  Let $C$ be a Gorenstein noncomplete intersection monomial curve in the
4-dimensional affine space with defining ideal $I(C)$. In this article, we use
the minimal generating set of $I(C)$ to give a criterion for determining
whether the tangent cone of $C$ is Cohen-Macaulay. We also show that if the
tangent cone of $C$ is Cohen-Macaulay, then the minimal number of generators of
the ideal $I(C)_{\ast}$ is either $5$ or an even integer of the form $2d+2$,
for a suitable integer $d$. Additionally, we provide a family of Gorenstein
noncomplete intersection monomial curves $C$ whose tangent cone is
Cohen-Macaulay and the minimal number of generators of $I(C)_{\ast}$ is large.


  Evaluating clustering quality with reliable evaluation metrics like
normalized mutual information (NMI) requires labeled data that can be expensive
to annotate. We focus on the underexplored problem of estimating clustering
quality with limited labels. We adapt existing approaches from the few-sample
model evaluation literature to actively sub-sample, with a learned surrogate
model, the most informative data points for annotation to estimate the
evaluation metric. However, we find that their estimation can be biased and
only relies on the labeled data. To that end, we introduce CEREAL, a
comprehensive framework for few-sample clustering evaluation that extends
active sampling approaches in three key ways. First, we propose novel NMI-based
acquisition functions that account for the distinctive properties of clustering
and uncertainties from a learned surrogate model. Next, we use ideas from
semi-supervised learning and train the surrogate model with both the labeled
and unlabeled data. Finally, we pseudo-label the unlabeled data with the
surrogate model. We run experiments to estimate NMI in an active sampling
pipeline on three datasets across vision and language. Our results show that
CEREAL reduces the area under the absolute error curve by up to 57% compared to
the best sampling baseline. We perform an extensive ablation study to show that
our framework is agnostic to the choice of clustering algorithm and evaluation
metric. We also extend CEREAL from clusterwise annotations to pairwise
annotations. Overall, CEREAL can efficiently evaluate clustering with limited
human annotations.


  An exact invariant is derived for three-dimensional Hamiltonian systems of
$N$ particles confined within a general velocity-independent potential. The
invariant is found to contain a time-dependent function $f_{2}(t)$, embodying a
solution of a linear third-order differential equation whose coefficients
depend on the explicitly known trajectories of the particle ensemble. Our
result is applied to a one-dimensional time-dependent non-linear oscillator,
and to a system of Coulomb interacting particles in a time-dependent quadratic
external potential.


  A systematic, doping dependent interlayer tunneling spectroscopy of Bi2212
high $T_c$ superconductor is presented. An improved resolution made it possible
to simultaneously trace the superconducting gap (SG) and the normal state
pseudo-gap (PG) in a close vicinity of $T_c$ and to analyze closing of the PG
at $T^*$. The obtained doping phase diagram exhibits a critical doping point
for appearance of the PG and a characteristic crossing of the SG and the PG
close to the optimal doping. This points towards coexistence of two different
and competing order parameters in Bi2212. Experimental data indicate that the
SG can form a combined (large) gap with the PG at $T<T_c$ and that the
interlayer tunneling becomes progressively incoherent with decreasing doping.


  Slice stretching effects such as slice sucking and slice wrapping arise when
foliating the extended Schwarzschild spacetime with maximal slices. For
arbitrary spatial coordinates these effects can be quantified in the context of
boundary conditions where the lapse arises as a linear combination of odd and
even lapse. Favorable boundary conditions are then derived which make the
overall slice stretching occur late in numerical simulations. Allowing the
lapse to become negative, this requirement leads to lapse functions which
approach at late times the odd lapse corresponding to the static Schwarzschild
metric. Demanding in addition that a numerically favorable lapse remains
non-negative, as result the average of odd and even lapse is obtained. At late
times the lapse with zero gradient at the puncture arising for the puncture
evolution is precisely of this form. Finally, analytic arguments are given on
how slice stretching effects can be avoided. Here the excision technique and
the working mechanism of the shift function are studied in detail.


  We report a high statistics measurement of Upsilon production with an 800
GeV/c proton beam on hydrogen and deuterium targets. The dominance of the
gluon-gluon fusion process for Upsilon production at this energy implies that
the cross section ratio, $\sigma (p + d \to \Upsilon) / 2\sigma (p + p\to
\Upsilon)$, is sensitive to the gluon content in the neutron relative to that
in the proton. Over the kinematic region 0 < x_F < 0.6, this ratio is found to
be consistent with unity, in striking contrast to the behavior of the Drell-Yan
cross section ratio $\sigma(p+d)_{DY}/2\sigma(p+p)_{DY}$. This result shows
that the gluon distributions in the proton and neutron are very similar. The
Upsilon production cross sections are also compared with the p+d and p+Cu cross
sections from earlier measurements.


  The $k$th Dickson polynomial of the first kind, $D_k(x) \in {\mathbb Z}[x]$,
is determined by the formula: $D_k(u+1/u) = u^k + 1/u^k$, where $k \ge 0$ and
$u$ is an indeterminate. These polynomials are closely related to Chebyshev
polynomials and have been widely studied. Leonard Eugene Dickson proved in 1896
that $D_k(x)$ is a permutation polynomial on ${\mathbb F}_{p^n}$, $p$ prime, if
and only if GCD$(k,p^{2n}-1)=1$, and his result easily carries over to
Chebyshev polynomials when $p$ is odd. This article continues on this theme, as
we find special subsets of ${\mathbb F}_{p^n}$ that are stabilized or permuted
by Dickson or Chebyshev polynomials. Our analysis also leads to a factorization
formula for Dickson and Chebyshev polynomials and some new results in
elementary number theory. For example, we show that if $q$ is an odd prime
power, then $\prod\left\{ a \in{\mathbb F}_q^\times : \text{$a$ and $4-a$ are
nonsquares} \right\} = 2$.


  Motivated by recent experiments with Bechgaard salts, we investigate the
competition between antiferromagnetism and triplet superconductivity in quasi
one-dimensional electron systems. We unify the two orders in an SO(4) symmetric
framework, and demonstrate the existence of such symmetry in one-dimensional
Luttinger liquids. SO(4) symmetry, which strongly constrains the phase diagram,
can explain coexistence regions between antiferromagnetic, superconducting, and
normal phases, as observed in (TMTSF)$_2$PF$_6$. We predict a sharp neutron
scattering resonance in superconducting samples.


  The probability representation, in which cosmological quantum states are
described by a standard positive probability distribution, is constructed for
minisuperspace models selected by Noether symmetries. In such a case, the
tomographic probability distribution provides the classical evolution for the
models and can be considered an approach to select "observable" universes. Some
specific examples, derived from Extended Theories of Gravity, are worked out.
We discuss also how to connect tomograms, symmetries and cosmological
parameters.


  In connection with some recent results by J. Bourgain and H. Abdalaoui, M.
Lemanczyk, T. De La Rue (ALR) we present a short proof of Bourgain's theorem on
Mobius orthogonality property for bounded rank-one constructions. The proof of
the fact (due to ALR) that bounded-recurrent constructions with Markov
self-similarity have to be flat-recurrent is simplified as well.(v4 in Russian)


  This paper deals with the Aw-Rascle-Zhang model for traffic flow on
uni-directional road networks. For the conservation of the mass and the
generalized momentum, we construct weak solutions for Riemann problems at the
junctions. We particularly focus on a novel approximation to the homogenized
pressure by introducing an additional equation for the propagation of a
reference pressure. The resulting system of coupled conservation laws is then
solved using an appropriate numerical scheme of Godunov type. Numerical
simulations show that the proposed approximation is able to approximate the
homogenized pressure sufficiently well. The difference of the new approach
compared with the Lighthill-Whitham-Richards model is also illustrated.


  Branes and defects in topological Landau-Ginzburg models are described by
matrix factorisations. We revisit the problem of deforming them and discuss
various deformation methods as well as their relations. We have implemented
these algorithms and apply them to several examples. Apart from explicit
results in concrete cases, this leads to a novel way to generate new matrix
factorisations via nilpotent substitutions, and to criteria whether boundary
obstructions can be lifted by bulk deformations.


  This paper presents a new semi-fragile algorithm for image tamper detection
and recovery, which is based on region attention and two-sided circular block
dependency. This method categorizes the image blocks into three categories
according to their texture. In this method, less information is extracted from
areas with the smooth texture, and more information is extracted from areas
with the rough texture. Also, the extracted information for each type of blocks
is embedded in another block with the same type. So, changes in the smooth
areas are invisible to Human Visual System. To increase the localization power
a two-sided circular block dependency is proposed, which is able to distinguish
partially destroyed blocks. Pairwise block dependency and circular block
dependency, which are common methods in the block-based tamper detection, are
not able to distinguish the partially destroyed blocks. Cubic interpolation is
used in order to decrease the blocking effects in the recovery phase. The
results of the proposed method for regions with different texture show that the
proposed method is superior to non-region-attention based methods.


  Derivation of a reduced effective model allows for a unified treatment and
discussion of the $J_1$-$J_2$ Heisenberg model on a triangular and kagome
lattice. Calculating thermodynamic quantities, i.e. the entropy $s(T)$ and
uniform susceptibility $\chi_0(T)$, numerically on systems up to effectively
$N=48$ sites we show by comparing to full-model results that low-$T$ properties
are well represented within the reduced model. Moreover, we find in the
spin-liquid regime similar variation of $s(T)$ as well as $\chi_0(T)$ in both
models down to $T \ll J_1$. In particular, the spin liquid appears to be
characterized by Wilson ratio vanishing at low $T$, indicating on the low-lying
singlet dominating over the triplet excitations.


  We investigate experimentally and theoretically the resonant emission of
single InAs/GaAs quantum dots in a planar microcavity. Due to the presence of
at least one residual charge in the quantum dots, the resonant excitation of
the neutral exciton is blocked. The influence of the residual doping on the
initial quantum dots charge state is analyzed, and the resonant emission
quenching is interpreted as a Coulomb blockade effect. The use of an additional
non-resonant laser in a specific low power regime leads to the carrier draining
in quantum dots and allows an efficient optical gating of the exciton resonant
emission. A detailed population evolution model, developed to describe the
carrier draining and the optical gate effect, perfectly fits the experimental
results in the steady state and dynamical regimes of the optical gate with a
single set of parameters. We deduce that ultra-slow Auger- and phonon-assisted
capture processes govern the carrier draining in quantum dots with relaxation
times in the 1 - 100 microsecond range. We conclude that the optical gate acts
as a very sensitive probe of the quantum dots population relaxation in an
unprecedented slow-capture regime.


