  Polyethylene (PE) chains, with CH2 groups replaced by CBr2 at regular
intervals ("precision PE"), have been observed to exhibit competing polymorphs
driven by a preference for quantized fold lengths by Tasaki et al. Motivated by
this recent discovery, the crystallisation behaviour of such precision PE
chains, 400 carbons long with CBr2 groups placed regularly at every 21st
carbon, is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. The
united-monomer model of PE is extended to include dibromo groups, with steric
clashes at the bromines reflected in a triple-well bending potential,
demonstrating its function as a preferred fold site. Different crystallisation
protocols, continuous-cooling and self-seeding, reveal remarkably different
crystals. Using self-seeding, the crystalline lamellar thickness increases
monotonically with temperature, in quantized multiples of the distance between
dibromo units. Polymer chains are observed to fold preferentially at the
dibromo groups and such groups appear to be tolerated within the crystal
lamellae. On quenching the bromos assemble to form registered layers, not
unlike Smectic phases observed in liquid crystals, which confirms the
experimental observation of competing Form I and Form I' polymorphs.


  Recently, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) collaboration reported the
discovery of the TeV halo around the Geminga pulsar. The TeV emission is
believed to originate from inverse Compton scattering of pulsar-injected
electrons/positrons off cosmic microwave background photons. In the mean time,
these electrons should inevitably radiate X-ray photons via the synchrotron
radiation, providing a useful constraint on the magnetic field in the TeV halo.
In this work, we analyse the data of XMM-Newton and Chandra, and obtain an
upper limit for the diffuse X-ray flux in a region of $600''$ around the
Geminga pulsar, which is at a level of $\lesssim 10^{-14}\rm
erg\,cm^{-2}s^{-1}$. Through a numerical modelling on both the X-ray and the
TeV observations assuming isotropic diffusion of injected electrons/positrons,
we find the magnetic field inside the TeV halo is required to be $<1\mu$G,
which is significantly weaker than the typical magnetic field in the
interstellar medium. The weak magnetic field together with the small diffusion
coefficient inferred from HAWC's observation implies that the Bohm limit of
particle diffusion may probably have been achieved in the TeV halo. We also
discuss alternative possibilities for the weak X-ray emission, such as the
hadronic origin of the TeV emission or a specific magnetic field topology, in
which a weak magnetic field and a very small diffusion coefficient might be
avoided.


  We study isometric immersions of surfaces of constant curvature into the
homogeneous spaces H2xR and S2xR. In particular, we prove that there exists a
unique isometric immersion from the standard 2-sphere of constant curvature c>0
into H2xR and a unique one into S2xR when c>1, up to isometries of the ambient
space. Moreover, we show that the hyperbolic plane of constant curvature c<-1
cannot be isometrically immersed into H2xR or S2xR.


  For high-Tc superconductors, clarifying the role and origin of the pseudogap
is essential for understanding the pairing mechanism. Among the various models
describing the pseudogap, the preformed Cooper pair model is a potential
candidate. Therefore, we present experimental evidence for the preformed Cooper
pair model by studying the pseudogap spectrum observed in the optical
conductivity of a Ca10(Pt4As8)(Fe2As2)5 (Tc = 34.6 K) single crystal. We
observed a clear pseudogap structure in the optical conductivity and observed
its temperature dependence. In the superconducting (SC) state, one SC gap with
a gap size of {\Delta} = 26 cm-1, a scattering rate of 1/{\tau} = 360 cm-1 and
a low-frequency extra Drude component were observed. Spectral weight analysis
revealed that the SC gap and pseudogap are formed from the same Drude band.
This means that the pseudogap is a gap structure observed as a result of a
continuous temperature evolution of the SC gap observed below Tc. This provides
clear experimental evidence for the preformed Cooper pair model.


  The authors introduce a novel approach to study the propagation of high
frequency acoustic phonons in which the generation and detection involves two
spatially separated superlattices $\sim 1 {\rm \mu m}$ apart. Propagating modes
of frequencies up to $\sim 1 {\rm THz}$ escape from the superlattice where they
are generated and reach the second superlattice where they are detected. The
measured frequency spectrum reveals finite size effects, which can be accounted
for by a continuum elastic model.


  The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) detector has observed
several radio pulses coming from the surface of the ice cap at the South Pole.
These pulses were attributed to upward-going atmospheric particle showers
instead of the downward-going showers induced by cosmic rays that exhibit a
characteristic polarity inversion of the radio signal due to reflection in the
ice. Coherent transition radiation from cosmic-ray showers developing in the
atmosphere and intercepting the ice surface has been suggested as a possible
and alternative explanation of these so-called "anomalous" events. To test this
interpretation, we have developed an extension of ZHS, a program to calculate
coherent pulses from electromagnetic showers, to deal with showers that transit
a planar interface between two homogeneous and dielectric media, including
transition radiation. By considering different geometries, it is found that all
pulses from air showers intercepting the ice surface and detected at the height
of ANITA, display the same polarity as pulses emitted by ultra-high-energy
cosmic-ray showers that fully develop in the atmosphere and are reflected on
the ice. We find that transition radiation is disfavored as a possible
explanation of the anomalous ANITA events.


  Named Data Networks provide a clean-slate redesign of the Future Internet for
efficient content distribution. Because Internet of Things are expected to
compose a significant part of Future Internet, most content will be managed by
constrained devices. Such devices are often equipped with limited CPU, memory,
bandwidth, and energy supply. However, the current Named Data Networks design
neglects the specific requirements of Internet of Things scenarios and many
data structures need to be further optimised. The purpose of this research is
to provide an efficient strategy to route in Named Data Networks by
constructing a Forwarding Information Base using Iterated Bloom Filters defined
as I(FIB)F. We propose the use of content names based on iterative hashes. This
strategy leads to reduce the overhead of packets. Moreover, the memory and the
complexity required in the forwarding strategy are lower than in current
solutions. We compare our proposal with solutions based on hierarchical names
and Standard Bloom Filters. We show how to further optimise I(FIB)F by
exploiting the structure information contained in hierarchical content names.
Finally, two strategies may be followed to reduce: (i) the overall memory for
routing or (ii) the probability of false positives.


  Let $G$ be a simple strongly connected weighted directed graph. Let
$\mathcal{G}$ denote the spanning tree graph of $G$. That is, the vertices of
$\mathcal{G}$ consist of the directed rooted spanning trees on $G$, and the
edges of $\mathcal{G}$ consist of pairs of trees $(t_i, t_j)$ such that $t_j$
can be obtained from $t_i$ by adding the edge from the root of $t_i$ to the
root of $t_j$ and deleting the outgoing edge from the root of $t_j$. A formula
for the ratio of the sum of the weights of the directed rooted spanning trees
on $\mathcal{G}$ to the sum of the weights of the directed rooted spanning
trees on $G$ was recently given by Biane and Chapuy. We provide an alternative
proof of this formula, which is both simple and combinatorial. The proof
involves working with the stochastic zeta function of an irreducible Markov
chain. By generalizing the stochastic zeta function we also recover the general
result of Biane and Chapuy which gives a formula for the determinant of the
Schr\"odinger matrix on $\mathcal{G}$ corresponding to a given Schr\"odinger
matrix on $G$, in terms of the minors of the latter matrix.


  Automatic kinship verification aims to determine whether some individuals
belong to the same family. It is of great research significance to help missing
persons reunite with their families. In this work, the challenging problem is
progressively addressed in two respects. First, we propose a deep siamese
network to quantify the relative similarity between two individuals. When given
two input face images, the deep siamese network extracts the features from them
and fuses these features by combining and concatenating. Then, the fused
features are fed into a fully-connected network to obtain the similarity score
between two faces, which is used to verify the kinship. To improve the
performance, a jury system is also employed for multi-model fusion. Second, two
deep siamese networks are integrated into a deep triplet network for
tri-subject (i.e., father, mother and child) kinship verification, which is
intended to decide whether a child is related to a pair of parents or not.
Specifically, the obtained similarity scores of father-child and mother-child
are weighted to generate the parent-child similarity score for kinship
verification. Recognizing Families In the Wild (RFIW) is a challenging kinship
recognition task with multiple tracks, which is based on Families in the Wild
(FIW), a large-scale and comprehensive image database for automatic kinship
recognition. The Kinship Verification (track I) and Tri-Subject Verification
(track II) are supported during the ongoing RFIW2020 Challenge. Our team
(ustc-nelslip) ranked 1st in track II, and 3rd in track I. The code is
available at https://github.com/gniknoil/FG2020-kinship.


  We consider the obstacle problem for the infinity Laplace equation. Given a
Lipschitz boundary function and a Lipschitz obstacle we prove the existence and
uniqueness of a super infinity-harmonic function constrained to lie above the
obstacle which is infinity harmonic where it lies strictly above the obstacle.
Moreover, we show that this function is the limit of value functions of a game
we call obstacle tug-of-war.


  We define a class of groups equipped with an invariant probability measure,
which includes all compact groups and is closed under taking ultraproducts with
the induced Loeb measure; in fact, this class also contains the ultraproducts
all locally compact unimodular amenable groups. We call the members of this
class probability groups and develop the basics of the theory of their
measure-preserving actions on probability spaces, including a natural notion of
mixing. A short proof reveals that for probability groups mixing implies double
recurrence, which generalizes a theorem of Bergelson and Tao proved for
ultraproducts of finite groups. Moreover, a quantitative version of our proof
gives that $\varepsilon$-approximate mixing implies
$3\sqrt{\varepsilon}$-approximate double recurrence. Examples of approximately
mixing probability groups are quasirandom groups introduced by Gowers, so the
last theorem generalizes and sharpens the corresponding results for quasirandom
groups of Bergelson and Tao, as well as of Austin. Lastly, we point out that
the fact that the ultraproduct of locally compact unimodular amenable groups is
a probability group provides a general alternative to Furstenberg
correspondence principle.


  We develop a harmonic analysis on objects of some category $C_2$ of
infinite-dimensional filtered vector spaces over a finite field. It includes
two-dimensional local fields and adelic spaces of algebraic surfaces defined
over a finite field. The main result is the theory of the Fourier transform on
these objects and two-dimensional Poisson formulas.


