  Roberge and Weiss showed that for SU(N) gauge theories, phase transitions
occur in the presence of an imaginary quark chemical potential. We show that at
asymptotically high temperature, where the phase transition is of first order,
that even with dynamical quarks 't Hooft loops of arbitrary Z(N) charge are
well defined at the phase boundary. To leading order in weak coupling, the 't
Hooft loop satisfies Casimir scaling in the pure glue theory, but not with
quarks. Because the chemical potential is imaginary, typically the interaction
measure is negative on one side of the phase transition. Using a matrix model
to model the deconfining phase transition, we compute the phase diagram for
heavy quarks, in the plane of temperature and imaginary chemical potential. In
general we find intersecting lines of first order transitions. Using a modified
Polyakov loop which is Roberge-Weiss symmetric, we suggest that the interface
tension is related to the 't Hooft loop only at high temperature, where the
imaginary part of this Polyakov loop, and not the real part, is discontinuous
across the phase boundary.


  Scale interactions in Hall MHD are studied using both the mean field theory
derivation of transport coefficients, and direct numerical simulations in three
space dimensions. In the magnetically dominated regime, the eddy resistivity is
found to be negative definite, leading to large scale instabilities. A direct
cascade of the total energy is observed, although as the amplitude of the Hall
effect is increased, backscatter of magnetic energy to large scales is found, a
feature not present in MHD flows. The coupling between the magnetic and
velocity fields is different than in the MHD case, and backscatter of energy
from small scale magnetic fields to large scale flows is also observed. For the
magnetic helicity, a strong quenching of its transfer is found. We also discuss
non-helical magnetically forced Hall-MHD simulations where growth of a large
scale magnetic field is observed.


  We investigate heat and charge transport through a diffusive SIF1F2N tunnel
junction, where N (S) is a normal (superconducting) electrode, I is an
insulator layer and F1,2 are two ferromagnets with arbitrary direction of
magnetization. The flow of an electric current in such structures at subgap
bias is accompanied by a heat transfer from the normal metal into the
superconductor, which enables refrigeration of electrons in the normal metal.
We demonstrate that the refrigeration efficiency depends on the strength of the
ferromagnetic exchange field h and the angle {\alpha} between the
magnetizations of the two F layers. As expected, for values of h much larger
than the superconducting order parameter \Delta, the proximity effect is
suppressed and the efficiency of refrigeration increases with respect to a NIS
junction. However, for h \sim \Delta the cooling power (i.e. the heat flow out
of the normal metal reservoir) has a non-monotonic behavior as a function of h
showing a minimum at h \approx \Delta. We also determine the dependence of the
cooling power on the lengths of the ferromagnetic layers, the bias voltage, the
temperature, the transmission of the tunneling barrier and the magnetization
misalignment angle {\alpha}.


  An actual infinity of colliding balls can be in a configuration in which the
laws of mechanics lead to logical inconsistency. It is argued that one should
therefore limit the domain of these laws to a finite, or only a potentially
infinite number of elements. With this restriction indeterminism, energy
non-conservation and (creatio ex nihilo) no longer occur. A numerical analysis
of finite systems of colliding balls is given, and the asymptotic behavior that
corresponds to the potentially infinite system is inferred.


  We have shown recently that a Markov process conditioned on rare events
involving time-integrated random variables can be described in the long-time
limit by an effective Markov process, called the driven process, which is given
mathematically by a generalization of Doob's $h$-transform. We show here that
this driven process can be represented in two other ways: first, as a process
satisfying various variational principles involving large deviation functions
and relative entropies and, second, as an optimal stochastic control process
minimizing a cost function also related to large deviation functions. These
interpretations of the driven process generalize and unify many previous
results on maximum entropy approaches to nonequilibrium systems, spectral
characterizations of positive operators, and control approaches to large
deviation theory. They also lead, as briefly discussed, to new methods for
analytically or numerically approximating large deviation functions.


  It is well-known that the SU(2) Reissner-Nordstr\"om black-hole solutions of
the Einstein-Yang-Mills theory are characterized by an infinite set of unstable
(imaginary) eigenvalues $\{\omega_n(T_{\text{BH}})\}_{n=0}^{n=\infty}$ (here
$T_{\text{BH}}$ is the black-hole temperature). In this paper we analyze the
excited instability spectrum of these magnetically charged black holes. The
numerical results suggest the existence of a universal behavior for these
black-hole excited eigenvalues. In particular, we show that unstable
eigenvalues in the regime $\omega_n\ll T_{\text{BH}}$ are characterized, to a
very good degree of accuracy, by the simple universal relation
$\omega_n(r_+-r_-)={\text{constant}}$, where $r_{\pm}$ are the horizon radii of
the black hole.


  We discuss some stochastic spatial generalizations of the Lotka--Volterra
model for competing species. The generalizations take the forms of spin systems
on general discrete sets and interacting diffusions on integer lattices.
Methods for proving coexistence in these generalizations and some related open
questions are discussed. We use duality as the central point of view. It
relates coexistence of the models to survival of their dual processes.


  Machine learning (ML) is increasingly deployed in real world contexts,
supplying actionable insights and forming the basis of automated
decision-making systems. While issues resulting from biases pre-existing in
training data have been at the center of the fairness debate, these systems are
also affected by technical and emergent biases, which often arise as
context-specific artifacts of implementation. This position paper interprets
technical bias as an epistemological problem and emergent bias as a dynamical
feedback phenomenon. In order to stimulate debate on how to change machine
learning practice to effectively address these issues, we explore this broader
view on bias, stress the need to reflect on epistemology, and point to
value-sensitive design methodologies to revisit the design and implementation
process of automated decision-making systems.


  It is shown that the CKMT model for the nucleon structure function $F_2$
gives a good description of the recent HERA data at low and moderate $Q^2$.
Also the fit to the same data obtained with a modified version of the model in
which a logarithmic dependence on $Q^2$ has been included, is presented. For
moderate values of $Q^2$, in the current available range of $x$, the first
parametrization leads to a better description of the data.


  The pure rotational transitions of the protonated hydrogen cyanide ion,
HCNH+, and its isotopic species, HCND+ and DCND+, were measured in the 107 -
482 GHz region with a source modulated microwave spectrometer. The ions were
generated in the cell with a magnetically confined dc-glow discharge of HCN
and/or DCN. The rotational constant B0 and the centrifugal distortion constant
D0 for each ion were precisely determined by a least-squares fitting to the
observed spectral lines. The observed rotational transition frequencies by
laboratory spectroscopy and the predicted ones are accurate in about 30 to 40
kHz and are useful as rest frequencies for astronomical searches of HCNH+ and
HCND+.


  We report enhanced nonlinear optics in nanowires, waveguides, and ring
resonators by introducing layered two-dimensional (2D) graphene oxide (GO)
films through experimental demonstration. The GO films are integrated on
silicon-on-insulator nanowires (SOI), high index doped silica glass, and
silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides and microring resonators (MRRs), to
demonstrate an improved optical nonlinearity including Kerr nonlinearity and
four-wave mixing (FWM). By using a large-area, transfer-free, layer-by-layer GO
coating method with photolithography and lift-off processes, we integrate GO
films on these complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible
devices. For SOI nanowires, significant spectral broadening of optical pulses
in GO-coated SOI nanowires induced by self-phase modulation (SPM) is observed,
achieving a high spectral broadening factor of 4.34 for a device with a
patterned film including 10 layers of GO. A significant enhancement in the
nonlinear figure of merit (FOM) for silicon nanowires by a factor of 20 is also
achieved, resulting in a FOM > 5. For Hydex and SiN waveguides, enhanced FWM in
the GO-coated waveguides is achieved, where conversion efficiency (CE)
enhancements of up to 6.9 dB and 9.1 dB relative to the uncoated waveguides.
For MRRs, an increase of up to ~10.3 dB in the FWM CE is achieved due to the
resonant enhancement effect. These results reveal the strong potential of GO
films to improve the nonlinear optics of nanowires, waveguides, and ring
resonators.


  We draw attention to the close relationship between the anisotropy parameter
beta(r) for stellar orbits in elliptical galaxies and the temperature profile
T(r) of the hot interstellar gas. For nearly spherical galaxies the gas density
can be accurately determined from X-ray observations and the stellar luminosity
density can be accurately found from the optical surface brightness. The Jeans
equation and hydrostatic equilibrium establish a connection between beta(r) and
T(r) that must be consistent with the observed stellar velocity dispersion.
Purely optical observations of the bright elliptical galaxy NGC 4472 indicate
beta(r) < 0.35 within the effective radius. However, the X-ray gas temperature
profile T(r) for NGC 4472 requires significantly larger anisotropy, beta = 0.6
- 0.7, about twice the optical value. This strong preference for radial stellar
orbits must be understood in terms of the formation history of massive
elliptical galaxies. Conversely, if the smaller, optically determined
anisotropy is indeed correct, we are led to the important conclusion that the
temperature profile T(r) of the hot interstellar gas in NGC 4472 must differ
from that indicated by X-ray observations, or that the hot gas is not in
hydrostatic equilibrium.


  We study a long topological Josephson junction with a ferromagnetic strip
between two superconductors. The low-energy theory exhibits a non-local in time
and space interaction between chiral Majorana fermions, mediated by the
magnonic excitations in the ferromagnet. While short ranged interactions turn
out to be irrelevant by power counting, we show that sufficiently strong and
long-ranged interactions may induce a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-symmetry breaking. This
spontaneous breaking leads to a tilting of the magnetization perpendicular to
the Majorana propagation direction and the opening of a fermionic gap (Majorana
mass). It is analogous to the Peierls instability in the commensurate
Fr\"ohlich model and reflects the nontrivial interplay between Majorana modes
and magnetization dynamics. Within a Gaussian fluctuation analysis, we estimate
critical values for the temporal and spatial non-locality of the interaction,
beyond which the symmetry breaking is stable at zero temperature -- despite the
effective one-dimensionality of the model. We conclude that non-locality, i.e.,
the stiffness of the magnetization in space and time, stabilizes the symmetry
breaking. In the stabilized regime, we expect the current-phase relation to
exhibit an experimentally accessible discontinuous jump. At nonzero
temperatures, as usual in the 1D Ising model, the long-range order is destroyed
by solitonic excitations, which in our case carry each a Majorana zero mode. In
order to estimate the correlation length, we investigate the solitons within a
self-consistent mean-field approach.


