  Obscuration in high-redshift quasi-stellar objects (QSO) has a profound
impact on our understanding of the evolution of supermassive black holes across
the cosmic time. An accurate quantification of its relevance is therefore
mandatory. We present a study aimed at evaluating the importance of obscuration
in high redshift jetted QSO, i.e. those active nuclei characterized by the
presence of powerful relativistic jets. We compare the observed number of radio
detected QSO at different radio flux density limits with the value predicted by
the beaming model on the basis of the number of oriented sources (blazars). Any
significant deficit of radio-detected QSO compared to the predictions can be
caused by the presence of obscuration along large angles from the jet
direction. We apply this method to two sizable samples characterized by the
same optical limit (mag=21) but significantly different radio density limits
(30 mJy and 1 mJy respectively) and containing a total of 87 independent
radio-loud 4<z<6.8 QSO, 31 of which classified as blazars. We find a general
good agreement between the numbers predicted by the model and those actually
observed, with only a marginal discrepancy at 0.5 mJy that could be caused by
the lack of completeness of the sample. We conclude that we have no evidence of
obscuration within angles 10-20deg from the relativistic jet direction. We also
show how the ongoing deep wide-angle radio surveys will be instrumental to test
the presence of obscuration at much larger angles, up to 30-35deg. We finally
suggest that, depending on the actual fraction of obscured QSO, relativistic
jets could be much more common at high redshifts compared to what is usually
observed in the local Universe


  Relation extraction (RE) is one of the most important tasks in information
extraction, as it provides essential information for many NLP applications. In
this paper, we propose a cross-lingual RE approach that does not require any
human annotation in a target language or any cross-lingual resources. Building
upon unsupervised cross-lingual representation learning frameworks, we develop
several deep Transformer based RE models with a novel encoding scheme that can
effectively encode both entity location and entity type information. Our RE
models, when trained with English data, outperform several deep neural network
based English RE models. More importantly, our models can be applied to perform
zero-shot cross-lingual RE, achieving the state-of-the-art cross-lingual RE
performance on two datasets (68-89% of the accuracy of the supervised
target-language RE model). The high cross-lingual transfer efficiency without
requiring additional training data or cross-lingual resources shows that our RE
models are especially useful for low-resource languages.


  We performed rheological measurements of the typical deep eutectic solvents
(DESs) glyceline, ethaline, and reline in a very broad temperature and dynamic
range, extending from the low-viscosity to the high-viscosity
supercooled-liquid regime. We find that the mechanical compliance spectra can
be well described by the random free-energy barrier hopping model, while the
dielectric spectra on the same materials involve significant contributions
arising from reorientational dynamics. The temperature-dependent viscosity and
structural relaxation time, revealing non-Arrhenius behavior typical for glassy
freezing, are compared to the ionic dc conductivity and relaxation times
determined by broadband dielectric spectroscopy. For glyceline and ethaline we
find essentially identical temperature dependences for all dynamic quantities.
These findings point to a close coupling of the ionic and molecular
translational and reorientational motions in these systems. However, for reline
the ionic charge transport appears decoupled from the structural and
reorientational dynamics, following a fractional Walden rule. Especially, at
low temperatures the ionic conductivity in this DES is enhanced by about one
decade compared to expectations based on the temperature dependence of the
viscosity. The results for all three DESs can be understood without invoking a
revolving-door mechanism previously considered as a possible charge-transport
mechanism in DESs.


  The kinematics and dynamics of deterministic physical systems have been a
foundation of our understanding of the world since Galileo and Newton. For real
systems, however, uncertainty is largely present via external forces such as
friction or lack of precise knowledge about the initial conditions of the
system. In this work we focus in the latter case and describe the use of
inference methodologies in solving the statistical properties of classical
systems subject to uncertain initial conditions. In particular we describe the
application of the formalism of Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) inference to the
problem of projectile motion given information about the average horizontal
range over many realizations. By using MaxEnt we can invert the problem and use
the provided information on the average range to reduce the original
uncertainty in the initial conditions, while also achieving additional insights
based on the shape of the posterior probabilities for the initial conditions
probabilities and the projectile path distribution itself. The wide
applicability of this procedure, as well as its ease of use, reveals a useful
tool by which to revisit a large number of physics problems, from classrooms to
frontier research.


  We study the transport properties of a neutral graphene sheet with curved
regions induced or stabilized by topological defects. The proposed model gives
rise to Dirac fermions in a random magnetic field and in the random space
dependent Fermi velocity induced by the curvature. This last term leads to
singular long range correlated disorder with special characteristics. The Drude
minimal conductivity at zero energy is found to be inversely proportional to
the density of topological disorder, a signature of diffusive behavior.


  It is now well established that the Kitaev honeycomb model in a magnetic
field along the $[111]$-direction harbors an intermediate gapless quantum spin
liquid (QSL) phase sandwiched between a gapped non-abelian QSL at low fields
$H< H_{c1}$ and a partially polarized phase at high fields $H> H_{c2}$. Here,
we analyze the low field and high field phases and phase transitions in terms
of single- and two-magnon excitations using exact diagonalization (ED) and
density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods. We find that the energy to
create a bound state of two-magnons $\Delta_p$ becomes lower than the energy to
create a single spin flip $\Delta_s$ near $H_{c2}$. In the entire Kitaev spin
liquid $\Delta_p<\Delta_s$ and both gaps vanish at $H_{c2}$. We make testable
predictions for magnon pairing that could be observable in Raman scattering
measurements on Kitaev QSL candidate materials.


  In this paper, we propose an empirical model for the VIX index. Our findings
indicate that the VIX has a long-term empirical distribution. To model its
dynamics, we utilize a continuous-time Markov process with a uniform
distribution as its invariant distribution and a suitable function $h$. We
determined that $h$ is the inverse function of the VIX data's empirical
distribution. Additionally, we use the method of variables of separation to get
the exact solution to the pricing problem for VIX futures and call options.


  We consider branching like models in local, global and fixed environments. We
show that survival is more likely in a locally changing environment than in a
fixed environment and that survival in a fixed environment is itself more
likely than in a globally changing environment.


  Here we report an asymmetric suppresion of spectral weight at the Fermi
surface around the M points using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy.
The results provide direct evidence for diagonal stripes in the Bi2212
superconductors.


  The Hecke category is bigraded. For completeness, we classify gradings on the
Hecke category. We also classify object-preserving autoequivalences.


  We continue our study of intermittency for the parabolic Anderson model
$\partial u/\partial t = \kappa\Delta u + \xi u$ in a space-time random medium
$\xi$, where $\kappa$ is a positive diffusion constant, $\Delta$ is the lattice
Laplacian on $\Z^d$, $d \geq 1$, and $\xi$ is a simple symmetric exclusion
process on $\Z^d$ in Bernoulli equilibrium. This model describes the evolution
of a \emph{reactant} $u$ under the influence of a \emph{catalyst} $\xi$.
  In G\"artner, den Hollander and Maillard (2007) we investigated the behavior
of the annealed Lyapunov exponents, i.e., the exponential growth rates as
$t\to\infty$ of the successive moments of the solution $u$. This led to an
almost complete picture of intermittency as a function of $d$ and $\kappa$. In
the present paper we finish our study by focussing on the asymptotics of the
Lyaponov exponents as $\kappa\to\infty$ in the \emph{critical} dimension $d=3$,
which was left open in G\"artner, den Hollander and Maillard (2007) and which
is the most challenging. We show that, interestingly, this asymptotics is
characterized not only by a \emph{Green} term, as in $d\geq 4$, but also by a
\emph{polaron} term. The presence of the latter implies intermittency of
\emph{all} orders above a finite threshold for $\kappa$.


  We present a high-performance N-body code for self-gravitating collisional
systems accelerated with the aid of a new SIMD instruction set extension of the
x86 architecture: Advanced Vector eXtensions (AVX), an enhanced version of the
Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE). With one processor core of Intel Core i7-2600
processor (8 MB cache and 3.40 GHz) based on Sandy Bridge micro-architecture,
we implemented a fourth-order Hermite scheme with individual timestep scheme
(Makino and Aarseth, 1992), and achieved the performance of 20 giga floating
point number operations per second (GFLOPS) for double-precision accuracy,
which is two times and five times higher than that of the previously developed
code implemented with the SSE instructions (Nitadori et al., 2006b), and that
of a code implemented without any explicit use of SIMD instructions with the
same processor core, respectively. We have parallelized the code by using
so-called NINJA scheme (Nitadori et al., 2006a), and achieved 90 GFLOPS for a
system containing more than N = 8192 particles with 8 MPI processes on four
cores. We expect to achieve about 10 tera FLOPS (TFLOPS) for a self-gravitating
collisional system with N 105 on massively parallel systems with at most 800
cores with Sandy Bridge micro-architecture. This performance will be comparable
to that of Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) cluster systems, such as the one with
about 200 Tesla C1070 GPUs (Spurzem et al., 2010). This paper offers an
alternative to collisional N-body simulations with GRAPEs and GPUs.


  An ant colony optimization approach for partitioning a set of objects is
proposed. In order to minimize the intra-variance, or within sum-of-squares, of
the partitioned classes, we construct ant-like solutions by a constructive
approach that selects objects to be put in a class with a probability that
depends on the distance between the object and the centroid of the class
(visibility) and the pheromone trail; the latter depends on the class
memberships that have been defined along the iterations. The procedure is
improved with the application of K-means algorithm in some iterations of the
ant colony method. We performed a simulation study in order to evaluate the
method with a Monte Carlo experiment that controls some sensitive parameters of
the clustering problem. After some tuning of the parameters, the method has
also been applied to some benchmark real-data sets. Encouraging results were
obtained in nearly all cases.


  Gated networks are networks that contain gating connections, in which the
outputs of at least two neurons are multiplied. Initially, gated networks were
used to learn relationships between two input sources, such as pixels from two
images. More recently, they have been applied to learning activity recognition
or multi-modal representations. The aims of this paper are threefold: 1) to
explain the basic computations in gated networks to the non-expert, while
adopting a standpoint that insists on their symmetric nature. 2) to serve as a
quick reference guide to the recent literature, by providing an inventory of
applications of these networks, as well as recent extensions to the basic
architecture. 3) to suggest future research directions and applications.