  We have initiated a search for extended ultraviolet disk (XUV-disk) galaxies
in the local universe. Herein, we compare GALEX UV and visible--NIR images of
189 nearby (D$<$40 Mpc) S0--Sm galaxies included in the GALEX Atlas of Nearby
Galaxies and present the first catalogue of XUV-disk galaxies. We find that
XUV-disk galaxies are surprisingly common but have varied relative (UV/optical)
extent and morphology. Type~1 objects ($\ga$20% incidence) have structured,
UV-bright/optically-faint emission features in the outer disk, beyond the
traditional star formation threshold. Type~2 XUV-disk galaxies ($\sim$10%
incidence) exhibit an exceptionally large,
UV-bright/optically-low-surface-brightness (LSB) zone having blue $UV-K_s$
outside the effective extent of the inner, older stellar population, but not
reaching extreme galactocentric distance. If the activity occuring in XUV-disks
is episodic, a higher fraction of present-day spirals could be influenced by
such outer disk star formation. Type~1 disks are associated with spirals of all
types, whereas Type~2 XUV-disks are predominantly found in late-type spirals.
Type~2 XUV-disks are forming stars quickly enough to double their [presently
low] stellar mass in the next Gyr (assuming a constant SF rate). XUV-disk
galaxies of both types are systematically more gas-rich than the general galaxy
population. Minor external perturbation may stimulate XUV-disk incidence, at
least for Type~1 objects. XUV-disks are the most actively evolving galaxies
growing via inside-out disk formation in the current epoch, and may constitute
a segment of the galaxy population experiencing significant, continued gas
accretion from the intergalactic medium or neighboring objects.


  Molecular line observations of NH3 (J,K)=(1,1), (2,2) and CH3OH at 24.93GHz
taken with the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) toward the massive
twin cores NGC6334 I & I(N) reveal significant variations in the line emission
between the two massive cores. The UCHII region/hot core NGC6334 I exhibits
strong thermal NH3 and CH3OH emission adjacent to the UCHII region and
coincident with two mm continuum peaks observed by Hunter et al. (in prep.). In
contrast, we find neither compact NH3 nor thermal CH3OH line emission toward
NGC6334 I(N). There, the NH3 emission is distributed over a broad region (>1')
without a clear peak, and we find Class I CH3OH maser emission with peak
brightness temperatures up to 7000K. The maser emission peaks appear to be
spatially associated with the interfaces between the molecular outflows and the
ambient dense gas. Peak NH3(1,1) line brightness temperatures >= 70K in both
regions indicate gas temperatures of the same order. NH3 emission is also
detected toward the outflow in NGC6334 I resulting in an estimated rotational
temperature of Trot~19K. Furthermore, we observe CH3OH and NH3 absorption
toward the UCHII region, the velocity structure is consistent with expanding
molecular gas around the UCHII region. Thermal and kinematic effects possibly
imposed from the UCHII region on the molecular core are also discussed.


  The paper studies the Sample Average Approximation method to solve risk
averse stochastic programs expressed in terms of divergence risk measures. It
continues the recent contribution [18] on the first order asymptotics of the
optimal values. We study asymptotic statistical properties of the optimal
solutions, deriving general convergence rates and asymptotic distributions. As
a crucial point the investigations are based on a new type of conditions from
the theory of empirical processes which do not rely on pathwise analytical
properties of the goal functions. In particular, continuity in the parameter is
not imposed in advance as usual in the literature on the Sample Average
Approximation method. It is also shown that the new condition is satisfied if
the paths of the goal functions are Hoelder continuous so that the main results
carry over in this case. Moreover, the main results are applied to goal
functions whose paths are piecewise linear as e.g. in two stage mixed-integer
programs.


  Factorized Databases (FDBs) and the recently introduced Path Multiset
Representations (PMRs) both aim at compactly representing results of database
queries, and are quite different at first sight. FDBs were developed for the
relational database model and represent finite sets of tuples, all of which
have the same length. PMRs, on the other hand, were developed for the graph
database model and represent possibly infinite multisets of variable-length
paths. In this paper, we connect both representations to a common framework
that is rooted in formal language theory. In particular, we show why FDBs are a
special case of context-free grammars, which allows us to generalize FDBs
beyond the standard setting of database relations. Taking into account that
PMRs and finite automata are closely connected, this opens up a wide range of
questions about tradeoffs between their respective size and the efficiency of
query-plan operations on automata/grammar based representations. As a first
step, we present here first results on size trade-offs between fundamental
variants of automata-based and grammar-based compact representations.


  We present a meshfree numerical solver for scalar conservation laws in one
space dimension. Points representing the solution are moved according to their
characteristic velocities. Particle interaction is resolved by purely local
particle management. Since no global remeshing is required, shocks stay sharp
and propagate at the correct speed, while rarefaction waves are created where
appropriate. The method is TVD, entropy decreasing, exactly conservative, and
has no numerical dissipation. Difficulties involving transonic points do not
occur, however inflection points of the flux function pose a slight challenge,
which can be overcome by a special treatment. Away from shocks the method is
second order accurate, while shocks are resolved with first order accuracy. A
postprocessing step can recover the second order accuracy. The method is
compared to CLAWPACK in test cases and is found to yield an increase in
accuracy for comparable resolutions.


  Various sign-posts of recent star-formation activity, such as water and
methanol maser emission or magnetically active low-mass young stars, can be
detected with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio arrays. The
extremely accurate astrometry already attainable with VLBI instruments implies
that the trigonometric parallax and the proper motion of these objects can be
measured to better than 1% for sources within a few hundred parsecs of the Sun,
and better than 10% for objects at a few kiloparsecs. An ngVLA with baselines
extending to several thousand km will have a sensitivity more than one order of
magnitude better than current VLBI instruments, and will enable such highly
accurate astrometric measurements to be performed throughout the Milky Way.
This will provide a full six-dimensional view (three spatial and three velocity
coordinates) of star-formation in the Galactic disk, and have a transformative
impact on our understanding of both star-formation processes and Galactic
structure.


  Binding energies calculated from using the Bethe-Salpeter equation in the
simplest ladder approximation significantly differ from those obtained in the
non-relativistic standard instantaneous approximation. While they should a
priori be better, they turn out to be further away from an exact calculation in
the case of scalar neutral particles or from experiment in the case of the
Coulomb interaction. Part of the discrepancy is due to the omission in the
interaction kernel of contributions corresponding to crossed-boson-exchange
diagrams. The role of these contributions is examined numerically, using a
simple approximation. The sensitivity to both the coupling constant and the
mass of the exchanged boson is considered.


  Planetary mass loss is governed by several physical mechanisms, including
photoionisation that may impact the evolution of the atmosphere. Stellar
radiation energy deposited as heat depends strongly on the energy of the
primary electrons following photoionisation and on the local fractional
ionisation. All these factors affect the model-estimated atmospheric mass loss
rates and other characteristics of the outflow in ways that have not been
clearly elucidated. The shape of the XUV stellar spectra influences strongly
the photoionisation and heating deposition on the atmosphere. We elaborate on
the local and planet-wise effects, to clearly demonstrate the significance of
such interactions. Using the PLUTO code, we performed 1D hydrodynamics
simulations from Neptune to Jupiter size planets and stars from M dwarfs to
Sun-like. Our results indicate a significant decrease of the planetary mass
loss rate for all planetary systems when secondary ionisation is taken into
account. The mass loss rate is found to decrease by 43$\%$ for the more massive
exoplanet to 54$\%$ for the less massive exoplanet orbiting solar-like stars,
and up to 52$\%$ for a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a M type star. Our results
also indicate much faster ionisation of the atmosphere due to photoelectrons.
We built a self-consistent model including secondary ionisation by
photoelectron to evaluate its impact on mass loss rates. We find that
photoelectrons affect the mass loss rates by factors that are potentially
important for planetary evolution theories. We also find that enhanced
ionisation occurs at altitudes that are often probed with specific atomic lines
in transmission spectroscopy. Future modelling of these processes should
include the role of photoelectrons. Finally, we make available a simple yet
accurate parameterisation for atomic hydrogen atmospheres.


  I present the numerical computation of speed and direction of the drift of a
spiral wave in an excitable medium in the presence of an electric field. In
contrast to earlier results, the drift speed presents a strong variation close
to the parameter value where the drift speed component along the field changes
direction. Using a simple phenomenological model and results from a numerical
linear stability analysis of scroll waves, I show this behavior can be
attributed to a resonance of the meander modes with the translation modes of
the spiral wave. Extending this phenomenological model to scroll waves also
clarifies the link between the drift and long wavelength instabilities of
scroll waves.


  We have examined the period-luminosity (P-L) relation for delta Scuti stars
using Gaia DR2 parallaxes. We included 228 stars from the catalogue of
Rodriguez et al. (2000), as well as 1124 stars observed in the four-year Kepler
mission. For each star we considered the dominant pulsation period, and used
DR2 parallaxes and extinction corrections to determine absolute V magnitudes.
Many stars fall along a sequence in the P-L relation coinciding with
fundamental-mode pulsation, while others pulsate in shorter-period overtones.
The latter stars tend to have higher effective temperatures, consistent with
theoretical calculations. Surprisingly, we find an excess of stars lying on a
ridge with periods half that of the fundamental. We suggest this may be due to
a 2:1 resonance between the third or fourth overtone and the fundamental mode.


  We characterize a four-weight inequality involving the Hardy operator and the
Copson operator. More precisely, given $p_1, p_2, q_1, q_2 \in (0, \infty)$, we
find necessary and sufficient conditions on nonnegative measurable functions
$u_1, u_2, v_1, v_2$ on $(0,\infty)$ for which there exists a positive constant
$c$ such that the inequality \begin{align*} &\bigg(\int_0^{\infty}
\bigg(\int_0^t f(s)^{p_2} v_2(s)^{p_2} ds \bigg)^{\frac{q_2}{p_2}} u_2(t)^{q_2}
dt \bigg)^{\frac{1}{q_2}} \notag \\ & \hspace{3cm} \leq c \bigg(\int_0^{\infty}
\bigg(\int_t^{\infty} f(s)^{p_1} v_1(s)^{p_1} ds \bigg)^{\frac{q_1}{p_1}}
u_1(t)^{q_1} dt \bigg)^{\frac{1}{q_1}} \end{align*} holds for every
non-negative measurable function $f$ on $(0, \infty)$. The proof is based on
discretizing and antidiscretizing techniques. The principal innovation consists
in development of a new method which carefully avoids duality techniques and
therefore enables us to obtain the characterization in previously unavailable
situations, solving thereby a long-standing open problem. We then apply the
characterization of the inequality to the establishing of criteria for
embeddings between weighted Copson spaces $\operatorname{Cop}_{p_1,q_1} (u_1,
v_1)$ and weighted Ces\`{a}ro spaces $\operatorname{Ces}_{p_2, q_2} (u_2,
v_2)$, and also between spaces $S^q(w)$ equipped with the norm $\|f\|_{S^q(w)}=
\bigg(\int_0^\infty [f^{**}(t)-f^*(t)]^q w(t)\,dt\bigg)^{{1}/{q}}$ and
classical Lorentz spaces of type $\Lambda$.