  In this paper, we present two fast and interpretable decomposition methods
for 2D homography, which are named Similarity-Kernel-Similarity (SKS) and
Affine-Core-Affine (ACA) transformations respectively. Under the minimal
$4$-point configuration, the first and the last similarity transformations in
SKS are computed by two anchor points on target and source planes,
respectively. Then, the other two point correspondences can be exploited to
compute the middle kernel transformation with only four parameters.
Furthermore, ACA uses three anchor points to compute the first and the last
affine transformations, followed by computation of the middle core
transformation utilizing the other one point correspondence. ACA can compute a
homography up to a scale with only $85$ floating-point operations (FLOPs),
without even any division operations. Therefore, as a plug-in module, ACA
facilitates the traditional feature-based Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC)
pipeline, as well as deep homography pipelines estimating $4$-point offsets. In
addition to the advantages of geometric parameterization and computational
efficiency, SKS and ACA can express each element of homography by a polynomial
of input coordinates ($7$th degree to $9$th degree), extend the existing
essential Similarity-Affine-Projective (SAP) decomposition and calculate 2D
affine transformations in a unified way. Source codes are released in
https://github.com/cscvlab/SKS-Homography.


  We study model images and polarization maps of Sagittarius A* at 230 GHz. We
post-process GRMHD simulations and perform a fully relativistic radiative
transfer calculation of the emitted synchrotron radiation to obtain polarized
images for a range of mass accretion rates and electron temperatures. At low
accretion rates, the polarization map traces the underlying toroidal magnetic
field geometry. At high accretion rates, we find that Faraday rotation internal
to the emission region can depolarize and scramble the map. We measure the net
linear polarization fraction and find that high accretion rate "jet-disc"
models are heavily depolarized and are therefore disfavoured. We show how Event
Horizon Telescope measurements of the polarized "correlation length" over the
image provide a model-independent upper limit on the strength of these Faraday
effects, and constrain plasma properties like the electron temperature and
magnetic field strength.


  We give a realization of the Kirillov--Reshetikhin crystal $B^{1,s}$ using
Nakajima monomials for $\widehat{\mathfrak{sl}}_n$ using the crystal structure
given by Kashiwara. We describe the tensor product $\bigotimes_{i=1}^N
B^{1,s_i}$ in terms of a shift of indices, allowing us to recover the Kyoto
path model. Additionally, we give a model for the KR crystals $B^{r,1}$ using
Nakajima monomials.


  Let $(\bar{M}, \omega)$ be a compact symplectic manifold with convex boundary
and $c_1(T\bar{M})=0$. Suppose that $(\bar{M}, \omega)$ is equipped with a
convex Hamiltonian $G$-action for some connected, compact Lie group $G$. We
construct an action of the pure Coulomb branch of $G$ on the $G$-equivariant
symplectic cohomology of $\bar{M}.$ Building on work of Teleman, we use this
construction to characterize the Coulomb branches of
Braverman-Finkelberg-Nakajima in terms of equivariant symplectic cohomology.


  We model the TESS light curve of the binary system RX Dra, and also first
calculate a lot of theoretical models to fit the g-mode frequencies previously
detected from the TESS series of this system. The mass ratio is determined to
be $q$=0.9026$^{+0.0032}_{-0.0032}$. We newly found that there are 16
frequencies (F1-F7, F11-F20) identified as dipole g-modes, two frequencies
(F21, F22) identified as quadrupole g-modes, and another two frequencies (F23,
F24) identified as g-sextupole modes, based on these model fits. The primary
star is newly determined to be a $\gamma$ Dor pulsator in the main-sequence
stage with a rotation period of about 5.7$^{+0.7}_{-0.2}$ days, rotating slower
than the orbital motion. The fundamental parameters of two components are
firstly estimated as follows: $M_1$=1.53$^{+0.00}_{-0.17}$ M $_{\odot}$, $M_2$=
1.38$^{+0.18}_{-0.00}$ M $_{\odot}$, $T_1$=7240$^{+490}_{-44}$ K,
$T_2$=6747$^{+201}_{-221}$ K, $R_1$=1.8288$^{+0.0260}_{-0.0959}$ R $_{\odot}$,
$R_2$= 1.3075$^{+0.0450}_{-0.2543}$ R $_{\odot}$,
$L_1$=8.2830$^{+1.8015}_{-0.6036}$ L $_{\odot}$ and $L_2$=
3.4145$^{+0.1320}_{-0.1843}$ L $_{\odot}$. Our results show that the secondary
star is in the solar-like pulsator region of the H-R diagram, indicating that
it could be a pulsating star of this type. Finally, the radius of the
convective core of the primary star is estimated to be about
0.1403$^{+0.0206}_{-0.0000}$ R$_{\odot}$.


  I present a precise measurement of W boson mass measurement in electron decay
channel using data collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron
Collider. A binned likelihood fit method is used to extract the mass
information from the transverse mass, the electron transverse momentum and
missing transverse energy distributions. I also present a precise direct
measurement of W boson width using the events with large transverse mass. The W
mass result can be used to put stringent indirect limits on the Standard Model
Higgs boson mass.


  By using the ultra-spinning limit as a generating solution technique, we
construct a novel class of charged rotating asymptotic AdS black holes. That
describes the exact D-dimnsioanl solutions of Einstein-Maxwell dilaton theory
in the presence of negative cosmological constant. The obtained geometries
possess some punctures, describing a noncompact horizon, but has a finite area.
We then explicitly investigate the validity of the Kerr/CFT correspondence for
all dimensional cases. We find a main result for the central charges associated
to $[(d-1)/2]$ copies of dual $2D$ CFTs. We then argue the existence of a
precise agreement between the microscopic entropy of dual CFTs and the entropy
of the noncompact horizon.


  Eukaryotic cells transmit extracellular signal information to cellular
interiors through the formation of a ternary complex made up of a ligand (or
agonist), G-protein, and G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR). Previously
formalized theories of ternary complex formation have mainly assumed that
observable states of receptors can only take the form of monomers. Here, we
propose a multiary complex model of GPCR signaling activations via the vector
representation of various unobserved aggregated receptor states. Our results
from model simulations imply that receptor aggregation processes can govern
cooperative effects in a regime inaccessible by previous theories. In
particular, we show how the affinity of ligand-receptor binding can be largely
varied by various oligomer formations in the low concentration range of
G-protein stimulus.


  Despite achieving great success, graph neural networks (GNNs) are vulnerable
to adversarial attacks. Existing defenses focus on developing adversarial
training or model modification. In this paper, we propose and formulate graph
adversarial immunization, i.e., vaccinating part of graph structure to improve
certifiable robustness of graph against any admissible adversarial attack. We
first propose edge-level immunization to vaccinate node pairs. Unfortunately,
such edge-level immunization cannot defend against emerging node injection
attacks, since it only immunizes existing node pairs. To this end, we further
propose node-level immunization. To avoid computationally intensive
combinatorial optimization associated with adversarial immunization, we develop
AdvImmune-Edge and AdvImmune-Node algorithms to effectively obtain the immune
node pairs or nodes. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of
AdvImmune methods. In particular, AdvImmune-Node remarkably improves the ratio
of robust nodes by 79%, 294%, and 100%, after immunizing only 5% of nodes.
Furthermore, AdvImmune methods show excellent defensive performance against
various attacks, outperforming state-of-the-art defenses. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first attempt to improve certifiable robustness from
graph data perspective without losing performance on clean graphs, providing
new insights into graph adversarial learning.


  Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are an emerging technology for
future wireless communication. The vast majority of recent research on RIS has
focused on system level optimizations. However, developing straightforward and
tractable electromagnetic models that are suitable for RIS aided communication
modeling remains an open issue. In this paper, we address this issue and derive
communication models by using rigorous scattering parameter network analysis.
We also propose new RIS architectures based on group and fully connected
reconfigurable impedance networks that can adjust not only the phases but also
the magnitudes of the impinging waves, which are more general and more
efficient than conventional single connected reconfigurable impedance network
that only adjusts the phases of the impinging waves. In addition, the scaling
law of the received signal power of an RIS aided system with reconfigurable
impedance networks is also derived. Compared with the single connected
reconfigurable impedance network, our group and fully connected reconfigurable
impedance network can increase the received signal power by up to 62%, or
maintain the same received signal power with a number of RIS elements reduced
by up to 21%. We also investigate the proposed architecture in deployments with
distance-dependent pathloss and Rician fading channel, and show that the
proposed group and fully connected reconfigurable impedance networks outperform
the single connected case by up to 34% and 48%, respectively.


  In a recent experiment [Vochezer {\it et al.,} Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{120},
073602 (2018)], a novel kind of hybrid atom-opto-mechanical system has been
realized by coupling atoms in a lattice to a membrane. While such system
promises a viable contender in the competitive field of simulating
non-equilibrium many-body physics, its complete steady-state phase diagram is
still lacking. Here we study the phase diagram of this hybrid system based on
an atomic Bose-Hubbard model coupled to a quantum harmonic oscillator. We take
both the expectation value of the bosonic operator and the mechanical motion of
the membrane as order parameters, and thereby identify four different quantum
phases. Importantly, we find the atomic gas in the steady state of such
non-equilibrium setting undergoes a superfluid-Mott-insulator transition when
the atom-membrane coupling is tuned to increase. Such steady-state phase
transition can be seen as the non-equilibrium counterpart of the conventional
superfluid-Mott-insulator transition in the ground state of Bose-Hubbard model.
Further, no matter which phase the quantum gas is in, the mechanic motion of
the membrane exhibits a transition from an incoherent vibration to a coherent
one when the atom-membrane coupling increases, agreeing with the experimental
observations. Our present study provides a simple way to study non-equilibrium
many-body physics that is complementary to ongoing experiments on the hybrid
atomic and opto-mechanical systems.


  A low maintenance long-term operational cryogenic sapphire oscillator has
been implemented at 11.2 GHz using an ultra-low-vibration cryostat and
pulse-tube cryocooler. It is currently the world's most stable microwave
oscillator employing a cryocooler. Its performance is explained in terms of
temperature and frequency stability. The phase noise and the Allan deviation of
frequency fluctuations have been evaluated by comparing it to an ultra-stable
liquid-helium cooled cryogenic sapphire oscillator in the same laboratory.
Assuming both contribute equally, the Allan deviation evaluated for the
cryocooled oscillator is sigma_y = 1 x 10^-15 tau^-1/2 for integration times 1
< tau < 10 s with a minimum sigma_y = 3.9 x 10^-16 at tau = 20 s. The long term
frequency drift is less than 5 x 10^-14/day. From the measured power spectral
density of phase fluctuations the single side band phase noise can be
represented by L_phi(f) = 10^-14.0/f^4+10^-11.6/f^3+10^-10.0/f^2+10^-10.2/f+
10^-11.0 for Fourier frequencies 10^-3<f<10^3 Hz in the single oscillator. As a
result L_phi approx -97.5 dBc/Hz at 1 Hz offset from the carrier.