  We recently proposed a formula for tree-level $n$-point correlators of
massive $\phi^4$ theory in de Sitter momentum space which consists of an
integral over $n$ punctures on the Riemann sphere and differential operators in
the future boundary dubbed the cosmological scattering equations. This formula
was explicitly checked up to six points via a map to Witten diagrams using the
global residue theorem. In this work we provide further details of these
calculations and present an alternative formulation based on a double cover of
the Riemann sphere. This framework can be used to derive simple graphical rules
for evaluating the integrals more efficiently. Using these rules, we check the
validity of our formula up to eight points and sketch the derivation of
$n$-point correlators. Finally, we propose a similar formula for 1-loop
$n$-point correlators in terms of an integral over $(n+2)$ punctures on the
Riemann sphere, which we verify at four points. The 1-loop formula holds for
small masses in de Sitter space and arbitrary masses satisfying the
Breitenlohner-Freedman bound after Wick-rotating to Anti-de Sitter space.


  In this note we produce generalized versions of the classical inequalities of
Hardy and of Hilbert and we establish their equivalence. Our methods rely on
the H^1-BMOA duality. We produce a class of examples to establish that the
generalizations are non-trivial.


  We propose a novel algorithm that outputs the final standings of a soccer
league, based on a simple dynamics that mimics a soccer tournament. In our
model, a team is created with a defined potential(ability) which is updated
during the tournament according to the results of previous games. The updated
potential modifies a teams' future winning/losing probabilities. We show that
this evolutionary game is able to reproduce the statistical properties of final
standings of actual editions of the Brazilian tournament (Brasileir\~{a}o).
However, other leagues such as the Italian and the Spanish tournaments have
notoriously non-Gaussian traces and cannot be straightforwardly reproduced by
this evolutionary non-Markovian model. A complete understanding of these
phenomena deserves much more attention, but we suggest a simple explanation
based on data collected in Brazil: Here several teams were crowned champion in
previous editions corroborating that the champion typically emerges from random
fluctuations that partly preserves the gaussian traces during the tournament.
On the other hand, in the Italian and Spanish leagues only a few teams in
recent history have won their league tournaments. These leagues are based on
more robust and hierarchical structures established even before the beginning
of the tournament. For the sake of completeness, we also elaborate a totally
Gaussian model (which equalizes the winning, drawing, and losing probabilities)
and we show that the scores of the "Brasileir\~{a}o" cannot be reproduced. Such
aspects stress that evolutionary aspects are not superfluous in our modeling.
Finally, we analyse the distortions of our model in situations where a large
number of teams is considered, showing the existence of a transition from a
single to a double peaked histogram of the final classification scores. An
interesting scaling is presented for different sized tournaments.


  This paper provides a fixed point theorem and iterative construction of a
common fixed point for a general class of nonlinear mappings in the setup of
uniformly convex hyperbolic spaces. We translate a multi-step iteration,
essentially due to Chidume and Ofoedu [4] in such setting for the approximation
of common fixed points of a finite family of total asymptotically nonexpansive
mappings. As a consequence, we establish strong and del-convergence results
which extend and generalize various corresponding results announced in the
current literature.


  Electric vehicles (EVs) are being actively adopted as a solution to
sustainable transportation. However, a bottleneck remains with charging, where
two of the main problems are the long charging time and the range anxiety of EV
drivers. In this research, we investigate the deployment of dynamic charging
systems, i.e., electrified roads that wirelessly charge EVs on the go, with a
view to accelerating EVs adoption rate. We propose a traffic-based deployment
strategy, statistically quantify its impact, and apply the strategy to two case
studies of real traffic in New York City (USA) and Xi'an (China). We find that
our analytical estimates not only closely match the real data, but they also
suggest that dynamic charging considerably extends the driving range of popular
EV models in urban mobility. For example, when only 5% of the existing roads in
New York City are equipped with this technology, an EV model such as the Nissan
Leaf will approximately maintain its battery level without stopping to
recharge. If the percentage of charging roads is increased to 10%, then the
Leaf will gain nearly 10% of its battery after every 40 kilometers of driving.
Our framework provides a solution to public and private organizations that
support and facilitate vehicle electrification through charging infrastructure.


  We present a discrete model of resonant scattering of waves by an open
periodic waveguide. The model elucidates a phenomenon common in
electromagnetics, in which the interaction of plane waves with embedded guided
modes of the waveguide causes sharp transmission anomalies and field
amplification. The ambient space is modeled by a planar lattice and the
waveguide by a linear periodic lattice coupled to the planar one along a line.
We show the existence of standing and traveling guided modes and analyze a
tangent bifurcation, in which resonance is initiated at a critical coupling
strength where a guided mode appears, beginning with a single standing wave and
splitting into a pair of waves traveling in opposing directions. Complex
perturbation analysis of the scattering problem in the complex frequency and
wavenumber domain reveals the complex structure of the transmission coefficient
at resonance.


  Let X be a 1-connected compact space such that the algebra H*(X;Z/2) is
generated by one single element. We compute the cohomology of the free loop
space H*(LX;Z/2) including the Steenrod algebra action. When X is a projective
space CP^n, HP^n, the Cayley projective plane CaP^2 or a sphere S^m we obtain a
splitting result for integral and mod two cohomology of the suspension spectrum
of LX_+. The splitting is in terms of the suspension spectrum of X_+ and the
Thom spaces of the q-fold Whitney sums of the tangent bundle over X for non
negative integers q.


  In this paper, we are concerned with the Kolmogorov's scaling laws of
conserved quantities. By means of Eyink's longitudinal structure functions and
the analysis of interaction of different physical quantities, we extend
celebrated four-fifths laws from energy to helicity in incompressible fluid
and, energy and cross-helicity in magnetohydrodynamic flow. In contrast to
pervious 4/5 laws of energy and cross-helicity in magnetized fluids obtained by
Politano and Pouquet, they are in terms of the mixed three-order structure
functions rather than the structure coupling correlation functions.


  We address the question of why strongly correlated d-wave superconductors,
such as the cuprates, prove to be surprisingly robust against the introduction
of non-magnetic impurities. We show that, very generally, both the
pair-breaking and the normal state transport scattering rates are significantly
suppressed by strong correlations effects arising in the proximity to a Mott
insulating state. We also show that the correlation-renormalized scattering
amplitude is generically enhanced in the forward direction, an effect which was
previously often ascribed to the specific scattering by charged impurities
outside the copper-oxide planes.


  Violations of Lorentz invariance can lead to an energy-dependent vacuum
dispersion of light, which results in arrival-time differences of photons
arising with different energies from a given transient source. In this work,
direction-dependent dispersion constraints are obtained on nonbirefringent
Lorentz-violating effects, using the observed spectral lags of the gamma-ray
burst GRB 160625B. This burst has unusually large high-energy photon
statistics, so we can obtain constraints from the true spectral time lags of
bunches of high-energy photons rather than from the rough time lag of a single
highest-energy photon. Also, GRB 160625B is the only burst to date having a
well-defined transition from positive lags to negative lags, which provides a
unique opportunity to distinguish Lorentz-violating effects from any
source-intrinsic time lag in the emission of photons of different energy bands.
Our results place comparatively robust two-sided constraints on a variety of
isotropic and anisotropic coefficients for Lorentz violation, including first
bounds on Lorentz-violating effects from operators of mass dimension ten in the
photon sector.


  Due to the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus,
quick public health investigations of the relationships between behaviours and
infection risk are essential. Recently the test-negative design was proposed to
recruit and survey participants who are symptomatic and being tested for
SARS-CoV-2 infection with the goal of evaluating associations between the
survey responses (including behaviours and environment) and testing positive on
the test. It was also proposed to recruit additional controls who are part of
the general population as a baseline comparison group in order to evaluate risk
factors specific to SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this study, we consider an
alternative design where we recruit among all individuals, symptomatic and
asymptomatic, being tested for the virus in addition to population controls. We
define a regression parameter related to a prospective risk factor analysis and
investigate its identifiability under the two study designs. We review the
difference between the prospective risk factor parameter and the parameter
targeted in the typical test-negative design where only symptomatic and tested
people are recruited.
  Using missing data directed acyclic graphs we provide conditions and required
data collection under which identifiability of the prospective risk factor
parameter is possible and compare the benefits and limitations of the
alternative study designs and target parameters. We propose a novel inverse
probability weighting estimator and demonstrate the performance of this
estimator through simulation study.


  The Turing mechanism describes the emergence of spatial patterns due to
spontaneous symmetry breaking in reaction-diffusion processes and underlies
many developmental processes. Identifying Turing mechanisms in biological
systems defines a challenging problem. This paper introduces an approach to the
prediction of Turing parameter values from observed Turing patterns. The
parameter values correspond to a parametrized system of reaction-diffusion
equations that generate Turing patterns as steady state. The Gierer-Meinhardt
model with four parameters is chosen as a case study. A novel invariant pattern
representation based on resistance distance histograms is employed, along with
Wasserstein kernels, in order to cope with the highly variable arrangement of
local pattern structure that depends on the initial conditions which are
assumed to be unknown. This enables to compute physically plausible distances
between patterns, to compute clusters of patterns and, above all, model
parameter prediction: for small training sets, classical state-of-the-art
methods including operator-valued kernels outperform neural networks that are
applied to raw pattern data, whereas for large training sets the latter are
more accurate. Excellent predictions are obtained for single parameter values
and reasonably accurate results for jointly predicting all parameter values.


  We consider deformations of the Weyl arrangement of type $A_2$, which include
the extended Shi and Catalan arrangements. These last ones are well-known to be
free. We study their sheaves of logarithmic vector fields in all other cases,
and show that they are Steiner bundles. Also, we determine explicitly their
unstable lines. As a corollary, some counter-examples to the shift isomorphism
problem are given.


  We identify two signatures of quantum vacuum fluctuations of the
electromagnetic field on a harmonically trapped charged particle. They are a
shift from the natural trap frequency and generation of quantum coherences. The
frequency shift, estimated for a single-electron cyclotron, should be
observable in future experiments. We also suggest a possible route to detecting
vacuum-generated quantum coherences. We assess the role of the long-wavelength
and rotating-wave approximations in arriving at our estimates. These
experiments should settle the debate on the choice of approximations and gauge
in capturing the effect of the quantum vacuum fluctuations.