  We generalize to higher dimension results of Birkhoff and Mather on the
existence of orbits wandering in regions of instability of twist maps. This
generalization is strongly inspired by the one already proposed by Mather.
However, its advantage is that it really contains most of the results of
Birkhoff and Mather on twist maps.


  We present an identity for an unbiased estimate of a general statistical
distribution. The identity computes the distribution density from dividing a
histogram sum over a local window by a correction factor from a mean-force
integral, and the mean force can be evaluated as a configuration average. We
show that the optimal window size is roughly the inverse of the local
mean-force fluctuation. The new identity offers a more robust and precise
estimate than a previous one by Adib and Jarzynski [J. Chem. Phys. 122, 014114,
(2005)]. It also allows a straightforward generalization to an arbitrary
ensemble and a joint distribution of multiple variables. Particularly we derive
a mean-force enhanced version of the weighted histogram analysis method (WHAM).
The method can be used to improve distributions computed from molecular
simulations. We illustrate the use in computing a potential energy
distribution, a volume distribution in a constant-pressure ensemble, a radial
distribution function and a joint distribution of amino acid backbone dihedral
angles.


  We present SwissBERT, a masked language model created specifically for
processing Switzerland-related text. SwissBERT is a pre-trained model that we
adapted to news articles written in the national languages of Switzerland --
German, French, Italian, and Romansh. We evaluate SwissBERT on natural language
understanding tasks related to Switzerland and find that it tends to outperform
previous models on these tasks, especially when processing contemporary news
and/or Romansh Grischun. Since SwissBERT uses language adapters, it may be
extended to Swiss German dialects in future work. The model and our open-source
code are publicly released at https://github.com/ZurichNLP/swissbert.


  We report the discovery of a z_{phot}=6.18^{+0.05}_{-0.07} (95% confidence
level) dwarf galaxy, lensed into four images by the galaxy cluster MACS
J0329.6-0211 (z_{l}=0.45). The galaxy is observed as a high-redshift dropout in
HST/ACS/WFC3 CLASH and Spitzer/IRAC imaging. Its redshift is securely
determined due to a clear detection of the Lyman-break in the 18-band
photometry, making this galaxy one of the highest-redshift multiply-lensed
objects known to date with an observed magnitude of F125W=24.00\pm0.04 AB mag
for its highest-magnified image. We also present the first strong-lensing
analysis of this cluster uncovering 15 additional multiply-imaged candidates of
five lower-redshift sources spanning the range z_{s}~2-4. The mass model
independently supports the high photometric redshift and reveals magnifications
of 11.6^{+8.9}_{-4.1}, 17.6^{+6.2}_{-3.9}, 3.9^{+3.0}_{-1.7}, and
3.7^{+1.3}_{-0.2}, respectively, for the four images of the high-redshift
galaxy. With this we construct a source image with a physical resolution of
~200 pc when the universe was ~0.9 Gyr old, where the z~6.2 galaxy occupies a
source-plane area of approximately 2.2 kpc^{2}. Modeling the observed spectral
energy distribution using population synthesis models, we find a demagnified
stellar mass of ~10^{9} {M}_{sun}, subsolar metallicity (Z/Z_{sun}~0.5), low
dust content (A_{V}~0.1 mag), a demagnified star formation rate (SFR) of ~3.2
{M}_{sun} yr^{-1}, and a specific SFR of ~3.4 Gyr^{-1}, all consistent with the
properties of local dwarf galaxies.


  We present results from extensive simulations of driven vortex lattices
interacting with periodic arrays of pinning sites. Changing an applied driving
force produces a rich variety of novel dynamical plastic flow phases which are
very distinct from those observed in systems with random pinning arrays.
Signatures of the transition between these different dynamical phases include
sudden jumps in the current-voltage curves as well as marked changes in the
vortex trajectories and the vortex lattice order. Several dynamical phase
diagrams are obtained as a function of commensurability, pinning strength, and
spatial order of the pinning sites.


  In a hard switched MOSFET based converter, turn-on energy losses is
predominant in the total switching loss. At higher junction temperature the
turn-on energy loss further increases due to the reverse recovery effect of the
complementary MOSFETs body diode in a half-bridge configuration. Estimation of
the switching loss under different operating conditions at an early design
stage is essential for optimising the thermal design. Analytical switching loss
models available in literature are generally used for estimating the switching
losses, due to its accuracy and simplicity. In this paper, the inaccuracy in
the reported loss models due to non inclusion of temperature dependent reverse
recovery characteristics of body diode, is investigated. A structured method to
determine the temperature-dependent switching loss of a SiC MOSFET in a
half-bridge is presented. A simple methodology has been proposed to analyze the
carrier lifetime's temperature dependencies of a SiC MOSFETs body diode. Device
parameters from a 1.2kV/36A SiC MOSFETs datasheet are used for developing the
loss model and experimental validation of the model.


  Spin-selective reactions of radical pairs have traditionally been modelled
theoretically by adding phenomenological rate equations to the quantum
mechanical equation of motion of the radical pair spin density matrix. More
recently an alternative set of rate expressions, based on a quantum measurement
approach, has been suggested. Here we show how these two reaction operators can
be seen as limiting cases of a more general reaction scheme.


  A reconstruction attack on a private dataset $D$ takes as input some publicly
accessible information about the dataset and produces a list of candidate
elements of $D$. We introduce a new class of data reconstruction attacks based
on randomized methods for non-convex optimization. We empirically demonstrate
that our attacks can not only reconstruct full rows of $D$ from aggregate query
statistics $Q(D)\in \mathbb{R}^m$, but can do so in a way that reliably ranks
reconstructed rows by their odds of appearing in the private data, providing a
signature that could be used for prioritizing reconstructed rows for further
actions such as identify theft or hate crime. We also design a sequence of
baselines for evaluating reconstruction attacks. Our attacks significantly
outperform those that are based only on access to a public distribution or
population from which the private dataset $D$ was sampled, demonstrating that
they are exploiting information in the aggregate statistics $Q(D)$, and not
simply the overall structure of the distribution. In other words, the queries
$Q(D)$ are permitting reconstruction of elements of this dataset, not the
distribution from which $D$ was drawn. These findings are established both on
2010 U.S. decennial Census data and queries and Census-derived American
Community Survey datasets. Taken together, our methods and experiments
illustrate the risks in releasing numerically precise aggregate statistics of a
large dataset, and provide further motivation for the careful application of
provably private techniques such as differential privacy.


  A trace on a C*-algebra is amenable (resp. quasidiagonal) if it admits a net
of completely positive, contractive maps into matrix algebras which
approximately preserve the trace and are approximately multiplicative in the
2-norm (resp. operator norm). Using that the double commutant of a nuclear
C*-algebras is hyperfinite, it is easy to see that traces on nuclear
C*-algebras are amenable. A recent result of Tikuisis, White, and Winter shows
that faithful traces on separable, nuclear C*-algebras in the UCT class are
quasidiagonal. We give a new proof of this result using the extension theory of
C*-algebras and, in particular, using a version of the Weyl-von Neumann Theorem
due to Elliott and Kucerovsky.


  A well-known conjecture in computer science and statistical physics is that
Glauber dynamics on the set of $k$-colorings of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices
with maximum degree $\Delta$ is rapidly mixing for $k \geq \Delta +2$. In FOCS
1999, Vigoda showed rapid mixing of flip dynamics with certain flip parameters
on the set of proper $k$-colorings for $k > \frac{11}{6}\Delta$, implying rapid
mixing for Glauber dynamics. In this paper, we obtain the first improvement
beyond the $\frac{11}{6}\Delta$ barrier for general graphs by showing rapid
mixing for $k > (\frac{11}{6} - \eta)\Delta$ for some positive constant $\eta$.
The key to our proof is combining path coupling with a new kind of metric that
incorporates a count of the extremal configurations of the chain. Additionally,
our results extend to list coloring, a widely studied generalization of
coloring. Combined, these results answer two open questions from Frieze and
Vigoda's 2007 survey paper on Glauber dynamics for colorings.


  A solution with the pole configuration in six dimensions is analysed both
analytically and numerically. It is a dimensional reduction model of
Randall-Sundrum type. The soliton configuration is induced by the bulk Higgs
mechanism. The boundary condition is systematically solved up to the 6th order.
The Riemann curvature is finite everywhere. An exact solution for the no
potential case is also presented.


  The high redshift 21-cm signal promises to be a crucial probe of the state of
the intergalactic medium (IGM). Understanding the connection between the
observed 21-cm power spectrum and the physical quantities intricately
associated with the IGM is crucial to fully understand the evolution of our
Universe. In this study, we develop an emulator using artificial neural network
(ANN) to predict the 21-cm power spectrum from a given set of IGM properties,
namely, the bubble size distribution and the volume averaged ionization
fraction. This emulator is implemented within a standard Bayesian framework to
constrain the IGM parameters from a given 21-cm power spectrum. We compare the
performance of the Bayesian method to an alternate method using ANN to predict
the IGM parameters from a given input power spectrum, and find that both
methods yield similar levels of accuracy, while the ANN is significantly
faster. We also use this ANN method of parameter estimation to predict the IGM
parameters from a test set contaminated with noise levels expected from the
SKA-LOW instrument after 1000 hours of observation. Finally, we train a
separate ANN to predict the source parameters from the IGM parameters directly,
at a redshift of $z=9.1$, demonstrating the possibility of a non-analytic
inference of the source parameters from the IGM parameters for the first time.
We achieve high accuracies, with R2-scores ranging between $0.898-0.978$ for
the ANN emulator and between $0.966-0.986$ and $0.817-0.981$ for the
predictions of IGM parameters from 21-cm power spectrum and source parameters
from IGM parameters, respectively. The predictions of the IGM parameters from
the Bayesian method incorporating the ANN emulator leads to tight constraints
with error bars around $\pm{0.14}$ on the IGM parameters.


  In recent years, several powerful techniques have been developed to design
{\em randomized} polynomial-space parameterized algorithms. In this paper, we
introduce an enhancement of color coding to design deterministic
polynomial-space parameterized algorithms. Our approach aims at reducing the
number of random choices by exploiting the special structure of a solution.
Using our approach, we derive the following deterministic algorithms (see
Introduction for problem definitions).
  1. Polynomial-space $O^*(3.86^k)$-time (exponential-space $O^*(3.41^k)$-time)
algorithm for {\sc $k$-Internal Out-Branching}, improving upon the previously
fastest {\em exponential-space} $O^*(5.14^k)$-time algorithm for this problem.
  2. Polynomial-space $O^*((2e)^{k+o(k)})$-time (exponential-space
$O^*(4.32^k)$-time) algorithm for {\sc $k$-Colorful Out-Branching} on
arc-colored digraphs and {\sc $k$-Colorful Perfect Matching} on planar
edge-colored graphs.
  To obtain our polynomial space algorithms, we show that $(n,k,\alpha
k)$-splitters ($\alpha\ge 1$) and in particular $(n,k)$-perfect hash families
can be enumerated one by one with polynomial delay.