  Consider a smooth quasiprojective variety X equipped with a C*-action, and a
regular function f: X -> C which is C*-equivariant with respect to a positive
weight action on the base. We prove the purity of the mixed Hodge structure and
the hard Lefschetz theorem on the cohomology of the vanishing cycle complex of
f on proper components of the critical locus of f, generalizing a result of
Steenbrink for isolated quasi-homogeneous singularities. Building on work of
Kontsevich-Soibelman, Nagao and Efimov, we use this result to prove the quantum
positivity conjecture for cluster mutations for all quivers admitting a
positively graded nondegenerate potential. We deduce quantum positivity for all
quivers of rank at most 4; quivers with nondegenerate potential admitting a
cut; and quivers with potential associated to triangulations of surfaces with
marked points and nonempty boundary.


  We study the non-linear evolution of the curvature perturbations during
matter dominated era. We show that regardless of the origin of the primordial
perturbation, the Bardeen potential and curvature receive sizable contributions
from the classical non-linear evolution effects, and quantify them exactly. On
the super-horizon scales we have squeezed peak of the bispectrum with
magnitude, in terms of the local non-linear parameters of Bardeen curvature,
1/6 < f_{NL} 19/15, and of Bardeen potential, -1/4 < f_{NL} < 7/5, depending on
the configuration of momenta. On the sub-horizon scales the bispectrum show
equilateral shape, and can serve as a potential probe of general relativity.


  The timescale of cluster formation is an essential parameter in order to
understand the formation process of star clusters. Pre-main sequence (PMS)
stars in nearby young open clusters reveal a large spread in brightness. If the
spread were considered as a result of a real spread in age, the corresponding
cluster formation timescale would be about 5 -- 20 Myr. Hence it could be
interpreted that star formation in an open cluster is prolonged for up to a few
tens of Myr. However, difficulties in reddening correction, observational
errors, and systematic uncertainties introduced by imperfect evolutionary
models for PMS stars, can result in an artificial age spread. Alternatively, we
can utilize Li abundance as a relative age indicator of PMS star to determine
the cluster formation timescale. The optical spectra of 134 PMS stars in NGC
2264 have been obtained with MMT/Hectochelle. The equivalent widths have been
measured for 86 PMS stars with a detectable Li line (3500 < T_eff [K] <= 6500).
Li abundance under the condition of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) was
derived using the conventional curve of growth method. After correction for
non-LTE effects, we find that the initial Li abundance of NGC 2264 is A(Li) =
3.2 +/- 0.2. From the distribution of the Li abundances, the underlying age
spread of the visible PMS stars is estimated to be about 3 -- 4 Myr and this,
together with the presence of embedded populations in NGC 2264, suggests that
the cluster formed on a timescale shorter than 5 Myr.


  The population dynamics theory of B cells in a typical germinal center could
play an important role in revealing how affinity maturation is achieved.
However, the existing models encountered some conflicts with experiments. To
resolve these conflicts, we present a coarse-grained model to calculate the B
cell population development in affinity maturation, which allows a
comprehensive analysis of its parameter space to look for optimal values of
mutation rate, selection strength, and initial antibody-antigen binding level
that maximize the affinity improvement. With these optimized parameters, the
model is compatible with the experimental observations such as the ~100-fold
affinity improvements, the number of mutations, the hypermutation rate, and the
"all or none" phenomenon. Moreover, we study the reasons behind the optimal
parameters. The optimal mutation rate, in agreement with the hypermutation rate
in vivo, results from a tradeoff between accumulating enough beneficial
mutations and avoiding too many deleterious or lethal mutations. The optimal
selection strength evolves as a balance between the need for affinity
improvement and the requirement to pass the population bottleneck. These
findings point to the conclusion that germinal centers have been optimized by
evolution to generate strong affinity antibodies effectively and rapidly. In
addition, we study the enhancement of affinity improvement due to B cell
migration between germinal centers. These results could enhance our
understandings to the functions of germinal centers.


  If $f$ is an entire function and $a$ is a complex number, $a$ is said to be
an asymptotic value of $f$ if there exists a path $\gamma$ from $0$ to infinity
such that $f(z) - a$ tends to $0$ as $z$ tends to infinity along $\gamma$. The
Denjoy--Carleman--Ahlfors Theorem asserts that if $f$ has $n$ distinct
asymptotic values, then the rate of growth of $f$ is at least order $n/2$, mean
type. A long-standing problem asks whether this conclusion holds for entire
functions having $n$ distinct asymptotic (entire) functions, each of growth at
most order $1/2$, minimal type. In this paper conditions on the function $f$
and associated asymptotic paths are obtained that are sufficient to guarantee
that $f$ satisfies the conclusion of the Denjoy--Carleman--Ahlfors Theorem. In
addition, for each positive integer $n$, an example is given of an entire
function of order $n$ having $n$ distinct, prescribed asymptotic functions,
each of order less than $1/2$.


  As a threat to meeting the global demand for food created by the continued
growth of the population, different methods are being applied to enhance seed
germination and plant growth. This study investigates the effect of
hydrogen-riched water (HRW), plasma-activated water (PAW) and their combination
on the seed germination of lentils. For activating water, arc discharge
reactors are generated under atmospheric pressure in the air. Simulations were
also performed to simulate electric field and potential, fluid flow, and arc
plasma. Using optical emission spectroscopy, species were evaluated in plasma
columns. Raman spectra and physicochemical properties of water were
investigated. On day 3 after treatment, the fraction and length of germinated
seeds were evaluated. During germination, treated water significantly increased
germination parameters such as final germination percentage, mean germination
time, germination index, coefficient of germination velocity, and germination
rate index. It can, therefore, be concluded that seed germination can be
increased using PAW and hydrogenated PAW combined.


  We use Wagner's weighted subgraph counting polynomial to prove that the
partition function of the anti-ferromagnetic Ising model on line graphs is real
rooted and to prove that roots of the edge cover polynomial have length at most
$4$. We moreover discuss how our results relate to efficient algorithms for
approximately computing evaluations of these polynomials.


  In this paper we have carried out numerical simulation and experimental
characterization of two variants of SR (Spiral resonator) viz. TTSR (Two-Turn
Spiral Resonator) and NBSR (Non Bianisotropic spiral resonator). The numerical
simulation of these develop magnetic inclusion structures are done with
commercially available Finite Element Method (FEM) based Ansys HFSS-13
simulation software, and transmission experiment using S-parameter retrieval
technique. The experimental characterization of those fabricated structures is
used in the parallel plate waveguide experiment (not reported earlier) and then
validate our experimental results with the Ansys HFSS-13 simulation software;
which in not available in any published literature.


  Temperature and humidity are two of the rudimentary factors that must be
controlled during egg incubation. Improper temperature and humidity levels
during the incubation period often result in unwanted conditions. This paper
proposes the design of an efficient Mamdani fuzzy interference system instead
of the widely used Takagi-Sugeno system in this field for controlling the
temperature and humidity levels of an egg incubator. Though the optimum
incubation temperature and humidity levels used here are that of chicken egg,
the proposed methodology is applicable to other avian species as well. Theinput
functions have been used here as per estimated values forsafe hatching using
Mamdani whereas defuzzification method, COA, has been applied for output. From
the model output,a stabilized heat from temperature level and fan speed to
control the humidity level of an egg incubator can be obtained. This maximizes
the hatching rate of healthy chicks under any conditions in the field.


  We present polynomial-augmented neural networks (PANNs), a novel machine
learning architecture that combines deep neural networks (DNNs) with a
polynomial approximant. PANNs combine the strengths of DNNs (flexibility and
efficiency in higher-dimensional approximation) with those of polynomial
approximation (rapid convergence rates for smooth functions). To aid in both
stable training and enhanced accuracy over a variety of problems, we present
(1) a family of orthogonality constraints that impose mutual orthogonality
between the polynomial and the DNN within a PANN; (2) a simple basis pruning
approach to combat the curse of dimensionality introduced by the polynomial
component; and (3) an adaptation of a polynomial preconditioning strategy to
both DNNs and polynomials. We test the resulting architecture for its
polynomial reproduction properties, ability to approximate both smooth
functions and functions of limited smoothness, and as a method for the solution
of partial differential equations (PDEs). Through these experiments, we
demonstrate that PANNs offer superior approximation properties to DNNs for both
regression and the numerical solution of PDEs, while also offering enhanced
accuracy over both polynomial and DNN-based regression (each) when regressing
functions with limited smoothness.


  Sufficient conditions for the well-posedness of the initial value problem for
the scalar wave equation are obtained in space-times with hypersurface
singularities


  We investigate the behavior of low-energy electrons in two-dimensional
molybdenum disulfide when submitted to an external magnetic field. Highly
degenerate Landau levels form in the material, between which light-induced
excitations are possible. The dependence of excitations on light polarization
and energy is explicitly determined, and it is shown that it is possible to
induce valley and spin polarization, i.e. to excite electrons of selected
valley and spin. Whereas the effective low-energy model in terms of massive
Dirac fermions yields dipole-type selection rules, higher-order band
corrections allow for the observation of additional transitions. Furthermore,
inter-Landau-level transitions involving the n=0 levels provide a reliable
method for an experimental measurement of the gap and the spin-orbit gap of
molybdenum disulfide.


  Window attention, position embeddings, and high resolution finetuning are
core concepts in the modern transformer era of computer vision. However, we
find that naively combining these near ubiquitous components can have a
detrimental effect on performance. The issue is simple: interpolating position
embeddings while using window attention is wrong. We study two state-of-the-art
methods that have these three components, namely Hiera and ViTDet, and find
that both do indeed suffer from this bug. To fix it, we introduce a simple
absolute window position embedding strategy, which solves the bug outright in
Hiera and allows us to increase both speed and performance of the model in
ViTDet. We finally combine the two to obtain HieraDet, which achieves 61.7 box
mAP on COCO, making it state-of-the-art for models that only use ImageNet-1k
pretraining. This all stems from what is essentially a 3 line bug fix, which we
name "absolute win".


  The atomic cluster expansion (Drautz, Phys. Rev. B 99, 014104 (2019)) is
extended in two ways, the modelling of vectorial and tensorial atomic
properties and the inclusion of atomic degrees of freedom in addition to the
positions of the atoms. In particular, atomic species, magnetic moments and
charges are attached to the atomic positions and an atomic cluster expansion
that includes the different degrees of freedom on equal footing is derived.
Expressions for the efficient evaluation of forces and torques are given.
Relations to other methods are discussed.