  We establish a general framework using a diffusion approximation to simulate
forward-in-time state counts or frequencies for cladogenetic state-dependent
speciation-extinction (ClaSSE) models. We apply the framework to various two-
and three-region geographic-state speciation-extinction (GeoSSE) models. We
show that the species range state dynamics simulated under tree-based and
diffusion-based processes are comparable. We derive a method to infer rate
parameters that are compatible with given observed stationary state frequencies
and obtain an analytical result to compute stationary state frequencies for a
given set of rate parameters. We also describe a procedure to find the time to
reach the stationary frequencies of a ClaSSE model using our diffusion-based
approach, which we demonstrate using a worked example for a two-region GeoSSE
model. Finally, we discuss how the diffusion framework can be applied to
formalize relationships between evolutionary patterns and processes under
state-dependent diversification scenarios.


  As we move to increasingly complex cyber-physical systems (CPS), new
approaches are needed to plan efficient state trajectories in real-time. In
this paper, we propose an approach to significantly reduce the complexity of
solving optimal control problems for a class of CPS with nonlinear dynamics. We
exploit the property of differential flatness to simplify the Euler-Lagrange
equations that arise during optimization, and this simplification eliminates
the numerical instabilities that plague optimal control in general. We also
present an explicit differential equation that describes the evolution of the
optimal state trajectory, and we extend our results to consider both the
unconstrained and constrained cases. Furthermore, we demonstrate the
performance of our approach by generating the optimal trajectory for a planar
manipulator with two revolute joints. We show in simulation that our approach
is able to generate the constrained optimal trajectory in $4.5$ ms while
respecting workspace constraints and switching between a `left' and `right'
bend in the elbow joint.


  Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is a newly developed medical imaging modality,
which combines the advantages of pure optical imaging and ultrasound imaging,
owning both high optical contrast and deep penetration depth. Very recently,
PAT is studied in human brain imaging. Nevertheless, while ultrasound waves are
passing through the human skull tissues, the strong acoustic attenuation and
aberration will happen, which causes photoacoustic signals' distortion. In this
work, we use 10 magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) human brain volumes, and
manually segment them to obtain the 2D human brain numerical phantoms for PAT.
The numerical phantoms contain six kinds of tissues which are scalp, skull,
white matter, gray matter, blood vessel and cerebral cortex. For every
numerical phantom, optical properties are assigned to every kind of tissues.
Then, Monte-Carlo based optical simulation is deployed to obtain the
photoacoustic initial pressure. Then, we made two k-wave simulation cases: one
takes inhomogeneous medium and uneven sound velocity into consideration, and
the other not. Then we use the sensor data of the former one as the input of
U-net, and the sensor data of the latter one as the output of U-net to train
the network. We randomly choose 7 human brain PA sinograms as the training
dataset and 3 human brain PA sinograms as the testing set. The testing result
shows that our method could correct the skull acoustic aberration and obtain
the blood vessel distribution inside the human brain satisfactorily.


  In two recent INTEGRAL papers, Lutovinov et al. (2003) and Blay et al. (2004)
report a timing and spectral analysis of the transient Be/X-ray pulsar SAX
J2103.5+4545 at high energies (5--200 keV). In this work we present for the
first time a study of the pulse profile at energies above 20 keV using INTEGRAL
data. The spin-pulse profile shows a prominent (with a duty cycle of 14%) and
broad (with a FWHM of ~ 51 s) peak and a secondary peak which becomes more
evident above 20 keV. The pulsed fraction increases with energy from ~ 45% at
5--40 keV to ~ 80% at 40--80 keV. The morphology of the pulse profile also
changes as a function of energy, consistent with variations in the spectral
components that are visible in the pulse phase resolved spectra. A study of the
double peaked profile shows that the difference in the two peaks can be modeled
by a different scattering fraction between the radiation from the two magnetic
poles.


  We study the center of several types of path algebras. We start with the path
algebra $KE$ and prove that if the number of vertices is infinite then the
center is zero. Otherwise, it coincides with the field $K$ except when the
graph $E$ is a cycle in which case the center is $K[x]$, the polynomial algebra
in one indeterminate. Then we compute the centers of prime Cohn and Leavitt
path algebras. A lower and an upper bound for the center of a Leavitt path
algebra are given by introducing the graded Baer radical for graded algebras.


  We show that the maximal number of singular points of a normal quartic
surface $X \subset \mathbb{P}^3_K$ defined over an algebraically closed field
$K$ of characteristic $2$ is at most $20$, and that if equality is attained,
then the minimal resolution of $X$ is a supersingular
  K3 surface and the singular points are $20$ nodes.
  We produce examples with 14 nodes. In a sequel to this paper (in two parts,
the second in collaboration with Matthias Sch\"utt) we show that the optimal
bound is indeed 14, and that if equality is attained, then the minimal
resolution of $X$ is a supersingular
  K3 surface and the singular points are $14$ nodes.
  We also obtain some smaller upper bounds under several geometric assumptions
holding at one of the singular points $P$ (structure of tangent cone,
separability/inseparability of the projection with centre $P$).


  We demonstrate that black holes and stars in general relativity can be
destabilized by perturbations of non-minimally coupled vector fields. Focusing
on static and spherically symmetric backgrounds, our analysis shows that black
holes with sufficiently small mass and stars with sufficiently high densities
are subject to ghost or gradient-type instabilities. This holds for a large
class of vector-tensor theories whenever non-minimal couplings contribute to
linearized dynamics about a state with vanishing vector field and applies to
generalized Proca models that have sparked attention for their potential role
in cosmology and astrophysics. The stability criteria translate into bounds of
relevance for low-scale theories of dark energy and for ultra-light dark matter
scenarios.


  We present a measurement of the double longitudinal spin asymmetry in
inclusive pi^0 production in polarized proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=200
GeV. The data were taken at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider with average
beam polarizations of 26%. The measurements are the first of a program to study
the longitudinal spin structure of the proton, using strongly interacting
probes, at collider energies. The asymmetry is presented for transverse momenta
1-5 GeV/c at mid-rapidity, where next-to-leading order perturbative quantum
chromodynamic (NLO pQCD) calculations describe the unpolarized cross section
well. The observed asymmetry is small and is compared with a NLO pQCD
calculation with a range of polarized gluon distributions.


  We present a systematic discussion of Lambda_b -> Lambda transition form
factors in the framework of soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). The
universal soft form factor, which enters the symmetry relations in the limit of
large recoil energy, is calculated from a sum-rule analysis of a suitable SCET
correlation function. The same method is applied to derive the leading
corrections from hard-collinear gluon exchange at first order in the strong
coupling constant. We present numerical estimates for form factors and
form-factor ratios and their impact on decay observables in Lambda_b -> Lambda
mu^+ mu^- decays.


  The semi-geostrophic equations have attracted the attention of the physical
and mathematical communities since the work of Hoskins in the 1970s owing to
their ability to model the formation of fronts in rotation-dominated flows, and
also to their connection with optimal transport theory. In this paper, we study
an active scalar equation, whose activity is determined by way of a
Neumann-to-Dirichlet map associated to a fully nonlinear second-order Neumann
boundary value problem on the infinite strip $\mathbb{R}^{2}\times(0,1)$, that
models a semi-geostrophic flow in regime of constant potential vorticity. This
system is an expression of an Eulerian semi-geostrophic flow in a co-ordinate
system originally due to Hoskins, to which we shall refer as {\em Hoskins'
coordinates}. We obtain results on the local-in-time existence and uniqueness
of classical solutions of this active scalar equation in H\"older spaces.


  Given an elliptic curve $E$ defined over the rational numbers and a prime $p$
at which $E$ has good reduction, we consider the Galois deformation ring
parametrizing lifts of the residual representation on the $p$-torsion group
$E[p]$. For a fixed elliptic curve without complex multiplication, it is shown
that these deformation rings are unobstructed for all but finitely many primes.
For a fixed prime $p$ and varying elliptic curve $E$, we relate the problem to
the question of how often $p$ does not divide the modular degree. Heuristics
due to M.Watkins based on those of Cohen and Lenstra indicate that this
proportion should be $\prod_{i\geq 1} \left(1-\frac{1}{p^i}\right)\approx
1-\frac{1}{p}-\frac{1}{p^2}$. This heuristic is supported by computations which
indicate that most elliptic curves (satisfying further conditions) have smooth
deformation rings at a given prime $p\geq 5$, and this proportion comes close
to $100\%$ as $p$ gets larger.


  For any ring \(R\), some characterizations are obtained for unit regular
elements in a corner ring \(eRe\) in terms of unit regular elements in \(R\).
  \noindent {\bf Key Words}: von Neumann regular rings, unit regular rings,
corner rings, idempotents
  \noindent {\bf AMS Classification}: 16A30


  We measured the surface mass density of the Galactic disk at the solar
position, up to 4 kpc from the plane,by means of the kinematics of ~400 thick
disk stars. The results match the expectations for the visible mass only, and
no dark matter is detected in the volume under analysis. The current models of
dark matter halo are excluded with a significance higher than 5sigma, unless a
highly prolate halo is assumed, very atypical in cold dark matter simulations.
The resulting lack of dark matter at the solar position challenges the current
models.


  A fundamental obstacle toward the realization of GaN p-channel transistors is
its low hole mobility. Here we investigate the intrinsic phonon-limited
mobility of electrons and holes in wurtzite GaN using the ab initio Boltzmann
transport formalism, including all electron-phonon scattering processes and
many-body quasiparticle band structures. We predict that the hole mobility can
be increased by reversing the sign of the crystal-field splitting, in such a
way as to lift the split-off hole states above the light and heavy holes. We
find that a 2% biaxial tensile strain can increase the hole mobility by 230%,
up to a theoretical Hall mobility of 120 cm$^2$/Vs at room temperature and 620
cm$^2$/Vs at 100 K.