  The lowest (``vector'') and next-lowest (``scalar'') bound-state masses of
the massive Schwinger model have been determined recently to a very high
accuracy numerically on the lattice. Therefore, improved results for these
bound-state masses from analytical calculations are of some interest. Here, we
provide such improved results by employing both standard and renormal-ordered
(fermion) mass perturbation theory, as well as a consistency condition between
the two perturbative calculations. The resulting bound-state masses are in
excellent agreement with the lattice results for small and intermediate fermion
mass, and remain within 10% of the exact results even in the limit of very
large fermion mass.


  The prompt Gamma-Ray Bursts' (GRBs) efficiency is an important clue on the
emission mechanism producing the $\gamma$-rays. Previous estimates of the
kinetic energy of the blast waves, based on the X-ray afterglow luminosity
$L_X$, suggested that this efficiency is large, with values above 90\% in some
cases. This poses a problem to emission mechanisms and in particular to the
internal shocks model. These estimates are based, however, on the assumption
that the X-ray emitting electrons are fast cooling and that their Inverse
Compton (IC) losses are negligible. The observed correlations between $L_X$
(and hence the blast wave energy) and $E_{\gamma\rm ,iso}$, the isotropic
equivalent energy in the prompt emission, has been considered as observational
evidence supporting this analysis. It is reasonable that the prompt gamma-ray
energy and the blast wave kinetic energy are correlated and the observed
correlation corroborates, therefore, the notion $L_X$ is indeed a valid proxy
for the latter. Recent findings suggest that the magnetic field in the
afterglow shocks is significantly weaker than was earlier thought and its
equipartition fraction, $\epsilon_B$, could be as low as $10^{-4}$ or even
lower. Motivated by these findings we reconsider the problem, taking now IC
cooling into account. We find that the observed $L_X-E_{\gamma\rm ,iso}$
correlation is recovered also when IC losses are significant. For small
$\epsilon_B$ values the blast wave must be more energetic and we find that the
corresponding prompt efficiency is significantly smaller than previously
thought. For example, for $\epsilon_B\sim10^{-4}$ we infer a typical prompt
efficiency of $\sim15\%$.


  The impact of electromagnetic stabilization and flow shear stabilization on
ITG turbulence is investigated. Analysis of a low-$\beta$ JET L-mode discharge
illustrates the relation between ITG stabilization, and proximity to the
electromagnetic instability threshold. This threshold is reduced by
suprathermal pressure gradients, highlighting the effectiveness of fast ions in
ITG stabilization. Extensive linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations are
then carried out for the high-$\beta$ JET hybrid discharge 75225, at two
separate locations at inner and outer radii. It is found that at the inner
radius, nonlinear electromagnetic stabilization is dominant, and is critical
for achieving simulated heat fluxes in agreement with the experiment. The
enhancement of this effect by suprathermal pressure also remains significant.
It is also found that flow shear stabilization is not effective at the inner
radii. However, at outer radii the situation is reversed. Electromagnetic
stabilization is negligible while the flow shear stabilization is significant.
These results constitute the high-$\beta$ generalization of comparable
observations found at low-$\beta$ at JET. This is encouraging for the
extrapolation of electromagnetic ITG stabilization to future devices. An
estimation of the impact of this effect on the ITER hybrid scenario leads to a
20% fusion power improvement.


  We present results of global fits of all relevant experimental data on rare
$b \to s$ decays. We observe significant tensions between the Standard Model
predictions and the data. After critically reviewing the possible sources of
theoretical uncertainties, we find that within the Standard Model, the tensions
could be explained if there are unaccounted hadronic effects much larger than
our estimates. Assuming hadronic uncertainties are estimated in a sufficiently
conservative way, we discuss the implications of the experimental results on
new physics, both model independently as well as in the context of the minimal
supersymmetric standard model and models with flavour-changing $Z'$ bosons. We
discuss in detail the violation of lepton flavour universality as hinted by the
current data and make predictions for additional lepton flavour universality
tests that can be performed in the future. We find that the ratio of the
forward-backward asymmetries in $B \to K^* \mu^+\mu^-$ and $B \to K^* e^+e^-$
at low dilepton invariant mass is a particularly sensitive probe of lepton
flavour universality and allows to distinguish between different new physics
scenarios that give the best description of the current data.


  We investigate the possibility of additively manufacturing fibrous sound
absorbers using fused deposition modeling. Two methods for 3D printing fibers
are proposed. The fiber bridging method involves extruding the filament between
two points with no underlying supports. The extrude-and-pull method involves
extruding a filament droplet before pulling away the extruder rapidly to
generate thin fibers. Both methods can produce fibers with aspect ratios
greater than 100. Optical microscopy is used to investigate the effect of
various printing parameters on the fiber characteristics. The sound absorption
coefficient of samples printed using the two techniques are measured using a
two-microphone normal incidence impedance tube setup. Effects of printing
parameters and fiber density variables are experimentally studied. The
experimental studies are supported by the Johnson-Champoux-Allard
semi-empirical analytical model informed using an inverse characterization
approach. The analytical model is then utilized to understand the effect of
fiber parameters on the acoustical transport parameters. It is observed that
the two methods result in individual fibers with distinct characteristics. On
average, the fiber bridging method results in thicker fibers, which results in
comparatively higher sound absorption. However, the extrude-and-pull method
results in fibers with hair-like characteristics (thick base with progressively
decreasing thickness) and one may easily incorporate it within existing
additive manufacturing routines to add fibers to a base surface, thus opening
up a new route towards fiber-enhanced multifunctional structures.


  We study formation of molecules in primordial prestellar clumps and evaluate
the line luminosities to assess detectability by next-generation facilities. If
the initial H_2 fraction is sufficiently high, HD becomes an important coolant
in the clumps. The luminosity from such HD cooling clumps is lower than that
from H_2 cooling ones because of lower temperature (<100K). As for Li
reactions, we include the three-body LiH formation approximately. The Li
molecular fraction remains very low (<10^{-3}) throughout the evolution owing
to the high dissociative reaction rate of LiH +H -> Li + H_2. LiH does not
become an important coolant in any density range. The luminous emission lines
from the prestellar cores include H_2 rovibrational lines: 1-0 Q(1), 1-0 O(3),
1-0 O(5), and pure rotational lines: 0-0 S(3), 0-0 S(4), 0-0 S(5). The
next-generation facilities SPICA and JWST are able to detect H_2 emission in a
large pre-galactic cloud that forms metal-free stars at a high rate of \sim
10^3 M_s/yr at redshift z<10. We also derive an analytical expression for the
luminosity that reproduces the numerical results.


  We predict a novel metallic state of matter that emerges in a Weyl-semimetal
superstructure with spatially varying Weyl-node positions. In the new state,
the Weyl nodes are stretched into extended, anisotropic Fermi surfaces, which
can be understood as being built from Fermi arc-like states. This "Fermi-arc
metal" exhibits the chiral anomaly of the parental Weyl semimetal. However,
unlike in the parental Weyl semimetal, in the Fermi-arc metal the
"ultra-quantum state", in which the anomalous chiral Landau level is the only
state at the Fermi energy, is already reached for a finite energy window at
zero magnetic field. The dominance of the ultra-quantum state implies a
universal low-field ballistic magnetoconductance and the absence of quantum
oscillations, making the Fermi surface "invisible" to de Haas-van Alphen and
Shubnikov-de Haas effects, although it signifies its presence in other response
properties.


  Imaging in radio astronomy is usually carried out with a single-dish radio
telescope doing a raster scan of a region of the sky or with an interferometer
that samples the visibility function of the sky brightness. Mosaic observations
are the current standard for imaging large fields of view with an
interferometer and multi-frequency observations are now routinely carried out
with both types of telescopes to increase the continuum imaging sensitivity and
to probe spectral structure. This paper describes an algorithm to combine
wideband data from these two types of telescopes in a joint iterative
reconstruction scheme that can be applied to spectral cube or wideband
multi-term imaging both for narrow fields of view as well as mosaics. Our
results demonstrate the ability to prevent instabilities and error that
typically arise when wide-band or joint mosaicing algorithms are presented with
spatial and spectral structure that is inadequetely sampled by the
interferometer alone. For comparable noise levels in the single dish and
interferometer data, the numerical behaviour of this algorithm is expected to
be similar to the idea of generating artificial visibilities from single dish
data. However, our discussed implementation is simpler and more flexible in
terms of applying relative data weighting schemes to match noise levels while
preserving flux accuracy, fits within standard iterative image reconstruction
frameworks, is fully compatible with wide-field and joint mosaicing gridding
algorithms that apply corrections specific to the interferometer data and may
be configured to enable spectral cube and wideband multi-term deconvolution for
single-dish data alone.


  We discuss intrinsic mechanisms of nonequilibrium excess noise in
superconducting devices and transition edge sensors. In particular, we present
an overview of fluctuation-driven contributions to the current noise in the
vicinity of the superconducting transition. We argue that sufficiently close to
the critical temperature fluctuations of conductivity may become correlated
provided that the rate of quasiparticle relaxation is slow as compared to
dynamics of superconducting fluctuations. In this regime, fluctuations of
conductivity adiabatically follow the fluctuations of the electron
distribution. This leads to a substantial enhancement of current noise. The
corresponding spectral power density of noise has a Lorentzian shape in the
frequency domain while its magnitude scales proportionally to the inelastic
relaxation time. It also sensitively depends on the dephasing and
Ginzburg-Landau timescales. Further estimates suggest that this mechanism
dominates over the conventional temperature fluctuations in the same range of
parameters. To describe these effects microscopically, we use the
nonequilibrium Keldysh technique in the semiclassical approximation of
superconductivity with Boltzmann-Langevin random forces to account for
correlations of fluctuations.


  We prove sharp estimates for the dilation operator $f(x)\longmapsto f(\lambda
x)$, when acting on Wiener amalgam spaces $W(L^p,L^q)$. Scaling arguments are
also used to prove the sharpness of the known convolution and pointwise
relations for modulation spaces $M^{p,q}$, as well as the optimality of an
estimate for the Schr\"odinger propagator on modulation spaces.