  Smart environments interconnect indoor building environments, indoor wireless
sensor and actuator networks, smartphones, and human together to provide smart
infrastructure management and intelligent user experiences. To enable the
"smart" operations, a complete set of hardware and software components are
required. In this work, we present Smart Syndesi, a system for creating indoor
location-aware smart building environments using wireless sensor and actuator
networks (WSANs). Smart Syndesi includes an indoor tracking system, a WSAN for
indoor environmental monitoring and activation automation, and a gateway
interconnecting WSAN, tracking system with mobile users.The indoor positioning
system tracks the real-time location of occupants with high accuracy, which
works as a basis for indoor location-based sensor actuation automation.To show
how the multiple software/hardware components are integrated, we implemented
the system prototype and performed intensive experiments in indoor office
environments to automate the indoor location-driven environmental sensor
monitoring and activation process. The tracked indoor location of a user's
smartphone triggers the retrieval of environmental measurements and activates
the actuators automatically (i.e. turn on/off lights, switch on/off fans) based
on the location and correlated environmental sensor information.


  This article deals with two topics: the first, which has a general character,
is a variation formula for the the determinant line bundle in non-K\"ahlerian
geometry. This formula, which is a consequence of the non-K\"ahlerian version
of the Grothendieck-Riemann Roch theorem proved recently by Bismut, gives the
variation of the determinant line bundle corresponding to a perturbation of a
Fourier-Mukai kernel ${\cal E}$ on a product $B\times X$ by a unitary flat line
bundle on the fiber $X$. When this fiber is a complex surface and ${\cal E}$ is
a holomorphic 2-bundle, the result can be interpreted as a Donaldson invariant.
  The second topic concerns a geometric application of our variation formula,
namely we will study compact complex subspaces of the moduli spaces of stable
bundles considered in our program for proving existence of curves on minimal
class VII surfaces. Such a moduli space comes with a distinguished point
$a=[{\cal A}]$ corresponding to the canonical extension ${\cal A}$ of $X$. The
compact subspaces $Y\subset {\cal M}^\st$ containing this distinguished point
play an important role in our program. We will prove a non-existence result:
there exists no compact complex subspace of positive dimension $Y\subset {\cal
M}^\st$ containing $a$ with an open neighborhood $a\in Y_a\subset Y$ such that
$Y_a\setminus\{a\}$ consists only of non-filtrable bundles. In other words,
within any compact complex subspace of positive dimension $Y\subset {\cal
M}^\st$ containing $a$, the point $a$ can be approached by filtrable bundles.
Specializing to the case $b_2=2$ we obtain a new way to complete the proof of a
theorem in a previous article: any minimal class VII surface with $b_2=2$ has a
cycle of curves. Applications to class VII surfaces with higher $b_2$ will be
be discussed in a forthcoming article.


  Spectroscopy of the broad iron iron with ASCA and BeppoSAX has up opened the
innermost regions of accreting black hole systems to detailed study. In this
contribution, I discuss how observations with future X-ray missions will extend
these studies and all us to observationally address issues which are currently
only in the realm of the theorists. In particular, high-throughput spectroscopy
with XMM and, eventually, Constellation-X will allow the full diagnostic power
of iron line variability to be realized. Instabilities of the inner accretion
flow, the geometry of the variable X-ray source, and the black hole mass and
spin will all be open to study. Eventually, X-ray interferometry will allow
direct imaging of the black hole region in nearby active galaxies, thereby
providing the ultimate probe of black hole astrophysics.


  We investigate a scheme-theoretic variant of Whitney condition a. If X is a
projec-tive variety over the field of complex numbers and Y $\subset$ X a
subvariety, then X satisfies generically the scheme-theoretic Whitney condition
a along Y provided that the pro-jective dual of X is smooth. We give
applications to tangency of projective varieties over C and to convex real
algebraic geometry. In particular, we prove a Bertini-type theorem for
osculating plane of smooth complex space curves and a generalization of a
Theorem of Ranestad and Sturmfels describing the algebraic boundary of an
affine compact real variety.


  The properties of a string-inspired two-dimensional theory of gravity are
studied. The post-Newtonian and weak-field approximations, `stellar' structure
and cosmological solutions of this theory are developed. Some qualitative
similarities to general relativity are found, but there are important
differences.


  We discuss a new class of coordinate systems for a plane, which provide an
analytical representation of arbitrary straightline, and then define the form
of potential on the plane, under which the equations of motion of a mass point
are solvable. In both cases we use the Hamiltonian approach, reducing the
problem to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The coordinate systems in question are
defined in a somewhat unusual way, and, correspondingly, the potentials we
obtain, also possess some unusual properties. Since the equations of motion are
solvable within this potential, the second integral of motion is defined too,
and, like the coordinate system and potential, it possesses some nonstandard
properties.


  In this paper, we analyze the inflationary cosmology using string field
theory. This is done by using the zero level contribution from string field
theory, which is a non-local tachyonic action. We will use the non-local
Friedmann equations for this model based on string field theory, and calculate
the slow-roll parameters for this model. We will then explicitly obtain the
scalar and tensorial power spectrum, their related indices, and the
tensor-to-scalar ratio for this model. Finally, we use cosmological data from
Planck 2013 to 2018 to constrain the free parameters in this model and find
that string field theory is compatible with them.


  For a class of $\Lambda$-Fleming-Viot processes with underlying Brownian
motion whose associated $\Lambda$-coalescents come down from infinity, we prove
a one-sided modulus of continuity result for their ancestry processes recovered
from the lookdown construction of Donnelly and Kurtz. As applications, we first
show that such a $\Lambda$-Fleming-Viot support process has one-sided modulus
of continuity (with modulus function $C\sqrt{t\log(1/t)}$) at any fixed time.
We also show that the support is compact simultaneously at all positive times,
and given the initial compactness, its range is uniformly compact over any
finite time interval. In addition, under a mild condition on the
$\Lambda$-coalescence rates, we find a uniform upper bound on Hausdorff
dimension of the support and an upper bound on Hausdorff dimension of the
range.


  The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has measured the neutrino mixing
angle \theta_{13} to world-leading precision. The experiment uses eight
antineutrino detectors filled with 20-tons of gadolinium-doped liquid
scintillator to detect antineutrinos emitted from the Daya Bay nuclear power
plant through the inverse beta decay reaction. The precision measurement of
sin^{2}2\theta_{13} relies on the relative antineutrino interaction rates
between detectors at near (400 m) and far (roughly 1.8 km) distances from the
nuclear reactors. The measured interaction rate in each detector is directly
proportional to the number of protons in the liquid scintillator target. A
precision detector filling system was developed to simultaneously fill the
three liquid zones of the antineutrino detectors and measure the relative
target mass between detectors to <0.02%. This paper describes the design,
operation, and performance of the system and the resulting precision
measurement of the detectors' target liquid masses.


  We report preliminary results on a search for new phenomena in an event
sample with monojets and large missing transverse momentum in the final state.
The analysis uses 1.00 fb-1 of data collected in 2011 with the ATLAS detector.
Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and the
Standard Model predictions. The results are translated into improved limits on
a model with Large Extra Dimensions.


  One of the earliest indicators of the importance of shock acceleration of
solar energetic particles (SEPs) was the broad spatial extent of the "gradual"
SEP events produced as the shock waves, driven by wide, fast coronal mass
ejections (CMEs), expand across the Sun with cross-field transport mediated by
the shocks. Contrasting "impulsive" SEP events, with characteristic
enhancements of 3He and of heavy elements, are now associated with magnetic
reconnection on open field lines in solar jets. However, large shock waves can
also traverse pools of residual impulsive suprathermal ions and jets can
produce fast CMEs that drive shock waves; in both cases shocks reaccelerate
ions with the "impulsive" abundance signatures as well as coronal plasma. These
more-complex events produce "excess protons" that identify this process, and
recently, differences in the distribution of 4He abundances have also been
found to depend upon the combination of seed population and acceleration mode.
Extreme differences in the 4He abundances may reflect underlying differences in
the abundances of the coronal regions being sampled by solar jets and,
surprisingly, SEP events where shock waves sample two seed-particle populations
seem to have about twice the 4He/O ratio of those with a single source.


  In this paper, we introduce a novel non-linear activation function that
spontaneously induces class-compactness and regularization in the embedding
space of neural networks. The function is dubbed DOME for Difference Of
Mirrored Exponential terms. The basic form of the function can replace the
sigmoid or the hyperbolic tangent functions as an output activation function
for binary classification problems. The function can also be extended to the
case of multi-class classification, and used as an alternative to the standard
softmax function. It can also be further generalized to take more flexible
shapes suitable for intermediate layers of a network. We empirically
demonstrate the properties of the function. We also show that models using the
function exhibit extra robustness against adversarial attacks.


  Resonantly-forced oscillatory reaction-diffusion systems can exhibit fronts
with complicated interfacial structure separating phase-locked homogeneous
states. For values of the forcing amplitude below a critical value the front
"explodes" and the width of the interfacial zone grows without bound. Such
front explosion phenomena are investigated for a realistic model of catalytic
CO oxidation on a Pt(110) surface in the 2:1 and 3:1 resonantly-forced regimes.
In the 2:1 regime, the fronts are stationary and the front explosion leads to a
defect-mediated turbulent state. In the 3:1 resonantly-forced system, the
fronts propagate. The front velocity tends to zero as the front explosion point
is reached and the final asymptotic state is a 2:1 resonantly-locked
labyrinthine pattern. The front dynamics described here should be observable in
experiment since the model has been shown to capture essential features of the
CO oxidation reaction.


  A general methodology is presented to perform direct numerical simulations of
particle dispersions in a shear flow with Lees-Edwards periodic boundary
conditions. The Navier-Stokes equation is solved in oblique coordinates to
resolve the incompatibility of the fluid motions with the sheared geometry, and
the force coupling between colloidal particles and the host fluid is imposed by
using a smoothed profile method. The validity of the method is carefully
examined by comparing the present numerical results with experimental viscosity
data for particle dispersions in a wide range of volume fractions and shear
rates including nonlinear shear-thinning regimes.