  In cool-core galaxy clusters with central cooling times much shorter than a
Hubble time, condensation of the ambient central gas is regulated by a heating
mechanism, probably an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Previous analytical work
has suggested that certain radial distributions of heat input may result in
convergence to a quasi-steady global state that does not substantively change
on the timescale for radiative cooling, even if the heating and cooling are not
locally in balance. To test this hypothesis, we simulate idealized galaxy
cluster halos using the \ENZO code with an idealized, spherically symmetric
heat-input kernel intended to emulate. Thermal energy is distributed with
radius according to a range of kernels, in which total heating is updated to
match total cooling every $10 ~\text{Myr}$. Some heating kernels can maintain
quasi-steady global configurations, but no kernel we tested produces a
quasi-steady state with central entropy as low as those observed in cool-core
clusters. The general behavior of the simulations depends on the proportion of
heating in the inner $10 ~\text{kpc}$, with low central heating leading to
central cooling catastrophes, high central heating creating a central
convective zone with an inverted entropy gradient, and intermediate central
heating resulting in a flat central entropy profile that exceeds observations.
The timescale on which our simulated halos fall into an unsteady multiphase
state is proportional to the square of the cooling time of the lowest entropy
gas, allowing more centrally concentrated heating to maintain a longer lasting
steady state.


  Semantic segmentation is a core task in computer vision. Existing methods are
generally divided into two categories: automatic and interactive. Interactive
approaches, exemplified by the Segment Anything Model (SAM), have shown promise
as pre-trained models. However, current adaptation strategies for these models
tend to lean towards either automatic or interactive approaches. Interactive
methods depend on prompts user input to operate, while automatic ones bypass
the interactive promptability entirely. Addressing these limitations, we
introduce a novel paradigm and its first model: the Automatic and Interactive
Segment Anything Model (AI-SAM). In this paradigm, we conduct a comprehensive
analysis of prompt quality and introduce the pioneering Automatic and
Interactive Prompter (AI-Prompter) that automatically generates initial point
prompts while accepting additional user inputs. Our experimental results
demonstrate AI-SAM's effectiveness in the automatic setting, achieving
state-of-the-art performance. Significantly, it offers the flexibility to
incorporate additional user prompts, thereby further enhancing its performance.
The project page is available at https://github.com/ymp5078/AI-SAM.


  A multi-type preferential attachment tree is introduced, and studied using
general multi-type branching processes. For the $p$-type case we derive a
framework for studying the tree where a type $i$ vertex generates new type $j$
vertices with rate $w_{ij}(n_1,n_2,\ldots, n_p)$ where $n_k$ is the number of
type $k$ vertices previously generated by the type $i$ vertex, and $w_{ij}$ is
a non-negative function from $\mathbb{N}^p$ to $\mathbb{R}$. The framework is
then used to derive results for trees with more specific attachment rates.
  In the case with linear preferential attachment---where type $i$ vertices
generate new type $j$ vertices with rate $w_{ij}(n_1,n_2,\ldots,
n_p)=\gamma_{ij}(n_1+n_2+\dots +n_p)+\beta_{ij}$, where $\gamma_{ij}$ and
$\beta_{ij}$ are positive constants---we show that under mild regularity
conditions on the parameters $\{\gamma_{ij}\}, \{\beta_{ij}\}$ the asymptotic
degree distribution of a vertex is a power law distribution. The asymptotic
composition of the vertex population is also studied.


  We present an \emph{ab-initio} study of the graphene quasi-particle band
structure as function of the doping in G_0 W_0 approximation. We show that the
LDA Fermi velocity is substantially renormalized and this renormalization
rapidly decreases as function of the doping. We found, in agreement with
previous papers, that close to the Dirac point the linear dispersion of the
bands is broken but this behaviour disappears with a small doping. We discuss
our results in the light of recent experiments on graphene and intercalate
graphite.


  We show that some of the Josephson couplings of junctions arranged to form an
inhomogeneous network undergo a non-perturbative renormalization provided that
the network's connectivity is pertinently chosen. As a result, the zero-voltage
Josephson critical currents $I_c$ turn out to be enhanced along directions
selected by the network's topology. This renormalization effect is possible
only on graphs whose adjacency matrix admits an hidden spectrum (i.e. a set of
localized states disappearing in the thermodynamic limit). We provide a
theoretical and experimental study of this effect by comparing the
superconducting behavior of a comb-shaped Josephson junction network and a
linear chain made with the same junctions: we show that the Josephson critical
currents of the junctions located on the comb's backbone are bigger than the
ones of the junctions located on the chain. Our theoretical analysis, based on
a discrete version of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation, leads to results which
are in good quantitative agreement with experimental results.


  We present a Kahler potential for four dimensional heterotic M-theory which
includes moduli describing a gauge five brane living on one of the orbifold
fixed planes. This result can also be thought of as describing
compactifications of either of the weakly coupled heterotic strings in the
presence of a gauge five brane. This is the first example of a Kahler potential
in these theories which includes moduli describing background gauge field
configurations. Our results are valid when the solitons width is much smaller
than the size scale of the Calabi-Yau threefold and can be used to provide a
more complete description of some moving brane scenarios. We point out that, in
general, it is not consistent to truncate away the gauge five brane moduli in a
simple manner.


  The interaction between waves and evolving media challenges traditional
conservation laws. We experimentally investigate the behavior of elastic wave
packets crossing a moving interface that separates two media with distinct
propagation properties, observing the non-conservation of wavelength and
frequency. Our experimental setup employs an elastic strip whose local
stretching can be dynamically altered by pulling one end at a constant
velocity. By demonstrating that this dynamic configuration creates a
spatio-temporal interface traveling along the strip, we confirm theoretical
predictions regarding observed shifts when a wave packet crosses this
interface.


  The study of Li phenomena in red clump (RC) stars can give us a deeper
understanding of the structure and evolution of stars.
\citet{2022ApJ...933...58C} explained the RC Li abundance distributions
naturally using only standard post main sequence (MS) Li evolution models when
the distribution of progenitor masses and the depletion of Li during the MS
observed in MS stars were considered, thus neither extra Li depletion nor Li
creation mechanism is required. Nevertheless, it is interesting to consider the
effects of mixing caused by some extra mechanisms. By constructing different
models, we find that the mixing caused by internal gravity waves can explain
the observed Li abundances of RC stars with low mass progenitors. To explain
that, we rely on the extra mixing induced by internal gravity waves that are
excited at the bottom of the convective envelope at the red giant branch (RGB)
stage. During the RGB stage, introducing the internal gravity waves can improve
the diffusion coefficient and strengthen the mixing effect. The effective
enrichment of Li occurs at the late RGB stage and requires the diffusion
coefficient of H-burning shell to reach $\rm \sim 10^{8}\,cm^{2}\,s^{-1}$. Our
models predict that the Li abundance decreases from $\rm \sim 1.5\,dex$ to $\rm
\sim 0.0\,dex$ at the end of core He-burning stage, thereby revealing the $\sim
99\%$ of the observed Li abundance distribution. The thermohaline mixing
regulates the Li abundance of RGB stars, which combines with the internal
gravity waves can explain the Li abundances of most giants.


  We derive the gauge covariance requirement imposed on the QED fermion-photon
three-point function within the framework of a spectral representation for
fermion propagators. When satisfied, such requirement ensures solutions to the
fermion propagator Schwinger-Dyson equation (SDE) in any covariant gauge with
arbitrary numbers of spacetime dimensions to be consistent with the
Landau-Khalatnikov-Fradkin transformation (LKFT). The general result has been
verified by the special cases of three and four dimensions. Additionally, we
present the condition that ensures the vacuum polarization is independent of
the gauge parameter. As an illustration, we show how the Gauge Technique
dimensionally regularized in 4D does not satisfy the covariance requirement.


  Scene Graph Generation (SGG) aims to build a structured representation of a
scene using objects and pairwise relationships, which benefits downstream
tasks. However, current SGG methods usually suffer from sub-optimal scene graph
generation because of the long-tailed distribution of training data. To address
this problem, we propose Resistance Training using Prior Bias (RTPB) for the
scene graph generation. Specifically, RTPB uses a distributed-based prior bias
to improve models' detecting ability on less frequent relationships during
training, thus improving the model generalizability on tail categories. In
addition, to further explore the contextual information of objects and
relationships, we design a contextual encoding backbone network, termed as Dual
Transformer (DTrans). We perform extensive experiments on a very popular
benchmark, VG150, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method for the
unbiased scene graph generation. In specific, our RTPB achieves an improvement
of over 10% under the mean recall when applied to current SGG methods.
Furthermore, DTrans with RTPB outperforms nearly all state-of-the-art methods
with a large margin.


  Work of numerous authors has shown that any smooth, orientable, closed
4-manifold may be described as a loop of Morse functions on a surface, a loop
in the cut complex, a loop in the pants complex, or as a multisection. In this
paper, we prove a corresponding uniqueness theorem for each of these
descriptions, so that, for example, any two loops of Morse functions on a
surface yielding diffeomorphic 4-manifolds are related by a given set of moves.


  $H_q(n,d)$ is defined as the graph with vertex set ${\mathbb Z}_q^n$ and
where two vertices are adjacent if their Hamming distance is at least $d$. The
chromatic number of these graphs is presented for various sets of parameters
$(q,n,d)$. For the $4$-colorings of the graphs $H_2(n,n-1)$ a notion of
robustness is introduced. It is based on the tolerance of swapping colors along
an edge without destroying properness of the coloring. An explicit description
of the maximally robust $4$-colorings of $H_2(n,n-1)$ is presented.