  We consider a periodically $\delta$-kicked Haldane type Chern insulator with
the kicking applied in the $\hat{z}$ direction. This is known to behave as an
inversion symmetry breaking perturbation, since it introduces a time-dependent
staggered sub-lattice potential. We study here the effects of such driving on
the topological phase diagram of the original Haldane model of a Hall effect in
the absence of a net magnetic field. The resultant Floquet band topology is
again that of a Chern insulator with the driving parameters, frequency and
amplitude, influencing the inversion breaking mass $M$ of the undriven Haldane
model. A family of such, periodically related, `Semenoff masses' is observed to
occur which support a periodic repetition of Haldane like phase diagrams along
the inversion breaking axis of the phase plots. Out of these it is possible to
identify two in-equivalent masses in the reduced zone scheme of the Floquet
quasienergies, which form the centres of two inequivalent phase diagrams.
Further, variation in the driving amplitude's magnitude alone is shown to
effect the topological properties by linearly shifting the phase diagram of the
driven model about the position of the undriven case. A phenomenon that allows
the study of Floquet topological phase transitions in the system. Finally, we
also discuss some issues regarding the modifications to Haldane's condition for
preventing band overlaps at the Dirac point touchings in the Brillouin zone, in
the presence of kicking.


  In this paper, firstly, we give the some fundamental properties of Van Der
Laan numbers. After, we define the circulant matrices C(Z) which entries is
third order linear recurrent sequence. In addition, we compute eigenvalues,
spectral norm and determinant of this matrix. Consequently, by using properties
of this sequence, we obtain the eigenvalues, norms and determinants of
circulant matrices with Cordonnier, Perrin and Van Der Laan numbers.


  Accessing the connection between classical chaos and quantum many-body
systems has been a long-standing experimental challenge. Here, we investigate
the onset of chaos in periodically driven two-component Bose-Einstein
condensates, whose small quantum uncertainties allow for exploring the phase
space with high resolution. By analyzing the uncertainties of time-evolved
many-body states, we find signatures of elliptic and hyperbolic periodic orbits
generated according to the Poincar\'e-Birkhoff theorem, and the formation of a
chaotic region at increasing driving strengths. The employed fluctuation
analysis allows for probing the phase-space structure by use of only short-time
quantum dynamics.


  Fourier phase retrieval (FPR) is an inverse problem that recovers the signal
from its Fourier magnitude measurement, it's ill-posed especially when the
sampling rates are low. In this paper, an untrained generative prior is
introduced to attack the ill-posedness. Based on the alternating direction
method of multipliers (ADMM), an algorithm utilizing the untrained generative
network called Net-ADM is proposed to solve the FPR problem. Firstly, the
objective function is smoothed and the dimension of the variable is raised to
facilitate calculation. Then an untrained generative network is embedded in the
iterative process of ADMM to project an estimated signal into the generative
space, and the projected signal is applied to next iteration of ADMM. We
theoretically analyzed the two projections included in the algorithm, one makes
the objective function descent, and the other gets the estimation closer to the
optimal solution. Numerical experiments show that the reconstruction
performance and robustness of the proposed algorithm are superior to prior
works, especially when the sampling rates are low.


  The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey has obtained 135,000 redshifts for galaxies in
two broad strips. Here we present the first results of a 3-dimensional search
for galaxy clusters based on known 2-dimensional compilations. We derive new
redshifts and velocity dispersions for clusters, assess the level of
contamination in the sample, analyze the accuracy of photometric redshift
estimates and study the space distribution of clusters.


  A ring satisfies the left Beachy-Blair condition if each of its faithful left
ideal is cofaithful. Every left zip ring satisfies the left Beachy-Blair
condition, but both properties are not equivalent. In this paper we will study
the similarities and the differences between zip rings and rings with the
Beachy-Blair condition. We will also study the relationship between the
Beachy-Blair condition of a ring and its skew polynomial and skew power series
extensions. We give an example of a right zip ring that is not left zip,
proving that the zip property is not symmetric.


  We have studied the magnetic reversal of L-shaped nanostructures fabricated
from (Ga,Mn)As. The strain relaxation due to the lithographic patterning
results in each arm having a uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. Our analysis
confirms that the magnetic reversal takes place via a combination of coherent
rotation and domain wall propagation with the domain wall positioned at the
corner of the device at intermediate stages of the magnetic hysteresis loops.
The domain wall energy can be extracted from our analysis. Such devices have
found implementation in studies of current induced domain wall motion and have
the potential for application as non-volatile memory elements.


  In this paper we show how to build a model of $ZFC$ such that all its inner
models satisfying the Axiom of Choice are well-ordered with respect to
inclusion, and that said ordering is of arbitrary height (including possibly
$Ord$ high). We do this by iterating $\kappa$-Sacks forcing for ever-increasing
$\kappa$, while showing that such forcings do not add any unexpected
intermediate inner models.


  We set up a real entropy function $h_\Bbb{R}$ on the space $\mathcal{M}'_d$
of M\"obius conjugacy classes of real rational maps of degree $d$ by assigning
to each class the real entropy of a representative $f\in\Bbb{R}(z)$; namely,
the topological entropy of its restriction $f\restriction_{\hat{\Bbb{R}}}$ to
the real circle. We prove a rigidity result stating that $h_\Bbb{R}$ is locally
constant on the subspace determined by real maps quasi-conformally conjugate to
$f$. As examples of this result, we analyze real analytic stable families of
hyperbolic and flexible Latt\`es maps with real coefficients along with
numerous families of degree $d$ real maps of real entropy $\log(d)$. The latter
discussion moreover entails a complete classification of maps of maximal real
entropy.


  This document describes a convention for compressing n-dimensional images and
storing the resulting byte stream in a variable-length column in a FITS binary
table. The FITS file structure outlined here is independent of the specific
data compression algorithm that is used. The implementation details for 4
widely used compression algorithms are described here, but any other
compression technique could also be supported by this convention. The general
principle used in this convention is to first divide the n-dimensional image
into a rectangular grid of subimages or 'tiles'. Each tile is then compressed
as a block of data, and the resulting compressed byte stream is stored in a row
of a variable length column in a FITS binary table. By dividing the image into
tiles it is generally possible to extract and uncompress subsections of the
image without having to uncompress the whole image.


  While the amount of data produced and accumulated continues to advance at
unprecedented rates, protection and concealment of data increase its prominence
as a field of scientific study that requires more action. It is essential to
protect privacy-sensitive data at every phase; at rest, at run, and while
computations are executed on data. The zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) schemes are a
cryptographic tool toward this aim. ZKP allows a party to securely ensure the
data's authenticity and precision without revealing confidential or
privacy-sensitive information during communication or computation. The power of
zero-knowledge protocols is based on intractable problems. There is a
requirement to design more secure and efficient zero-knowledge proofs. This
demand raises the necessity of determining appropriate intractable problems to
develop novel ZKP schemes. In this paper, we present a brief outline of ZKP
schemes, the connection of these structures to group-theoretic intractable
problems, and annotate a list of intractable problems in group theory that can
be employed to devise new ZKP schemes.


  Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Robot Learning and Planning
(RLP 2016)


  The recently proposed zero-added-loss multiplexing (ZALM) source of entangled
photons enables higher efficiency in entanglement distribution than SPDC
sources and can be carried out using both space-to-ground and ground-to-ground
links. We demonstrate the flexibility of ZALM architectures to be adapted to
alternative entanglement distribution protocols. Focusing on the
counter-intuitive result that entanglement can be generated between distant
parties without using any entanglement as a resource, we analyze two protocols
for entanglement distribution to memories via separable states. Modelling them
in a ZALM setup, we consider the effects of noise both in the communication
channels and in the memories. We thereby identify the optimal protocol to use,
with respect to the highest entanglement generated, given the noise conditions
of the network.


  In a recent experiment, a Bose-Einstein condensate of Li7 has been excited by
a harmonic modulation of the atomic s-wave scattering length via Feshbach
resonance. By combining an analytical perturbative approach with extensive
numerical simulations we analyze the emerging nonlinear dynamics of the system
on the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii level at zero temperature. Resulting
excitation spectra are presented and prominent nonlinear features are found:
mode coupling, higher harmonics generation and significant shifts in the
frequencies of collective modes. We indicate how nonlinear dynamical properties
could be made clearly observable in future experiments and compared to our
results.


  The latest NA49 results on event-by-event transverse momentum fluctuations
are presented for central Pb+Pb interactions over the whole SPS energy range
(20A - 158A GeV). Two different methods are applied: evaluating the
$\Phi_{p_{T}}$ fluctuation measure and studying two-particle transverse
momentum correlations. The obtained results are compared to predictions of the
UrQMD model. The results on the energy dependence are compared to the NA49 data
on the system size dependence. The NA61 (SHINE, NA49-future) strategy of
searching of the QCD critical end-point is also discussed.


  In the frame of modified potential cluster model based on the classification
of orbital states by Young diagrams and revised interaction potential
parameters for the bound states of 7Be in 3He4He cluster model with forbidden
states the astrophysical S-factor for the radiative capture reaction has been
calculated from the 10 keV. Obtained results S(23 keV) = 0.561 keV b reproduce
the latest experimental data at 23 keV. Calculated and parametrized reaction
rate is compared to some results known in the range of temperatures from 0.05
to 5 T9.


  We consider the set of polygons all of whose sides are vertical or horizontal
with fixed combinatorics (for example all the figure "L"s). We show that there
is a dense G $\delta$ subset of such polygons such that for each polygon in
this G $\delta$ set the billiard flow is weakly-mixing in almost every
direction.


  Two millimeter observations of the MACS J1149.6+2223 cluster have detected a
source that was consistent with the location of the lensed MACS1149-JD galaxy
at z=9.6. A positive identification would have rendered this galaxy as the
youngest dust forming galaxy in the universe. Follow up observation with the
AzTEC 1.1 mm camera and the IRAM NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) at
1.3 mm have not confirmed this association. In this paper we show that the
NOEMA observations associate the 2 mm source with [PCB2012] 2882 ([PCB2012]
2882 is the NED-searchable name for this source.), source number 2882 in the
Hubble Space Telescope ( HST) Cluster Lensing and Supernova (CLASH) catalog of
MACS J1149.6+2223. This source, hereafter referred to as CLASH 2882, is a
gravitationally lensed spiral galaxy at z=0.99. We combine the GISMO 2 mm and
NOEMA 1.3 mm fluxes with other (rest frame) UV to far-IR observations to
construct the full spectral energy distribution (SED) of this galaxy, and
derive its star formation history, and stellar and interstellar dust content.
The current star formation rate of the galaxy is 54/mu Msun yr-1, and its dust
mass is about 5 10^7/mu Msun, where mu is the lensing magnification factor for
this source, which has a mean value of 2.7. The inferred dust mass is higher
than the maximum dust mass that can be produced by core collapse supernovae
(CCSN) and evolved AGB stars. As with many other star forming galaxies, most of
the dust mass in CLASH 2882 must have been accreted in the dense phases of the
ISM.