  This paper extends our previous works arXiv:1802.07306 [math.NT],
arXiv:1808.02382 [math.NT] on determining the spectrum, in the Berkovich sense,
of ultrametric linear differential equations. Our previous works focused on
equations with constant coefficients or over a field of formal power series. In
this paper, we investigate the spectrum of $p$-adic differential equations at a
generic point on a quasi-smooth curve. This analysis allows us to establish a
significant connection between the spectrum and the spectral radii of
convergence of a differential equation when considering the affine line.
Furthermore, the spectrum offers a more detailed decomposition compared to
Robba's decomposition based on spectral radii.


  We consider the problem of finding an integral packing of branchings in a
capacitated digraph with root-set demands. Schrijver described an algorithm
that returns a packing with at most m+n^3+r branchings that makes at most
m(m+n^3+r) calls to an oracle that basically computes a minimum cut, where n is
the number of vertices, m is the number of arcs and r is the number of
root-sets of the input digraph. In this work we provide an algorithm, inspired
on ideas of Schrijver and on an paper of Gabow and Manu, that returns a packing
with at most m+r-1 branchings and makes at most 2n+m+r-1 oracle calls.


  Recently, Thas et al. (2012) introduced a new statistical model for the
probability index. This index is defined as $P(Y \leq Y^*|X, X^*)$ where Y and
Y* are independent random response variables associated with covariates X and
X* [...] Crucially to estimate the parameters of the model, a set of
pseudo-observations is constructed. For a sample size n, a total of $n(n-1)/2$
pairwise comparisons between observations is considered. Consequently for large
sample sizes, it becomes computationally infeasible or even impossible to fit
the model as the set of pseudo-observations increases nearly quadratically. In
this dissertation, we provide two solutions to fit a probabilistic index model.
The first algorithm consists of splitting the entire data set into unique
partitions. On each of these, we fit the model and then aggregate the
estimates. A second algorithm is a subsampling scheme in which we select $K <<
n$ observations without replacement and after B iterations aggregate the
estimates. In Monte Carlo simulations, we show how the partitioning algorithm
outperforms the latter [...] We illustrate the partitioning algorithm and the
interpretation of the probabilistic index model on a real data set (Przybylski
and Weinstein, 2017) of n = 116,630 where we compare it against the ordinary
least squares method. By modelling the probabilistic index, we give an
intuitive and meaningful quantification of the effect of the time adolescents
spend using digital devices such as smartphones on self-reported mental
well-being. We show how moderate usage is associated with an increased
probability of reporting a higher mental well-being compared to random
adolescents who do not use a smartphone. On the other hand, adolescents who
excessively use their smartphone are associated with a higher probability of
reporting a lower mental well-being than randomly chosen peers who do not use a
smartphone.[...]


  We show that, by using resummation techniques based on the extension of the
methods of Yennie, Frautschi and Suura to Feynman's formulation of Einstein's
theory, we get quantum field theoretic predictions for the UV fixed-point
values of the dimensionless gravitational and cosmological constants.
Connections to the phenomenological asymptotic safety analysis of Planck scale
cosmology by Bonanno and Reuter are discussed.


  In multi-task reinforcement learning, it is possible to improve the data
efficiency of training agents by transferring knowledge from other different
but related tasks. Because the experiences from different tasks are usually
biased toward the specific task goals. Traditional methods rely on
Kullback-Leibler regularization to stabilize the transfer of knowledge from one
task to the others. In this work, we explore the direction of replacing the
Kullback-Leibler divergence with a novel Optimal transport-based
regularization. By using the Sinkhorn mapping, we can approximate the Optimal
transport distance between the state distribution of tasks. The distance is
then used as an amortized reward to regularize the amount of sharing
information. We experiment our frameworks on several grid-based navigation
multi-goal to validate the effectiveness of the approach. The results show that
our added Optimal transport-based rewards are able to speed up the learning
process of agents and outperforms several baselines on multi-task learning.


  Plasmonic metamaterials and metasurfaces offer new opportunities in
developing high performance terahertz emitters and detectors beyond the
limitations of conventional nonlinear materials. However, simple meta-atoms for
second-order nonlinear applications encounter fundamental trade-offs in the
necessary symmetry breaking and local-field enhancement due to radiation
damping that is inherent to the operating resonant mode and cannot be
controlled separately. Here we present a novel concept that eliminates this
restriction obstructing the improvement of terahertz generation efficiency in
nonlinear metasurfaces based on metallic nanoresonators. This is achieved by
combining a resonant dark-state metasurface, which locally drives nonlinear
nanoresonators in the near field, with a specific spatial symmetry that enables
destructive interference of the radiating linear moments of the nanoresonators,
and perfect absorption via simultaneous electric and magnetic critical coupling
of the pump radiation to the dark mode. Our proposal allows eliminating linear
radiation damping, while maintaining constructive interference and effective
radiation of the nonlinear components. We numerically demonstrate a giant
second-order nonlinear susceptibility around Hundred-Billionth m/V, a one order
improvement compared with the previously reported split-ring-resonator
metasurface, and correspondingly, a 2 orders of magnitude enhanced terahertz
energy extraction should be expected with our configuration under the same
conditions. Our study offers a paradigm of high efficiency tunable nonlinear
metadevices and paves the way to revolutionary terahertz technologies and
optoelectronic nanocircuitry.


  Reactor grade plasmas are likely to be fuelled by pellet injection. This
technique transiently perturbs the profiles, driving the density profile hollow
and flattening the edge temperature profile. After the pellet perturbation, the
density and temperature profiles relax towards their quasi-steady-state shape.
Microinstabilities influence plasma confinement and will play a role in
determining the evolution of the profiles in pellet fuelled plasmas. In this
paper we present the microstability analysis of pellet fuelled H-mode MAST
plasmas. Taking advantage of the unique capabilities of the MAST Thomson
scattering system and the possibility of synchronizing the eight lasers with
the pellet injection, we were able to measure the evolution of the post-pellet
electron density and temperature profiles with high temporal and spatial
resolution. These profiles, together with ion temperature profiles measured
using a charge exchange diagnostic, were used to produce equilibria suitable
for microstability analysis of the equilibrium changes induced by pellet
injection. This analysis, carried out using the local gyrokinetic code GS2,
reveals that the microstability properties are extremely sensitive to the rapid
and large transient excursions of the density and temperature profiles, which
also change collisionality and beta e significantly in the region most strongly
affected by the pellet ablation.


  The Liouville type theorem on the parabolic Monge--Amp\`ere equation
$-u_t\det D^2u=1$ states that any entire parabolically convex classical
solution must be of form $-t+|x|^2/2$ up to a re-scaling and transformation,
under additional assumption that partial derivative with respect to time
variable $u_t$ is strictly negative and bounded. In this paper, we study the
case when $u_t$ is unbounded, prove an existence result of entire parabolically
convex smooth solution and investigate the asymptotic behavior near infinity.


  The use of an ultracold neutron interferometer incorporating an electrostatic
accelerator having a strong electric field gradient to accelerate neutrons by
their possible electric moments is proposed as a method of measuring the
neutron electric dipole moment. Such electrical acceleration, followed by an
amplifier and a generator of phase difference, could develop relatively large
phase differences and these could be measured by a Mach-Zehnder interferometer.
This method might extend the sensitivity of the measurement by several orders
of magnitude beyond the current limit of 10^{-25} e.cm. Furthermore the
systematic errors in such a measurement could be significantly different from
those of the current EDM experiments.


  We show that if $C$ is a supersingular genus-$2$ curve over an
algebraically-closed field of characteristic $2$, then there are infinitely
many Richelot isogenies starting from $C$. This is in contrast to what happens
with non-supersingular curves in characteristic $2$, or to arbitrary curves in
characteristic not $2$: In these situations, there are at most fifteen Richelot
isogenies starting from a given genus-$2$ curve.
  More specifically, we show that if $C_1$ and $C_2$ are two arbitrary
supersingular genus-$2$ curves over an algebraically-closed field of
characteristic $2$, then there are exactly sixty Richelot isogenies from $C_1$
to $C_2$, unless either $C_1$ or $C_2$ is isomorphic to the curve $y^2 + y =
x^5$. In that case, there are either twelve or four Richelot isogenies from
$C_1$ to $C_2$, depending on whether $C_1$ is isomorphic to $C_2$. (Here we
count Richelot isogenies up to isomorphism.) We give explicit constructions
that produce all of the Richelot isogenies between two supersingular curves.


  We present results on the renormalization functions of the quark field and
fermion bilinears with up to one covariant derivative. For the fermion part of
the action we employ the twisted mass formulation with $N_f{=}2$ and $N_f{=}4$
degenerate dynamical quarks, while in the gluon sector we use the Iwasaki
improved action. The simulations for $N_f{=}4$ have been performed for pion
masses in the range of 390MeV - 760MeV and at three values of the lattice
spacing, $a$, corresponding to $\beta{=}1.90,\,1.95,\,2.10$. The $N_f{=}2$
action includes a clover term with $c_{\rm sw}{=}1.57551$ at $\beta{=}2.10$,
and three ensembles at different values of $m_\pi$.
  The evaluation of the renormalization functions is carried out in the RI$'$
scheme using a momentum source. The non-perturbartive evaluation is
complemented with a perturbative computation, which is carried out at one-loop
level and to all orders in the lattice spacing, $a$. For each renormalization
function computed non-perturbatively we subtract the corresponding lattice
artifacts to all orders in $a$, so that a large part of the cut-off effects is
eliminated.
  The renormalization functions are converted to the ${\overline{\rm MS}}$
scheme at a reference energy scale of $\mu{=}2$ GeV after taking the chiral
limit.


  Single crystal of La(O,F)BiSe2 was successfully grown for the first time by
the CsCl flux method. Single crystal X-ray structural analysis clearly showed
that La(O,F)BiSe2 crystalizes with space group P4/nmm (lattice parameters a =
4.1408(2) {\AA}, c = 14.1096(6) {\AA}). The structure is composed of
alternating BiSe2 and LaO layers. Magnetic susceptibility and resistivity
measurements showed the superconducting transition at 3.6 K, which is higher
than that of as-grown La(O,F)BiS2. The structural analysis implies that
La(O,F)BiSe2 is potential superconductor having higher Tc under high pressure.


  We study the Sivers asymmetry in semi-inclusive hadron production in deep
inelastic scattering. We concentrate on the contribution from the photon-gluon
fusion channel at ${\cal O}(\alpha_{em}^2 \alpha_s)$, where three-gluon
correlation functions play a major role within the twist-3 collinear
factorization formalism. We establish the correspondence between such a
formalism with three gluon correlation functions and the usual transverse
momentum dependent (TMD) factorization formalism at moderate hadron transverse
momenta. We derive the coefficient functions used in the usual TMD evolution
formalism related to the quark Sivers function expansion in terms of the
three-gluon correlation functions. We further perform the next-to-leading order
calculation for the transverse-momentum-weighted spin-dependent differential
cross section, and identify the off-diagonal contribution from the three-gluon
correlation functions to the QCD collinear evolution of the twist-3 Qiu-Sterman
function.


