  We model the 21-cm signal and LAE population evolution during the epoch of
reionization in order to predict the 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum. We employ
high-dynamic-range simulations of the IGM to create models that are consistent
with constraints from the CMB, Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and LAE population
statistics. Using these models we consider the evolution of the cross-power
spectrum for a selection of realistic reionization histories and predict the
sensitivity of current and upcoming surveys to measuring this signal. We find
that the imprint of a delayed-end to reionization can be observed by future
surveys, and that strong constraints can be placed on the progression of
reionization as late as $z=5.7$ using a Subaru-SKA survey. We make predictions
for the signal-to-noise ratios achievable by combinations of Subaru/PFS with
the MWA, LOFAR, HERA and SKA interferometers for an integration time of 1000
hours. We find that a Subaru-SKA survey could measure the cross-power spectrum
for a late reionization at $z=6.6$ with a total signal-to-noise greater than 5,
making it possible to constrain both the timing and bubble size at the end of
reionization. Furthermore, we find that expanding the current Subaru/PFS survey
area and depth by a factor of three would double the total signal-to-noise.


  GeSn has emerged as a promising semiconductor with optoelectronic
functionality in the mid-infrared, with the potential of replacing expensive
III-V technology for monolithic on-chip Si photonics. Multiple challenges to
achieve optoelectronic-grade GeSn have been successfully solved in the last
decade. We stand today on the brink of a potential revolution in which GeSn
could be used in many optoelectronic applications such as Light Detection and
Ranging (LiDARs) devices and lasers. However, the limited understanding and
control of material defects represents today a bottleneck in the performance of
GeSn-based devices, hindering their commercialisation. Point and linear defects
in GeSn have a strong impact on its electronic properties, namely unintentional
doping concentration, carrier lifetime and mobility, which ultimately determine
the performance of optoelectronic devices. In this review, after introducing
the state-of-the-art of the fabrication and properties of GeSn, we provide a
comprehensive overview of the current understanding of GeSn defects and their
influence on the material (opto)electronic properties. Throughout the
manuscript, we highlight the critical points that are still to solve. By
bringing together the different fabrication techniques available and
characterizations realized we provide a wholistic view on the field of GeSn and
provide elements on how it could move forward.


  I present here a new Glauber-inspired approach to derive normal cold nuclear
matter effects on $J/\psi$ production in Au-Au collisions. In an as much as
possible model-independent way, it extrapolates the centrality dependent yields
from d-Au to Au-Au collisions. I then compare to the new Au-Au measurements
shown by the PHENIX experiment in this conference. In the most central
collisions, $J/\psi$ survival probabilities beyond cold nuclear matter effects
are found to be $44\pm23%$ at forward ($y=1.7$) and $25\pm12%$ at mid ($y=0$)
rapidities.


  Propagation of high-current relativistic electron beam (REB) in plasma is
relevant to many high-energy astrophysical phenomena as well as applications
based on high-intensity lasers and charged-particle beams. Here we report a new
regime of beam-plasma interaction arising from REB propagation in medium with
fine structures. In this regime, the REB cascades into thin branches with local
density hundred times the initial value and deposits its energy two orders of
magnitude more efficiently than that in homogeneous plasma, where REB branching
does not occur, of similar average density. Such beam branching can be
attributed to successive weak scatterings of the beam electrons by the unevenly
distributed magnetic fields induced by the local return currents in the
skeletons of the porous medium. Results from a model for the excitation
conditions and location of the first branching point with respect to the medium
and beam parameters agree well with that from pore-resolved particle-in-cell
simulations.


  Weyl type-II fermions are massless quasiparticles that obey the Weyl equation
and which are predicted to occur at the boundary between electron- and
hole-pockets in certain semi-metals, i.e. the (W,Mo)(Te,P)$_2$ compounds. Here,
we present a study of the Fermi-surface of WP$_2$ \emph{via} the Shubnikov-de
Haas (SdH) effect. Compared to other semi-metals WP$_2$ exhibits a very low
residual resistivity, i.e. $\rho_0 \simeq 10$ n$\Omega$cm, which leads to
perhaps the largest non-saturating magneto-resistivity $(\rho(H))$ reported for
any compound. For the samples displaying the smallest $\rho_0$, $\rho(H)$ is
observed to increase by a factor of $2.5 \times 10^{7}$ $\%$ under $\mu_{0}H =
35$ T at $T = 0.35$ K. The angular dependence of the SdH frequencies is found
to be in very good agreement with the first-principle calculations when the
electron- and hole-bands are slightly shifted with respect to the Fermi level,
thus supporting the existence of underlying Weyl type-II points in WP$_2$.