  Traditionally, all superhard carbon phases including diamond are electric
insulators and all conductive carbon phases including graphite are mechanically
soft. Based on first-principles calculation results, we report a superhard but
conductive carbon phase C21-sc which can be obtained through increasing the sp3
bonds in the previously proposed soft and conductive phase C20-sc (Phys. Rev. B
74, 172101 2006). We also show that further increase of sp3 bonds in C21-sc
results in a superhard and insulating phase C22-sc with sp3 bonds only. With
C20-sc, C21-sc, C22-sc and graphite, the X-ray diffraction peaks from the
unidentified carbon material synthesized by compressing the mixture of
tetracyanoethylene and carbon black (Carbon, 41, 1309, 2003) can be understood.
In view of its positive stability, superhard and conductive features, and the
strong possibility of existence in previous experiments, C21-sc is a promising
multi-functional material with potential applications in extreme conditions.


  This paper concerns outcome missingness in principal stratification analysis.
We revisit a common assumption known as latent ignorability or latent
missing-at-random (LMAR), often considered a relaxation of missing-at-random
(MAR). LMAR posits that the outcome is independent of its missingness if one
conditions on principal stratum (which is partially unobservable) in addition
to observed variables. The literature has focused on methods assuming LMAR
(usually supplemented with a more specific assumption about the missingness),
without considering the theoretical plausibility and necessity of LMAR. In this
paper, we devise a way to represent principal stratum in causal graphs, and use
causal graphs to examine this assumption. We find that LMAR is harder to
satisfy than MAR, and for the purpose of breaking the dependence between the
outcome and its missingness, no benefit is gained from conditioning on
principal stratum on top of conditioning on observed variables. This finding
has an important implication: MAR should be preferred over LMAR. This is
convenient because MAR is easier to handle and (unlike LMAR) if MAR is assumed
no additional assumption is needed. We thus turn to focus on the plausibility
of MAR and its implications, with a view to facilitate appropriate use of this
assumption. We clarify conditions on the causal structure and on auxiliary
variables (if available) that need to hold for MAR to hold, and we use MAR to
recover effect identification under two dominant identification assumptions
(exclusion restriction and principal ignorability). We briefly comment on cases
where MAR does not hold. In terms of broader connections, most of the MAR
findings are also relevant to classic instrumental variable analysis that
targets the local average treatment effect; and the LMAR finding suggests
general caution with assumptions that condition on principal stratum.


  In the intensive care unit, the capability to predict the need for mechanical
ventilation (MV) facilitates more timely interventions to improve patient
outcomes. Recent works have demonstrated good performance in this task
utilizing machine learning models. This paper explores the novel application of
a deep learning model with multi-head attention (FFNN-MHA) to make more
accurate MV predictions and reduce false positives by learning personalized
contextual information of individual patients. Utilizing the publicly available
MIMIC-IV dataset, FFNN-MHA demonstrates an improvement of 0.0379 in AUC and a
17.8\% decrease in false positives compared to baseline models such as
feed-forward neural networks. Our results highlight the potential of the
FFNN-MHA model as an effective tool for accurate prediction of the need for
mechanical ventilation in critical care settings.


  Stellar cores may be considered as a nuclear reactor that play important role
in injecting new synthesized elements in the interstellar medium Helium burning
is an important stage that contribute to the synthesis of key elements such as
carbon, through the triple- {\alpha} process, and oxygen. In the present paper,
we introduce a computational method for the fractional model of the nuclear
helium burning in stellar cores. The system of fractional differential
equations is solved simultaneously using series expansion method. The
calculations are performed in the sense of modified Riemann-Liouville
fractional derivative. Analytic expressions are obtained for the abundance of
each element as a function of time. Comparing the abundances calculated at the
fractional parameter \alpha=1 , which represents the integer solution, with the
numerical solution revealed a good agreement with maximum error \epsilon
=0.003. The product abundances are calculated at\alpha=0.25, 0.5, 0.75 to
declare the effects of changing the fractional parameters on the calculations.


  In this paper, we develop an effective quantum theory of black hole horizons
using only the local horizon geometry. On the covariant phase space of the
Holst action admitting Weak Isolated Horizon as an inner boundary, we construct
Hamiltonian charges corresponding to Lorentz symmetries. We show that horizon
area is the Hamiltonian charge corresponding to Lorentz boosts as well as that
for Lorentz rotation which acts on $2$-sphere cross-sections of the horizon.
Using this expression of area as a generator of Lorentz rotation, and the fact
that quantum states residing on the horizon cross-sections carry a
representation of $ISO(2)$, we derive the spectrum of area operator on the
horizon. The eigenstates of this area operator are shown to be labelled by
integers or half integers. The entropy is obtained completely in terms of these
\emph{area quanta} residing on the horizon, and is shown to have exponentially
suppressing corrections to the area law. The formalism is also extended to
non-minimally coupled scalar fields, where the area operator gets modified due
to the value of the scalar field on the horizon.


  Every year, natural disasters such as earthquake, flood, hurricane and etc.
impose immense financial and humane losses on governments owing to their
unpredictable character and arise of emergency situations and consequently the
reduction of the abilities due to serious damages to infrastructures, increases
demand for logistic services and supplies. First, in this study the necessity
of paying attention to locating procedures in emergency situations is pointed
out and an outline for the studied case of disaster relief supply chain was
discussed and the problem was validated at small scale. On the other hand, to
solve this kind of problems involving three objective functions and complicated
time calculation, meta-heuristic methods which yield almost optimum solutions
in less time are applied. The EC method and NSGA II algorithm are among the
evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms applied in this case. In
this study the aforementioned algorithm is used for solving problems at large
scale.


  We study a model of inflation based on $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity
essentially depending on one effective parameter. Under a field transformation
we show that this model turns out to be equivalent to a previously studied
supergravity model known to be ruled out with the original choice of the
parameter. Such parameter measures the slope of the potential at observable
scales. Through a Bayesian parameter estimation, it is shown how this model is
compatible with recent CMB temperature measurements by {\it Planck 2018} giving
rise to a simple, viable, single field model of inflation. The tensor to scalar
ratio constraint is found to be $r_{0.002}<0.065$ with negative running. We
discuss how observables are invariant under the field transformation which
leaves unaltered the slow-roll parameters. As a consequence the use of one
presentation of the model or its field-transformed version is purely a matter
of convenience.


  We consider the problem of comparing two Poisson parameters from the Bayesian
perspective. Kawasaki and Miyaoka (2012b) proposed the Bayesian index
$P(\lambda_1 < \lambda_2 | X_1,X_2)$ and expressed it using the hypergeometric
series. In this paper, under some conditions, we give four other expressions of
the Bayesian index in terms of the cumulative distribution functions of beta,
$F$, binomial, and negative binomial distribution. Next, we investigate the
relationship between the Bayesian index and the $p$-value of the conditional
test with the null hypothesis $H_0: \lambda_1 \geq \lambda_2 $ versus an
alternative hypothesis $H_1: \lambda_1<\lambda_2 $. Additionally, we
investigate the generalized relationship between $P(\lambda_1/\lambda_2 <c |
X_1, X_2)$ and the $p$-value of the conditional test with the null hypothesis
$H_0: \lambda_1/\lambda_2 \geq c$ versus the alternative $H_1:
\lambda_1/\lambda_2 < c$. We illustrate the utility of the Bayesian index using
analyses of real data. Our finding suggests that the Bayesian index can
potentially be useful in an epidemiology and in a clinical trial.


  The Aharonov-Bohm ring has been the mainstay of mesoscopic physics research
since its inception. In this paper we have dwelt on the problem of dephasing of
AB oscillations using a phenomenological model based on stochastic absorption.
To calculate the conductance in the presence of inelastic scattering we have
used the method due to Brouwer and Beenakker. We have shown that conductance is
symmetric under flux reversal and visibility of AB oscillations decay to zero
as a function of the incoherence parameter thus signalling dephasing in the
system. Some comments are made on the relative merits of stochastic absorption
with respect to optical potential model, which have been used to mimic
dephasing.


  We are building an experiment to search for dark matter in the form of dark
photons in the nano- to milli-eV mass range. This experiment is the
electromagnetic dual of magnetic detector dark radio experiments. It is also a
frequency-time dual experiment in two ways: We search for a high-Q signal in
wide-band data rather than tuning a high-$Q$ resonator, and we measure electric
rather than magnetic fields. In this paper we describe a pilot experiment using
room temperature electronics which demonstrates feasibility and sets useful
limits to the kinetic coupling $\epsilon \sim 10^{-12}$ over 50--300 MHz. With
a factor of 2000 increase in real-time spectral coverage, and lower system
noise temperature, it will soon be possible to search a wide range of masses at
100 times this sensitivity. We describe the planned experiment in two phases:
Phase-I will implement a wide band, 5-million channel, real-time FFT processor
over the 30--300 MHz range with a back-end time-domain optimal filter to search
for the predicted $Q\sim 10^6$ line using low-noise amplifiers. We have
completed spot frequency calibrations using a biconical dipole antenna in a
shielded room that extrapolate to a $5 \sigma$ limit of $\epsilon\sim 10^{-13}$
for the coupling from the dark field, per month of integration. Phase-II will
extend the search to 20 GHz using cryogenic preamplifiers and new antennas.


  We show (using results of Wise and of Woodhouse) that a tubular group is
always virtually special (meaning that it has a finite index subgroup embedding
in a RAAG) if the underlying graph is a tree. We also adapt Gardam and
Woodhouse's argument on tubular groups which double cover 1-relator groups to
show there exist 1-relator groups which are CAT(0) but not residually finite.


  We show compatibility with all known experimental constraints of t-b-tau
Yukawa coupling unification in supersymmetric SU(4)_c x SU(2)_L x SU(2)_R which
has non-universal gaugino masses and the MSSM parameter mu < 0. In particular,
the relic neutralino abundance satisfies the WMAP bounds and Delta (g-2)_mu is
in good agreement with the observations. We identify benchmark points for the
sparticle spectra which can be tested at the LHC, including those associated
with gluino and stau coannihilation channels, mixed bino-Higgsino state and the
A-funnel region. We also briefly discuss prospects for testing Yukawa
unification with the ongoing and planned direct detection experiments.