  In this paper we present a self-supervised method for representation learning
utilizing two different modalities. Based on the observation that cross-modal
information has a high semantic meaning we propose a method to effectively
exploit this signal. For our approach we utilize video data since it is
available on a large scale and provides easily accessible modalities given by
RGB and optical flow. We demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on highly
contested action recognition datasets in the context of self-supervised
learning. We show that our feature representation also transfers to other tasks
and conduct extensive ablation studies to validate our core contributions. Code
and model can be found at https://github.com/nawidsayed/Cross-and-Learn.


  A variant of the accelerating cosmology reconstruction program is developed
for $f(R)$ gravity and for a modified Yang-Mills/Maxwell theory. Reconstruction
schemes in terms of e-foldings and by using an auxiliary scalar field are
developed and carefully compared, for the case of $f(R)$ gravity. An example of
a model with a transient phantom behavior without real matter is explicitly
discussed in both schemes. Further, the two reconstruction schemes are applied
to the more physically interesting case of a Yang-Mills/Maxwell theory, again
with explicit examples. Detailed comparison of the two schemes of
reconstruction is presented also for this theory. It seems to support, as well,
physical non-equivalence of the two frames.


  In the paper, we investigate weighted composition operators on Bergman spaces
of a half-plane. We characterize weighted composition operators which are
hermitian and those which are complex symmetric with respect to a family of
conjugations. As it turns out, weighted composition operators enhanced by a
symmetry must be bounded. Hermitian, and unitary weighted composition operators
are proven to be complex symmetric with respect to an adapted and highly
relevant conjugation. We classify which the linear fractional functions give
rise to the complex symmetry of bounded composition operators. We end the paper
with a natural link to complex symmetry in Lebesgue space.


  Semantic segmentations of pathological entities have crucial clinical value
in computational pathology workflows. Foundation models, such as the Segment
Anything Model (SAM), have been recently proposed for universal use in
segmentation tasks. SAM shows remarkable promise in instance segmentation on
natural images. However, the applicability of SAM to computational pathology
tasks is limited due to the following factors: (1) lack of comprehensive
pathology datasets used in SAM training and (2) the design of SAM is not
inherently optimized for semantic segmentation tasks. In this work, we adapt
SAM for semantic segmentation by introducing trainable class prompts, followed
by further enhancements through the incorporation of a pathology encoder,
specifically a pathology foundation model. Our framework, SAM-Path enhances
SAM's ability to conduct semantic segmentation in digital pathology without
human input prompts. Through experiments on two public pathology datasets, the
BCSS and the CRAG datasets, we demonstrate that the fine-tuning with trainable
class prompts outperforms vanilla SAM with manual prompts and post-processing
by 27.52% in Dice score and 71.63% in IOU. On these two datasets, the proposed
additional pathology foundation model further achieves a relative improvement
of 5.07% to 5.12% in Dice score and 4.50% to 8.48% in IOU.


  We prove an exact controllability result for a one-dimensional heat equation
with delay in both lower and highest order terms and nonhomogeneous Dirichlet
boundary conditions. Moreover, we give an explicit representation of the
control function steering the system into a given final state. Under certain
decay properties for corresponding Fourier coefficients which can be
interpreted as a sufficiently high Sobolev regularity of the data, both control
function and the solution are proved to be regular in the classical sense both
with respect to time and space variables.


  We have developed a new type of particle identification device, called an
Aerogel Ring Imaging Cherenkov (ARICH) counter, for the Belle II experiment. It
uses silica aerogel tiles as Cherenkov radiators. For detection of Cherenkov
photons, Hybrid Avalanche Photo-Detectors (HAPDs) are used. The designed HAPD
has a high sensitivity to single photons under a strong magnetic field. We have
confirmed that the HAPD provides high efficiency for single-photon detection
even after exposure to neutron and gamma-ray radiation that exceeds the levels
expected in the 10-year Belle II operation. In order to confirm the basic
performance of the ARICH counter system, we carried out a beam test at the DESY
using a prototype of the ARICH counter with six HAPD modules. The results are
in agreement with our expectations and confirm the suitability of the ARICH
counter for the Belle II experiment. Based on the in-beam performance of the
device, we expect that the identification efficiency at 3.5 GeV/c is 97.4% and
4.9% for pions and kaons, respectively. This paper summarizes the development
of the HAPD for the ARICH and the evaluation of the performance of the
prototype ARICH counter built with the final design components.


  The characterisation of the atomic and molecular hydrogen content of
high-redshift galaxies is a major observational challenge that will be
addressed over the coming years with a new generation of radio telescopes. We
investigate this important issue by considering the states of hydrogen across a
range of structures within high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical
simulations. Additionally, our simulations allow us to investigate the
sensitivity of our results to numerical resolution and to sub-grid baryonic
physics (especially feedback from supernovae and active galactic nuclei). We
find that the most significant uncertainty in modelling the neutral hydrogen
distribution arises from our need to model a self-shielding correction in
moderate density regions. Future simulations incorporating radiative transfer
schemes will be vital to improve on our empirical self-shielding threshold.
Irrespective of the exact nature of the threshold we find that while the atomic
hydrogen mass function evolves only mildly from redshift two to zero, the
molecular hydrogen mass function increases with increasing redshift, especially
at the high-mass end. Interestingly, the weak evolution of the neutral hydrogen
mass function is insensitive to the feedback scheme utilised, but the opposite
is true for the molecular gas, which is more closely associated with the star
formation in the simulations.


  Modeling data with multivariate count responses is a challenging problem due
to the discrete nature of the responses. Existing methods for univariate count
responses cannot be easily extended to the multivariate case since the
dependency among multiple responses needs to be properly accommodated. In this
paper, we propose a multivariate Poisson log-normal regression model for
multivariate data with count responses. By simultaneously estimating the
regression coefficients and inverse covariance matrix over the latent variables
with an efficient Monte Carlo EM algorithm, the proposed regression model takes
advantages of association among multiple count responses to improve the model
prediction performance. Simulation studies and applications to real world data
are conducted to systematically evaluate the performance of the proposed method
in comparison with conventional methods.


  This paper gives an essentially self-contained exposition (except for an
appeal to the Lojasiewicz gradient inequality) of geometric invariant theory
from a differential geometric viewpoint. Central ingredients are the
moment-weight inequality (relating the Mumford numerical invariants to the norm
of the moment map), the negative gradient flow of the moment map squared, and
the Kempf-Ness function.


  We propose an ensemble theory for the non-equilibrium statistics to study the
thermal transport in anharmonic crystals. In the theory, lattice vibrations of
the crystals are quantized by local Bosons(LBs), instead of Phonons as usually
used for the thermal transport. LBs are driven by the temperature gradient and
move from atom to atom in the crystals. Based on the LBs, anharmonic
interactions between atoms in the crystals can be fully considered. To
demonstrate our theory, we study the thermal transport in an atomic chain with
a temperature drop applied on the two ends of the chain. We observe a Rabi-like
oscillation in the transport of the LBs, from which we define the thermal
current to get the thermal conductivity of the chain. Results show that the
thermal conductivity is enhanced slowly with the increasing of the anharmonic
interaction and decreases rapidly if the anharmonic interaction is increased
further. In the present study, we only focus on the steady state, and the
fluctuations of the thermal currents are not considered.


  We here study extended classes of logotropic fluids as \textit{unified dark
energy models}. Under the hypothesis of the Anton-Schmidt scenario, we consider
the universe obeying a single fluid whose pressure evolves through a
logarithmic equation of state. This result is in analogy with crystals under
isotropic stresses. Thus, we investigate thermodynamic and dynamical
consequences by integrating the speed of sound to obtain the pressure in terms
of the density, leading to an extended version of the Anton-Schmidt cosmic
fluids. Within this picture, we get significant outcomes expanding the
Anton-Schmidt pressure in the infrared regime. The low-energy case becomes
relevant for the universe to accelerate without any cosmological constant. We
therefore derive the effective representation of our fluid in terms of a
Lagrangian $\mathcal{L}=\mathcal{L}(X)$, depending on the kinetic term $X$
only. We analyze both the relativistic and non-relativistic limits. In the
non-relativistic limit we construct both the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian in
terms of density $\rho$ and scalar field $\vartheta$, whereas in the
relativistic case no analytical expression for the Lagrangian can be found.
Thus, we obtain the potential as a function of $\rho$, under the hypothesis of
irrotational perfect fluid. We demonstrate that the model represents a natural
generalization of \emph{logotropic dark energy models}. Finally, we analyze an
extended class of generalized Chaplygin gas models with one extra parameter
$\beta$. Interestingly, we find that the Lagrangians of this scenario and the
pure logotropic one coincide in the non-relativistic regime.


  We introduce an exponential random graph model for networks with a fixed
degree distribution and with a tunable degree-degree correlation. We then
investigate the nature of a percolation transition in the correlated network
with the Poisson degree distribution. It is found that negative correlation is
irrelevant in that the percolation transition in the disassortative network
belongs to the same universality class of the uncorrelated network. Positive
correlation turns out to be relevant. The percolation transition in the
assortative network is characterized by the non-diverging mean size of finite
clusters and power-law scalings of the density of the largest cluster and the
cluster size distribution in the non-percolating phase as well as at the
critical point. Our results suggest that the unusual type percolation
transition in the growing network models reported recently may be inherited
from the assortative degree-degree correlation.


  The first even-even nucleus for which there are J=1+ T=0 states in a single j
shell configuration is 48Cr.
  In this limited model space all T=0 to T=0 M1 matrix elements vanish.


  We present a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)-based parameter estimation
package, CosmoReionMC, to jointly constrain cosmological parameters of the
$\Lambda$CDM model and the astrophysical parameters related to hydrogen
reionization. The package is based on a previously developed physically
motivated semi-analytical model for reionization, a similar semi-analytical
model for computing the global 21~cm signal during the cosmic dawn and using an
appropriately modified version of the publicly available CAMB for computing the
CMB anisotropies. These calculations are then coupled to an MCMC ensemble
sampler \texttt{emcee} to compute the posterior distributions of the model
parameter. The model has twelve free parameters in total: five cosmological and
seven related to the stellar populations. We constrain the parameters by
matching the theoretical predictions with CMB data from Planck, observations
related to the quasar absorption spectra and, for the first time, the global
21~cm signal from EDGES. We find that incorporating the quasar spectra data in
the analysis tightens the bounds on the electron scattering optical depth
$\tau$ and consequently the normalization $A_s$ of the primordial matter power
spectrum (or equivalently $\sigma_8$). Furthermore, when we include the EDGES
data in the analysis, we find that an early population of metal-free stars with
efficient radio emission is necessary to match the absorption amplitude. The
CosmoReionMC package should have interesting future applications, e.g., probing
non-standard extensions to the $\Lambda$CDM model.