  This review describes our current understanding of interstellar extinction.
This differ substantially from the ideas of the 20th century. With infrared
surveys of hundreds of millions of stars over the entire sky, such as 2MASS,
SPITZER-IRAC, and WISE, we have looked at the densest and most rarefied regions
of the interstellar medium at distances of a few kpc from the sun. Observations
at infrared and microwave wavelengths, where the bulk of the interstellar dust
absorbs and radiates, have brought us closer to an understanding of the
distribution of the dust particles on scales of the Galaxy and the Universe. We
are in the midst of a scientific revolution in our understanding of the
interstellar medium and dust. Progress in, and the key results of, this
revolution are still difficult to predict. Nevertheless, (a) a physically
justified model has been developed for the spatial distribution of absorbing
material over the nearest few kiloparsecs, including the Gould belt as a dust
container, which gives an accurate estimate of the extinction for any object
just in terms of its galactic coordinates. It is also clear that (b) the
interstellar medium makes up roughly half the mass of matter in the galactic
vicinity of the solar system (the other half is made up of stars, their
remnants, and dark matter) and (c) the interstellar medium and, especially,
dust, differ substantially in different regions of space, and deep space cannot
be understood by only studying nearby space.


  The development of conversational AI assistants is an iterative process with
multiple components. As such, the evaluation and continual improvement of these
assistants is a complex and multifaceted problem. This paper introduces the
challenges in evaluating and improving a generative AI assistant for
enterprises, which is under active development, and how we address these
challenges. We also share preliminary results and discuss lessons learned.


  We study the origin of subleading soft and collinear poles of form factors
and amplitudes in dimensionally-regulated massless gauge theories. In the case
of form factors of fundamental fields, these poles originate from a single
function of the coupling, denoted G(alpha_s), depending on both the spin and
gauge quantum numbers of the field. We relate G(alpha_s) to gauge-theory matrix
elements involving the gluon field strength. We then show that G(alpha_s) is
the sum of three terms: a universal eikonal anomalous dimension, a universal
non-eikonal contribution, given by the coefficient B_delta (alpha_s) of delta(1
- z) in the collinear evolution kernel, and a process-dependent short-distance
coefficient function, which does not contribute to infrared poles. Using
general results on the factorization of soft and collinear singularities in
fixed-angle massless gauge theory amplitudes, we conclude that all such
singularities are captured by the eikonal approximation, supplemented only by
the knowledge of B_delta (alpha_s). We explore the consequences of our results
for conformal gauge theories, where in particular we find a simple exact
relation between the form factor and the cusp anomalous dimension.


  We study a Bose-Hubbard model having on-site repulsion, nearest-neighbor
tunneling, and ferromagneticlike coupling between occupation parities of
nearest-neighbor sites. For a uniform system in any dimension at zero
tunneling, we obtain an exact phase diagram characterized by Mott-insulator
(MI) and pair liquid phases and regions of phase separation of two MIs. For a
general trapped system in one and two dimensions with finite tunneling, we
perform quantum Monte Carlo and Gutzwiller mean-field calculations, both of
which show the evolution of the system, as the parity coupling increases, from
a superfluid to wedding-cake-structure MIs with their occupations jumping by 2.
We also identify an exotic pair superfluid at relatively large tunneling
strength. Our model ought to effectively describe recent findings in imbalanced
Fermi gases in two-dimensional optical lattices and also potentially apply to
an anisotropic version of bilinear-biquadratic spin systems.


  Statistical models incorporating change points are common in practice,
especially in the area of biomedicine. This approach is appealing in that a
specific parameter is introduced to account for the abrupt change in the
response variable relating to a particular independent variable of interest.
The statistical challenge one encounters is that the likelihood function is not
differentiable with respect to this change point parameter. Consequently, the
conventional asymptotic properties for the maximum likelihood estimators fail
to hold in this situation. In this paper, we propose an estimating procedure
for estimating the change point along with other regression coefficients under
the generalized linear model framework. We show that the proposed estimators
enjoy the conventional asymptotic properties including consistency and
normality. Simulation work we conducted suggests that it performs well for the
situations considered. We applied the proposed method to a case-control study
aimed to examine the relationship between the risk of myocardial infarction and
alcohol intake.


  RedPRL is an experimental proof assistant based on Cartesian cubical
computational type theory, a new type theory for higher-dimensional
constructions inspired by homotopy type theory. In the style of Nuprl, RedPRL
users employ tactics to establish behavioral properties of cubical functional
programs embodying the constructive content of proofs. Notably, RedPRL
implements a two-level type theory, allowing an extensional, proof-irrelevant
notion of exact equality to coexist with a higher-dimensional proof-relevant
notion of paths.


  The flux and line shape of the fine-structure transitions of \NeII\ and
\NeIII\ at 12.8 and 15.55\,$\mu$m and of the forbidden transitions of \OI\
$\lambda6300$ are calculated for young stellar objects with a range of
mass-loss rates and X-ray luminosities using the X-wind model of jets and the
associated wide-angle winds. For moderate and high accretion rates, the
calculated \NeII\ line luminosity is comparable to or much larger than produced
in X-ray irradiated disk models. All of the line luminosities correlate well
with the main parameter in the X-wind model, the mass-loss rate, and also with
the assumed X-ray luminosity --- and with one another. The line shapes of an
approaching jet are broad and have strong blue-shifted peaks near the effective
terminal velocity of the jet. They serve as a characteristic and testable
aspect of jet production of the neon fine-structure lines and the \OI\
forbidden transitions.