  Models with dynamical supersymmetry breaking are interesting because they may
provide a solution to both the gauge hierarchy and the fine-tuning problems.
However, because of strongly interacting dynamics, it is in general impossible
to analyze them quantitatively. One of the few models with calculable dynamical
supersymmetry breaking is a model with SU(5) gauge symmetry and two $10$'s and
two $\bar 5$'s as the matter content. We determine the ground state of this
model, find the vacuum energy, reveal the symmetry breaking pattern and
calculate the mass spectrum. The supertrace mass relation is exploited to
verify the consistency of the calculated mass spectrum, and an accidental
degeneracy is explained.


  Motivated by a result of Treibergs, given a smooth function f(y) on the
standard sphere S^2, and any positive constant H_0, we construct a spacelike
surface with constant mean curvature H_0 in the Schwarzschild spacetime, which
is the graph of a function u(y, r) defined on r>r_0 for some r_0>0 in the
standard coordinates exterior to the blackhole. Moreover, u has the following
asymptotic behavior:
  |u(y,r)-r_*-(f(y)+r^{-1}\phi(y)+1/2 r^{-2}\psi(y)|\le Cr^{-3}
  for some C>0, where r_*=r+2m\log(r/(2m)-1). Here \phi, \psi are functions
determined by f and H_0. In particular, the surface intersects the future null
infinity with the cut given by the function f. In addition, we prove that the
function u-r_* is uniformly Lipschitz near the future null infinity.


  We present an analysis of the time behavior of the $S\&P500$ (Standard and
Poors) New York stock exchange index before and after the October 1987 market
crash and identify precursory patterns as well as aftershock signatures and
characteristic oscillations of relaxation. Combined, they all suggest a picture
of a kind of dynamical critical point, with characteristic log-periodic
signatures, similar to what has been found recently for earthquakes. These
observations are confirmed on other smaller crashes, and strengthen the view of
the stockmarket as an example of a self-organizing cooperative system.


  We report the detection of an Halpha emission-line structure in the upstream
side of the planetary nebula NGC 40, which is predicted by numerical
simulations, and which is attributed to Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Such a
Rayleigh-Taylor instability is expected to occur at early stages of the
interaction process between the interstellar medium (ISM) and a fast moving
planetary nebula, as is the case for NGC 40. We resolved the Rayleigh-Taylor
instability `tongues', as well as the flatness of the nebula around the
`tongues', which results from the deceleration by the ISM.


  We present sensitive measurements of the Hall effect and magnetoresistance in
CeIrIn${_5}$ down to temperatures of 50 mK and magnetic fields up to 15 T. The
presence of a low temperature coherent Kondo state is established. Deviations
from Kohler's rule and a quadratic temperature dependence of the cotangent of
the Hall angle are reminiscent of properties observed in the high temperature
superconducting cuprates. The most striking observation pertains to the
presence of a \textit{precursor} state--characterized by a change in the Hall
mobility--that appears to precede the superconductivity in this material, in
similarity to the pseudogap in the cuprate high $T_c$ superconductors.


  We give a geometric model for the category of coherent sheaves over the
weighted projective line of type $(p,q)$ in terms of an annulus with marked
points on its boundary. We establish a bijection between indecomposable sheaves
over the weighted projective line and certain homotopy classes of oriented
curves in the annulus, and prove that the dimension of extension group between
indecomposable sheaves equals to the positive intersection number between the
corresponding curves.
  By using the geometric model, we provide a combinatorial description for the
titling graph of tilting bundles, which is composed by quadrilaterals (or
degenerated to a line). Moreover, we obtain that the automorphism group of the
coherent sheaf category is isomorphic to the mapping class group of the marked
annulus, and show the compatibility of their actions on the tilting graph of
coherent sheaves and on the triangulation of the geometric model respectively.
A geometric description of the perpendicular category with respect to an
exceptional sheaf is presented at the end of the paper.


  Current questions in ecology revolve around instabilities in the dynamics on
spatial networks and particularly the effect of node heterogeneity. We extend
the Master Stability Function formalism to inhomogeneous biregular networks
having two types of spatial nodes. Notably, this class of systems also allows
the investigation of certain types of dynamics on higher-order networks.
Combined with the Generalized Modelling approach to study the linear stability
of steady states, this is a powerful tool to numerically asses the stability of
large ensembles of systems. We analyze the stability of ecological
metacommunities with two distinct types of habitats analytically and
numerically in order to identify several sets of conditions under which the
dynamics can become stabilized by dispersal. Our analytical approach allows
general insights into stabilizing and destabilizing effects in metapopulations.
Specifically, we show that maladaptive dispersal may be stable under certain
conditions.


  Semi-supervised learning on graphs is a widely applicable problem in network
science and machine learning. Two standard algorithms -- label propagation and
graph neural networks -- both operate by repeatedly passing information along
edges, the former by passing labels and the latter by passing node features,
modulated by neural networks. These two types of algorithms have largely
developed separately, and there is little understanding about the structure of
network data that would make one of these approaches work particularly well
compared to the other or when the approaches can be meaningfully combined.
Here, we develop a Markov random field model for the data generation process of
node attributes, based on correlations of attributes on and between vertices,
that motivates and unifies these algorithmic approaches. We show that label
propagation, a linearized graph convolutional network, and their combination
can all be derived as conditional expectations under our model, when
conditioning on different attributes. In addition, the data model highlights
deficiencies in existing graph neural networks (while producing new algorithmic
solutions), serves as a rigorous statistical framework for understanding graph
learning issues such as over-smoothing, creates a testbed for evaluating
inductive learning performance, and provides a way to sample graphs attributes
that resemble empirical data. We also find that a new algorithm derived from
our data generation model, which we call a Linear Graph Convolution, performs
extremely well in practice on empirical data, and provide theoretical
justification for why this is the case.


  Named entity recognition (NER) in Chinese is essential but difficult because
of the lack of natural delimiters. Therefore, Chinese Word Segmentation (CWS)
is usually considered as the first step for Chinese NER. However, models based
on word-level embeddings and lexicon features often suffer from segmentation
errors and out-of-vocabulary (OOV) words. In this paper, we investigate a
Convolutional Attention Network called CAN for Chinese NER, which consists of a
character-based convolutional neural network (CNN) with local-attention layer
and a gated recurrent unit (GRU) with global self-attention layer to capture
the information from adjacent characters and sentence contexts. Also, compared
to other models, not depending on any external resources like lexicons and
employing small size of char embeddings make our model more practical.
Extensive experimental results show that our approach outperforms
state-of-the-art methods without word embedding and external lexicon resources
on different domain datasets including Weibo, MSRA and Chinese Resume NER
dataset.


  We establish adiabatic theorems with and without spectral gap condition for
general -- typically dissipative -- linear operators $A(t): D(A(t)) \subset X
\to X$ with time-independent domains $D(A(t)) = D$ in some Banach space $X$.
Compared to the previously known adiabatic theorems -- especially those without
spectral gap condition -- we do not require the considered spectral values
$\lambda(t)$ of $A(t)$ to be (weakly) semisimple. We also impose only fairly
weak regularity conditions. Applications are given to slowly time-varying open
quantum systems and to adiabatic switching processes.


  A nonlocal circulator protocol is proposed in hybrid optomechanical system.
By analogy with quantum communication, using the input-output relationship, we
establish the quantum channel between two optical modes with long-range. The
three body nonlocal interaction between the cavity and the two oscillators is
obtained by eliminating the optomechanical cavity mode and verifying the
Bell-CHSH inequality of continuous variables. By introducing the phase
accumulation between cyclic interactions, the unidirectional transmission of
quantum state between optical mode and two mechanical modes are achieved. The
results show that nonreciprocal transmissions are achieved as long as the
accumulated phase reaches a certain value. In addition, the effective
interaction parameters in our system are amplified, which reduces the
difficulty of the implementation of our protocol. Our research can provide
potential applications for nonlocal manipulation and transmission control of
quantum platforms.


  In studies of star-forming regions, near-infrared excess (NIRX)
sources--objects with intrinsic colors redder than normal stars--constitute
both signal (young stars) and noise (e.g. background galaxies). We hunt down
(identify) galaxies using near-infrared observations in the Perseus
star-forming region by combining structural information, colors, and number
density estimates. Galaxies at moderate redshifts (z = 0.1 - 0.5) have colors
similar to young stellar objects (YSOs) at both near- and mid-infrared (e.g.
Spitzer) wavelengths, which limits our ability to identify YSOs from colors
alone. Structural information from high-quality near-infrared observations
allows us to better separate YSOs from galaxies, rejecting 2/5 of the YSO
candidates identified from Spitzer observations of our regions and potentially
extending the YSO luminosity function below K of 15 magnitudes where galaxy
contamination dominates. Once they are identified we use galaxies as valuable
extra signal for making extinction maps of molecular clouds. Our new iterative
procedure: the Galaxies Near Infrared Color Excess method Revisited (GNICER),
uses the mean colors of galaxies as a function of magnitude to include them in
extinction maps in an unbiased way. GNICER increases the number of background
sources used to probe the structure of a cloud, decreasing the noise and
increasing the resolution of extinction maps made far from the galactic plane.


  Colorizing grayscale images offers an engaging visual experience. Existing
automatic colorization methods often fail to generate satisfactory results due
to incorrect semantic colors and unsaturated colors. In this work, we propose
an automatic colorization pipeline to overcome these challenges. We leverage
the extraordinary generative ability of the diffusion prior to synthesize color
with plausible semantics. To overcome the artifacts introduced by the diffusion
prior, we apply the luminance conditional guidance. Moreover, we adopt
multimodal high-level semantic priors to help the model understand the image
content and deliver saturated colors. Besides, a luminance-aware decoder is
designed to restore details and enhance overall visual quality. The proposed
pipeline synthesizes saturated colors while maintaining plausible semantics.
Experiments indicate that our proposed method considers both diversity and
fidelity, surpassing previous methods in terms of perceptual realism and gain
most human preference.