  In this contribution we investigate in mathematical modeling and efficient
simulation of biological cells with a particular emphasis on effective modeling
of structural properties that originate from active forces generated from
polymerization and depolymerization of cytoskeletal components. In detail, we
propose a nonlinear continuum approach to model microtubule-based forces which
have recently been established as central components of cell mechanics during
early fruit fly wing development. The model is discretized in space using the
finite-element method. Although the individual equations are decoupled by a
semi-implicit time discretization, the discrete model is still computationally
demanding. In addition, the parameters needed for the effective model equations
are not easily available and have to be estimated or determined by repeatedly
solving the model and fitting the results to measurements. This drastically
increases the computational cost. Reduced basis methods have been used
successfully to speed up such repeated solves, often by several orders of
magnitude. However, for the complex nonlinear models regarded here, the
application of these model order reduction methods is not always
straight-forward and comes with its own set of challenges. In particular,
subspace construction using the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) becomes
prohibitively expensive for reasonably fine grids. We thus propose to combine
the Hierarchical Approximate POD, which is a general, easy-to-implement
approach to compute an approximate POD, with an Empirical Interpolation Method
to efficiently generate a fast to evaluate reduced order model. Numerical
experiments are given to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the
proposed modeling and simulation approach.


  A study of $B^{0}_{s} \to \eta_{c} \phi$ and $B^{0}_{s} \to \eta_{c}
\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ decays is performed using $pp$ collision data corresponding to
an integrated luminosity of 3.0$\,\rm fb^{-1}$, collected with the LHCb
detector in Run~1 of the LHC. The observation of the decay $B^{0}_{s} \to
\eta_{c} \phi$ is reported, where the $\eta_{c}$ meson is reconstructed in the
$p\bar p$, $K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-$, $\pi^+\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$ and $K^+K^-K^+K^-$ decay
modes and the $\phi(1020)$ in the $K^+ K^-$ decay mode. The decay $B^{0}_{s}
\to J/\psi \phi$ is used as a normalisation channel. Evidence is also reported
for the decay $B^{0}_{s} \to \eta_{c} \pi^{+}\pi^{-}$, where the $\eta_{c}$
meson is reconstructed in the $p\bar p$ decay mode, using the decay $B^{0}_{s}
\to J/\psi \pi^+ \pi^-$ as a normalisation channel. The measured branching
fractions are \begin{eqnarray*} {\mathcal B (B^{0}_{s} \to \eta_{c} \phi)} &=&
\left(5.01 \pm 0.53 \pm 0.27 \pm 0.63 \right) \times 10^{-4} \,, \nonumber
  \\ {\mathcal B (B^{0}_{s} \to \eta_{c} \pi^+ \pi^-)} &=& \left(1.76 \pm 0.59
\pm 0.12 \pm 0.29 \right) \times 10^{-4} \,, \end{eqnarray*} where in each case
the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third
uncertainty is due to the limited knowledge of the external branching
fractions.


  The characteristics of mobile Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs), such as low
communication bandwidth, large propagation delay, and sparse deployment, pose
challenging issues for successful localization of sensor nodes. In addition,
sensor nodes in UWSNs are usually powered by batteries whose replacements
introduce high cost and complexity. Thus, the critical problem in UWSNs is to
enable each sensor node to find enough anchor nodes in order to localize
itself, with minimum energy costs. In this paper, an Energy-Efficient
Localization Algorithm (EELA) is proposed to analyze the decentralized
interactions among sensor nodes and anchor nodes. A
Single-Leader-Multi-Follower Stackelberg game is utilized to formulate the
topology control problem of sensor nodes and anchor nodes by exploiting their
available communication opportunities. In this game, the sensor node acts as a
leader taking into account factors such as 'two-hop' anchor nodes and energy
consumption, while anchor nodes act as multiple followers, considering their
ability to localize sensor nodes and their energy consumption. We prove that
both players select best responses and reach a socially optimal Stackelberg
Nash Equilibrium. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed EELA
improves the perfor- mance of localization in UWSNs significantly, and in
particular the energy cost of sensor nodes. Compared to the baseline schemes,
the energy consumption per node is about 48% lower in EELA, while providing a
desirable localization coverage, under reasonable error and delay.


  We argue that the analysis of Reimers {\it et al.} [ Phys. Rev. B {\bf 45},
7295 (1992)] of their Monte Carlo data on the Heisenberg pyrochlore
antiferromagnet, which suggests a new universality class, is not conclusive. By
re-analysis of their data, we demonstrate asymptotic volume dependence in some
thermodynamic quantities, which suggests the possibility that the transition
may be first order.


  Recently, an axially symmetric spacetime with causality violation is appeared
in Ref. [1]. There, author presented a type III metric with vanishing
expansion, shear and twist. The matter-energy represents a pure radial field
with a negative cosmological constant. The spacetime is asymptotically anti-de
Sitter space in the radial direction. Actually, this work with different for
the metric was already published in Ref. [4]. Therefore, the current paper Ref.
[1] is a duplicate one of the previous work.


  We expand the most general lattice Dirac operator D in a basis of simple
operators. The Ginsparg-Wilson equation turns into a system of coupled
quadratic equations for the expansion coefficients. Our expansion of D allows
for a natural cutoff and the remaining quadratic equations can be solved
numerically. The procedure allows to find Dirac operators which obey the
Ginpsparg-Wilson equation with arbitrary precision.


  A phenomenological expression for the thermodynamic potential of gluons and
quarks is constructed which incorporates the features of deconfinement and
chiral symmetry restoration known from lattice simulations. The thermodynamic
potential is a function of the Polyakov loop and chiral condensate expectation
values. The gluonic sector uses a successful model for pure (SU(N_c)) gauge
theories in which the Polyakov loop eigenvalues are the fundamental order
parameters for deconfinement. The quark sector is given by a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio
model in which a constant background (A_0) field couples the chiral condensate
to the Polyakov loop. We consider the case of (N_f = 2) in detail. For two
massless quarks, we find a second order chiral phase transition. Confinement
effects push the transition to higher temperatures, but the entropy associated
with the gluonic sector acts in the opposite direction. For light mass quarks,
only a rapid crossover occurs. For sufficiently heavy quarks, a first order
deconfinement transition emerges. This simplest model has one adjustable
parameter, which can be set from the chiral transition temperature for light
quarks. It predicts all thermodynamic quantities as well as the behavior of the
chiral condensate and the Polyakov loop over a wide range of temperatures.


  We present a density difference based analysis for a range of
orbital--dependent Kohn--Sham functionals. Results for atoms, some members of
the neon isoelectronic series and small molecules are reported and compared
with ab initio wave-function calculations. Particular attention is paid to the
quality of approximations to the exchange--only optimized effective potential
(OEP) approach: we consider both the Localized Hartree Fock as well as the
Krieger-Li-Iafrate methods. Analysis of density differences at the
exchange--only level reveals the impact the approximations have on the
resulting electronic densities. These differences are further quantified in
terms of the ground state energies, frontier orbital energy differences and
highest occupied orbital energies obtained. At the correlated level an OEP
approach based on a perturbative second--order correlation energy expression is
shown to deliver results comparable with those from traditional wave function
approaches, making it suitable for use as a benchmark against which to compare
standard density--functional approximations.


  We predict that optical Bloch oscillations can be observed in layered
structures with left-handed metamaterials and zero average refractive index
where the layer thickness varies linearly across the structure. We demonstrate
a new type of the Bloch oscillations associated with coupled surface waves
excited at the interfaces between the layers with left-handed material and
conventional dielectric.


  Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive imaging technology which
can provide micrometer-resolution cross-sectional images of the inner
structures of the eye. It is widely used for the diagnosis of ophthalmic
diseases with retinal alteration, such as layer deformation and fluid
accumulation. In this paper, a novel framework was proposed to segment retinal
layers with fluid presence. The main contribution of this study is two folds:
1) we developed a cascaded network framework to incorporate the prior
structural knowledge; 2) we proposed a novel deep neural network based on U-Net
and fully convolutional network, termed LF-UNet. Cross validation experiments
proved that the proposed LF-UNet has superior performance comparing with the
state-of-the-art methods, and incorporating the relative distance map
structural prior information could further improve the performance regardless
the network.


  Understanding the origin of accretion and dispersal of protoplanetary disks
is fundamental for investigating planet formation. Recent numerical simulations
show that launching winds are unavoidable when disks undergo magnetically
driven accretion and/or are exposed to external UV radiation. Observations also
hint that disk winds are common. We explore how the resulting wind mass loss
rate can be used as a probe of both disk accretion and dispersal. As a
proof-of-concept study, we focus on magnetocentrifugal winds, MRI
(magnetorotational instability) turbulence, and external photoevapotaion. By
developing a simple, yet physically motivated disk model and coupling it with
simulation results available in the literature, we compute the mass loss rate
as a function of external UV flux for each mechanism. We find that different
mechanisms lead to different levels of mass loss rate, indicating that the
origin of disk accretion and dispersal can be determined, by observing the wind
mass loss rate resulting from each mechanism. This determination provides
important implications for planet formation. This work thus shows that the
ongoing and future observations of the wind mass loss rate for protoplanetary
disks are paramount to reliably constrain how protoplanetary disks evolve with
time and how planet formation takes place in the disks.


  Civic crowdfunding (CC) is a popular medium for raising funds for civic
projects from interested agents. With Blockchains gaining traction, we can
implement CC in a reliable, transparent, and secure manner with smart contracts
(SCs). The fundamental challenge in CC is free-riding. PPR, the proposal by
Zubrickas [23] of giving refund bonus to the contributors, in the case of the
project not getting provisioned, has attractive properties. However, as
observed by Chandra et al. [7], PPR faces a challenge wherein the agents defer
their contribution until the deadline. We define this delaying of contributions
as a race condition. To address this, their proposal, PPS, considers the
temporal aspects of a contribution. However, PPS is computationally complex,
expensive to implement as an SC, and it being sophisticated, it is difficult to
explain to a layperson. In this work, our goal is to identify all essential
properties a refund bonus scheme must satisfy in order to curb free-riding
while avoiding the race condition. We prove Contribution Monotonicity and Time
Monotonicity are sufficient conditions for this. We propose three elegant
refund bonus schemes satisfying these two conditions leading to three novel
mechanisms for CC - PPRG, PPRE, and PPRP. We show that PPRG is the most
cost-effective mechanism when deployed as an SC. We show that under certain
modest assumptions on valuations of the agents, in PPRG, the project is funded
at equilibrium.