  A computational model is proposed to investigate drug delivery systems in
which erosion and diffusion mechanisms are participating in the drug release
process. Our approach allowed us to analytically estimate the crossover point
between those mechanisms through the value of the parameter $b$ ($b_c = 1$) and
the scaling behavior of parameter $\tau$ on the Weibull function,
$\exp[-(t/\tau)^b]$, used to adjust drug release data in pharmaceutical
literature. Numerical investigations on the size dependence of the
characteristic release time $\tau$ found it to satisfy either linear or
quadratic scaling relations on either erosive or diffusive regimes. Along the
crossover the characteristic time scales with the average coefficient observed
on the extreme regimes ({\it i.e.}, $\tau \sim L^{3/2}$), and we show that this
result can be derived analytically by assuming an Arrhenius relation for the
diffusion coefficient inside the capsule. Based on these relations a
phenomenological expression for the characteristic release in terms of size $L$
and erosion rate $\kappa$ is proposed, which can be useful for predicting the
crossover erosion rate $\kappa_c$. We applied this relation to the experimental
literature data for the release of acetaminophen immersed in a wax matrix and
found them to be consistent with our numerical results.


  Since the axioms in (Consi-CoS) are not recursively enumerable, NACT* is no
axiom system in the classical sense . Therefore we construct a series of
partial systems which form a recursive axiom system too. Starting with the
"dichotomic" systems NACT# and its variant NACT#4, we are going on to the
"disjunctive" systems NACT+ and NACT+4, and eventually to NACT+Strat. After
that we discuss the medium classes of these systems. Finally we present the
inconsistent NSA-systems based on Not-SelfApplicability and explain their help
for computational set theory.


  Motivated by Conway and Coxeter's combinatorial results concerning frieze
patterns, we sketch an introduction to the theory of cluster algebras and
cluster categories for acyclic quivers. The goal is to show how these more
abstract theories provide a conceptual explanation for phenomena concerning
friezes, principally integrality and periodicity.


  A generalization of the regular continued fractions was given by Burger et
al. in 2008 [3]. In this paper we give metric properties of this expansion. For
the transformation which generates this expansion, its invariant measure and
Perron-Frobenius operator are investigated.


  The development of advanced piezoelectric quartz MEMS for sensing and precise
frequency control applications requires the nanostructuration and on chip
integration on silicon of this material. However, the current quartz
manufacturing methods are based on bonding bulk micromachined crystals on
silicon, which limits the size, the performance, the integration cost and the
scalability of quartz micro devices. Here, we combine chemical solution
deposition, soft nanoimprint lithography and top down microfabrication
processes to develop the first nanostructured epitaxial 100 quartz 100 Si
piezoelectric cantilevers. The coherent Si quartz interface and film thinness
combined with a controlled nanostructuration on silicon insulator silicon
technology substrates provides high force and mass sensitivity while preserving
the mechanical quality factor of the microelectromechanical systems. This work
proves that biocompatible nanostructured epitaxial piezoelectric quartz based
MEMS on silicon can be engineered at low cost by combining soft chemistry and
top down lithographic techniques.


  In this contribution we describe KNEDLE - the new event display for the
KLOE-2 experiment. The basic objectives and software requirements are
presented. The current status of the development is given along with a short
discussion of the future plans.


  Online Social Networks (OSNs) evolve through two pervasive behaviors: follow
and unfollow, which respectively signify relationship creation and relationship
dissolution. Researches on social network evolution mainly focus on the follow
behavior, while the unfollow behavior has largely been ignored. Mining unfollow
behavior is challenging because user's decision on unfollow is not only
affected by the simple combination of user's attributes like informativeness
and reciprocity, but also affected by the complex interaction among them.
Meanwhile, prior datasets seldom contain sufficient records for inferring such
complex interaction. To address these issues, we first construct a large-scale
real-world Weibo dataset, which records detailed post content and relationship
dynamics of 1.8 million Chinese users. Next, we define user's attributes as two
categories: spatial attributes (e.g., social role of user) and temporal
attributes (e.g., post content of user). Leveraging the constructed dataset, we
systematically study how the interaction effects between user's spatial and
temporal attributes contribute to the unfollow behavior. Afterwards, we propose
a novel unified model with heterogeneous information (UMHI) for unfollow
prediction. Specifically, our UMHI model: 1) captures user's spatial attributes
through social network structure; 2) infers user's temporal attributes through
user-posted content and unfollow history; and 3) models the interaction between
spatial and temporal attributes by the nonlinear MLP layers. Comprehensive
evaluations on the constructed dataset demonstrate that the proposed UMHI model
outperforms baseline methods by 16.44% on average in terms of precision. In
addition, factor analyses verify that both spatial attributes and temporal
attributes are essential for mining unfollow behavior.


  We review our recent studies on the effects of CP-violating supersymmetric
(SUSY) parameters on the phenomenology of neutralinos, charginos and third
generation squarks. The CP-even branching ratios of the squarks show a
pronounced dependence on the phases of A_t, A_b, mu and M_1 in a large region
of the supersymmetric parameter space, which can be used to get information on
these phases. In addition we have studied CP-odd observables, like asymmetries
based on triple product correlations. In neutralino and chargino production
with subsequent three-body decays these asymmetries can be as large as 20%.


  We are developing a superconductor electronics fabrication process with up to
nine planarized superconducting layers, stackable stud vias, self-shunted
Nb/AlOx-Al/Nb Josephson junctions, and one layer of MoNx kinetic inductors. The
minimum feature size of resistors and inductors in the process is 250 nm. We
present data on the mutual inductance of Nb stripline and microstrip inductors
with linewidth and spacing from 250 nm to 1 {\mu}m made on the same or adjacent
Nb layers, as well as the data on the linewidth and resistance uniformity.


  We analyze an open quantum system under the influence of more than one
environment: a dephasing bath and a probability-absorbing bath that represents
a decay channel, as encountered in many models of quantum networks. In our
case, dephasing is modeled by random fluctuations of the site energies, while
the absorbing bath is modeled with an external lead attached to the system. We
analyze under which conditions the effects of the two baths can enter
additively the quantum master equation. When such additivity is legitimate, the
reduced master equation corresponds to the evolution generated by an effective
non-Hermitian Hamiltonian and a Haken-Strobl dephasing super-operator. We find
that the additive decomposition is a good approximation when the strength of
dephasing is small compared to the bandwidth of the probability-absorbing bath.


  It has been suggested that the highly damped quasinormal modes of black holes
provide information about the microscopic quantum gravitational states
underlying black hole entropy. This interpretation requires the form of the
highly damped quasinormal mode frequency to be universally of the form:
$\hbar\omega_R = \ln(l)kT_{BH}$, where $l$ is an integer, and $T_{BH}$ is the
black hole temperature. We summarize the results of an analysis of the highly
damped quasinormal modes for a large class of single horizon, asymptotically
flat black holes.


  We present an analysis of the properties of optical counterparts of radio
sources down to 1 mJy. Optical identifications have been obtained by matching
together objects from the APM and FIRST surveys over the region
$148.13^\circ\simlt {\rm RA(2000)}\simlt 218.13^\circ$, $-2.77^\circ\simlt {\rm
Dec} \simlt 2.25^\circ$. Selecting radio sources down to 1 mJy, and adopting a
uniform optical limit of $b_J = 21.5$ we find 3176 have a counterpart in the
APM catalogue, corresponding to 13 per cent of the radio sample.
  For $b_J \le 20.5$ we can divide radio sources into resolved radio galaxies
and stellar-like objects (principally QSO). We find the population of radio
galaxies to be mainly made by early-type galaxies with very red colours
($b_J-R$ up to $\sim 4$) and a radio-to-optical ratio $10^2\simlt r\simlt
10^4$. The contribution of starbursting objects is negligible. In general QSO
show $r\simgt 10^4$ and $0\simlt b_J -R \simlt 1$. On the basis of the $R$
magnitudes, we estimate the sample of radio galaxies to be complete up to
$z\simeq 0.3$. We can therefore divide the whole sample of radio sources into a
low-z and high-z population. The low-z one includes the objects identified as
galaxies in the APM survey, the high-z one includes sources either identified
as QSO or with no optical counterpart for $b_J \le 20.5$.
  We find that radio galaxies are strongly clustered and highly biased tracers
of the underlying mass distribution. Models for the angular correlation
function $w(\theta)$ show good agreement with the observations if we assume a
bias factor $b\simeq 2$ at $z\simeq 0.3$.


  Model inference, such as model comparison, model checking, and model
selection, is an important part of model development. Leave-one-out
cross-validation (LOO) is a general approach for assessing the generalizability
of a model, but unfortunately, LOO does not scale well to large datasets. We
propose a combination of using approximate inference techniques and
probability-proportional-to-size-sampling (PPS) for fast LOO model evaluation
for large datasets. We provide both theoretical and empirical results showing
good properties for large data.


  We use the recently reported KamLAND measurements on oscillations of reactor
anti-neutrinos, together with the data of previously reported solar neutrino
experiments, to show that: (1) the total 8B neutrino flux emitted by the Sun is
1.00(1.0 \pm 0.06) of the standard solar model (BP00) predicted flux, (2) the
KamLAND measurements reduce the area of the globally allowed oscillation
regions that must be explored in model fitting by six orders of magnitude in
the Delta m^2-tan^2 theta plane, (3) LMA is now the unique oscillation solution
to a CL of 4.7sigma, (4) maximal mixing is disfavored at 3.1 sigma, (5)
active-sterile admixtures are constrained to sin^2 eta<0.13 at 1 sigma, (6) the
observed ^8B flux that is in the form of sterile neutrinos is
0.00^{+0.09}_{-0.00} (1 sigma), of the standard solar model (BP00) predicted
flux, and (7) non-standard solar models that were invented to completely avoid
solar neutrino oscillations are excluded by KamLAND plus solar at 7.9 sigma .
We also refine quantitative predictions for future 7Be and p-p solar neutrino
experiments.


  Answering a question of Shuzhou Wang we give a description of quantum
$\SO(3)$ groups of Podle\'s as universal objects. We use this result to give a
complete classification of all continuous compact quantum group actions on
$M_2$.


  Baryogenesis via leptogenesis provides an appealing mechanism to explain the
observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Recent refinements in the
understanding of the dynamics of leptogenesis include detailed studies of the
effects of lepton flavors and of the role possibly played by the lepton
asymmetries generated in the decays of the heavier singlet neutrinos $N_{2,3}$.
A review of these recent developments in the theory of leptogenesis is
presented.


  Understanding the consequences of the E_{7(7)} duality on the UV properties
of N=8 supergravity requires unravelling when and how duality-covariant actions
can be constructed so as to accommodate duality-invariant counter-terms. For
non-supersymmetric abelian gauge theories exhibiting U(1)-duality, with and
without derivative couplings, it was shown that such a covariant construction
is always possible. In this paper we describe a similar procedure for the
construction of covariant non-linear deformations of U(1)-duality invariant
theories in the presence of rigid N=2 supersymmetry. This is a concrete step
towards studying the interplay of duality and extended supersymmetry.