  Throughout the epoch of reionization the most luminous Ly{\alpha} emitters
are capable of ionizing their own local bubbles. The CR7 galaxy at $z \approx
6.6$ stands out for its combination of exceptionally bright Ly{\alpha} and HeII
1640 Angstrom line emission but absence of metal lines. As a result CR7 may be
the first viable candidate host of a young primordial starburst or direct
collapse black hole. High-resolution spectroscopy reveals a +160 km s$^{-1}$
velocity offset between the Ly{\alpha} and HeII line peaks while the spatial
extent of the Ly{\alpha} emitting region is $\sim 16$ kpc. The observables are
indicative of an outflow signature produced by a strong central source. We
present one-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics simulations incorporating
accurate Ly{\alpha} feedback and ionizing radiation to investigate the nature
of the CR7 source. We find that a Population III star cluster with $10^5$ K
blackbody emission ionizes its environment too efficiently to generate a
significant velocity offset. However, a massive black hole with a nonthermal
Compton-thick spectrum is able to reproduce the Ly{\alpha} signatures as a
result of higher photon trapping and longer potential lifetime. For both
sources, Ly{\alpha} radiation pressure turns out to be dynamically important.


  With the growth of the scale, depth, and resolution of astronomical imaging
surveys, there is an increased need for highly accurate automated detection and
extraction of astronomical sources from images. This also means there is a need
for objective quality criteria, and automated methods to optimise parameter
settings for these software tools.
  We present a comparison of several tools which have been developed to perform
this task: namely SExtractor, ProFound, NoiseChisel, and MTObjects. In
particular, we focus on evaluating performance in situations which present
challenges for detection -- for example, faint and diffuse galaxies; extended
structures, such as streams; and objects close to bright sources. Furthermore,
we develop an automated method to optimise the parameters for the above tools.
  We present four different objective segmentation quality measures, based on
precision, recall, and a new measure for the correctly identified area of
sources. Bayesian optimisation is used to find optimal parameter settings for
each of the four tools on simulated data, for which a ground truth is known.
After training, the tools are tested on similar simulated data, to provide a
performance baseline. We then qualitatively assess tool performance on real
astronomical images from two different surveys.
  We determine that when area is disregarded, all four tools are capable of
broadly similar levels of detection completeness, while only NoiseChisel and
MTObjects are capable of locating the faint outskirts of objects. MTObjects
produces the highest scores on all tests on all four quality measures, whilst
SExtractor obtains the highest speeds. No tool has sufficient speed and
accuracy to be well-suited to large-scale automated segmentation in its current
form.


  Transition probability calculations of strong field particle processes in the
Furry picture, typically use fermion Volkov solutions. These solutions have a
relatively complicated spinor due to the interaction of the electron spin with
a strong external field, which in turn leads to unwieldy trace calculations.
The simplification of these calculations would aid theoretical studies of
strong field phenomena such as the predicted resonance behaviour of higher
order Furry picture processes. Here, Fierz transformations of Volkov spinors
are developed and applied to a 1st order and a 2nd order Furry picture process.
Combined with symmetry properties, the techniques presented here are generally
applicable and lead to considerable simplification of Furry picture analytic
calculations.


  The X-ray SOI pixel sensor onboard the FORCE satellite will be placed in the
low earth orbit and will consequently suffer from the radiation effects mainly
caused by geomagnetically trapped cosmic-ray protons. Based on previous studies
on the effects of radiation on SOI pixel sensors, the positive charges trapped
in the oxide layer significantly affect the performance of the sensor. To
improve the radiation hardness of the SOI pixel sensors, we introduced a
double-SOI (D-SOI) structure containing an additional middle Si layer in the
oxide layer. The negative potential applied on the middle Si layer compensates
for the radiation effects, due to the trapped positive charges. Although the
radiation hardness of the D-SOI pixel sensors for applications in high-energy
accelerators has been evaluated, radiation effects for astronomical application
in the D-SOI sensors has not been evaluated thus far. To evaluate the radiation
effects of the D-SOI sensor, we perform an irradiation experiment using a 6-MeV
proton beam with a total dose of ~ 5 krad, corresponding to a few tens of years
of in-orbit operation. This experiment indicates an improvement in the
radiation hardness of the X- ray D-SOI devices. On using an irradiation of 5
krad on the D-SOI device, the energy resolution in the full-width half maximum
for the 5.9-keV X-ray increases by 7 $\pm$ 2%, and the chip output gain
decreases by 0.35 $\pm$ 0.09%. The physical mechanism of the gain degradation
is also investigated; it is found that the gain degradation is caused by an
increase in the parasitic capacitance due to the enlarged buried n-well.


  The LUMINEU project aims at performing a demonstrator underground experiment
searching for the neutrinoless double beta decay of the isotope $^{100}$Mo
embedded in zinc molybdate (ZnMoO$_4$) scintillating bolometers. In this
context, a zinc molybdate crystal boule enriched in $^{100}$Mo to 99.5\% with a
mass of 171 g was grown for the first time by the low-thermal-gradient
Czochralski technique. The production cycle provided a high yield (the crystal
boule mass was 84\% of initial charge) and an acceptable level -- around 4\% --
of irrecoverable losses of the costy enriched material. Two crystals of 59 g
and 63 g, obtained from the enriched boule, were tested aboveground at
milli-Kelvin temperature as scintillating bolometers. They showed a high
detection performance, equivalent to that of previously developed natural
ZnMoO$_4$ detectors. These results pave the way to future sensitive searches
based on the LUMINEU technology, capable to approach and explore the inverted
hierarchy region of the neutrino mass pattern.


  We introduce a model for particles that are extremely polydisperse in size
compared to monodisperse and bidisperse systems. In two dimensions (2D), size
polydispersity inhibits crystallization and increases packing fraction at
jamming points. However, no packing pattern common to diverse polydisperse
particles has been reported. We focused on polydisperse particles with a power
size distribution $r^{-a}$ as a ubiquitous system that can be expected to be
scale-invariant. We experimentally and numerically constructed 2D random
packing for various polydisperse particles with different size exponents, $a$.
Analysis of the packing pattern revealed a common contact number distribution
for $a<3$ and a higher jamming point in $2<a<3$ than monodisperse systems.
These findings demonstrate that the ambiguity of the characteristic length
provides the common properties that leads to a novel classification scheme for
polydisperse particles.


  We prove that the representation dimension of a selfinjective algebra of
euclidean type is equal to three, and give an explicit construction of the
Auslander generator of its module category.


  Let F_n be the fixed-point algebra of the gauge action of the circle on the
Cuntz algebra O_n. For every pure state \rho of F_n and every representation
\theta of C(T) we construct a representation of O_n, and we use the resulting
class of representations to parameterize the space of all states of O_n which
extend \rho. We show that the gauge group acts transitively on the pure
extensions of \rho and that the action is p-to-1 with p the period of \rho
under the usual shift. We then use the above representations of O_n to
construct endomorphisms of B(H) which we classify up to conjugacy in terms of
the parameters \rho and \theta. In particular our construction yields every
ergodic endomorphism \alpha whose tail algebra $\bigcap_k\alpha^k(B(H))$ has a
minimal projection, and our results classify these ergodic endomorphisms by an
equivalence relation on the pure states of F_n. As examples we analyze the
ergodic endomorphisms arising from periodic pure product states of F_n, for
which we are able to give a geometric complete conjugacy invariant,
generalizing results of Stacey, Laca, and Bratteli-Jorgensen-Price on the
shifts of Powers.


  Many observations of pedestrian dynamics, including various self-organization
phenomena, have been reproduced successfully by different models. But the
empirical databases for quantitative calibration are still insufficient, e.g.
the fundamental diagram as one of the most important relationships displays
non-negligible differences among various studies. To improve this situation,
experiments in straight corridors and T-junction are performed. Four different
measurement methods are defined to study their effects on the fundamental
diagram. It is shown that they have minor influences for {\rho} <3.5 m-2 but
only the Voronoi method is able to resolve the fine-structure of the
fundamental diagram. This enhanced measurement method permits to observe the
occurrence of boundary-induced phase transition. For corridors of different
widths we found that the specific flow concept works well for {\rho} <3.5 m-2.
Moreover, we illustrate the discrepancies between the fundamental diagrams of a
T-junction and a straight corridor.


  This is the full version of a paper submitted to the Computability in Europe
(CiE 2023) conference, with all proofs omitted there.
  In 2012 P. D. Azar and S. Micali introduced a new model of interactive
proofs, called "Rational Interactive Proofs". In this model the prover is
neither honest nor malicious, but rational in terms of maximizing his expected
reward. In this article we explore the connection of this area with classic
complexity results.
  In the first part of this article we revise the ties between the counting
hierarchy and the hierarchy of constant-round rational proofs. We prove that a
polynomial-time machine with oracle access to DRMA[k] decides exactly languages
in DRMA[k], a coincidence unknown for levels of the counting hierarchy.
  In the second part we study communication complexity of single-round rational
proofs. We show that the class defined by logarithmic-communication
single-round rational proofs coincides with PP. We also show that single-round
rational protocols that treat problems in Parity-P as black-box samplers of a
random variable require at least a linear number of bits of communication.


  We report the results of the trajectory-based simulation of far-infrared
collision-induced absorption (CIA) due to CH$_4-$N$_2$ pairs at temperatures
between 70 and 400 K. Our analysis utilizes recently calculated high-level
potential energy (PES) and induced dipole surfaces (IDS) [Finenko, A. A.,
Chistikov, D. N., Kalugina, Y. N., Conway E. K., Gordon, I. E., Phys. Chem.
Chem. Phys., 2021, doi: 10.1039/d1cp02161c]. Treating collision partners as
rigid rotors, the time evolution of interaction-induced dipole is accumulated
over a vast ensemble of classical trajectories and subsequently transformed
into CIA spectrum via Fourier transform. In our calculations, both bound and
unbound states are properly accounted for, and the rigorous theory of
lower-order spectral moments is addressed to check the accuracy of simulated
profiles. Classically derived trajectory-based profiles are subject to two
approximate desymmetrization procedures so that resulting profiles conform to
the quantum principle of detailed balance. The simulated profiles are compared
to laboratory measurements and employed for modeling Titan's spectra in the
50-500 cm$^{-1}$ range. Based on the desymmetrized simulated profiles, a new
semi-empirical model for CH$_4-$N$_2$ CIA is proposed for modeling Titan's
infrared spectra. Synthetic spectra derived using this model yield an excellent
agreement with the data recorded by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS)
aboard the Cassini spacecraft at low and high emission angles.