  Exozodiacal dust is warm or hot dust found in the inner regions of planetary
systems orbiting main sequence stars, in or around their habitable zones. The
dust can be the most luminous component of extrasolar planetary systems, but
predominantly emits in the near- to mid-infrared where it is outshone by the
host star. Interferometry provides a unique method of separating this dusty
emission from the stellar emission. The visitor instrument PIONIER at the Very
Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) has been used to search for hot
exozodiacal dust around a large sample of nearby main sequence stars. The
results of this survey are summarised: 9 out of 85 stars show excess
exozodiacal emission over the stellar photospheric emission.


  We study the twistor equation on pseudo-Riemannian $Spin^c-$manifolds whose
solutions we call charged conformal Killing spinors (CCKS). We derive several
integrability conditions for the existence of CCKS and study their relations to
spinor bilinears. A construction principle for Lorentzian manifolds admitting
CCKS with nontrivial charge starting from CR-geometry is presented. We obtain a
partial classification result in the Lorentzian case under the additional
assumption that the associated Dirac current is normal conformal and complete
the Classification of manifolds admitting CCKS in all dimensions and signatures
$\leq 5$ which has recently been initiated in the study of supersymmetric field
theories on curved space.


  It is known that Euler numbers, defined as the Taylor coefficients of the
tangent and secant functions, count alternating permutations in the symmetric
group. Springer defined a generalization of these numbers for each finite
Coxeter group by considering the largest descent class, and computed the value
in each case of the classification. We consider here another generalization of
Euler numbers for finite Coxeter groups, building on Stanley's result about the
number of orbits of maximal chains of set partitions. We present a method to
compute these integers and obtain the value in each case of the classification.


  In $1977$, G. Bennett proved, by means of non-deterministic methods, an
inequality which plays a fundamental role in a series of optimization problems.
More precisely, Bennett's inequality shows that, for $p_{1},p_{2}
\in\lbrack1,\infty]$ and all positive integers $n_{1},n_{2}$, there exists a
bilinear form $A_{n_{1},n_{2}}\colon\left( \mathbb{R}^{n_{1}},\left\Vert
\cdot\right\Vert _{p_{1}}\right) \times\left( \mathbb{R}^{n_{2}},\left\Vert
\cdot\right\Vert _{p_{2}}\right) \longrightarrow\mathbb{R}$ with coefficients
$\pm1$ satisfying \[ \left\Vert A_{n_{1},n_{2}}\right\Vert \leq
C_{p_{1},p_{2}}\max\left\{ n_{1}^{1-\frac{1}{p_{1}}}n_{2}^{\max\left\{
\frac{1}{2}-\frac{1}{p_{2} },0\right\}
},n_{2}^{1-\frac{1}{p_{2}}}n_{1}^{\max\left\{ \frac{1}{2}
-\frac{1}{p_{1}},0\right\} }\right\} \] for a certain constant
$C_{p_{1},p_{2}}$ depending just on $p_{1},p_{2}$; moreover, the exponents of
$n_{1},n_{2}$ cannot be improved. In this paper, using a constructive approach,
we prove that $C_{p_{1},p_{2}}\leq\sqrt{8/5}$ whenever $p_{1},p_{2}\in\left[
2,\infty\right] $ or $p_{1}=p_{2}=p\in\left[ 1,\infty\right] $. Our techniques
are applied to provide new upper bounds for the constants of a combinatorial
game, known as Gale--Berlekamp switching game or unbalancing lights problem. As
a consequence, we improve estimates obtained by Brown and Spencer in $1971$ and
by Carlson and Stolarski in $2004$.


  The notion of Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) refers to inter-connected
pieces of avionics equipment supported by a wired technology, with stringent
reliability and safety requirements. If the inter-connecting wires are
physically secured so that a malicious user cannot access them directly, then
this enforces (at least partially) the security of the network. However,
substituting the wired network with a wireless network - which in this context
is referred to as an Avionics Wireless Network (AWN) - brings a number of new
challenges related to assurance, reliability, and security. The AWN thus has to
ensure that it provides at least the required security and safety levels
offered by the equivalent wired network. Providing a wired-equivalent security
for a communication channel requires the setting up of a strong, secure
(encrypted) channel between the entities that are connected to the AWN. In this
paper, we propose three approaches to establish such a secure channel based on
(i) pre-shared keys, (ii) trusted key distribution, and (iii) key-sharing
protocols. For each of these approaches, we present two representative protocol
variants. These protocols are then implemented as part of a demo AWN and they
are then compared based on performance measurements. Most importantly, we have
evaluated these protocols based on security and operational requirements that
we define in this paper for an AWN.


  We report on a member of the spin-disordered honeycomb lattice
antiferromagnet in a quasi-one-dimensional cobaltate Ba_3Co_2O_6(CO_3)_0.7.
Resistivity exhibits as semimetallic along the face-sharing CoO6 chains.
Magnetic susceptibility shows strongly anisotropic Ising-spin character with
the easy axis along the chain due to significant spin-orbit coupling and a
trigonal crystal field. Nevertheless, ^135Ba NMR detects no indication of the
long-range magnetic order down to 0.48 K. Marginally itinerant electrons
possess large entropy and low-lying excitations with a Wilson ratio R_W = 116,
which highlight interplays of charge, spin, and orbital in the disordered
ground state.


  Fifteen years ago, a structural analysis of the hormone insulin and the
retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (RB) revealed that they may physically
interact with one another. Subsequently, an RB peptide corresponding to the
proposed RB binding site for insulin was found to recognize full-length insulin
in vitro. As part of efforts aimed at developing this RB peptide into an
anti-cancer drug, this molecule was chemically coupled to a cellular
internalization signal and termed "MCR peptide". Meanwhile, several such MCR
peptide variants have been demonstrated to restrain the proliferation of
different human cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, one of the MCR
peptides coined MCR-10 was shown to be capable of interfering with the complex
formation between insulin and RB in HepG2 human hepatoma cells, as monitored by
immunofluorescence. This latter result indicating an in vivo association
between insulin and RB was confirmed by a follow-up study combining the methods
of co-immunoprecipitation and immunoblotting. Here, we provide evidence for the
existence of the insulin-RB complex in A549 human non-small cell lung cancer
cells. Specifically, we demonstrate this heterodimer by means of a magnetic
beads-based immunoprecipitation approach and equally show that this dimer can
be disrupted by MCR-4 or MCR-10 each of which is known to possess
antiproliferative properties, yet to a much lesser extent by a control peptide.
Thus, this investigation has yielded another important proof for the occurrence
of the insulin-RB dimer and, furthermore, its validity as a target for
antineoplastic MCR peptides.


  Effects of nonlinearity in Thomson scattering of a high intensity laser pulse
from electrons are analyzed. Analytic expressions for laser pulse shaping in
amplitude and frequency are obtained which control spectrum broadening for
arbitrarily high laser pulse intensities. These analytic solutions allow
prediction of the spectral form and required laser parameters to avoid
broadening. The predictions are validated by numerical calculations. This
control over the scattered radiation bandwidth allows of narrow bandwidth
sources to be produced using high scattering intensities, which in turn greatly
improves scattering yield for future x- and gamma-ray sources.


  We study truthful mechanisms for welfare maximization in online bipartite
matching. In our (multi-parameter) setting, every buyer is associated with a
(possibly private) desired set of items, and has a private value for being
assigned an item in her desired set. Unlike most online matching settings,
where agents arrive online, in our setting the items arrive online in an
adversarial order while the buyers are present for the entire duration of the
process. This poses a significant challenge to the design of truthful
mechanisms, due to the ability of buyers to strategize over future rounds. We
provide an almost full picture of the competitive ratios in different
scenarios, including myopic vs. non-myopic agents, tardy vs. prompt payments,
and private vs. public desired sets. Among other results, we identify the
frontier for which the celebrated $e/(e-1)$ competitive ratio for the
vertex-weighted online matching of Karp, Vazirani and Vazirani extends to
truthful agents and online items.


  In theories of phyiscs beyond the Standard Model (SM), visible sector fields
often carry quantum numbers under additional gauge symmetries. One could then
imagine a scenario in which these extra gauge symmetries play a role in
transmitting supersymmetry breaking from a hidden sector to the Supersymmetric
Standard Model (SSM). In this paper we present a general formalism for studying
the resulting hidden sectors and calculating the corresponding gauge mediated
soft parameters. We find that a large class of generic models features a
leading universal contribution to the soft scalar masses that only depends on
the scale of Higgsing, even if the model is strongly coupled. As a by-product
of our analysis, we elucidate some IR aspects of the correlation functions in
General Gauge Mediation. We also discuss possible phenomenological
applications.


  We study the structure of certain $k$-modules $\mathbb{V}$ over linear spaces
$\mathbb{W}$ with restrictions neither on the dimensions of $\mathbb{V}$ and
$\mathbb{W}$ nor on the base field $\mathbb F$. A basis $\mathfrak B =
\{v_i\}_{i\in I}$ of $\mathbb{V}$ is called multiplicative with respect to the
basis $\mathfrak B' = \{w_j\}_{j \in J}$ of $\mathbb{W}$ if for any $\sigma \in
S_n,$ $i_1,\dots,i_k \in I$ and $j_{k+1},\dots, j_n \in J$ we have
$[v_{i_1},\dots, v_{i_k}, w_{j_{k+1}}, \dots, w_{j_n}]_{\sigma} \in
\mathbb{F}v_{r_{\sigma}}$ for some $r_{\sigma} \in I$. We show that if
$\mathbb{V}$ admits a multiplicative basis then it decomposes as the direct sum
$\mathbb{V} = \bigoplus_{\alpha} V_{\alpha}$ of well described $k$-submodules
$V_{\alpha}$ each one admitting a multiplicative basis. Also the minimality of
$\mathbb{V}$ is characterized in terms of the multiplicative basis and it is
shown that the above direct sum is by means of the family of its minimal
$k$-submodules, admitting each one a multiplicative basis. Finally we study an
application of $k$-modules with a multiplicative basis over an arbitrary
$n$-ary algebra with multiplicative basis.