  REal-time Detection and STORage of Multy-chain events Builder C++ code has
been designed to operate together with the new DGFRS detection system in FLNR,
JINR. It allows to provide event by event storage and real-time search for
ER-alpha sequences both for 32 strip position sensitive PIPS detector (CANBERRA
NV) or 48x128 strip DSSSD detector (Micron Semiconductors). In the last case it
operates in parallel with the ORNL digital system. Namely with this code (PIPS
detector branch) it has become possible to detect 13 decay chains of Z=117
nuclei in the reaction 249Bk+48Ca-> 117+3,4n.


  Epitaxial semiconductor-superconductor (SM-SC) hybrid nanowires are potential
candidates for implementing Majorana qubits. Recent experimental and
theoretical works show that charged impurities in SM remain a major problem in
all existing hybrid nanowires, in which the SM is either InAs or InSb while the
SC is mainly Al. Here, we theoretically validate the recently proposed PbTe-Pb
hybrid nanowire as a potential candidate for Majorana devices. By studying the
electrostatic and electronic properties of PbTe nanowires, we demonstrate that
the huge dielectric constant of PbTe endows itself a high tolerance of charged
impurity, which is a potential advantage over InAs and InSb nanowires.
Moreover, we find that the effective axial Land\'{e} $g$ factor and Rashba
spin-orbit coupling strength of PbTe nanowires are comparable to those of InAs
nanowires. The conceivable merits of using Pb as the SC are (i) Pb has a larger
superconducting gap, higher critical temperature, and higher parallel critical
magnetic field than those of Al; (ii) a superconducting gap comparable with
those of InAs-Al and InSb-Al can be induced in PbTe-Pb even by a weak coupling
between Pb and PbTe, which simultaneously relieves the adverse renormalization
and induced disorder effects on SM from SC; and (iii) Pb film can be grown on
PbTe with a thin buffer CdTe layer in between, solving the lattice mismatch
problem as an important source of disorder. In the presence of a parallel
magnetic field, we show that the typical BdG energy spectrum and tunneling
spectroscopy of PbTe-Pb resemble those of InAs and InSb based hybrid nanowires
exposed to a tilting magnetic field, as a result of the highly anisotropic
Land\'{e} $g$ factors of PbTe nanowires. The calculated topological phase
diagrams of PbTe-Pb indicate that the multivalley character of PbTe makes it
easier than InAs and InSb to access topological superconducting phases.


  The aims of our research are to evaluate the prediction performance of the
proposed neuro-fuzzy model with System Evaluation and Estimation of Resource
Software Estimation Model (SEER-SEM) in software estimation practices and to
apply the proposed architecture that combines the neuro-fuzzy technique with
different algorithmic models. In this paper, an approach combining the
neuro-fuzzy technique and the SEER-SEM effort estimation algorithm is
described. This proposed model possesses positive characteristics such as
learning ability, decreased sensitivity, effective generalization, and
knowledge integration for introducing the neuro-fuzzy technique. Moreover,
continuous rating values and linguistic values can be inputs of the proposed
model for avoiding the large estimation deviation among similar projects. The
performance of the proposed model is accessed by designing and conducting
evaluation with published projects and industrial data. The evaluation results
indicate that estimation with our proposed neuro-fuzzy model containing
SEER-SEM is improved in comparison with the estimation results that only use
SEER-SEM algorithm. At the same time, the results of this research also
demonstrate that the general neuro-fuzzy framework can function with various
algorithmic models for improving the performance of software effort estimation.


  It is not known whether Thompson's group F is automatic. With the recent
extensions of the notion of an automatic group to graph automatic by
Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov and then to C-graph automatic by the
authors, a compelling question is whether F is graph automatic or C-graph
automatic for an appropriate language class C. The extended definitions allow
the use of a symbol alphabet for the normal form language, replacing the
dependence on generating set. In this paper we construct a 1-counter graph
automatic structure for F based on the standard infinite normal form for group
elements.


  Differentiable programming techniques are widely used in the community and
are responsible for the machine learning renaissance of the past several
decades. While these methods are powerful, they have limits. In this short
report, we discuss a common chaos based failure mode which appears in a variety
of differentiable circumstances, ranging from recurrent neural networks and
numerical physics simulation to training learned optimizers. We trace this
failure to the spectrum of the Jacobian of the system under study, and provide
criteria for when a practitioner might expect this failure to spoil their
differentiation based optimization algorithms.


  Anisotropic magnetic properties of single crystalline RAu_{2}Ge_{2} (R = La,
Ce and Pr) compounds are reported. LaAu_{2}Ge_{2} exhibit a Pauli-paramagnetic
behavior whereas CeAu_{2}Ge_{2} and PrAu_{2}Ge_{2} show an antiferromagnetic
ordering with N\grave{e}el temperatures T_{N} = 13.5 and 9 K, respectively. The
anisotropic magnetic response of Ce and Pr compounds establishes [001] as the
easy axis of magnetization and a sharp spin-flip type metamagnetic transition
is observed in the magnetic isotherms. The resistance and magnetoresistance
behavior of these compounds, in particular LaAu_{2}Ge_{2}, indicate an
anisotropic Fermi surface. The magnetoresistivity of CeAu_{2}Ge_{2} apparently
reveals the presence of a residual Kondo interaction. A crystal electric field
analysis of the anisotropic susceptibility in conjunction with the
experimentally inferred Schottky heat capacity enables us to propose a crystal
electric field level scheme for Ce and Pr compounds. For CeAu_{2}Ge_{2} our
values are in excellent agreement with the previous reports on neutron
diffraction. The heat capacity data in LaAu_{2}Ge_{2} show clearly the
existence of Einstein contribution to the heat capacity.


  The vibrational properties of alkaline-earth metal fluoride clusters (BaF2)n
(n=1-6) are investigated in the framework of density functional theory. The
calculated Raman and Infrared (IR) spectra reveals shift in Raman and IR peak
position towards lower frequency region with the increase in the cluster size.
Further the calculated spectra have been compared with the experimental
vibrational spectra of bulk BaF2 crystal. Even though the smaller size cluster
lacks translational symmetry, the structural and vibrational characteristic of
(BaF2)5-6 are nearer to bulk counterpart.


  In this paper, I prove the existence of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium for
a large class of games with nonconvex strategy spaces. Specifically, if each
player's strategies form a compact, connected Euclidean neighborhood retract
and if all best-response correspondences are null-homotopic, then the game has
a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. As an application, I show how this result can
prove the fundamental theorem of algebra.


  The random $k$-XORSAT problem is a random constraint satisfaction problem of
$n$ Boolean variables and $m=rn$ clauses, which a random instance can be
expressed as a $G\mathbb{F}(2)$ linear system of the form $Ax=b$, where $A$ is
a random $m \times n$ matrix with $k$ ones per row, and $b$ is a random vector.
It is known that there exist two distinct thresholds $r_{core}(k) < r_{sat}(k)$
such that as $n \rightarrow \infty$ for $r < r_{sat}(k)$ the random instance
has solutions with high probability, while for $r_{core} < r < r_{sat}(k)$ the
solution space shatters into an exponential number of clusters. Sequential
local algorithms are a natural class of algorithms which assign values to
variables one by one iteratively. In each iteration, the algorithm runs some
heuristics, called local rules, to decide the value assigned, based on the
local neighborhood of the selected variables under the factor graph
representation of the instance.
  We prove that for any $r > r_{core}(k)$ the sequential local algorithms with
certain local rules fail to solve the random $k$-XORSAT with high probability.
They include (1) the algorithm using the Unit Clause Propagation as local rule
for $k \ge 9$, and (2) the algorithms using any local rule that can calculate
the exact marginal probabilities of variables in instances with factor graphs
that are trees, for $k\ge 13$. The well-known Belief Propagation and Survey
Propagation are included in (2). Meanwhile, the best known linear-time
algorithm succeeds with high probability for $r < r_{core}(k)$. Our results
support the intuition that $r_{core}(k)$ is the sharp threshold for the
existence of a linear-time algorithm for random $k$-XORSAT.


  In this paper, we consider Ricci flows admitting closed and smooth tangent
flows in the sense of Bamler [Bam20c]. The tangent flow in question can be
either a tangent flow at infinity for an ancient Ricci flow, or a tangent flow
at a singular point for a Ricci flow developing a finite-time singularity.
Among other things, we prove: (1) that in these cases the tangent flow must be
unique, (2) that if a Ricci flow with finite-time singularity has a closed
singularity model, then the singularity is of Type I and the singularity model
is the tangent flow at the singular point; this answers a question proposed in
[CCGGIIKLLN10], (3) a dichotomy theorem that characterizes ancient Ricci flows
admitting a closed and smooth backward sequential limit.


  We study the stability of large amplitude, circularly polarized Alfv\'en
waves in an anisotropic plasma described by the double-adiabatic/CGL closure,
and in particular the effect of a background thermal pressure anisotropy on the
well-known properties of Alfv\'en wave parametric decay in Magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD). Anisotropy allows instability over a much wider range of values of
parallel plasma beta ($\beta_\parallel$) when $\xi=p_{0\bot}/p_{0\parallel} >
1$. When the pressure anisotropy exceeds a critical value, $\xi\geq\xi^*$ with
$\xi^*\simeq2.7$, there is a new regime in which the parametric instability is
no longer quenched at high $\beta_\parallel$ and in the limit
$\beta_\parallel\gg1$ the growth rate becomes independent of $\beta_\parallel$.
In the opposite case of $\xi< \xi^*$, the instability is strongly suppressed
with increasing parallel plasma beta, similarly to the MHD case. We analyze
marginal stability conditions for parametric decay in the
$(\xi,\,\beta_\parallel)$ parameter space, and discuss possible implications
for Alfv\'enic turbulence in the solar wind.


  The main goal of this paper is to give the first examples of equivariant
aspherical Poincare complexes, that are not realized by group actions on closed
aspherical manifolds $M$. These will also provide new counterexamples to the
Nielsen realization problem about lifting homotopy actions of finite groups to
honest group actions. Our examples show that one cannot guarantee that a given
action of a finitely generated group $\pi$ on Euclidean space extends to an
action of $\Pi$, a group containing $\pi$ as a subgroup of finite index, even
when all the torsion of $\Pi$ lives in $\pi$.


  The transition magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments of the
radiative decays of the sextet heavy flavored spin 3/2 to the heavy spin 1/2
baryons are calculated within the light cone QCD sum rules approach. Using the
obtained results, the decay rate for these transitions are also computed and
compared with the existing predictions of the other approaches.


