ratios in 4 red giants of the globular cluster M 13 and
1 red giant of the globular cluster M 71 based on spectra obtained with HDS on
the Subaru Telescope. We confirm earlier results by Shetrone that for M 13, the
ratio varies from (25+26)Mg/24Mg = 1 in stars with the highest Al abundance to
(25+26)Mg/24Mg = 0.2 in stars with the lowest Al abundance. However, we
separate the contributions of all three isotopes and find a spread in the ratio
24Mg:25Mg:26Mg with values ranging from 48:13:39 to 78:11:11. As in NGC 6752,
we find a positive correlation between 26Mg and Al, an anticorrelation between
24Mg and Al, and no correlation between 25Mg and Al. In M 71, our one star has
a ratio 70:13:17. For both clusters, the lowest ratios of 25Mg/24Mg and
26Mg/24Mg exceed those observed in field stars at the same metallicity, a
result also found in NGC 6752. The contribution of 25Mg to the total Mg
abundance is constant within a given cluster and between clusters with
25Mg/(24+25+26)Mg = 0.13. For M 13 and NGC 6752, the ranges of the Mg isotope
ratios are similar and both clusters show the same correlations between Al and
Mg isotopes suggesting that the same process is responsible for the abundance
variations in these clusters. While existing models fail to reproduce all the
observed abundances, we continue to favor the scenario in which two generations
of AGB stars produce the observed abundances. A first generation of metal-poor
AGB stars pollutes the entire cluster and is responsible for the large ratios
of 25Mg/24Mg and 26Mg/24Mg observed in cluster stars with compositions
identical to field stars at the same metallicity. Differing degrees of
pollution by a second generation of AGB stars of the same metallicity as the
cluster provides the star-to-star scatter in Mg isotope ratios.


  This document briefly describes the noise models and shapes used for the
synthesis of the Drag-Free and Attitude Control System in the LISA space
mission. LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is one of the next
large-class missions from the European Space Agency (ESA), expected to be
launched in 2034. The main goal of the mission is to detect the gravitational
waves, which are undulatory perturbations of the space-time fabric, extremely
important to collect experimental proofs for the General Relativity Theory. In
the 90s, different international collaborations of institutes laid the
foundations for the first ground-based interferometers (see, e.g., LIGO and
Virgo). However, ground-based interferometers have a limited bandwidth due to
the Earth's environmental noises and short arm-length of few kilometers.
Therefore, they cannot observe gravitational waves belonging to the portion of
the spectrum below 1 Hz. This issue can be overcome by means of space-based
interferometers, that can have arm-lengths up to millions of kilometers and
exploit a quieter environment than the Earth's surface. The LISA system is
affected by actuation, sensing and environmental disturbances and noises. Among
the actuation noises we have those given by the Micro Propulsion System (MPS),
the Gravitational Reference Sensor (GRS) and the Optical Assembly (OA) motor.
Among the sensing noises we consider the interferometer, the Differential
Wavefront Sensor (DWS) and the GRS. The environmental disturbances are given by
the solar radiation pressure, the test-mass stiffness and self-gravity, and the
environmental noises acting directly on the test-mass.


  The Potts spin glass is a generalization of the Sherrington--Kirkpatrick (SK)
model that allows for spins to take more than two values. Based on a novel
synchronization mechanism, Panchenko (2018) showed that the limiting free
energy is given by a Parisi-type variational formula. The functional order
parameter in this formula is a probability measure on a monotone path in the
space of positive-semidefinite matrices. By comparison, the order parameter for
the SK model is much simpler: a probability measure on the unit interval.
Nevertheless, a longstanding prediction by Elderfield and Sherrington (1983) is
that the order parameter for the Potts spin glass can be reduced to that of the
SK model.
  We prove this prediction for the balanced Potts spin glass, where the model
is constrained so that the fraction of spins taking each value is
asymptotically the same. It is generally believed that the limiting free energy
of the balanced model is the same as that of the unconstrained model, in which
case our results reduce the functional order parameter of Panchenko's
variational formula to probability measures on the unit interval. The intuitive
reason -- for both this belief and the Elderfield--Sherrington prediction -- is
that no spin value is a priori preferred over another, and the order parameter
should reflect this inherent symmetry.
  This paper rigorously demonstrates how symmetry, when combined with
synchronization, acts as the desired reduction mechanism. Our proof requires
that we introduce a generalized Potts spin glass model with mixed higher-order
interactions, which is interesting it its own right. We prove that the Parisi
formula for this model is differentiable with respect to inverse temperatures.
This is a key ingredient for guaranteeing the Ghirlanda--Guerra identities
without perturbation, which then allow us to exploit symmetry and
synchronization simultaneously.


  The real part of the self-energy of interacting two-dimensional electrons has
been calculated in the t-matrix approximation. It is shown that the forward
scattering results in an anomalous term leading to the vanishing
renormalization factor of the one-particle Green function, which is a
non-perturbative effect of the interaction U. The present result is a
microscopic demonstration of the claim by Anderson based on the conventional
many-body theory. The effect of the damping of the interacting electrons, which
has been ignored in reaching above conclusion, has been briefly discussed.


  The ABC effect -- an intriguing low-mass enhancement in the $\pi\pi$
invariant mass spectrum -- is known from inclusive measurements of two-pion
production in nuclear fusion reactions. First exclusive measurements carried
out at CELSIUS-WASA for the fusion reactions leading to d or $^3$He reveal this
effect to be a $\sigma$ channel phenomenon associated with the formation of a
$\Delta\Delta$ system in the intermediate state and combined with a
resonance-like behavior in the total cross section. Together with the
observation that the differential distributions do not change in shape over the
resonance region the features fulfill the criteria of an isoscalar s-channel
resonance in $pn$ and $NN\pi\pi$ systems, if the two emitted nucleons are
bound. It obviously is robust enough to survive in nuclei as a dibaryonic
resonance configuration. In this context also the phenomenon of $N\Delta$
resonances is reexamined.