  Micro lens array is crucial in various kinds of optical and electronic
applications. A micro lens array with high numerical aperture (NA) and low
aberration is in particular needed. This research is aimed to design and
fabricate such a micro lens array with simple structure while keeps the same NA
of a same-diameter hemisphere lens. A bi-convex semispherical micro lens array,
with corresponding NA 0.379, by PDMS is first designed and analyzed.
Experiments are further conducted to fabricate the designed micro lens array by
the thermal reflow process. The formed profile is then sputtered with copper to
serve as the mold. The front and the rear micro lens array are fabricated by
plating PDMS to the mold and then assembled to form the designed micro lens
array.


  Combining the recently available experimental evidence of D-Dbar mixing, we
extract model-independent information on the mixing amplitude and on its
CP-violating phase. Using this information, we present new constraints on the
flavour structure of up-type squark mass matrices in supersymmetric extensions
of the Standard Model.


  Recent high angular resolution ($\sim$0.2") ALMA observations of the 1.1 mm
continuum and of HCO+ J=3-2 and HCN J=3-2 gas towards the binary protostar IRS
43 reveal multiple Keplerian disks which are significantly misaligned ($\gt$
60$^\circ$), both in inclination and position angle and also with respect to
the binary orbital plane. Each stellar component has an associated
circumstellar disk while the binary is surrounded by a circumbinary disk.
Together with archival VLA measurements of the stellar positions over 25 years,
and assuming a circular orbit, we use our continuum measurements to determine
the binary separation, a = 74 $\pm$ 4 AU, and its inclination, i $\lt$
30$^\circ$. The misalignment in this system suggests that turbulence has likely
played a major role in the formation of IRS 43.


  The optical gyrotropy noise of a high-finesse semiconductor Bragg microcavity
with an embedded quantum well (QW) is studied at different detunings of the
photon mode and the QW exciton resonances. A strong suppression of the noise
magnitude for the photon mode frequencies lying above exciton resonances is
found. We show that such a critical behavior of the observed optical noise
power is specific of asymmetric Fabry-Perot resonators. As follows from our
analysis, at a certain level of intracavity loss, the reflectivity of the
asymmetric resonator vanishes, while the polarimetric sensitivity to the
gyrotropy changes dramatically when moving across the critical point. The
results of model calculations are in a good agreement with our experimental
data on the spin noise in a single-quantum-well microcavity and are confirmed
also by the spectra of the photo-induced Kerr rotation in the pump-probe
experiments.


  It is now wellknown that Maxwell equations admit of wavelet-type solutions
endowed with arbitrary group-velocities (0 < v_g < infinity). Some of them,
which are rigidly moving and have been called localized solutions, attracted
large attention. In particular, much work has been done with regard to the
Superluminal localized solutions (SLS), the most interesting of which resulted
to be the "X-shaped" ones. The SLSs have been actually produced in a number of
experiments, always by suitable interference of ordinary-speed waves. In this
note we show, by contrast, that even a Superluminal charge creates an
electromagnetic X-shaped wave. Namely, on the basis of Maxwell equations, we
are able to evaluate the field associated with a Superluminal charge (under the
approximation of pointlikeness): and it results to constitute a very simple
example of true X-wave. [PACS nos.: 03.50.De; 03.30.+p; 41.20;Jb; 04.30.Db.
Keywords: Special relativity; Maxwell equations; Superluminal waves; X-shaped
waves; Localized beams; Wave propagation; Superluminal charges].


  We consider a Markov process $ X(t) $ on the nonnegative integers $E= S \cup
\{0\}$, where $S=\{1,2,...\}$ is an irreducible class and 0 is an absorbing
state. In this paper, we investigate conditions under which the
quasi-stationary distribution for $X(t)$ exists and is unique, and any initial
distribution supported in $S$ is in the domain of attraction of this
quasi-stationary distribution. We further find five conditions which are
equivalent to that the extinction time is uniformly bounded. As a consequence,
we prove the van Doorn's conjecture in \cite{VD2012}. And we can greatly
improve theorem 1 in \cite{VD2012}.


  Change point detection becomes more and more important as datasets increase
in size, where unsupervised detection algorithms can help users process data.
To detect change points, a number of unsupervised algorithms have been
developed which are based on different principles. One approach is to define an
optimisation problem and minimise a cost function along with a penalty
function. In the optimisation approach, the choice of the cost function affects
the predictions made by the algorithm. In extension to the existing studies, a
new type of cost function using Tikhonov regularisation is introduced. Another
approach uses Bayesian statistics to calculate the posterior probability
distribution of a specific point being a change point. It uses a priori
knowledge on the distance between consecutive change points and a likelihood
function with information about the segments. The optimisation and Bayesian
approaches for offline change point detection are studied and applied to
simulated datasets as well as a real world multi-phase dataset. The approaches
have previously been studied separately and a novelty lies in comparing the
predictions made by the two approaches in a specific setting, consisting of
simulated datasets and a real world example. The study has found that the
performance of the change point detection algorithms are affected by the
features in the data.


  Consider a very large (infinite) population of items, where each item
independent from the others is defective with probability p, or good with
probability q=1-p. The goal is to identify N good items as quickly as possible.
The following group testing policy (policy A) is considered: test items
together in the groups, if the test outcome of group i of size n_i is negative,
then accept all items in this group as good, otherwise discard the group. Then,
move to the next group and continue until exact N good items are found. The
goal is to find an optimal testing configuration, i.e., group sizes, under
policy A, such that the expected waiting time to obtain N good items is
minimal. Recently, Gusev (2012) found an optimal group testing configuration
under the assumptions of constant group size and N=\infty. In this note, an
optimal solution under policy A for finite N is provided. Keywords: Dynamic
programming; Optimal design; Partition problem; Shur-convexity


  The $\mathrm{H}_2$ formation on grains is known to be sensitive to dust
temperature, which is also known to fluctuate for small grain sizes due to
photon absorption. We aim at exploring the consequences of simultaneous
fluctuations of the dust temperature and the adsorbed H-atom population on the
$\mathrm{H}_2$ formation rate under the full range of astrophysically relevant
UV intensities and gas conditions. The master equation approach is generalized
to coupled fluctuations in both the grain's temperature and its surface
population and solved numerically. The resolution can be simplified in the case
of the Eley-Rideal mechanism, allowing a fast computation. For the
Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism, it remains computationally expensive, and
accurate approximations are constructed. We find the Langmuir-Hinshelwood
mechanism to become an efficient formation mechanism in unshielded photon
dominated region (PDR) edge conditions when taking those fluctuations into
account, despite hot average dust temperatures. It reaches an importance
comparable to the Eley-Rideal mechanism. However, we show that a simpler rate
equation treatment gives qualitatively correct observable results in full cloud
simulations under most astrophysically relevant conditions. Typical differences
are a factor of 2-3 on the intensities of the $\mathrm{H}_2$ $v=0$ lines. We
also find that rare fluctuations in cloud cores are sufficient to significantly
reduce the formation efficiency. Our detailed analysis confirms that the usual
approximations used in numerical models are adequate when interpreting
observations, but a more sophisticated statistical analysis is required if one
is interested in the details of surface processes.


  The Sun stands out as the closest and clearest astrophysical accelerator of
cosmic rays, while other objects within and beyond the galaxy remain enigmatic.
It is probable that the cosmic ray spectrum and mass components from these
celestial sources share similarities, offering a novel approach to study their
origin. In this study, we analyze of spectra and mass in the energy range from
MeV to 10~EeV. We find: (1) the mean-logarithmic mass $\rm\left\langle lnA
\right\rangle$ distribution with energy exhibits much clearer feature
structures than the spectra; (2) a 100~TeV bump is presented in the
$\rm\left\langle lnA \right\rangle$ distribution; (3) for protons, the knee is
located at $\sim2$ PeV, the boundary between the galaxy and extra-galaxy occurs
at $\sim30$ PeV, marked by a sharp dip; (4) the all-particle spectrum exhibits
hardening at $\sim30$~PeV due to the contribution of nearby galaxies, and the
extra-galactic dominate $\sim0.7$~EeV. We hope the LHAASO experiment can
perform spectral measurements of individual species to validate our results.


  State-of-the-art branch and bound algorithms for mixed integer programming
make use of special methods for making branching decisions. Strategies that
have gained prominence include modern variants of so-called strong branching
(Applegate, et al.,1995) and reliability branching (Achterberg, Koch and
Martin, 2005; Hendel, 2015), which select variables for branching by solving
associated linear programs and exploit pseudo-costs (Benichou et al., 1971). We
suggest new branching criteria and propose alternative branching approaches
called narrow gauge and analytical branching. The perspective underlying our
approaches is to focus on prioritization of child nodes to examine fewer
candidate variables at the current node of the B&B tree, balanced with
procedures to extrapolate the implications of choosing these candidates by
generating a small-depth look-ahead tree. Our procedures can also be used in
rules to select among open tree nodes (those whose child nodes have not yet
been generated). We incorporate pre- and post-winnowing procedures to
progressively isolate preferred branching candidates, and employ derivative
(created) variables whose branches are able to explore the solution space more
deeply.


  By using a newly fitted multi-parameter potential to describe the van der
Waals interaction between carbon and molecular hydrogen, we study the hydrogen
storage inside carbon nanotubes (CNT's) under pressure in gigapascal range.
Comparing with the results of graphite, we find that the shape change of the
nanotubes (the curvature effect) provides a different storage mechanism for
hydrogen. The negative free energy change for hydrogen storage inside CNT's
makes it possible to use CNT's as the nanocontainer [Carbon 45, 315 (2007)].


  There has been an increasing interest in and growing need for high
performance computing (HPC), popularly known as supercomputing, in domains such
as textual analytics, business domains analytics, forecasting and natural
language processing (NLP), in addition to the relatively mature supercomputing
domains of quantum physics and biology. HPC has been widely used in computer
science (CS) and other traditionally computation intensive disciplines, but has
remained largely siloed away from the vast array of social, behavioral,
business and economics disciplines. However, with ubiquitous big data, there is
a compelling need to make HPC technologically and economically accessible, easy
to use, and operationally democratized. Therefore, this research focuses on
making two key contributions, the first is the articulation of strategies based
on availability, accessibility and usability for the demystification and
democratization of HPC, based on an analytical review of Caliburn, a notable
supercomputer at its inception. The second contribution is a set of principles
for HPC adoption based on an experiential narrative of HPC usage for textual
analytics and NLP of social media data from a first time user perspective.
Both, the HPC usage process and the output of the early stage analytics are
summarized. This research study synthesizes expert input on HPC democratization
strategies, and chronicles the challenges and opportunities from a
multidisciplinary perspective, of a case of rapid adoption of supercomputing
for textual analytics and NLP. Deductive logic is used to identify strategies
which can lead to efficacious engagement, adoption, production and sustained
usage for research, teaching, application and innovation by researchers,
faculty, professionals and students across a broad range of disciplines.