  Examples of Morse functions with integrable gradient flows on some classical
Riemannian manifolds are considered. In particular, we show that a generic
height function on the symmetric embeddings of classical Lie groups and certain
symmetric spaces is a perfect Morse function, i.e. has as many critical points
as the homology requires, and the corresponding gradient flow can be described
explicitly. This gives an explicit cell decomposition and geometric realization
of the homology for such a manifold. As another application of the integrable
Morse functions we give an elementary proof of Vassiljev's theorem on the flag
join of Grassmannians.


  The integrated proton-deuteron cross section $\widetilde\sigma$ for the case
of the incident proton vector polarization $p_y^p$ and tensor polarization
$P_{xz}$ of the deuteron target provides a null test signal for time-reversal
invariance violating but P-parity conserving (TVPC) effects. We study the
null-test observable $\widetilde\sigma$ within the Glauber theory of the
double-polarized $pd$ scattering. Full spin dependence of the ordinary strong
$pN$ scattering amplitudes and different types of the hypothetical TVPC
pN-amplitudes are taken into account. We show that the contribution from the
exchange of the lowest-mass meson allowed in the TVPC interaction, i.e. the
$\rho$-meson, to the null-test observable $\widetilde\sigma$ is zero. The axial
$h_1$ meson exchange makes a non-zero contribution. We find that inclusion of
the Coulomb interaction does not lead to divergence of the cross section
$\widetilde\sigma$ and calculate its energy dependence at the proton beam
energy 100-1000 MeV.


  Data-driven algorithms have surpassed traditional techniques in almost every
aspect in robotic vision problems. Such algorithms need vast amounts of quality
data to be able to work properly after their training process. Gathering and
annotating that sheer amount of data in the real world is a time-consuming and
error-prone task. Those problems limit scale and quality. Synthetic data
generation has become increasingly popular since it is faster to generate and
automatic to annotate. However, most of the current datasets and environments
lack realism, interactions, and details from the real world. UnrealROX is an
environment built over Unreal Engine 4 which aims to reduce that reality gap by
leveraging hyperrealistic indoor scenes that are explored by robot agents which
also interact with objects in a visually realistic manner in that simulated
world. Photorealistic scenes and robots are rendered by Unreal Engine into a
virtual reality headset which captures gaze so that a human operator can move
the robot and use controllers for the robotic hands; scene information is
dumped on a per-frame basis so that it can be reproduced offline to generate
raw data and ground truth annotations. This virtual reality environment enables
robotic vision researchers to generate realistic and visually plausible data
with full ground truth for a wide variety of problems such as class and
instance semantic segmentation, object detection, depth estimation, visual
grasping, and navigation.


  Domain adaptive semantic segmentation aims to generate accurate and dense
predictions for an unlabeled target domain by leveraging a supervised model
trained on a labeled source domain. The prevalent self-training approach
involves retraining the dense discriminative classifier of $p(class|pixel
feature)$ using the pseudo-labels from the target domain. While many methods
focus on mitigating the issue of noisy pseudo-labels, they often overlook the
underlying data distribution p(pixel feature|class) in both the source and
target domains. To address this limitation, we propose the multi-prototype
Gaussian-Mixture-based (ProtoGMM) model, which incorporates the GMM into
contrastive losses to perform guided contrastive learning. Contrastive losses
are commonly executed in the literature using memory banks, which can lead to
class biases due to underrepresented classes. Furthermore, memory banks often
have fixed capacities, potentially restricting the model's ability to capture
diverse representations of the target/source domains. An alternative approach
is to use global class prototypes (i.e. averaged features per category).
However, the global prototypes are based on the unimodal distribution
assumption per class, disregarding within-class variation. To address these
challenges, we propose the ProtoGMM model. This novel approach involves
estimating the underlying multi-prototype source distribution by utilizing the
GMM on the feature space of the source samples. The components of the GMM model
act as representative prototypes. To achieve increased intra-class semantic
similarity, decreased inter-class similarity, and domain alignment between the
source and target domains, we employ multi-prototype contrastive learning
between source distribution and target samples. The experiments show the
effectiveness of our method on UDA benchmarks.


  In this paper we consider the contributions of anomalous commutators to
various QCD sum rules. Using a combination of the BJL limit with the operator
product expansion the results are presented in terms of the vacuum condensates
of gauge invariant operators. It is demonstrated that the anomalous
contributions are no negligible and reconcile various apparently contradictory
calculations.


  We present an ab-initio analysis of the impact of edge shape and
graphene-molecule anchor coupling on the electronic and transport
functionalities of graphene-based molecular electronics devices. We analyze how
Fano-like resonances, spin filtering and negative differential resistance
effects may or may not arise by modifying suitably the edge shapes and the
terminating groups of simple organic molecules. We show that the spin filtering
effect is a consequence of the magnetic behavior of zigzag-terminated edges,
which is enhanced by furnishing these with a wedge shape. The negative
differential resistance effect is originated by the presence of two degenerate
electronic states localized at each of the atoms coupling the molecule to
graphene which are strongly affected by a bias voltage. The effect could thus
be tailored by a suitable choice of the molecule and contact atoms if edge
shape could be controlled with atomic precision.


  An overview of the effect of a magnetic field gradient on fluids with linear
magnetic susceptibilities is given. It is shown that two commonly encountered
expressions, the magnetic field gradient force and the concentration gradient
force for paramagnetic species in solution are equivalent for incompressible
fluids. The magnetic field gradient and concentration gradient forces are
approximations of the Kelvin force and Korteweg-Helmholtz force densities,
respectively. The criterion for the appearance of magnetically induced
convection is derived. Experimental work in which magnetically induced
convection plays a role is reviewed.


  For an inverse temperature $\beta>0$, we define the $\beta$-circular Riesz
gas on $\mathbb{R}^d$ as any microscopic thermodynamic limit of Gibbs particle
systems on the torus interacting via the Riesz potential $g(x) = \Vert x
\Vert^{-s}$. We focus on the non integrable case $d-1<s<d$. Our main result
ensures, for any dimension $d\ge 1$ and inverse temperature $\beta>0$, the
existence of a $\beta$-circular Riesz gas which is not number-rigid. Recall
that a point process is said number rigid if the number of points in a bounded
Borel set $\Delta$ is a function of the point configuration outside $\Delta$.
It is the first time that the non number-rigidity is proved for a Gibbs point
process interacting via a non integrable potential. We follow a statistical
physics approach based on the canonical DLR equations. It is inspired by
Dereudre-Hardy-Lebl\'e and Ma\"ida (2021) where the authors prove the
number-rigidity of the $\text{Sine}_\beta$ process.


  In a purely inverter-based microgrid, both grid-forming (GFM) and
grid-following (GFL) inverters will have a crucial role to play in
frequency/voltage regulation and maintaining power sharing through their grid
support capabilities. Consequently, the coordination between these two
technologies becomes increasingly important for optimal system performance.
However, the existing work does not consider GFL's potential to participate in
a secondary control in coordination with GFM, thus not able to utilize the full
capability of inverter resources. In this paper, we show that it is possible to
fully coordinate the GFL and GFM inverters to achieve accurate power sharing,
frequency/voltage regulation, and circulating var mitigation in networked
microgrids even without the support of any synchronous generators or the bulk
power system. We use the leader-follower consensus framework to develop a
GFM-GFL coordination control. The effectiveness of the proposed coordination is
verified under different disturbances and communication degradation. In
addition, we find that the proposed fully-coordinated secondary control
outperforms other approaches such as un-coordinated and partially-coordinated
secondary controls, in aspects of load sharing and frequency and voltage
regulation. Overall, this study emphasizes the need and benefits of GFL-GFM
coordination in microgrids.


  We characterize N=1 vacua of type II theories in terms of generalized complex
structure on the internal manifold M. The structure group of T(M) + T*(M) being
SU(3) x SU(3) implies the existence of two pure spinors Phi_1 and Phi_2. The
conditions for preserving N=1 supersymmetry turn out to be simple
generalizations of equations that have appeared in the context of N=2 and
topological strings. They are (d + H wedge) Phi_1=0 and (d + H wedge) Phi_2 =
F_RR. The equation for the first pure spinor implies that the internal space is
a twisted generalized Calabi-Yau manifold of a hybrid complex-symplectic type,
while the RR-fields serve as an integrability defect for the second.


  Accounting for resources is the central issue in computational efficiency. We
point out physical constraints implicit in information readout that have been
overlooked in classical computing. The basic particle-counting mode of read-out
sets a lower bound on the resources needed to implement a quantum computer. As
a consequence, computers based on classical waves are as efficient as those
based on single quantum particles.


  In this paper, we use the inverse mean curvature flow to establish an optimal
Minkowski type inquality, weighted Alexandrov-Fenchel inequality for the mean
convex star shaped hypersurfaces in Reissner-Nordstr\"om-anti-deSitter manifold
and Penrose type inequality for asymptotically locally hyperbolic manifolds in
which can be realized as graphs over Reissner-Nordstr\"om-anti-deSitter
manifold.


  We present a general conjecture for evaluating the multiple-discontinuity
integrals that appear in real-time holography using gravitational
Schwinger-Keldysh (grSK) geometry. Our conjecture is valid for arbitrary
non-derivative interactions with any number of bulk tree-level exchanges. It is
also consistent with a unitary exterior EFT at finite temperature with correct
causal structure. We present a set of Feynman rules underlying this exterior
EFT and illustrate it with the computation of four and five-point functions.


  Real Call Detail Records (CDR) are analyzed and classified based on Support
Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm. The daily classification results in three
traffic classes. We use two different algorithms, K-means and SVM to check the
classification efficiency. A second support vector regression (SVR) based
algorithm is built to make an online prediction of traffic load using the
history of CDRs. Then, these algorithms will be integrated to a network
planning tool which will help cellular operators on planning optimally their
access network.