  Magnetic skyrmions are topological spin configurations in materials with
chiral Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), that are potentially useful for
storing or processing information. To date, DMI has been found in few bulk
materials, but can also be induced in atomically thin magnetic films in contact
with surfaces with large spin-orbit interactions. Recent experiments have
reported that isolated magnetic skyrmions can be stabilized even near room
temperature in few-atom thick magnetic layers sandwiched between materials that
provide asymmetric spin-orbit coupling. Here we present the minimum-energy path
analysis of three distinct mechanisms for the skyrmion collapse, based on ab
initio input and the performed atomic-spin simulations. We focus on the
stability of a skyrmion in three atomic layers of Co, either epitaxial on the
Pt(111) surface, or within a hybrid multilayer where DMI nontrivially varies
per monolayer due to competition between different symmetry-breaking from two
sides of the Co film. In laterally finite systems, their constrained geometry
causes poor thermal stability of the skyrmion toward collapse at the boundary,
which we show to be resolved by designing the high-DMI structure within an
extended film with lower or no DMI.


  We investigate the effects of quenched disorder on first-order quantum phase
transitions on the example of the $N$-color quantum Ashkin-Teller model. By
means of a strong-disorder renormalization group, we demonstrate that quenched
disorder rounds the first-order quantum phase transition to a continuous one
for both weak and strong coupling between the colors. In the strong coupling
case, we find a distinct type of infinite-randomness critical point
characterized by additional internal degrees of freedom. We investigate its
critical properties in detail, and we discuss broader implications for the fate
of first-order quantum phase transitions in disordered systems.


  We consider two types of trajectories found in a wide range of mechanical
systems, viz. box orbits and loop orbits. We elucidate the dynamics of these
orbits in the simple context of a perturbed harmonic oscillator in two
dimensions. We then examine the small-amplitude motion of a rigid body, the
rock'n'roller, a sphere with eccentric distribution of mass. The equations of
motion are expressed in quaternionic form and a complete analytical solution is
obtained. Both types of orbit, boxes and loops, are found, the particular form
depending on the initial conditions. We interpret the motion in terms of
epi-elliptic orbits. The phenomenon of recession, or reversal of precession, is
associated with box orbits. The small-amplitude solutions for the symmetric
case, or Routh sphere, are expressed explicitly in terms of epicycles; there is
no recession in this case.


  Although all-sky surveys have led to the discovery of dozens of young
planets, little is known about their atmospheres. Here, we present
multi-wavelength transit data for the super Neptune-sized exoplanet, K2-33b --
the youngest (~10 Myr) transiting exoplanet to-date. We combined photometric
observations of K2-33 covering a total of 33 transits spanning >2 years, taken
from K2, MEarth, Hubble, and Spitzer. The transit photometry spanned from the
optical to the near-infrared (0.6-4.5$\mu$m), enabling us to construct a
transmission spectrum of the planet. We find that the optical transit depths
are nearly a factor of two deeper than those from the near-infrared. This
difference holds across multiple datasets taken over years, ruling out issues
of data analysis and unconstrained systematics. Surface inhomogeneities on the
young star can reproduce some of the difference, but required spot coverage
fractions (>60%) are ruled out by the observed stellar spectrum(<20%). We find
a better fit to the transmission spectrum using photochemical hazes, which were
predicted to be strong in young, moderate-temperature, and large-radius planets
like K2-33b. A tholin haze with CO as the dominant gaseous carbon carrier in
the atmosphere can reasonably reproduce the data with small or no stellar
surface inhomogeneities, consistent with the stellar spectrum. The HST data
quality is insufficient for the detection of any molecular features. More
observations would be required to fully characterize the hazes and spot
properties and confirm the presence of CO suggested by current data.


  Unsupervised Video Object Segmentation (UVOS) refers to the challenging task
of segmenting the prominent object in videos without manual guidance. In recent
works, two approaches for UVOS have been discussed that can be divided into:
appearance and appearance-motion-based methods, which have limitations
respectively. Appearance-based methods do not consider the motion of the target
object due to exploiting the correlation information between randomly paired
frames. Appearance-motion-based methods have the limitation that the dependency
on optical flow is dominant due to fusing the appearance with motion. In this
paper, we propose a novel framework for UVOS that can address the
aforementioned limitations of the two approaches in terms of both time and
scale. Temporal Alignment Fusion aligns the saliency information of adjacent
frames with the target frame to leverage the information of adjacent frames.
Scale Alignment Decoder predicts the target object mask by aggregating
multi-scale feature maps via continuous mapping with implicit neural
representation. We present experimental results on public benchmark datasets,
DAVIS 2016 and FBMS, which demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
Furthermore, we outperform the state-of-the-art methods on DAVIS 2016.


  Local primordial non-Gaussianity (LPNG) is predicted by many non-minimal
models of inflation, and creates a scale-dependent contribution to the power
spectrum of large-scale structure (LSS) tracers, whose amplitude is
characterized by $b_{\phi}$. Knowledge of $b_{\phi}$ for the observed tracer
population is therefore crucial for learning about inflation from LSS.
Recently, it has been shown that the relationship between linear bias $b_1$ and
$b_{\phi}$ for simulated halos exhibits significant secondary dependence on
halo concentration. We leverage this fact to forecast multi-tracer constraints
on $f_{NL}^{\mathrm{loc}}$. We train a machine learning model on observable
properties of simulated Illustris-TNG galaxies to predict $b_{\phi}$ for
samples constructed to approximate DESI emission line galaxies (ELGs) and
luminous red galaxies (LRGs). We find $\sigma(f_{NL}^{\mathrm{loc}}) = 2.3$,
and $\sigma(f_{NL}^{\mathrm{loc}}) = 3.7$, respectively. These forecasted
errors are roughly factors of 3, and 35\% improvements over the single-tracer
case for each sample, respectively. When considering both ELGs and LRGs in
their overlap region, we forecast $\sigma(f_{NL}^{\mathrm{loc}}) = 1.5$ is
attainable with our learned model, more than a factor of 3 improvement over the
single-tracer case, while the ideal split by $b_{\phi}$ could reach
$\sigma(f_{NL}^{\mathrm{loc}}) <1$. We also perform multi-tracer forecasts for
upcoming spectroscopic surveys targeting LPNG (MegaMapper, SPHEREx) and show
that splitting tracer samples by $b_{\phi}$ can lead to an order-of-magnitude
reduction in projected $\sigma(f_{NL}^{\mathrm{loc}})$ for these surveys.