  Using Littlewood's map, which decomposes a partition into its $r$-core and
$r$-quotient, Han and Ji have shown that many well-known hook-length formulas
admit modular analogues. In this paper we present a variant of the Han-Ji
`multiplication theorem' based on a new analogue of Littlewood's decomposition.
We discuss several applications to hook-length formulas, one of which leads us
to conjecture a modular analogue of the $q,t$-Nekrasov-Okounkov formula.


  Poisson brackets on the polynomial algebra C[x,y,z] are studied. A
description of all such brackets is given and, for a significant class of
Poisson brackets, the Poisson prime ideals and Poisson primitive ideals are
determined. The results are illustrated by numerous examples.


  We use complementary optical spectroscopy methods to directly measure the
lowest crystal-field energies of the rare-earth quantum magnet
LiY$_{1-x}$Ho$_{x}$F$_{4}$, including their hyperfine splittings, with more
than 10 times higher resolution than previous work. We are able to observe
energy level splittings due to the $^6\mathrm{Li}$ and $^7\mathrm{Li}$
isotopes, as well as non-equidistantly spaced hyperfine transitions originating
from dipolar and quadrupolar hyperfine interactions. We provide refined crystal
field parameters and extract the dipolar and quadrupolar hyperfine constants
${A_J=0.02703\pm0.00003}$ $\textrm{cm}^{-1}$ and ${B= 0.04 \pm0.01}$
$\textrm{cm}^{-1}$, respectively. Thereupon we determine all crystal-field
energy levels and magnetic moments of the $^5I_8$ ground state manifold,
including the (non-linear) hyperfine corrections. The latter match the
measurement-based estimates. The scale of the non-linear hyperfine corrections
sets an upper bound for the inhomogeneous line widths that would still allow
for unique addressing of a selected hyperfine transition. e.g. for quantum
information applications. Additionally, we establish the far-infrared,
low-temperature refractive index of LiY$_{1-x}$Ho$_{x}$F$_{4}$.


  Aggregation and settling are crucial phenomena that involve particulate
systems. For particle sizes of millimetre and above, there are reasonable
accurate predicting tools. However for smaller particle sizes, there appears to
be a void in knowledge. This paper presents an analytical model to predict the
settling rates of nano-to-micro size particulate systems. The model was
developed as a combination of modified classical equations and graphical
methods. A calculation sequence also is presented. By validation with available
experimental data for settling nano-to-micro systems, it was found that the two
schemes show order of magnitude agreement. A significant feature of this model
is its ability to accommodate non-spherical particles and different fractal
dimensions.


  We study open string amplitudes with the D3-branes in type IIB superstring
theory compactified on C^2/Z_2. We introduce constant graviphoton background
along the branes and calculate disk amplitudes using the NSR formalism. We take
the zero slope limit and investigate the effective Lagrangian on the D3-branes
deformed by the graviphoton background. We find that the deformed Lagrangian
agrees with that of N=2 supersymmetric U(N) gauge theory defined in
non(anti)commutative N=1 superspace by choosing appropriate graviphoton
background. It is also shown that abelian gauge theory defined in N=2 harmonic
superspace with specific non-singlet deformation is consistent with the
deformed theory.


  We describe a novel ionization signal capture and waveform digitization
scheme for kiloton-scale liquid argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) detectors.
The scheme is based on a pixel-scale self-triggering `charge integrate/reset'
block, local clocks running at unconstrained frequencies and dynamically
established data networks. The scheme facilitates detailed capture of waveforms
of arbitrary complexity from a sequence of varying time intervals, each of
which corresponds to a fixed charge integral. An absolute charge
auto-calibration process based on intrinsic $^{39}$Ar decay current is a major
benefit. A flat electronic architecture with self-guided network generation
provides exceptionally high resilience against single-point failure. Integrated
photon detection, although highly speculative, may also be possible. The goal
is optimized discovery potential. Much might be at stake.


  Boosting has attracted much research attention in the past decade. The
success of boosting algorithms may be interpreted in terms of the margin
theory. Recently it has been shown that generalization error of classifiers can
be obtained by explicitly taking the margin distribution of the training data
into account. Most of the current boosting algorithms in practice usually
optimizes a convex loss function and do not make use of the margin
distribution. In this work we design a new boosting algorithm, termed
margin-distribution boosting (MDBoost), which directly maximizes the average
margin and minimizes the margin variance simultaneously. This way the margin
distribution is optimized. A totally-corrective optimization algorithm based on
column generation is proposed to implement MDBoost. Experiments on UCI datasets
show that MDBoost outperforms AdaBoost and LPBoost in most cases.


  It is shown that the choice of spin-operator affects the form of the response
tensor describing a spin-dependent electron gas. The covariant, spin-dependent
response tensor for a magnetic dipole moment-polarized electron gas
(statistical distribution of electrons and positrons) is evaluated. A
simultaneous eigenfunction of both the magnetic-moment spin-operator and the
Dirac Hamiltonian is constructed, from which explicit expressions for the
magnetic-moment states and the corresponding vertex functions are derived. It
is shown that a gas of electrons having a preferred magnetic-moment spin has a
rotatory-type response that is gyrotropic. In contrast, when the helicity is
chosen as the spin operator, the response of an electron gas with a preferred
helicity spin has a rotatory response that is analogous to an optically active
medium. The distinction between these spin operators does not appear in
conventional treatments of spin-dependence in quantum plasmas.


  A possibility of 5D gauge unification of $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ in $SU(3)_W$
is examined. The orbifold compactification allows fixed points where
$SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y$ representations can be assigned. We present a few
possibilities which give long proton lifetime, top-bottom mass hierarchy from
geometry, and reasonable neutrino masses. In general, these {\it chiral models}
can lead to fixed point anomalies. We can show easily, due to the simplicity of
the model, that these anomalies are cancelled by the relevant Chern-Simons
terms for all the models we consider. It is also shown that the fixed point
U(1)--graviton--graviton anomaly cancels without the help from the Chern-Simons
term. Hence, we conjecture that the fixed point anomalies can be cancelled if
the effective 4D theory is made anomaly free by locating chiral fermions at the
fixed points.


  According to the well-known Heyde theorem the class of Gaussian distributions
on the real line is characterized by the symmetry of the conditional
distribution of one linear form of independent random variables given the
other. We study analogues of this theorem for some locally compact Abelian
groups X containing an element of order 2. We prove that if X contains an
element of order 2, this can lead to the fact that a wide class of non-Gaussian
distributions on X is characterized by the symmetry of the conditional
distribution of one linear form given the other. In so doing coefficients of
linear forms are topological automorphisms of X.


  The intrinsic fraction of broad absorption line quasars (BALQSOs) is
important in constraining geometric and evolutionary models of quasars. We
present the fraction of BALQSOs in 2MASS detected quasars within the SDSS DR3
sample in the redshift range of 1.7 < z < 4.38. The fraction of BALQSOs is
40.4^{+3.4}_{-3.3}% in the 2MASS 99% database K_s band completeness sample, and
38.5^{+1.7}_{-1.7}% in the larger 2MASS sample extending below the completeness
limit. These fractions are significantly higher than the 26% reported in the
optical bands for the same parent sample. We also present the fraction of
BALQSOs as functions of apparent magnitudes, absolute magnitudes, and redshift
in the 2MASS and SDSS bands. The 2MASS fractions are consistently higher than
the SDSS fractions in every comparison, and the BALQSO fractions steadily
increase with wavelength from the SDSS u to the 2MASS K_s bands. Furthermore,
the i - K_s color distributions of BALQSOs and non-BALQSOs indicate that
BALQSOs are redder than non-BALQSOs, with a K-S test probability of 2e-12.
These results are consistent with the spectral difference between BALQSOs and
non-BALQSOs including both the absorption troughs and dust extinction in
BALQSOs, which leads to significant selection biases against BALQSOs in the
optical bands. Using a simple simulation incorporating the luminosity function
of quasars and the amount of obscuration for BALQSOs, we simultaneously fit the
BALQSO fractions in the SDSS and 2MASS bands. We obtain a true BALQSO fraction
of 43\pm2% for luminous quasars (M_{K_s} \lesssim -30.1 mag).


  We have explored the possibilities of resolving the $\theta_{23}$ octant
degeneracy present in the newly planned Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment
(LBNE) by combining reactor data. Reactor experiments have already measured the
third mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ very precisely and this precise measurenent of
$\theta_{13}$ in turn helps in $\theta_{23}$ octant measurement. We have
examined the octant sensitivity with and without reactor data and it improves
if reactor data is added. The comparative study of octant sensitivities of 10kt
and 35kt liquid argon Far Detectors, with and without the Near Detector,
reveals that the sensitivity increases with an increase in detector mass. Also,
the presence of the Near Detector improves the sensitivity. The effect of
adding priors on octant determination is also studied in this work.


  We consider the BPS dyonic instantons in the 5-dim supersymmetric Yang-Mills
Chern-Simons theories. Its field theoretic structures and the moduli space
dynamics in term of the ADHM data have been explored in detail. We find that
the field theoretic Chern-Simons term leads to an effective magnetic field on
instanton moduli space.


  Foundational ontologies devoted to the effective representation of processes
and procedures are not widely investigated at present, thereby limiting the
practical adoption of semantic approaches in real scenarios where the precise
instructions to follow must be considered. Also, the representation ought to
include how agents should carry out the actions associated with the process,
whether or not agents are able to perform those actions, the possible roles
played as well as the related events.
  The OASIS ontology provides an established model to capture agents and their
interactions but lacks means for representing processes and procedures carried
out by agents. This motivates the research presented in this article, which
delivers an extension of the OASIS 2 ontology to combine the capabilities for
representing agents and their behaviours with the full conceptualization of
processes and procedures. The overarching goal is to deliver a foundational OWL
ontology that deals with agent planning, reaching a balance between generality
and applicability, which is known to be an open challenge.