  Item Response Theory (IRT) aims to assess latent abilities of respondents
based on the correctness of their answers in aptitude test items with different
difficulty levels. In this paper, we propose the $\beta^3$-IRT model, which
models continuous responses and can generate a much enriched family of Item
Characteristic Curve (ICC). In experiments we applied the proposed model to
data from an online exam platform, and show our model outperforms a more
standard 2PL-ND model on all datasets. Furthermore, we show how to apply
$\beta^3$-IRT to assess the ability of machine learning classifiers. This novel
application results in a new metric for evaluating the quality of the
classifier's probability estimates, based on the inferred difficulty and
discrimination of data instances.


  The advent of Large Models marks a new era in machine learning, significantly
outperforming smaller models by leveraging vast datasets to capture and
synthesize complex patterns. Despite these advancements, the exploration into
scaling, especially in the audio generation domain, remains limited, with
previous efforts didn't extend into the high-fidelity (HiFi) 44.1kHz domain and
suffering from both spectral discontinuities and blurriness in the
high-frequency domain, alongside a lack of robustness against out-of-domain
data. These limitations restrict the applicability of models to diverse use
cases, including music and singing generation. Our work introduces Enhanced
Various Audio Generation via Scalable Generative Adversarial Networks
(EVA-GAN), yields significant improvements over previous state-of-the-art in
spectral and high-frequency reconstruction and robustness in out-of-domain data
performance, enabling the generation of HiFi audios by employing an extensive
dataset of 36,000 hours of 44.1kHz audio, a context-aware module, a
Human-In-The-Loop artifact measurement toolkit, and expands the model to
approximately 200 million parameters. Demonstrations of our work are available
at https://double-blind-eva-gan.cc.


  Grain boundaries, the two-dimensional (2D) defects between differently
oriented crystals, control mechanical and transport properties of materials.
Our fundamental understanding of grain boundaries is still incomplete even
after nearly a century and a half of research since Sorby first imaged grains.
Here, we present a systematic study, over 9 orders of magnitude of size scales,
in which we analyze 2D defects between two neighboring crystals across five
hierarchy levels and investigate their crystallographic, compositional, and
electronic features. The levels are (a) the macroscale interface alignment and
grain misorientation (held constant here); (b) the systematic mesoscopic change
in the inclination of the grain boundary plane for the same orientation
difference; (c) the facets, atomic motifs (structural units), and internal
nanoscopic defects within the boundary plane; (d) the grain boundary chemistry;
and (e) the electronic structure of the atomic motifs. As a model material, we
use Fe alloyed with B and C, exploiting the strong interdependence of interface
structure and chemistry in this system. This model system is the basis of the
1.9 billion tons of steel produced annually and has an eminent role as a
catalyst. Surprisingly, we find that even a change in the inclination of the GB
plane with identical misorientation impacts GB composition and atomic
arrangement. Thus, it is the smallest structural hierarchical level, the atomic
motifs, which control the most important chemical properties of the grain
boundaries. This finding not only closes a missing link between the structure
and chemical composition of such defects but also enables the targeted design
and passivation of the chemical state of grain boundaries to free them from
their role as entry gates for corrosion, hydrogen embrittlement, or mechanical
failure.


  We study the geometric Uhlmann phase of mixed states at finite temperature in
a system of two coupled spin-$\frac 1 2$ particles driven by a magnetic field
applied to one of the spins. In the parameter space of temperature and
coupling, we show the emergence of two topological Uhlmann phase transitions
when the magnetic field evolves around the equator, where a winding number can
characterize each temperature range. For small couplings, the width of the
temperature gap of the non-trivial phase is roughly the critical temperature
$T_c$ of one-dimensional fermion systems with two-band Hamiltonians. The first
phase transition in the low-temperature regime and small values of the coupling
corresponds to the peak of the \textit{Schottky anomaly} of the heat capacity,
typical of a two-level system in solid-state physics involving the ground and
first excited states. The second phase transition occurs at temperatures very
close to the second maximum of the heat capacity associated with a multilevel
system. We also derive analytical expressions for the thermal Uhlmann phase for
both subsystems, showing that they exhibit phase transitions. In the driven
subsystem, for minimal $g$, a topological phase transition phase appears at
$T_c$ again. However, for larger values of $g$, the transitions occur at lower
temperature values, and they disappear when the coupling reaches a critical
value $g_c$. The latter is not the case for the undriven subsystem, where at
low temperatures, a single phase transition occurs at $g_c$. Nevertheless, as
the temperature rises, we demonstrate the emergence of two phase transitions
defining a coupling gap, where the phase is non-trivial and vanishes as the
temperature reaches a critical value.


  When the accretion rate is more than a small fraction of Eddington, the inner
regions of accretion disks around black holes are expected to be
radiation-dominated. However, in the alpha-model, these regions are also
expected to be thermally unstable. In this paper, we report two 3-d radiation
MHD simulations of a vertically-stratified shearing box in which the ratio of
radiation to gas pressure is ~ 10, and yet no thermal runaway occurs over a
timespan ~ 40 cooling times. Where the time-averaged dissipation rate is
greater than the critical dissipation rate that creates hydrostatic equilibrium
by diffusive radiation flux, the time-averaged radiation flux is held to the
critical value, with the excess dissipated energy transported by radiative
advection. Although the stress and total pressure are well-correlated as
predicted by the alpha-model, we show that stress fluctuations precede pressure
fluctuations, contrary to the usual supposition that the pressure controls the
saturation level of the magnetic energy. This fact explains the thermal
stability. Using a simple toy-model, we show that independently-generated
magnetic fluctuations can drive radiation pressure fluctuations, creating a
correlation between the two while maintaining thermal stability.


  Segmentation of highly slanted and horizontally overlapped characters is a
challenging research area that is still fresh. Several techniques are reported
in the state of art, but produce low accuracy for the highly slanted characters
segmentation and cause overall low handwriting recognition precision.
Accordingly, this paper presents a simple yet effective approach for character
segmentation of such difficult slanted cursive words without using any slant
correction technique. Rather a new concept of core-zone is introduced for
segmenting such difficult slanted handwritten words. However, due to the
inherent nature of cursive words, few characters are over-segmented and
therefore, a threshold is selected heuristically to overcome this problem. For
fair comparison, difficult words are extracted from the IAM benchmark database.
Experiments thus performed exhibit promising result and high speed.


  We discuss Lambda polarization and single-spin left-right asymmetry in
diffractive hadron-hadron scattering at high energies. We show that the
physical picture proposed in a recent Letter is consistent with the
experimental observation that $\Lambda$ polarization in the diffractive
process, $pp\to \Lambda K^+p$, is much higher than that in the inclusive
reaction, $pp\to \Lambda X$. We make predictions for the left-right asymmetry,
A_N, and for the spin transfer, $D_{NN}^\Lambda$, in the single-spin process
$p(\uparrow)p\to \Lambda K^+p$ and suggest further experimental tests of the
proposed picture.


  The rapid advancements in large language models (LLMs) have opened up new
opportunities for transforming patient engagement in healthcare through
conversational AI. This paper presents an overview of the current landscape of
LLMs in healthcare, specifically focusing on their applications in analyzing
and generating conversations for improved patient engagement. We showcase the
power of LLMs in handling unstructured conversational data through four case
studies: (1) analyzing mental health discussions on Reddit, (2) developing a
personalized chatbot for cognitive engagement in seniors, (3) summarizing
medical conversation datasets, and (4) designing an AI-powered patient
engagement system. These case studies demonstrate how LLMs can effectively
extract insights and summarizations from unstructured dialogues and engage
patients in guided, goal-oriented conversations. Leveraging LLMs for
conversational analysis and generation opens new doors for many
patient-centered outcomes research opportunities. However, integrating LLMs
into healthcare raises important ethical considerations regarding data privacy,
bias, transparency, and regulatory compliance. We discuss best practices and
guidelines for the responsible development and deployment of LLMs in healthcare
settings. Realizing the full potential of LLMs in digital health will require
close collaboration between the AI and healthcare professionals communities to
address technical challenges and ensure these powerful tools' safety, efficacy,
and equity.


  Finding the maximum size of a Sidon set in $\mathbb{F}_2^t$ is of research
interest for more than 40 years. In order to tackle this problem we recall a
one-to-one correspondence between sum-free Sidon sets and linear codes with
minimum distance greater or equal 5. Our main contribution about codes is a new
non-existence result for linear codes with minimum distance 5 based on a
sharpening of the Johnson bound. This gives, on the Sidon set side, an
improvement of the general upper bound for the maximum size of a Sidon set.
Additionally, we characterise maximal Sidon sets, that are those Sidon sets
which can not be extended by adding elements without loosing the Sidon
property, up to dimension 6 and give all possible sizes for dimension 7 and 8
determined by computer calculations.


  This paper studies the wireless spectrum sharing between a pair of
distributed primary radio (PR) and cognitive radio (CR) links. Assuming that
the PR link adapts its transmit power and/or rate upon receiving an
interference signal from the CR and such transmit adaptations are observable by
the CR, this results in a new form of feedback from the PR to CR, refereed to
as hidden PR feedback, whereby the CR learns the PR's strategy for transmit
adaptations without the need of a dedicated feedback channel from the PR. In
this paper, we exploit the hidden PR feedback to design new learning and
transmission schemes for spectrum sharing based CRs, namely active learning and
supervised transmission. For active learning, the CR initiatively sends a
probing signal to interfere with the PR, and from the observed PR transmit
adaptations the CR estimates the channel gain from its transmitter to the PR
receiver, which is essential for the CR to control its interference to the PR
during the subsequent data transmission. This paper proposes a new transmission
protocol for the CR to implement the active learning and the solutions to deal
with various practical issues for implementation, such as time synchronization,
rate estimation granularity, power measurement noise, and channel variation.
Furthermore, with the acquired knowledge from active learning, the CR designs a
supervised data transmission by effectively controlling the interference powers
both to and from the PR, so as to achieve the optimum performance tradeoffs for
the PR and CR links. Numerical results are provided to evaluate the
effectiveness of the proposed schemes for CRs under different system setups.


  Using the theory of hyperkahler manifolds, we generalize the notion of
Enriques surfaces to higher dimensions and construct several examples using
group actions on Hilbert schemes of points or moduli spaces of stable sheaves.