  We study a class of generalized inflation models in which the inflaton is
coupled to the Ricci scalar by a general $f(\phi, R)$ term. The scalar power
spectrum, the spectral index, the running of the spectral index, the tensor
mode spectrum and a new consistency relation of the model are calculated. We
discuss in detail the issues of how to diagonize the coupled perturbation
equations, how to deal with an entropy-like source, and how to determine the
initial condition by quantization. By studying some explicit models, we find
that rich phenomena such as a blue scalar power spectrum, a large running of
the spectral index, and a blue tensor mode spectrum can be obtained.


  Radio channel state information (CSI) measured with many receivers is a good
resource for localizing a transmit device with machine learning with a
discriminative model. However, CSI localization is nontrivial when the radio
map is complicated, such as in building corridors. This paper introduces a
view-selective deep learning (VSDL) system for indoor localization using CSI of
WiFi. The multiview training with CSI obtained from multiple groups of access
points (APs) generates latent features on supervised variational deep network.
This information is then applied to an additional network for dominant view
classification to enhance the regression accuracy of localization. As
non-informative latent features from multiple views are rejected, we can
achieve a localization accuracy of 0.77 m, which outperforms by 30 $\%$ the
best known accuracy in practical applications in a real building environment.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach to apply variational
inference and to construct a scalable system for radio localization.
Furthermore, our work investigates a methodology for supervised learning with
multiview data where informative and non-informative views coexist.


  We study the controllability to trajectories, under positivity constraints on
the control or the state, of a one-dimensional heat equation involving the
fractional Laplace operator $ (-\partial_x^2)^s$ (with $0<s<1$) on the interval
$(-1,1)$. Our control function is localized in an open set $\mathcal O$ in the
exterior of $(-1,1)$, that is, $\mathcal O\subset (\mathbb{R} \setminus
(-1,1))$. We show that there exists a minimal (strictly positive) time $T_{\rm
min}$ such that the fractional heat dynamics can be controlled from any initial
datum in $L^2(-1,1)$ to a positive trajectory through the action of an exterior
positive control, if and only if $\frac 12<s<1$. In addition, we prove that at
this minimal controllability time, the constrained controllability is achieved
by means of a control that belongs to a certain space of Radon measures.
Finally, we provide several numerical illustrations that confirm our
theoretical results.


  Misbehavior in online social networks (OSN) is an ever-growing phenomenon.
The research to date tends to focus on the deployment of machine learning to
identify and classify types of misbehavior such as bullying, aggression, and
racism to name a few. The main goal of identification is to curb natural and
mechanical misconduct and make OSNs a safer place for social discourse. Going
beyond past works, we perform a longitudinal study of a large selection of
Twitter profiles, which enables us to characterize profiles in terms of how
consistently they post highly toxic content. Our data spans 14 years of tweets
from 122K Twitter profiles and more than 293M tweets. From this data, we
selected the most extreme profiles in terms of consistency of toxic content and
examined their tweet texts, and the domains, hashtags, and URLs they shared. We
found that these selected profiles keep to a narrow theme with lower diversity
in hashtags, URLs, and domains, they are thematically similar to each other (in
a coordinated manner, if not through intent), and have a high likelihood of
bot-like behavior (likely to have progenitors with intentions to influence).
Our work contributes a substantial and longitudinal online misbehavior dataset
to the research community and establishes the consistency of a profile's toxic
behavior as a useful factor when exploring misbehavior as potential accessories
to influence operations on OSNs.


  We present the detailed analysis of 11 local luminous infrared galaxies
(LIRGs) from ultraviolet through far-infrared to radio ($\sim$70 MHz to
$\sim$15 GHz) bands. We derive the astrophysical properties through spectral
energy distribution (SED) modeling using the Code Investigating GALaxy Emission
(CIGALE) and UltraNest codes. The radio SEDs include our new observations at
325 and 610 MHz from the GMRT and the measurements from public archives. Our
main results are (1) radio SEDs show turnovers and bends, (2) the synchrotron
spectral index of the fitted radio spectra ranges between $-$0.5 and $-$1.7,
and (3) the infrared luminosity, dust mass, dust temperature, stellar mass,
star-formation rates (SFRs) and AGN fraction obtained from CIGALE falls in the
range exhibited by galaxies of the same class. The ratio of 60$\mu$m infrared
and 1.4 GHz radio luminosity, the 1.4 GHz thermal fraction, and emission
measure range between 2.1 and 2.9, 0.1% and 10%, 0.02 and 269.5$\times$10$^{6}$
cm$^{-6}$ pc, respectively. We conclude that the turnovers seen in the radio
SEDs are due to free-free absorption; this is supported by the low AGN fraction
derived from the CIGALE analysis. The decomposed 1.4 GHz thermal and nonthermal
radio luminosities allowed us to compute the star formation rate (SFR) using
scaling relations. A positive correlation is observed between the SFR$_{IR}$
obtained 10 Myr ago (compared to 100 Myr ago) and 1.4 GHz radio (total and
nonthermal) because similar synchrotron lifetimes are expected for typical
magnetic field strengths observed in these galaxies ($\approx$50$\mu$G).