  Neural networks can efficiently encode the probability distribution of errors
in an error correcting code. Moreover, these distributions can be conditioned
on the syndromes of the corresponding errors. This paves a path forward for a
decoder that employs a neural network to calculate the conditional
distribution, then sample from the distribution - the sample will be the
predicted error for the given syndrome. We present an implementation of such an
algorithm that can be applied to any stabilizer code. Testing it on the toric
code, it has higher threshold than a number of known decoders thanks to
naturally finding the most probable error and accounting for correlations
between errors.


  We present an investigation of the fundamental physical processes involved in
deep water wave breaking. Our motivation is to identify the underlying reason
causing the deficiency of the eddy viscosity breaking model (EVBM) in
predicting surface elevation for strongly nonlinear waves. Owing to the
limitation of experimental methods in the provision of high-resolution flow
information, we propose a numerical methodology by developing an EVBM enclosed
standalone fully-nonlinear quasi-potential (FNP) flow model and a coupled FNP
plus Navier-Stokes flow model. The numerical models were firstly verified with
a wave train subject to modulational instability, then used to simulate a
series of broad-banded focusing wave trains under non-, moderate- and
strong-breaking conditions. A systematic analysis was carried out to
investigate the discrepancies of numerical solutions produced by the two models
in surface elevation and other important physical properties. It is found that
EVBM predicts accurately the energy dissipated by breaking and the amplitude
spectrum of free waves in terms of magnitude, but fails to capture accurately
breaking induced phase shifting. The shift of phase grows with breaking
intensity and is especially strong for high wavenumber components. This is
identified as a cause of the upshift of wave dispersion relation, which
increases the frequencies of large wavenumber components. Such a variation
drives large-wavenumber components to propagate at nearly the same speed, which
is significantly higher than the linear dispersion levels. This suppresses the
instant dispersive spreading of harmonics after the focal point, prolonging the
lifespan of focused waves and expanding their propagation space.


  In the setting of generic $\beta$-ensembles, we use the loop equation
hierarchy to prove a local law with optimal error up to a constant, valid on
any scale including microscopic. This local law has the following consequences.
(i) The optimal rigidity scale of the ordered particles is of order $(\log
N)/N$ in the bulk of the spectrum. (ii) Fluctuations of the particles satisfy a
central limit theorem with covariance corresponding to a logarithmically
correlated field; in particular each particle in the bulk fluctuates on scale
$\sqrt{\log N}/N$. (iii) The logarithm of the electric potential also satisfies
a logarithmically correlated central limit theorem.
  Contrary to much progress on random matrix universality, these results do not
proceed by comparison. Indeed, they are new for the Gaussian $\beta$-ensembles.
By comparison techniques, (ii) and (iii) also hold for Wigner matrices.


  The uncertainty of multiple power loads and renewable energy generations
(PLREG) in power systems increases the complexity of power flow analysis for
decision-makers. The chance-constrained method can be applied to model the
optimization problems of power flow under uncertainty. This paper develops a
novel solution approach for chance-constrained AC optimal power flow (CCACOPF)
problem based on the data-driven convexification of power flow and a fast
algorithm for scenario technique (FAST). This method is computationally
effective for mainly two reasons. First, the original nonconvex AC power flow
(ACPF) constraints are approximated by a set of learning-based quadratic convex
ones. Second, FAST is an advanced scenario-based solution method (SSM) that
doesn't rely on the pre-assumed probability distribution, using far less
scenarios than the conventional SSM. Eventually, the CCACOPF is converted into
a computationally tractable convex optimization problem. The simulation results
on IEEE test cases indicate that 1) the proposed solution method can outperform
the conventional SSM in computational efficiency, 2) the data-driven
convexification of power flow is effective in approximating original complex AC
power flow.


  We study the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch equation perturbed by pure jump
noise. In order to understand and also control the fluctuations and jumps
observed in the hysteresis loop, we add noise and an external control to the
effective field. We consider the control operator as one that can depend, even
nonlinearly on both the control and the associated solution process. We
reformulate the problem as a relaxed control problem by using random Young
measures and show that the relaxed problem admits an optimal control. The proof
employs the Aldous condition for establishing tightness of laws and a modified
version of the Skorohod Theorem for obtaining subconvergence of laws.


  The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) can include two soft
breaking terms which are often neglected: a non-analytic scalar trilinear
coupling and a Higgsino bilinear term. A set of high-scale boundary conditions
consistent with the reparameterisation invariance which the model possesses is
obtained. The three-family renormalisation group equations for the MSSM with
these terms are presented. The ranges of the universal high-scale values of
these couplings which lead to an acceptable TeV-scale theory are obtained, as
is the supersymmetric particle spectrum at this scale. The effect of the new
terms on fine-tuning is presented. SOFTSUSY, an existing program for
calculating SUSY particle spectra, has been used, with as few modifications as
possible.


  We show that the single-site entanglement of a generic spin-1/2 fermionic
lattice system can be used as a reliable marker of a finite-order quantum phase
transition, given certain provisos. We discuss the information contained in the
single-site entanglement measure, and provide illustrations from the
Mott-Hubbard metal-insulator transitions of the one-dimensional Hubbard model,
and the Hubbard model with long-range hopping.


  Due to an ever-increasing number of participants and new areas of
application, the demands on mobile communications systems are continually
increasing. In order to deliver higher data rates, enable mobility and
guarantee QoS requirements of subscribers, these systems and the protocols used
are becoming more complex. By using higher frequency spectrums, cells become
smaller and more base stations have to be deployed. This leads to an increased
number of handovers of user equipments between base stations in order to enable
mobility, resulting in potentially more frequent radio link failures and rate
reduction. The persistent switching between the same base stations, commonly
referred to as "ping-pong", leads to a consistent reduction of data rates. In
this work, we propose a method for handover optimization by using proximal
policy optimization in mobile communications to learn an adaptive handover
protocol. The resulting agent is highly flexible regarding different travelling
speeds of user equipments, while outperforming the standard 5G NR handover
protocol by 3GPP in terms of average data rate and number of radio link
failures. Furthermore, the design of the proposed environment demonstrates
remarkable accuracy, ensuring a fair comparison with the standard 3GPP
protocol.


  In unitarity cut method, compact input of on-shell tree level amplitudes is
crucial to simplify calculations. Although BCFW on-shell recursion relation
gives very compact tree level amplitudes, they usually contain spurious poles.
In this paper, we present a method to deal with this issue and provide explicit
simple algebraic functions for various coefficients in the presence of spurious
poles. As an application, we present analytic result (not just rational term)
for one-loop five gluon A(-++++) with scalar propagator for the first time.


  A channel is degradable if there exists a second channel that maps the output
state of the channel to the environment state. These channels satisfy the
property that the output state contains more information about the input than
the environment does. A complementary class of channels is the antidegradable
channels, which admit channels that map the environment state to the output
state of the channel. In this paper we show that the computational problem of
distinguishing two channels remains PSPACE-complete when restricted to these
classes of channels. This is shown using a construction of Cubitt, Ruskai, and
Smith that embeds any channel into a degradable channel, and a related
construction for the case of antidegradable channels.


  The expansion of our Universe is accelerating, due to dark energy. But the
nature of dark energy has been a mystery since its discovery at the end of the
past century. In Research Highlight https://doi.org/10.1002/ntls.20220003 ,
Justin Albert, Dmitry Budker and Hossein Sadeghpour provide an overview of how
a laser photometric ratio star (a novel light source generated by laser
excitation of the Earth's upper-atmospheric sodium layer, which will radiate
equally brightly at wavelengths of 589 nm and 820 nm) can help us precisely
calibrate telescopes in order to understand the nature of dark energy.


  We study the stability and interactions of chirped solitary pulses in a
system of nonlinearly coupled cubic Ginzburg-Landau (CGL) equations with a
group-velocity mismatch between them, where each CGL equation is stabilized by
linearly coupling it to an additional linear dissipative equation. In the
context of nonlinear fiber optics, the model describes transmission and
collisions of pulses at different wavelengths in a dual-core fiber, in which
the active core is furnished with bandwidth-limited gain, while the other,
passive (lossy) one is necessary for stabilization of the solitary pulses.
Complete and incomplete collisions of pulses in two channels in the cases of
anomalous and normal dispersion in the active core are analyzed by means of
perturbation theory and direct numerical simulations. It is demonstrated that
the model may readily support fully stable pulses whose collisions are
quasi-elastic, provided that the group-velocity difference between the two
channels exceeds a critical value. In the case of quasi-elastic collisions, the
temporal shift of pulses, predicted by the analytical approach, is in
semi-quantitative agrement with direct numerical results in the case of
anomalous dispersion (in the opposite case, the perturbation theory does not
apply). We also consider a simultaneous collision between pulses in three
channels, concluding that this collision remains quasi-elastic, and the pulses
remain completely stable. Thus, the model may be a starting point for the
design of a stabilized wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission
system.


  We present the preliminary results of a 50 ks long XMM-Newton observation of
the bright Z-source GX 340+0. In this Letter we focus on the study of a broad
asymmetric emission line in the Fe K alpha energy band, whose shape is clearly
resolved and compatible with a relativistically smeared profile arising from
reflection on a hot accretion disk extending close to the central accreting
neutron star. By combining temporal and spectral analysis, we are able to
follow the evolution of the source along its Horizontal Branch. However,
despite a significant change in the continuum emission and luminosity, the line
profile does not show any strong correlated variation. This broad line is
produced by recombination of highly ionized iron (Fe XXV) at an inferred inner
radius close to 13 gravitational radii while the fit requires a high value for
the outer disk radius. The inclination of the source is extremely well
constrained at 35 deg, while the emissivity index is -2.50.


  Are you having trouble getting married? These days, there are lots of
products on the market for dating, from apps to websites and matchmakers, but
we know a simpler way! That's right -- your path to coupled life isn't through
Tinder: it's through Sudoku! Read our fabulous paper where we explore the
Stable Marriage Problem to help you find happiness and stability in marriage
through math. As a bonus, you get two Sudoku puzzles with a new flavor.