  Space plasma data analysis and mission operations are aided by the
categorization of plasma data between different regions of the magnetosphere
and identification of the boundary regions between them. Without computerized
automation this means sorting large amounts of data to hand-pick regions. Using
hand-labeled data created to support calibration of the Fast Plasma Instrument,
this task was automated for the MMS mission with 99.9% accuracy. The method
partitions the number density and ion temperature plane into sub-planes for
each region, fitting boundaries between the sub-planes using a machine learning
technique known as the support vector machine. This method presented in this
paper is novel because it offers both statistical automation power and
interpretability that yields scientific insight into how the task is performed.


  We present the results of an investigation of the local escape velocity
(Vesc) - line strength index relationship for 48 early type galaxies from the
SAURON sample, the first such study based on a large sample of galaxies with
both detailed integral field observations and extensive dynamical modelling.
Values of Vesc are computed using Multi Gaussian Expansion (MGE) photometric
fitting and axisymmetric, anisotropic Jeans' dynamical modelling simultaneously
on HST and ground-based images. We determine line strengths and escape
velocities at multiple radii within each galaxy, allowing an investigation of
the correlation within individual galaxies as well as amongst galaxies. We find
a tight correlation between Vesc and the line-strength indices. For Mgb we find
that this correlation exists not only between different galaxies but also
inside individual galaxies - it is both a local and global correlation. The
relation within individual galaxies has the same slope and offset as the global
relation to a good level of agreement, though there is significant intrinsic
scatter in the local gradients. We transform our line strength index
measurements to the single stellar population (SSP) equivalent age (t),
metallicity ([Z/H]) and enhancement ([$\alpha$/Fe]) and carry out a principal
component analysis of our SSP and Vesc data. We find that in this
four-dimensional parameter space the galaxies in our sample are to a good
approximation confined to a plane, given by $\log
\mathrm({V}_{\mathrm{esc}}/500\mathrm{km/s}) = 0.85 \mathrm{[Z/H]} + 0.43 \log
(\mathrm{t}/\mathrm{Gyrs})$ - 0.20. It is surprising that it is a combination
of age and metallicity that is conserved; this may indicate a 'conspiracy'
between age and metallicity or a weakness in the SSP models.


  We present the detection of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (kSZE)
signals from groups of galaxies as a function of halo mass down to $\log
(M_{500}/{\rm M_\odot}) \sim 12.3$, using the {\it Planck} CMB maps and
stacking about $40,000$ galaxy systems with known positions, halo masses, and
peculiar velocities. The signals from groups of different mass are constrained
simultaneously to take care of projection effects of nearby halos. The total
kSZE flux within halos estimated implies that the gas fraction in halos is
about the universal baryon fraction, even in low-mass halos, indicating that
the `missing baryons' are found. Various tests performed show that our results
are robust against systematic effects, such as contamination by infrared/radio
sources and background variations, beam-size effects and contributions from
halo exteriors. Combined with the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, our
results indicate that the `missing baryons' associated with galaxy groups are
contained in warm-hot media with temperatures between $10^5$ and $10^6\,{\rm
K}$.


  In this paper we consider a diffeomorphism $f$ of a compact manifold $M$
which contracts an invariant foliation $W$ with smooth leaves. If the
differential of $f$ on $TW$ has narrow band spectrum, there exist coordinates
$H _x:W_x\to T_xW$ in which $f|_W$ has polynomial form. We present a modified
approach that allows us to construct maps $H_x$ that depend smoothly on $x$
along the leaves of $W$. Moreover, we show that on each leaf they give a
coherent atlas with transition maps in a finite dimensional Lie group. Our
results apply, in particular, to $C^1$-small perturbations of algebraic
systems.


  We present a comparative study of effective temperatures determined from the
hydrogen Balmer lines and from the UV energy distribution for 140 DA white
dwarfs drawn from the IUE archive. Our results indicate that the optical and UV
temperatures of the majority of stars below T~40,000 K and within ~75 pc are in
fairly good agreement given the uncertainties. At higher temperatures and/or
larger distances, however, significant discrepancies are observed. Several
mechanisms are investigated to account for these discrepancies including the
effect of interstellar reddening, the presence of metals in the photosphere,
and the existence of unresolved binary white dwarfs. The results of our
analysis reveal that wavelength-dependent extinction is the most natural
explanation for the observed temperature differences. We also attempt to
predict the differences in optical and UV temperatures expected from unresolved
degenerate binaries by performing an exhaustive simulation of composite model
spectra. In light of these simulations, we then discuss some known double
degenerates and identify new binary candidates by restricting our analysis to
stars located within 75 pc where the effect of interstellar reddening is
significantly reduced.


  This is a reply to the comment from E. Amselem et al. on our paper (Phys.
Rev. Lett. 109, 150401 (2012), arXiv:1207.0059).


  Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication method that utilizes
the principles of quantum mechanics to establish secret keys. The central task
in the study of QKD is to prove security in the presence of an eavesdropper
with unlimited computational power. In this work, we successfully solve a
long-standing open question of the security analysis for the three-state QKD
protocol with realistic devices, i,e, the weak coherent state source. We prove
the existence of the squashing model for the measurement settings in the
three-state protocol. This enables the reduction of measurement dimensionality,
allowing for key rate computations using the numerical approach. We conduct
numerical simulations to evaluate the key rate performance. The simulation
results show that we achieve a communication distance of up to 200 km.


  We investigate the effect of long-range Coulomb interaction on the
two-electron scattering in the integer quantum Hall regime at bulk filling
factor 2. A parallel version of the Split-Step Fourier method evolves the exact
two-particle wave function in a 2D potential background reproducing the effect
of depleting gates in a realistic heterostructure, with the charge carrier
represented by a localized wavepacket of edge states. We compare the spatial
shift induced by Coulomb repulsion in the final two-electron wave function for
two indistinguishable electrons initialized in different configurations
according to their Landau index, and analyze their bunching probability and the
effect of screening. We finally prove the feasibility of the present operating
regime as a two-qubit conditional phase shifter to generate entanglement from
product states.


  The majority of smartphones either run iOS or Android operating systems. This
has created two distinct ecosystems largely controlled by Apple and Google -
they dictate which applications can run, how they run, and what kind of phone
resources they can access. Barring some exceptions in Android where different
phone manufacturers may have influence, users, developers, and governments are
left with little to no choice. Specifically, users need to entrust their
security and privacy to OS vendors and accept the functionality constraints
they impose. Given the wide use of Android and iOS, immediately leaving these
ecosystems is not practical, except in niche application areas. In this work,
we draw attention to the magnitude of this problem and why it is an undesirable
situation. As an alternative, we advocate the development of a new smartphone
architecture that securely transfers the control back to the users while
maintaining compatibility with the rich existing smartphone ecosystems. We
propose and analyze one such design based on advances in trusted execution
environments for ARM and RISC-V.


  (abridged) The present work is a first step to collect homogeneous abundances
and near-infrared (NIR) luminosities for a sample of dwarf irregular (dIrr)
galaxies, located in nearby groups. The use of NIR luminosities is intended to
provide a better proxy to mass than the blue luminosities commonly used in the
literature; in addition, selecting group members reduces the impact of
uncertain distances. Accurate abundances are derived to assess the galaxy
metallicity. Optical spectra are collected for Hii regions in the dIrrs,
allowing the determination of oxygen abundances by means of the
temperature-sensitive method. For each dIrr galaxy H-band imaging is performed
and the total magnitudes are measured via surface photometry. This high-quality
database allows us to build a well-defined luminosity-metallicity relation in
the range -13 >= M(H) >= -20. The scatter around its linear fit is reduced to
0.11 dex, the lowest of all relations currently available. There might exist a
difference between the relation for dIrrs and the relation for giant galaxies,
although a firm conclusion should await direct abundance determinations for a
significant sample of massive galaxies. This new dataset provides an improved
luminosity-metallicity relation, based on a standard NIR band, for dwarf
star-forming galaxies. The relation can now be compared with some confidence to
the predictions of models of galaxy evolution. Exciting follow-ups of this work
are (a) exploring groups with higher densities, (b) exploring nearby galaxy
clusters to probe environmental effects on the luminosity-metallicity relation,
and (c) deriving direct oxygen abundances in the central regions of
star-forming giant galaxies, to settle the question of a possible dichotomy
between the chemical evolution of dwarfs and that of massive galaxies.


  We describe a fast, stable algorithm for the solution of the inverse acoustic
scattering problem in two dimensions. Given full aperture far field
measurements of the scattered field for multiple angles of incidence, we use
Chen's method of recursive linearization to reconstruct an unknown sound speed
at resolutions of thousands of square wavelengths in a fully nonlinear regime.
Despite the fact that the underlying optimization problem is formally ill-posed
and non-convex, recursive linearization requires only the solution of a
sequence of linear least squares problems at successively higher frequencies.
By seeking a suitably band-limited approximation of the sound speed profile,
each least squares calculation is well-conditioned and involves the solution of
a large number of forward scattering problems, for which we employ a recently
developed, spectrally accurate, fast direct solver. For the largest problems
considered, involving 19,600 unknowns, approximately one million partial
differential equations were solved, requiring approximately two days to compute
using a parallel MATLAB implementation on a multi-core workstation.


  From a closed and controlled environment, neglecting all the external
disturbances, information processing systems are now exposed to the complexity
and the aleas of the physical environment, open and uncontrolled. Indeed, as
envisioned by Mark Weiser as early as 1991, the progresses made on wireless
communications, energy storage and the miniaturization of computer components,
made it possible the fusion of the physical and digital worlds. This fusion is
embodied in a set of concepts such as Internet of Things, Pervasive Computing,
Ubiquitous Computing, etc. From a synthesis of these different concepts, we
show that beyond the simple collection of environmental data from sensors, the
purpose of the information processing systems underlying these concepts is to
carry out relevant actions that the processing of these data suggests in our
environment. However, due to the complexity of these systems and the inability
to predict the effects of their actions, the responsibility for these actions
still often remains with users. Mark Weiser's vision of disappearing computing
is still far from being a reality. This situation calls for an epistemological
rupture that is proposed to be concretized through the systemic approach which
finds its foundations in constructivism. It is no longer a question of
predicting but of evaluating in vivo the effectiveness of these systems. The
perspectives for such an approach are discussed.