  Clustering is one of the main tasks in exploratory data analysis and
descriptive statistics where the main objective is partitioning observations in
groups. Clustering has a broad range of application in varied domains like
climate, business, information retrieval, biology, psychology, to name a few. A
variety of methods and algorithms have been developed for clustering tasks in
the last few decades. We observe that most of these algorithms define a cluster
in terms of value of the attributes, density, distance etc. However these
definitions fail to attach a clear meaning/semantics to the generated clusters.
We argue that clusters having understandable and distinct semantics defined in
terms of quartiles/halves are more appealing to business analysts than the
clusters defined by data boundaries or prototypes. On the samepremise, we
propose our new algorithm named as quartile clustering technique. Through a
series of experiments we establish efficacy of this algorithm. We demonstrate
that the quartile clustering technique adds clear meaning to each of the
clusters compared to K-means. We use DB Index to measure goodness of the
clusters and show our method is comparable to EM (Expectation Maximization),
PAM (Partition around Medoid) and K Means. We have explored its capability in
detecting outlier and the benefit of added semantics. We discuss some of the
limitations in its present form and also provide a rough direction in
addressing the issue of merging the generated clusters.


  We introduce a zeta function of digraphs that determines, and is determined
by, the spectra of all linear combinations of the adjacency matrix, its
transpose, the out-degree matrix, and the in-degree matrix. In particular,
zeta-equivalence of graphs encompasses simultaneous cospectrality with respect
to the adjacency, the Laplacian, the signless Laplacian, and the normalized
Laplacian matrix, respectively. In addition, we express zeta-equivalence in
terms of Markov chains and in terms of invasions where each edge is replaced by
a fixed digraph. We finish with a method for constructing zeta-equivalent
digraphs.


  A graph $G$ is {\em matching-decyclable} if it has a matching $M$ such that
$G-M$ is acyclic. Deciding whether $G$ is matching-decyclable is an NP-complete
problem even if $G$ is 2-connected, planar, and subcubic. In this work we
present results on matching-decyclability in the following classes: Hamiltonian
subcubic graphs, chordal graphs, and distance-hereditary graphs. In Hamiltonian
subcubic graphs we show that deciding matching-decyclability is NP-complete
even if there are exactly two vertices of degree two. For chordal and
distance-hereditary graphs, we present characterizations of
matching-decyclability that lead to $O(n)$-time recognition algorithms.


  Explainability of AI models is an important topic that can have a significant
impact in all domains and applications from autonomous driving to healthcare.
The existing approaches to explainable AI (XAI) are mainly limited to simple
machine learning algorithms, and the research regarding the
explainability-accuracy tradeoff is still in its infancy especially when we are
concerned about complex machine learning techniques like neural networks and
deep learning (DL). In this work, we introduce a new approach for complex
models based on the co-relation impact which enhances the explainability
considerably while also ensuring the accuracy at a high level. We propose
approaches for both scenarios of independent features and dependent features.
In addition, we study the uncertainty associated with features and output.
Furthermore, we provide an upper bound of the computation complexity of our
proposed approach for the dependent features. The complexity bound depends on
the order of logarithmic of the number of observations which provides a
reliable result considering the higher dimension of dependent feature space
with a smaller number of observations.


  The microstrip of modulated width is a realization of a one-dimensional
photonic crystal operating in the microwave regime. Like any photonic crystal,
the periodic microstrip is characterised by the presence of frequency bands and
band gaps that enable and prohibit wave propagation, respectively. The
frequency bands for microstrip of symmetric unit cell can be distinguished by
$0$ or $\pi$ Zak phase. The sum of these topological parameters for all bands
below a given frequency gap determines the value of the surface impedance and
whether or not edge modes are present at the end of the microstrip. We
demonstrate that edge modes are absent in a finite microstrip terminated at
both ends in the centres of unit cells, but they can be induced by adding the
defected cells. Edge modes present at both ends of the microstrip enable
microwave tunneling with high transitivity in the frequency gap with or without
a change in phase. This has been demonstrated experimentally and developed in
detail using numerical simulations and model calculations. The investigated
system, with a doublet of edge modes in the frequency gap, can be considered as
a narrow passband filter of high selectivity.


  We have re-examined the most luminous X-ray sources in the starburst galaxy
NGC 4631, using XMM-Newton, Chandra and ROSAT data. The most interesting source
is a highly variable supersoft ULX. We suggest that its bolometric luminosity ~
a few 10^{39} erg/s in the high/supersoft state: this is an order of magnitude
lower than estimated in previous studies, thus reducing the need for extreme or
exotic scenarios. Moreover, we find that this source was in a non-canonical
low/soft (kT ~ 0.1-0.3 keV) state during the Chandra observation. By comparing
the high and low state, we argue that the spectral properties may not be
consistent with the expected behaviour of an accreting intermediate-mass black
hole. We suggest that recurrent super-Eddington outbursts with photospheric
expansion from a massive white dwarf (M_{wd} >~ 1.3 M_{sun}), powered by
non-steady nuclear burning, may be a viable possibility, in alternative to the
previously proposed scenario of a super-Eddington outflow from an accreting
stellar-mass black hole. The long-term average accretion rate required for
nuclear burning to power such white-dwarf outbursts in this source and perhaps
in other supersoft ULXs is ~ 5-10 x 10^{-6} M_{sun}/yr: this is comparable to
the thermal-timescale mass transfer rate invoked to explain the most luminous
hard-spectrum ULXs (powered by black hole accretion). The other four most
luminous X-ray sources in NGC 4631 (three of which can be classified as ULXs)
appear to be typical accreting black holes, in four different spectral states:
high/soft, convex-spectrum, power-law with soft excess, and simple power-law.
None of them requires masses >~ 50 M_{sun}.