  Advances in digital pathology and artificial intelligence (AI) offer
promising opportunities for clinical decision support and enhancing diagnostic
workflows. Previous studies already demonstrated AI's potential for automated
Gleason grading, but lack state-of-the-art methodology and model reusability.
To address this issue, we propose DeepGleason: an open-source deep neural
network based image classification system for automated Gleason grading using
whole-slide histopathology images from prostate tissue sections. Implemented
with the standardized AUCMEDI framework, our tool employs a tile-wise
classification approach utilizing fine-tuned image preprocessing techniques in
combination with a ConvNeXt architecture which was compared to various
state-of-the-art architectures. The neural network model was trained and
validated on an in-house dataset of 34,264 annotated tiles from 369 prostate
carcinoma slides. We demonstrated that DeepGleason is capable of highly
accurate and reliable Gleason grading with a macro-averaged F1-score of 0.806,
AUC of 0.991, and Accuracy of 0.974. The internal architecture comparison
revealed that the ConvNeXt model was superior performance-wise on our dataset
to established and other modern architectures like transformers. Furthermore,
we were able to outperform the current state-of-the-art in tile-wise
fine-classification with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.94 and 0.98 for
benign vs malignant detection as well as of 0.91 and 0.75 for Gleason 3 vs
Gleason 4 & 5 classification, respectively. Our tool contributes to the wider
adoption of AI-based Gleason grading within the research community and paves
the way for broader clinical application of deep learning models in digital
pathology. DeepGleason is open-source and publicly available for research
application in the following Git repository:
https://github.com/frankkramer-lab/DeepGleason.


  In this paper, we consider diffusive molecular communication (MC) systems
affected by signal-dependent diffusive noise, inter-symbol interference, and
external noise. We design linear and nonlinear fractionally-spaced equalization
schemes and a detection scheme which combines decision feedback and sequence
detection (DFSD). In contrast to the symbol-rate equalization schemes in the MC
literature, the proposed equalization and detection schemes exploit multiple
samples of the received signal per symbol interval to achieve lower bit error
rates (BERs) than existing schemes. The proposed DFSD scheme achieves a BER
which is very close to that achieved by maximum likelihood sequence detection,
but with lower computational complexity.


  The interplay between excitatory and inhibitory neurons imparts rich
functions of the brain. To understand the underlying synaptic mechanisms, a
fundamental approach is to study the dynamics of excitatory and inhibitory
conductances of each neuron. The traditional method of determining conductance
employs the synaptic current-voltage (I-V) relation obtained via voltage clamp.
Using theoretical analysis, electrophysiological experiments, and realistic
simulations, here we demonstrate that the traditional method conceptually fails
to measure the conductance due to the neglect of a nonlinear interaction
between the clamp current and the synaptic current. Consequently, it incurs
substantial measurement error, even giving rise to unphysically negative
conductance as observed in experiments. To elucidate synaptic impact on
neuronal information processing, we introduce the concept of effective
conductance and propose a framework to determine it accurately. Our work
suggests re-examination of previous studies involving conductance measurement
and provides a reliable approach to assess synaptic influence on neuronal
computation.


  Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) has increasing utility in the modern
world. There are a many ASR models available for languages with large amounts
of training data like English. However, low-resource languages are poorly
represented. In response we create and release an open-licensed and formatted
dataset of audio recordings of the Bible in low-resource northern Indian
languages. We setup multiple experimental splits and train and analyze two
competitive ASR models to serve as the baseline for future research using this
data.


  We report bound state solutions of the Klein Gordon equation with a novel
combined potential, the Eckart plus a class of Yukawa potential, by means of
the parametric Nikiforov-Uvarov method. To deal the centrifugal and the
coulombic behavior terms, we apply the Greene-Aldrich approximation scheme. We
present any $\ell$-state energy eigenvalues and the corresponding normalized
wave functions of a mentioned system in a closed form. We discuss various
special cases related to our considered potential which are utility for other
physical systems and show that these are consistent with previous reports in
literature. Moreover, we calculate the non-relativistic thermodynamic
quantities (partition function, mean energy, free energy, specific heat and
entropy) for the potential model in question, and investigate them for a few
diatomic molecules. We find that the energy eigenvalues are sensitive with
regard to the quantum numbers $n_r$ and $\ell$ as well as the parameter
$\delta$. Our results show that energy eigenvalues are more bounded at either
smaller quantum number $\ell$ or smaller parameter $\delta$.


  New relations between the quark spin-flavor contents of the nucleon and axial
weak coupling constants are obtained in the chiral quark model with both SU(3)
and U(1)-breaking effects. Using the nonsinglet spin combinations, $\Delta_3$
and $\Delta_8$, all spin-flavor observables are functions of only one parameter
$a$ $-$ probability for the chiral pionic fluctuation. The upper and lower
bounds of these observables are given. The optimal range of $a$, determined by
NMC data $\bar d-\bar u$, gives a constraint to the cutoff of the chiral quark
field theory. The model predictions are in good agreement with the existing
data in this range of $a$. The roles of kaon, $\eta$ and $\eta'$ are also
discussed.


  We consider the problem of allocating a distribution of items to $n$
recipients where each recipient has to be allocated a fixed, prespecified
fraction of all items, while ensuring that each recipient does not experience
too much envy. We show that this problem can be formulated as a variant of the
semi-discrete optimal transport (OT) problem, whose solution structure in this
case has a concise representation and a simple geometric interpretation. Unlike
existing literature that treats envy-freeness as a hard constraint, our
formulation allows us to \emph{optimally} trade off efficiency and envy
continuously. Additionally, we study the statistical properties of the space of
our OT based allocation policies by showing a polynomial bound on the number of
samples needed to approximate the optimal solution from samples. Our approach
is suitable for large-scale fair allocation problems such as the blood donation
matching problem, and we show numerically that it performs well on a prior
realistic data simulator.


  Black hole complementarity plays a pivotal role in resolving the information
loss paradox by treating Hawking radiation as carriers of information, apart
from the complicated mechanisms involved in decoding information from this
radiation. The thought experiment proposed by Susskind and Thorlacius, as well
as the criteria set forth by Hayden and Preskill, provide deep insights into
the intricate relationship of black hole complementarity between fiducial and
infalling observers. We execute the Alice-Bob thought experiment in the context
of two-dimensional anti-de Sitter black holes. It turns out that information
cloning can be avoided in the case of a large black hole. According to the
Hayden-Preskill criteria, the scale parameter associated with the explicit
breaking of the one-dimensional group of reparametrizations must significantly
exceed the squared mass of the black hole to effectively prevent information
cloning.


  We compute the discharging rate of a uniform electric field due to Schwinger
pair production in $(1+1)$-dimensional scalar electrodynamics with a compact
dimension of radius $R$. Our calculation is performed in real time, using the
in-in formalism. For large compactification radii, $R\to\infty$, we recover the
standard non compact space result. However, other ranges of values of $R$ and
of the mass $m$ of the charged scalar give rise to a richer set of behaviors.
For $R\gtrsim{\cal O}(1/m)$ with $m$ large enough, the electric field
oscillates in time, whereas for $R\to 0$ it decreases in steps. We discuss the
origin of these results.


  Scale-invariant morphology parameters applied to atomic hydrogen maps (HI) of
galaxies can be used to quantify the effects of tidal interaction or
star-formation on the ISM. Here we apply these parameters, Concentration,
Asymmetry, Smoothness, Gini, M20, and the GM parameter, to two public surveys
of nearby dwarf galaxies, the VLA-ANGST and LITTLE-THINGS survey, to explore
whether tidal interaction or the ongoing or past star-formation is a dominant
force shaping the HI disk of these dwarfs.
  Previously, HI morphological criteria were identified for ongoing
spiral-spiral interactions. When we apply these to the Irregular dwarf
population, they either select almost all or none of the population. We find
that only the Asymmetry-based criteria can be used to identify very isolated
dwarfs (i.e., these have a low tidal indication). Otherwise, there is little or
no relation between the level of tidal interaction and the HI morphology. We
compare the HI morphology to three star-formation rates based on either Halpha,
FUV or the resolved stellar population, probing different star-formation
time-scales.
  The HI morphology parameters that trace the inequality of the distribution,
the Gini, GM, and M20 parameters, correlate weakly with all these
star-formation rates. This is in line with the picture that local physics
dominates the ISM appearance and not tidal effects. Finally, we compare the
SDSS measures of star-formation and stellar mass to the HI morphological
parameters for all four HI surveys. In the two lower-resolution HI surveys
(12"), there is no relation between star-formation measures and HI morphology.
The morphology of the two high-resolution HI surveys (6"), the Asymmetry,
Smoothness, Gini, M20, and GM, do show a link to the total star-formation, but
a weak one.


  The effect of the rigid top surface on the onset of phototactic bioconvection
is investigated using linear stability theory for a suspension of
forward-scattering phototactic algae in this article. The suspension is
uniformly illuminated by both diffuse and oblique collimated flux. The nature
of disturbance of bio-convective instability transits from a stationary
(overstable) to an overstable (stationary) state as the forward scattering
coefficient varies under fixed parameters. In presence of rigid top surface,
the suspension becomes more stable as the forward scattering coefficient
increases.


  Wolf-Rayet ([WR]) and weak emission-line ($wels$) central stars of planetary
nebulae (PNe) have hydrogen-deficient atmospheres, whose origins are not well
understood. In the present study, we have conducted plasma diagnostics and
abundance analyses of 18 Galactic PNe surrounding [WR] and $wels$ nuclei, using
collisionally excited lines (CELs) and optical recombination lines (ORLs)
measured with the Wide Field Spectrograph on the ANU 2.3-m telescope at the
Siding Spring Observatory complemented with optical archival data. Our plasma
diagnostics imply that the electron densities and temperatures derived from
CELs are correlated with the intrinsic nebular H$\beta$ surface brightness and
excitation class, respectively. Self-consistent plasma diagnostics of heavy
element ORLs of N${}^{2+}$ and O${}^{2+}$ suggest that a small fraction of cool
($\lesssim 7000$ K), dense ($\sim 10^4-10^5$ cm$^{-3}$) materials may be
present in some objects, though with large uncertainties. Our abundance
analyses indicate that the abundance discrepancy factors (ADF$\equiv$ORLs/CELs)
of O${}^{2+}$ are correlated with the dichotomies between forbidden-line and He
I temperatures. Our results likely point to the presence of a tiny fraction of
cool, oxygen-rich dense clumps within the diffuse warm ionized nebulae.
Moreover, our elemental abundances derived from CELs are mostly consistent with
AGB models in the range of initial masses from 1.5 to 5M$_{\odot}$. Further
studies are necessary to understand better the origins of abundance
discrepancies in PNe around [WR] and $wels$ stars.


  Graphene is prepared with a variety of methods, such as thermal decomposition
of SiC, Chemical Vapor Deposition and pulsed laser deposition. We propose
another method to prepare graphitic carbon by irradiating lead pencil drawn
paper using femtosecond laser [Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 55 (2016) 01AE24]. In order
to evaluate electronic properties, such as resistivity and mobility, surface
roughness of paper is important to evaluate thickness of lead pencil as one of
principal factors. The surface roughness of variety of paper was investigated
including cross section of drawing paper. Femotosecond laser irradiated the
sample surface with its focus shifted from the optical focal point to enlarge
the laser spot and tender irradiation.