  The scaling functions $f(\psi')$ and $F(y)$ from the $\psi'$- and $y$-scaling
analyses of inclusive electron scattering from nuclei are explored within the
coherent density fluctuation model (CDFM). In addition to the CDFM formulation
in which the local density distribution is used, we introduce a new equivalent
formulation of the CDFM based on the one-body nucleon momentum distribution
(NMD). Special attention is paid to the different ways in which the excitation
energy of the residual system is taken into account in $y$- and
$\psi'$-scaling. Both functions, $f(\psi')$ and $F(y)$, are calculated using
different NMD's and are compared with the experimental data for a wide range of
nuclei. The good description of the data for $y < 0$ and $\psi' < 0$ (including
$\psi'< -1$) makes it possible to show the sensitivity of the calculated
scaling functions to the peculiarities of the NMD's in different regions of
momenta. It is concluded that the existing data on the $\psi'$- and $y$-scaling
are informative for the NMD's at momenta not larger than $2.0 \div 2.5$
fm$^{-1}$. The CDFM allows us to study simultaneously on the same footing the
role of both basic quantities, the momentum and density distributions, for the
description of scaling and superscaling phenomena in nuclei.


  We introduce the concept of braided BiHom-Frobenius algebras and give the
cocycle bicrossproduct construction for BiHom-Frobenius algebras. We find that
the extending problem for BiHom-Frobenius algebras can be classified by
non-abelian cohomology theory.


  Is speculative mathematics dangerous? Recent interactions between physics and
mathematics pose the question with some force: traditional mathematical norms
discourage speculation, but it is the fabric of theoretical physics. In
practice there can be benefits, but there can also be unpleasant and
destructive consequences. Serious caution is required, and the issue should be
considered before, rather than after, obvious damage occurs. With the hazards
carefully in mind, we propose a framework that should allow a healthy and
positive role for speculation.


  It is feasible to obtain any basic rule of the already known Quantum
Mechanics applying the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism to an interacting system of 2
fermionic degrees of freedom. The interaction between those fermionic variables
unveils also a primitive spin and zitterbewegung.


  We investigate the dynamics and evolution of coalescing neutron stars. The
three-dimensional Newtonian equations of hydrodynamics are integrated by the
`Piecewise Parabolic Method' However, we do include the effects of the emission
of gravitational waves on the hydrodynamics. The properties of neutron star
matter are described by the equation of state of Lattimer & Swesty. In addition
to the fundamental hydrodynamic quantities, density, momentum, and energy, we
follow the time evolution of the electron density in the stellar gas. Energy
losses and changes of the electron abundance due to the emission of neutrinos
are taken into account by an elaborate ``neutrino leakage scheme'', which
employs a careful calculation of the lepton number and energy source terms of
all neutrino types. The grid is Cartesian and equidistant with a resolution of
64**3 or 128**3, which allows us to calculate the self-gravity via fast Fourier
transforms.


  We study the diffusion limit of the strong solution to the
Vlasov-Maxwell-Boltzmann (VMB) system with initial data near a global
Maxwellian. By introducing a new decomposition of the solution to identify the
essential components for generating the initial layer, we prove the convergence
and establish the opitmal convergence rate of the classical solution to the VMB
system to the solution of the Navier-Stokes-Maxwell system based on the
spectral analysis.


  This paper introduces a framework for learning a minimum-norm stabilizing
controller for a system with unknown dynamics using model-free policy
optimization methods. The approach begins by first designing a Control Lyapunov
Function (CLF) for a (possibly inaccurate) dynamics model for the system, along
with a function which specifies a minimum acceptable rate of energy dissipation
for the CLF at different points in the state-space. Treating the energy
dissipation condition as a constraint on the desired closed-loop behavior of
the real-world system, we use penalty methods to formulate an unconstrained
optimization problem over the parameters of a learned controller, which can be
solved using model-free policy optimization algorithms using data collected
from the plant. We discuss when the optimization learns a stabilizing
controller for the real world system and derive conditions on the structure of
the learned controller which ensure that the optimization is strongly convex,
meaning the globally optimal solution can be found reliably. We validate the
approach in simulation, first for a double pendulum, and then generalize the
framework to learn stable walking controllers for underactuated bipedal robots
using the Hybrid Zero Dynamics framework. By encoding a large amount of
structure into the learning problem, we are able to learn stabilizing
controllers for both systems with only minutes or even seconds of training
data.


  The Mertens function is defined as $M(x) = \sum_{n \leq x} \mu(n)$, where
$\mu(n)$ is the M\"obius function. The Mertens conjecture states
$|M(x)/\sqrt{x}| < 1$ for $x > 1$, which was proven false in 1985 by showing
$\liminf M(x)/\sqrt{x} < -1.009$ and $\limsup M(x)/\sqrt{x} > 1.06$. The same
techniques used were revisited here with present day hardware and algorithms,
giving improved lower and upper bounds of $-1.837625$ and $1.826054$. In
addition, $M(x)$ was computed for all $x \leq 10^{16}$, recording all extrema,
all zeros, and $10^8$ values sampled at a regular interval. Lastly, an
algorithm to compute $M(x)$ in $O(x^{2/3+\varepsilon})$ time was used on all
powers of two up to $2^{73}$.


  We present two methods to determine an exomoon's sense of orbital motion
(SOM), one with respect to the planet's circumstellar orbit and one with
respect to the planetary rotation. Our simulations show that the required
measurements will be possible with the European Extremely Large Telescope
(E-ELT). The first method relies on mutual planet-moon events during stellar
transits. Eclipses with the moon passing behind (in front of) the planet will
be late (early) with regard to the moon's mean orbital period due to the finite
speed of light. This "transit timing dichotomy" (TTD) determines an exomoon's
SOM with respect to the circumstellar motion. For the ten largest moons in the
solar system, TTDs range between 2 and 12 s. The E-ELT will enable such
measurements for Earth-sized moons around nearby stars. The second method
measures distortions in the IR spectrum of the rotating giant planet when it is
transited by its moon. This Rossiter-McLaughlin effect (RME) in the planetary
spectrum reveals the angle between the planetary equator and the moon's
circumplanetary orbital plane, and therefore unveils the moon's SOM with
respect to the planet's rotation. A reasonably large moon transiting a directly
imaged planet like beta Pic b causes an RME amplitude of almost 100 m/s, about
twice the stellar RME amplitude of the transiting exoplanet HD209458b. Both new
methods can be used to probe the origin of exomoons, that is, whether they are
regular or irregular in nature.


  We study the influence of the isospin asymmetry on the phase structure of
strongly interacting quark matter near the tricritical point (TCP) using a
generalized Ginzburg-Landau approach. The effect has proven to be so drastic,
not only bringing about the shift of the location of TCP, but resulting in a
rich fine structure at the vicinity of TCP. In particular, we find that an
arbitrary small perturbation due to isospin density lifts the degeneracy of TCP
making it split into four independent multicritical points. Accordingly, the
homogeneous pion condensate and its solitonic counterpart come to occupy large
domains in the Ginzburg-Landau coupling space.


  This paper is devoted to investigating non-equilibrium phase transitions to
an absorbing state, which are generically encountered in reaction-diffusion
processes. It is a review, based on [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 195703; Phys. Rev.
Lett. 92, 255703; Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 100601], of recent progress in this
field that has been allowed by a non-perturbative renormalisation group
approach. We mainly focus on branching and annihilating random walks and show
that their critical properties strongly rely on non-perturbative features and
that hence the use of a non-perturbative method turns out to be crucial to get
a correct picture of the physics of these models.


  A cranked mean-field model with two-body T=1 and T=0 pairing interactions is
presented. Approximate projection onto good particle-number is enforced via an
extended Lipkin-Nogami scheme. Our calculations suggest the simultaneous
presence of both T=0 and T=1 pairing modes in N=Z nuclei. The transitions
between different pairing phases are discussed as a function of neutron/proton
excess, T$_z$, and rotational frequency, $\hbar\omega$. The additional binding
energy due to the T=0 $np$-pairing correlations, is suggested as a possible
microscopic explanation of the Wigner energy term in even-even nuclei.


  We propose that in time dependent backgrounds the holographic principle
should be replaced by the generalized second law of thermodynamics. For
isotropic open and flat universes with a fixed equation of state, the
generalized second law agrees with the cosmological holographic principle
proposed by Fischler and Susskind. However, in more complicated spacetimes the
two proposals disagree. A modified form of the holographic bound that applies
to a post-inflationary universe follows from the generalized second law.
However, in a spatially closed universe, or inside a black hole event horizon,
there is no simple relationship that connects the area of a region to the
maximum entropy it can contain.


  This paper concerns the construction of tests for universal hypothesis
testing problems, in which the alternate hypothesis is poorly modeled and the
observation space is large. The mismatched universal test is a feature-based
technique for this purpose. In prior work it is shown that its
finite-observation performance can be much better than the (optimal) Hoeffding
test, and good performance depends crucially on the choice of features. The
contributions of this paper include: 1) We obtain bounds on the number of
\epsilon distinguishable distributions in an exponential family. 2) This
motivates a new framework for feature extraction, cast as a rank-constrained
optimization problem. 3) We obtain a gradient-based algorithm to solve the
rank-constrained optimization problem and prove its local convergence.


  We initiate a series of works where we study the interior of dynamical
rotating vacuum black holes without symmetry. In the present paper, we take up
the problem starting from appropriate Cauchy data for the Einstein vacuum
equations defined on a hypersurface already within the black hole interior,
representing the expected geometry just inside the event horizon. We prove that
for all such data, the maximal Cauchy evolution can be extended across a
non-trivial piece of Cauchy horizon as a Lorentzian manifold with continuous
metric. In subsequent work, we will retrieve our assumptions on data assuming
only that the black hole event horizon geometry suitably asymptotes to a
rotating Kerr solution. In particular, if the exterior region of the Kerr
family is proven to be dynamically stable---as is widely expected---then it
will follow that the $C^0$-inextendibility formulation of Penrose's celebrated
strong cosmic censorship conjecture is in fact false. The proof suggests,
however, that the $C^0$-metric Cauchy horizons thus arising are generically
singular in an essential way, representing so-called "weak null singularities",
and thus that a revised version of strong cosmic censorship holds.