  We study the holographic dual of flavors in a Chern-Simons matter theory at
non-zero temperature, realized as D6-branes in the type IIA black hole dual in
the ABJM background geometry. We consider both massive and massless flavors.
The former are treated in the quenched approximation, whereas the massless ones
are considered as dynamical objects and their backreaction on the geometry is
included in the black hole background. We compute the holographically
renormalized action of the probe by imposing several physical conditions. In
the limit of massless flavors the free energy and entropy of the probe match
non-trivially the first variation of these quantities for the backreacted
background when the number of flavors is increased by one unit. We compute
several thermodynamical functions for the system and analyze the meson melting
phase transition between Minkowski and black hole embeddings.


  Amongst iron regime nuclei, $\beta$-decay rates on titanium isotopes are
considered to be important during the late phases of evolution of massive
stars. The key $\beta$-decay isotopes during presupernova evolution were
searched from available literature and a microscopic calculation of the decay
rates were performed using the proton-neutron quasiparticle random phase
approximation (pn-QRPA) theory. As per earlier simulation results electron
capture and $\beta$-decay on certain isotopes of titanium are considered to be
important for the presupernova evolution of massive stars. Earlier the stellar
electron capture rates and neutrino energy loss rates due to relevant titanium
isotopes were presented. In this paper we finally present the $\beta$-decay
rates of key titanium isotopes in stellar environment. The results are also
compared against previous calculations. The pn-QRPA $\beta$-decay rates are
bigger at high stellar temperatures and smaller at high stellar densities
compared to the large scale shell model results. This study can prove useful
for the core-collapse simulators.


  The polytope containment problem is deciding whether a polytope is a
contained within another polytope. This problem is rooted in computational
convexity, and arises in applications such as verification and control of
dynamical systems. The complexity heavily depends on how the polytopes are
represented. Describing polytopes by their hyperplanes (H-polytopes) is a
popular representation. In many applications we use affine transformations of
H-polytopes, which we refer to as AH-polytopes. Zonotopes, orthogonal
projections of H-polytopes, and convex hulls/Minkowski sums of multiple
H-polytopes can be efficiently represented as AH-polytopes. While there exists
efficient necessary and sufficient conditions for AH-polytope in H-polytope
containment, the case of AH-polytope in AH-polytope is known to be NP-complete.
In this paper, we provide a sufficient condition for this problem that is cast
as a linear program with size that grows linearly with the number of
hyperplanes of each polytope. Special cases on zonotopes, Minkowski sums,
convex hulls, and disjunctions of H-polytopes are studied. These efficient
encodings enable us to designate certain components of polytopes as decision
variables, and incorporate them into a convex optimization problem. We present
examples on the zonotope containment problem, polytopic Hausdorff distances,
zonotope order reduction, inner approximations of orthogonal projections, and
demonstrate the usefulness of our results on formal controller verification and
synthesis for hybrid systems.


  The chemical composition of ultra high energy cosmic rays is still uncertain.
The latest results obtained by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the HiRes
Collaboration, concerning the measurement of the mean value and the
fluctuations of the atmospheric depth at which the showers reach the maximum
development, Xmax, are inconsistent. From comparison with air shower
simulations it can be seen that, while the Auger data may be interpreted as a
gradual transition to heavy nuclei for energies larger than ~ 2-3x10^18 eV, the
HiRes data are consistent with a composition dominated by protons. In Ref. [1]
it is suggested that a possible explanation of the observed deviation of the
mean value of Xmax from the proton expectation, observed by Auger, could
originate in a statistical bias arising from the approximated exponential shape
of the Xmax distribution, combined with the decrease of the number of events as
a function of primary energy. In this paper we consider a better description of
the Xmax distribution and show that the possible bias in the Auger data is at
least one order of magnitude smaller than the one obtained when assuming an
exponential distribution. Therefore, we conclude that the deviation of the
Auger data from the proton expectation is unlikely explained by such
statistical effect.


  We show that the asymptotic dynamics of two-dimensional de Sitter or anti-de
Sitter Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity is described by a generalized
two-particle Calogero-Sutherland model. This correspondence is established by
formulating the JT model of (A)dS gravity in two dimensions as a topological
gauge theory, which reduces to a nonlinear 0+1-dimensional sigma model on the
boundary of (A)dS space. The appearance of cyclic coordinates allows then a
further reduction to the Calogero-Sutherland quantum mechanical model.


  Autonomous mobile robots, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have
received significant attention for their applications in construction. These
platforms have great potential to automate and enhance the quality and
frequency of the required data for many tasks such as construction schedule
updating, inspections, and monitoring. Robust localization is a critical
enabler for reliable deployments of autonomous robotic platforms. Automated
robotic solutions rely mainly on the global positioning system (GPS) for
outdoor localization. However, GPS signals are denied indoors, and pre-built
environment maps are often used for indoor localization. This entails
generating high-quality maps by teleoperating the mobile robot in the
environment. Not only is this approach time-consuming and tedious, but it also
is unreliable in indoor construction settings. Layout changes with construction
progress, requiring frequent mapping sessions to support autonomous missions.
Moreover, the effectiveness of vision-based solutions relying on visual
features is highly impacted in low texture and repetitive areas on site. To
address these challenges, we previously proposed a low-cost, lightweight
tag-based visual-inertial localization method using AprilTags. Tags, in this
method, are paper printable landmarks with known sizes and locations,
representing the environment's quasi-map. Since tag placement/replacement is a
manual process, it is subject to human errors. In this work, we study the
impact of human error in the manual tag installation process and propose a
stochastic approach to account for this uncertainty using the Lie group theory.
Employing Monte Carlo simulation, we experimentally show that the proposed
stochastic model incorporated in our on-manifold formulation improves the
robustness and accuracy of tag-based localization against inevitable
imperfections in manual tag installation on site.


  This article makes two novel contributions to spatial political and conflict
research using grid data. First, it develops a theory of how uncertainty
specific to grid data affects inference. Second, it introduces a comprehensive
robustness test on sensitivity to this uncertainty, implemented in R. The
uncertainty stems from (1) what is the correct size of grid cells, (2) what is
the correct locations on which to draw dividing lines between these grid cells,
and (3) a greater effect of measurement errors due to finer grid cells. My test
aggregates grid cells into a larger size of choice as the multiple of the
original grid cells. It also enables different starting points of grid cell
aggregation (e.g., whether to start the aggregation from the corner of the
entire map or one grid cell of the original size away from the corner) to shift
the diving lines. I apply my test to Tollefsen, Strand, and Buhaug (2012) to
substantiate its use.


  Consider the Kahler-Ricci flow with finite time singularities over any closed
Kahler manifold. We prove the existence of the flow limit in the sense of
current towards the time of singularity. This answers affirmatively a problem
raised by Tian on the uniqueness of the weak limit from sequential convergence
construction. The notion of minimal singularity in the study of positive
current, introduced by Demailly, comes up naturally. We also provide some
discussion on the infinite time singularity case for comparison. The
consideration can be applied to more flexible evolution equation of
Kahler-Ricci flow type for any cohomology class. The study is related to
general conjectures on the singularities of Kahler-Ricci flows.


  We derive information-theoretic lower bounds on the Bayes risk and
generalization error of realizable machine learning models. In particular, we
employ an analysis in which the rate-distortion function of the model
parameters bounds the required mutual information between the training samples
and the model parameters in order to learn a model up to a Bayes risk
constraint. For realizable models, we show that both the rate distortion
function and mutual information admit expressions that are convenient for
analysis. For models that are (roughly) lower Lipschitz in their parameters, we
bound the rate distortion function from below, whereas for VC classes, the
mutual information is bounded above by $d_\mathrm{vc}\log(n)$. When these
conditions match, the Bayes risk with respect to the zero-one loss scales no
faster than $\Omega(d_\mathrm{vc}/n)$, which matches known outer bounds and
minimax lower bounds up to logarithmic factors. We also consider the impact of
label noise, providing lower bounds when training and/or test samples are
corrupted.


  We propose an online algorithm for cumulative regret minimization in a
stochastic multi-armed bandit. The algorithm adds $O(t)$ i.i.d. pseudo-rewards
to its history in round $t$ and then pulls the arm with the highest average
reward in its perturbed history. Therefore, we call it perturbed-history
exploration (PHE). The pseudo-rewards are carefully designed to offset
potentially underestimated mean rewards of arms with a high probability. We
derive near-optimal gap-dependent and gap-free bounds on the $n$-round regret
of PHE. The key step in our analysis is a novel argument that shows that
randomized Bernoulli rewards lead to optimism. Finally, we empirically evaluate
PHE and show that it is competitive with state-of-the-art baselines.


  Harper's Theorem states that, in a hypercube, among all sets of a given fixed
size the Hamming balls have minimal closed neighbourhoods. In this paper we
prove a stability-like result for Harper's Theorem: if the closed neighbourhood
of a set is close to minimal in the hypercube, then the set must be very close
to a Hamming ball around some vertex.


  The truthfulness of existing explanation methods in authentically elucidating
the underlying model's decision-making process has been questioned. Existing
methods have deviated from faithfully representing the model, thus susceptible
to adversarial attacks. To address this, we propose a novel eXplainable AI
(XAI) method called SRD (Sharing Ratio Decomposition), which sincerely reflects
the model's inference process, resulting in significantly enhanced robustness
in our explanations. Different from the conventional emphasis on the neuronal
level, we adopt a vector perspective to consider the intricate nonlinear
interactions between filters. We also introduce an interesting observation
termed Activation-Pattern-Only Prediction (APOP), letting us emphasize the
importance of inactive neurons and redefine relevance encapsulating all
relevant information including both active and inactive neurons. Our method,
SRD, allows for the recursive decomposition of a Pointwise Feature Vector
(PFV), providing a high-resolution Effective Receptive Field (ERF) at any
layer.


  A broadband multidimensional variational measurement allows overcoming the
Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) of a classical mechanical force detection for a
mechanical oscillator. In this measurement quantum back action, which perturbs
the evolution of a mechanical oscillator, can be completely removed in a broad
detection frequency band after post-processing. The measurement is performed by
optical pumping of the central optical mode and analyzing the light escaping
the two other optical modes, which have the frequency separation with the
central mode equal to the mechanical frequency. To realize such a scheme in
practice one either needs to use a very long optical interferometer or should
utilize optical modes belonging to different mode families. In the second case
the modes have different geometries and their coupling with the mechanical mode
is not identical. Here we analyze a general case of the non-symmetric
measurement scheme, in which the coupling strengths with the light modes are
not equal to each other, and take into account optical losses. We found that
the back action can be completely excluded from the measurement result in the
case of the asymmetric lossless system. The nonzero loss limits the
sensitivity. An experimental implementation of the proposed scheme is
discussed.


  We study a supersymmetry-preserving solution-generating method in heterotic
supergravity. In particular, we use this method to construct one-parameter
non-Kahler deformations of Calabi-Yau manifolds with a U(1) isometry, in which
the complex structure remains invariant. We explain how to obtain corresponding
solutions to heterotic string theory, up to first order in \alpha', by a
modified form of the standard embedding. In the course of the paper we also
show that Abelian heterotic supergravity embeds into type II supergravity, and
note that the solution-generating method in this context is related to a
dipole-type deformation when there is a field theory dual.