  In a previous work, Optics Communications 284 (2011) 2460--2465, we
considered a dielectric medium with an anti-reflection coating and a spatially
uniform index of refraction illuminated at normal incidence by a
quasimonochromatic field. Using the continuity equations for the
electromagnetic energy density and the Gordon momentum density, we constructed
a traceless, symmetric energy--momentum tensor for the closed system. In this
work, we relax the condition of a uniform index of refraction and consider a
dielectric medium with a spatially varying index of refraction that is
independent of time, which essentially represents a mechanically rigid
dielectric medium due to external constraints. Using continuity equations for
energy density and for Gordon momentum density, we construct a symmetric
energy--momentum matrix, whose four-divergence is equal to a generalized
Helmholtz force density four-vector. Assuming that the energy-momentum matrix
has tensor transformation properties under a symmetry group of space-time
coordinate transformations, we derive the global conservation laws for the
total energy, momentum, and angular momentum.


  We discuss in detail signals for CP violation in the Higgs boson and
tau-slepton sectors through the production processes $\mu^+\mu^- \to
\tilde{\tau}_i^- \tilde{\tau}_j^+$, where $i,j=1,2$ label the two $\tau$
slepton mass eigenstates in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We
assume that the soft breaking parameters of third generation sfermions contain
CP violating phases, which induce CP violation in the Higgs sector through
quantum corrections. We classify all the observables for probing CP violation
in the Higgs boson and $\tau$ slepton sectors. These observables depend on the
initial muon beam polarization, where we include transverse polarization
states. If the heavy Higgs bosons can decay into tau slepton pairs, a complete
determination of the CP properties of the neutral Higgs boson and
$\tau$--slepton systems is possible. The interference between the Higgs boson
and gauge boson contributions could also provide a powerful method for probing
CP violation, if transversely polarized muon beams are available. We show in
detail how to directly measure CP violation in the tau slepton system, under
the assumption that the neutral Higgs mixing angles are determined through the
on--shell production of the neutral Higgs bosons.


  Recombination is a hadronization process that converts partons to hadrons at
late time, but the description has no quantitative significance without some
meaningful input on the parton distributions at earlier time. Thus observations
of particle spectra and correlations have definitive implications on the
partonic processes at all transverse momenta. After presenting a general review
of the subject at the Workshop, I selected two topics in nuclear collisions for
more detailed discussion, which are summarized here. One is on the azimuthal
anisotropy at low $p_T$ due to hard or semihard scattering of partons that
create ridges with or without triggers. The ridge particles are the products of
recombination of thermal partons enhanced by the energy loss of hard or
semihard partons. Their $\phi$ dependence at midrapidity can be determined
essentially from geometry. The other topic is on the scaling behavior in $\phi$
and centrality at high $p_T$, where the hadronization process is dominated by
TS and SS recombination. The relevant RHIC data are found to have the same
scaling behavior. But at LHC such scaling is badly broken at $p_T \sim 10$
GeV/c if two-jet recombination is important. At the end of this article some
comments are made to relate our study of the effects of semihard partons to the
observation of minijets in the analyses of STAR data.


  We demonstrate, for a widely used model of channels with polarization
dependent loss (PDL), that channel capacity is achieved by a simple
interference cancellation scheme in conjunction with a universal precoder.
Crucially, the proposed scheme is not only information-theoretically optimal,
but it is also exceptionally simple and concrete. It transforms the PDL channel
into separate scalar additive white Gaussian noise channels, allowing
off-the-shelf coding and modulation schemes designed for such channels to
approach capacity. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) penalty incurred under 6 dB
of PDL is reduced to the information-theoretic minimum of a mere 1 dB as
opposed to the 4 dB SNR penalty incurred under naive over-provisioning.


  The significant optical and size benefits of using a curved focal surface for
imaging systems have been well studied yet never brought to market for lack of
a high-quality, mass-producible, curved image sensor. In this work we
demonstrate that commercial silicon CMOS image sensors can be thinned and
formed into accurate, highly curved optical surfaces with undiminished
functionality. Our key development is a pneumatic forming process that avoids
rigid mechanical constraints and suppresses wrinkling instabilities. A
combination of forming-mold design, pressure membrane elastic properties, and
controlled friction forces enables us to gradually contact the die at the
corners and smoothly press the sensor into a spherical shape. Allowing the die
to slide into the concave target shape enables a threefold increase in the
spherical curvature over prior approaches having mechanical constraints that
resist deformation, and create a high-stress, stretch-dominated state. Our
process creates a bridge between the high precision and low-cost but planar
CMOS process, and ideal non-planar component shapes such as spherical imagers
for improved optical systems. We demonstrate these curved sensors in prototype
cameras with custom lenses, measuring exceptional resolution of 3220
line-widths per picture height at an aperture of f/1.2 and nearly 100% relative
illumination across the field. Though we use a 1/2.3" format image sensor in
this report, we also show this process is generally compatible with many state
of the art imaging sensor formats. By example, we report photogrammetry test
data for an APS-C sized silicon die formed to a 30$^\circ$ subtended spherical
angle. These gains in sharpness and relative illumination enable a new
generation of ultra-high performance, manufacturable, digital imaging systems
for scientific, industrial, and artistic use.


  We provide the first separation in the approximation guarantee achievable by
truthful and non-truthful combinatorial auctions with polynomial communication.
Specifically, we prove that any truthful mechanism guaranteeing a
$(\frac{3}{4}-\frac{1}{240}+\varepsilon)$-approximation for two buyers with XOS
valuations over $m$ items requires $\exp(\Omega(\varepsilon^2 \cdot m))$
communication, whereas a non-truthful algorithm by Dobzinski and Schapira [SODA
2006] and Feige [2009] is already known to achieve a
$\frac{3}{4}$-approximation in $poly(m)$ communication.
  We obtain our separation by proving that any {simultaneous} protocol ({not}
necessarily truthful) which guarantees a
$(\frac{3}{4}-\frac{1}{240}+\varepsilon)$-approximation requires communication
$\exp(\Omega(\varepsilon^2 \cdot m))$. The taxation complexity framework of
Dobzinski [FOCS 2016] extends this lower bound to all truthful mechanisms
(including interactive truthful mechanisms).


  We investigate form factors of local operators in the multi-component Quantum
Non-linear Schr\"odinger model, a prototype theory solvable by the so-called
nested Bethe Ansatz. We determine the analytic properties of the infinite
volume form factors using the coordinate Bethe Ansatz solution and we establish
a connection with the finite volume matrix elements. In the two-component
models we derive a set of recursion relations for the "magnonic form factors",
which are the matrix elements on the nested Bethe Ansatz states. In certain
simple cases (involving states with only one spin-impurity) we obtain explicit
solutions for the recursion relations.


  We study the holographic complexity of noncommutative field theories. The
four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ noncommutative super Yang-Mills theory with
Moyal algebra along two of the spatial directions has a well known holographic
dual as a type IIB supergravity theory with a stack of D3 branes and
non-trivial NS-NS B fields. We start from this example and find that the late
time holographic complexity growth rate, based on the "complexity equals
action" conjecture, experiences an enhancement when the non-commutativity is
turned on. This enhancement saturates a new limit which is exactly 1/4 larger
than the commutative value. We then attempt to give a quantum mechanics
explanation of the enhancement. Finite time behavior of the complexity growth
rate is also studied. Inspired by the non-trivial result, we move on to more
general setup in string theory where we have a stack of D$p$ branes and also
turn on the B field. Multiple noncommutative directions are considered in
higher $p$ cases.


  In a standing wave of light, a difference in spatial distributions of
multipolar atom-field interactions may alter the definition of the magic
wavelength to minimize the uncertainty of optical lattice clocks. We show that
the magic wavelength can be determined so as to eliminate the spatial mismatch
in electric dipole, magnetic dipole, and electric quadrupole interactions for
specific combinations of standing waves. Experimental prospects of such
lattices used with a blue magic wavelength are discussed.


  This paper studies the formation stabilization problem of asynchronous
nonlinear multi-agent systems (MAS) subject to parametric uncertainties,
external disturbances and bounded time-varying communication delays. A
self-triggered min-max distributed model predictive control (DMPC) approach is
proposed to handle these practical issues. At triggering instants, each agent
solves a local min-max optimization problem based on local system states and
predicted system states of neighbors, determines its next triggering instant
and broadcasts its predicted state trajectory to its neighbors. As a result,
the communication load is greatly alleviated while retaining robustness and
comparable control performance compared to periodic algorithms. In order to
handle time-varying delays, a novel consistency constraint is incorporated into
each local optimization problem to restrict the deviation between the newest
predicted states and previously broadcast predicted states. Consequently, each
agent can utilize previously predicted states of its neighbors to achieve
cooperation in the presence of time-varying delays and asynchronous
communication induced by the distributed triggered scheduler. The recursive
feasibility of the proposed algorithm and the closed-loop stability of MAS at
triggering time instants are proven. Finally, numerical simulations are
conducted to verify the efficiency of the proposed control method.


  We examine the X-ray point source population and 2-10 keV luminosity for two
galaxies with high star formation rates (SFRs), NGC 4194 and NGC 7541. The
X-ray point source luminosity function (XLF) for these two galaxies is
consistent with the XLF found by Grimm et al. (2003) for a sample of
star-forming galaxies. Combining our results with a sample of galaxies with
SFRs above 1 solar mass/year, we find that the number of X-ray point sources
above a luminosity of 2E38 erg/s is N = (1.8 +/- 0.4) SFR/(solar mass/year).
This number is lower than previously inferred by Grimm et al. based on a sample
of galaxies with lower SFRs. We find that the ratio of X-ray luminosity in the
2-10 keV band to SFR is L_X/(10E40 erg/s) = (0.37 +/- 0.08) SFR/(solar
mass/year). This value may serve as a calibration in attempts to use X-ray
luminosity to measure the SFR of galaxies at cosmological distances. The ratio
of mass accreted onto compact objects versus mass used to form stars is near
1E-6. This ratio may be useful in constraining population synthesis models of
X-ray binary formation in actively star forming systems.