  By Gromov's mapping theorem for bounded cohomology, the projection of a group
to the quotient by an amenable normal subgroup is isometric on group homology
with respect to the $\ell^1$-semi-norm. Gromov's description of the diffusion
of cycles also implicitly produces efficient cycles in this situation. We
present an elementary version of this explicit construction.


  We reconsider the sub-leading quantum perturbative corrections to N=2 cubic
special Kaehler geometries. Imposing the invariance under axion-shifts, all
such corrections (but the imaginary constant one) can be introduced or removed
through suitable, lower unitriangular symplectic transformations, dubbed
Peccei-Quinn (PQ) transformations. Since PQ transformations do not belong to
the d=4 U-duality group G4, in symmetric cases they generally have a
non-trivial action on the unique quartic invariant polynomial I4 of the charge
representation R of G4. This leads to interesting phenomena in relation to
theory of extremal black hole attractors; namely, the possibility to make
transitions between different charge orbits of R, with corresponding change of
the supersymmetry properties of the supported attractor solutions. Furthermore,
a suitable action of PQ transformations can also set I4 to zero, or vice versa
it can generate a non-vanishing I4: this corresponds to transitions between
"large" and "small" charge orbits, which we classify in some detail within the
"special coordinates" symplectic frame. Finally, after a brief account of the
action of PQ transformations on the recently established correspondence between
Cayley's hyperdeterminant and elliptic curves, we derive an equivalent,
alternative expression of I4, with relevant application to black hole entropy.


  Forecasting the motion of surrounding obstacles (vehicles, bicycles,
pedestrians and etc.) benefits the on-road motion planning for intelligent and
autonomous vehicles. Complex scenes always yield great challenges in modeling
the patterns of surrounding traffic. For example, one main challenge comes from
the intractable interaction effects in a complex traffic system. In this paper,
we propose a multi-layer architecture Interaction-aware Kalman Neural Networks
(IaKNN) which involves an interaction layer for resolving high-dimensional
traffic environmental observations as interaction-aware accelerations, a motion
layer for transforming the accelerations to interaction aware trajectories, and
a filter layer for estimating future trajectories with a Kalman filter network.
Attributed to the multiple traffic data sources, our end-to-end trainable
approach technically fuses dynamic and interaction-aware trajectories boosting
the prediction performance. Experiments on the NGSIM dataset demonstrate that
IaKNN outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of effectiveness for
traffic trajectory prediction.


  Using bilayer films of $\beta$-Ta/Ni$_{0.8}$Fe$_{0.2}$, we fabricate
structures consisting of two, three and four crossing ellipses which exhibit
shape-induced bi-axial, tri-axial and quadro-axial magnetic anisotropy in the
crossing area, respectively. Structures consisting of N crossing ellipses can
be stabilized in 2N remanent states by applying (and removing) an external
magnetic field. However, we show that with field-free spin-orbit torques
induced by flowing currents in individual ellipses, the number of remanent
states grows to 2$^\text{N}$. Furthermore, when the current flows between the
edges of different ellipses the number of remanent states jumps to
2$^\text{2N}$, including states which exhibit a $\pi$-N\'{e}el domain wall in
the overlap area. The very large number of accessible remanent magnetic states
that are exhibited by the relatively simple magnetic structures paves the way
for intriguing spintronics applications including memory devices.


  This paper describes an efficient and nonlinearly consistent parallel
solution methodology for solving coupled nonlinear thermal transport problems
that occur in nuclear reactor applications over hundreds of individual 3D
physical subdomains. Efficiency is obtained by leveraging knowledge of the
physical domains, the physics on individual domains, and the couplings between
them for preconditioning within a Jacobian Free Newton Krylov method. Details
of the computational infrastructure that enabled this work, namely the open
source Advanced Multi-Physics (AMP) package developed by the authors is
described. Details of verification and validation experiments, and parallel
performance analysis in weak and strong scaling studies demonstrating the
achieved efficiency of the algorithm are presented. Furthermore, numerical
experiments demonstrate that the preconditioner developed is independent of the
number of fuel subdomains in a fuel rod, which is particularly important when
simulating different types of fuel rods. Finally, we demonstrate the power of
the coupling methodology by considering problems with couplings between surface
and volume physics and coupling of nonlinear thermal transport in fuel rods to
an external radiation transport code.


  We analyse the role of the dynamical Casimir effect as a resource for quantum
technologies, such as quantum cryptography and quantum metrology. In
particular, we consider the generation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering and
Gaussian interferometric power, two useful forms of asymmetric quantum
correlations, in superconducting waveguides modulated by superconducting
quantum interferometric devices. We show that, while a certain value of
squeezing is required to overcome thermal noise and give rise to steering, any
non-zero squeezing produces interferometric power which in fact increases with
thermal noise.


  We consider a model for complex networks that was recently proposed as a
model for complex networks by Krioukov et al. In this model, nodes are chosen
randomly inside a disk in the hyperbolic plane and two nodes are connected if
they are at most a certain hyperbolic distance from each other. It has been
previously shown that this model has various properties associated with complex
networks, including a power-law degree distribution and a strictly positive
clustering coefficient. The model is specified using three parameters : the
number of nodes $N$, which we think of as going to infinity, and $\alpha, \nu >
0$ which we think of as constant. Roughly speaking $\alpha$ controls the power
law exponent of the degree sequence and $\nu$ the average degree.
  Earlier work of Kiwi and Mitsche has shown that when $\alpha < 1$ (which
corresponds to the exponent of the power law degree sequence being $< 3$) then
the diameter of the largest component is a.a.s.~polylogarithmic in $N$.
Friedrich and Krohmer have shown it is a.a.s.~$\Omega(\log N)$ and they
improved the exponent of the polynomial in $\log N$ in the upper bound. Here we
show the maximum diameter over all components is a.a.s.~$O(\log N)$ thus giving
a bound that is tight up to a multiplicative constant.


  The evolutionary origin of universal statistics in biochemical reaction
network is studied, to explain the power-law distribution of reaction links and
the power-law distributions of chemical abundances. Using cell models with
catalytic reaction network, we find evidence that the power-law distribution in
abundances of chemicals emerges by the selection of cells with higher growth
speeds. Through the further evolution, this inhomogeneity in chemical
abundances is shown to be embedded in the distribution of links, leading to the
power-law distribution. These findings provide novel insights into the nature
of network evolution in living cells.


  Demand response has been implemented by distribution system operators to
reduce peak demand and mitigate contingency issues on distribution lines and
substations. Specifically, the campus based commercial buildings make the major
contributions to peak demand in a distribution system. Note that prior works
neglect the consumers comfort level in performing demand response, which limits
their applications as the incentives are not worth as compared to the loss in
comfort levels for most time. Thus, a framework to comprehensively consider
both operating costs and comfort levels is necessary. Moreover, distributed
energy resources are widely deployed in commercial buildings such as roof top
solar panels, plug in electric vehicles, and energy storage units, which bring
various uncertainties to the distribution systems, i.e., output of renewable;
electricity prices; arrival and departure of plug-in electric vehicles;
business hour demand response signals and flexible energy demand. In this
paper, we propose an optimal demand response framework to enable local control
of demand-side appliances that are usually too small to participate in a retail
electricity market. Several typical small demand side appliances, i.e.,
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, electric water heaters and
plug-in electric vehicles, are considered in our proposed model. Their
operations are coordinated by a central controller, whose objective is to
minimize the total cost and maximize the customers comfort levels for multiple
commercial buildings. A scenario-based stochastic programming is leveraged to
handle the aforementioned uncertainties. Numerical results based on the
practical data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. In
addition, the trade off between the operation costs of commercial buildings and
customers comfort levels is illustrated.


  In this paper, we obtain the invariant curves of quasi-periodic reversible
mappings with finite smoothness. Since the reversible property is difficult to
maintain in the process of approximating smooth functions by analytical ones,
R\"{u}ssmann's method in \cite{HR} is invalid. Inspired by the recent work of
Li, Qi and Yuan in \cite{LJ}, we turn to regard the reversible mapping as the
Poincar\'{e} map of a reversible differential equation. By constructing a KAM
theorem for a reversible differential equation which is quasi-periodic in time,
we obtain the invariant curves of the reversible mapping. Beyond that, we
establish some variants of invariant curve theorems for quasi-periodic
reversible mappings.


  Via the proper-time eigenstates (event states) instead of the proper-mass
eigenstates (particle states), free-motion time-of-arrival theory for massive
spin-1/2 particles is developed at the level of quantum field theory. The
approach is based on a position-momentum dual formalism. Within the framework
of field quantization, the total time-of-arrival is the sum of the single
event-of-arrival contributions, and contains zero-point quantum fluctuations
because the clocks under consideration follow the laws of quantum mechanics.


  A class of one dimensional classical systems is characterized from an
algebraic point of view. The Hamiltonians of these systems are factorized in
terms of two functions that together with the Hamiltonian itself close a
Poisson algebra. These two functions lead directly to two time-dependent
integrals of motion from which the phase motions are derived algebraically. The
systems so obtained constitute the classical analogues of the well known
factorizable one dimensional quantum mechanical systems.


  We investigate the behavior of the Higgs (amplitude) mode when
superconductivity emerges on a preexisting charge-density-wave state. We show
that the weak overdamped square-root singularity of the amplitude fluctuations
in a standard BCS superconductor is converted in a sharp, undamped power-law
divergence in the coexisting state, reminiscent of the Higgs behavior in
Lorentz-invariant theories. This effect reflects in a strong superconducting
resonance in the Raman spectra, both for an electronic and a phononic mechanism
leading to the Raman visibility of the Higgs. In the latter case, our results
are relevant to the interpretation of the Raman spectra measured experimentally
in NbSe2.


  N=1, D=4 non linear sigma models, parametrized by chiral superfields, usually
describe Kaehlerian geometries, provided that Einstein frame supergravity is
used. The sigma model metric is no longer Kaehler when local supersymmetry
becomes nonlinearly realized through the nilpotency of the supergravity
auxiliary fields. In some cases the nonlinear realization eliminates one scalar
propagating degree of freedom. This happens when the sigma model
conformal-frame metric has co-rank 2. In the geometry of the inflaton, this
effect eliminates its scalar superpartner. We show that the sigma model metric
remains semidefinite positive in all cases, due the to positivity properties of
the conformal-frame sigma model metric.


  The standard cosmological model, with its six independent parameters,
successfully describes our observable Universe. One of these parameters, the
optical depth to reionization $\tau_\mathrm{reio}$, represents the scatterings
that Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photons will experience after decoupling
from the primordial plasma as the intergalactic medium transitions from neutral
to ionized. $\tau_\mathrm{reio}$ depends on the neutral hydrogen fraction
$x_\mathrm{HI}$, which, in turn, should theoretically depend on cosmology. We
present a novel method to establish the missing link between cosmology and
reionization timeline using symbolic regression. We discover the timeline has a
universal shape well described by the Gompertz mortality law, applicable to any
cosmology within our simulated data. Unlike the conventional tanh prescription,
our model is asymmetric in time and a good fit to astrophysical constraints on
$x_\mathrm{HI}$. By combining CMB with astrophysical data and marginalizing
over astrophysics, we treat $\tau_\mathrm{reio}$ as a derived parameter,
tightening its constraint to $<3\%$. This approach reduces the error on the
amplitude of the primordial fluctuations by a factor of 2.3 compared to
Planck's PR3 constraint and provides a commanding constraint on the ionization
efficiency $\zeta_\mathrm{UV} = 26.9^{+2.1}_{-2.5}$. We expect further
improvements in the near term as reionization constraints increase and our
understanding of reionization advances.