  Let $B^{\alpha_i}$ be an $(N_i,d)$-fractional Brownian motion with Hurst
index ${\alpha_i}$ ($i=1,2$), and let $B^{\alpha_1}$ and $B^{\alpha_2}$ be
independent. We prove that, if $\frac{N_1}{\alpha_1}+\frac{N_2}{\alpha_2}>d$,
then the intersection local times of $B^{\alpha_1}$ and $B^{\alpha_2}$ exist,
and have a continuous version. We also establish H\"{o}lder conditions for the
intersection local times and determine the Hausdorff and packing dimensions of
the sets of intersection times and intersection points.
  One of the main motivations of this paper is from the results of Nualart and
Ortiz-Latorre ({\it J. Theor. Probab.} {\bf 20} (2007)), where the existence of
the intersection local times of two independent $(1,d)$-fractional Brownian
motions with the same Hurst index was studied by using a different method. Our
results show that anisotropy brings subtle differences into the analytic
properties of the intersection local times as well as rich geometric structures
into the sets of intersection times and intersection points.


  An overview is given on how superconductivity with anisotropic pairing can be
realised from repulsive electron-electron interaction. (i) We start from the
physics in one dimension, where the Tomonaga-Luttinger theory predicts that,
while there is no superconducting phase for the repulsive case for a single
chain, the phase does exists in ladders with the number of legs equal to or
greater than two, as shown both by analytically (renormalisation) and
numerically (quantum Monte Carlo). (ii) We then show how this pairing has a
natural extension to the two-dimensional case, where anisotropic (usually d)
pairing superconductivity arises mediated by spin fluctuations (usually
antiferromagnetic), as shown both by analytically (renormalisation) and
numerically (quantum Monte Carlo). (iii) We finally discuss how the
superconductivity from the electron repulsion can be "optimised" (i.e., how
$T_C$ can be raised) in 2D and 3D, where we propose that the anisotropic
pairing is much favoured in systems having {\it disconnected Fermi surfaces}
where $T_C$ can be almost an order of magnitude higher.


  We investigate how the next generation gravitational-wave (GW) detectors,
such as Einstein Telescope (ET) and Cosmic Explorer (CE), can be used to
distinguish primordial black holes (PBHs) from astrophysical black holes
(ABHs). Since a direct detection of sub-solar mass black holes can be taken as
the smoking gun for PBHs, we figure out the detectable limits of the abundance
of sub-solar mass PBHs in cold dark matter by the targeted search for sub-solar
mass PBH binaries and binaries containing a sub-solar mass PBH and a
super-solar mass PBH, respectively. On the other hand, according to the
different redshift evolutions of merger rate for PBH binaries and ABH binaries,
we forecast the detectable event rate distributions for the PBH binaries and
ABH binaries by ET and CE respectively, which can serve as a method to
distinguish super-solar mass PBHs from ABHs.


  For a given configuration space $M$ and Lie algebra $g$ whose action is
defined on $M$, the space $V_{0.0}$ of weakly $g$-invariant Lagrangians (i.e.
Lagrangians whose motion equations left hand sides are $g$-invariant) is
studied.
  The problem is reformulated in the terms of the double complex of Lie algebra
cochains with values in the complex of Lagrangians. Calculating the cohomology
of this complex using the method of spectral sequences, we come to the
hierarchy in the space $V_{0.0}$:
  The double filtration $V_{s.r}$ ($s=0,1,2,3,4;r=0,1$) and the homomorphisms
on every space $V_{s.r}$ are constructed.
  These homomorphisms take values in cohomologies of the Lie algebra $g$ and
configuration space $M$. On one hand every space $V_{s.r}$ is the kernel of the
corresponding homomorphism, on the other hand this space is defined by its
physical properties.


  We show that the fundamental seismic shear mode, observed as a quasi-periodic
oscillation in giant flares emitted by highly-magnetized neutron stars, is
particularly sensitive to the nuclear physics of the crust. The identification
of an oscillation at ~ 30 Hz as the fundamental crustal shear mode requires a
nuclear symmetry energy that depends very weakly on density near saturation. If
the nuclear symmetry energy varies more strongly with density, then lower
frequency oscillations, previously identified as torsional Alfven modes of the
fluid core, could instead be associated with the crust. If this is the case,
then future observations of giant flares should detect oscillations at around
18 Hz. An accurate measurement of the neutron skin thickness of lead will also
constrain the frequencies predicted by the model.


  A structural transition in an ABO$_{3}$ perovskite thin film involving the
change of the BO$_{6}$ octahedral rotation pattern can be hidden under the
global lattice symmetry imposed by the substrate and often easily overlooked.
We carried out high-resolution x-ray diffraction experiments to investigate the
structures of epitaxial Ca$_{0.5}$Sr$_{0.5}$IrO$_{3}$ (CSIO) perovskite iridate
films grown on the SrTiO$_{3}$ (STO) and GdScO$_{3}$ (GSO) substrates in
detail. Although the CSIO/STO film layer displays a global tetragonal lattice
symmetry evidenced by the reciprocal space mapping, synchrotron x-ray data
indicates that its room temperature structure is monoclinic due to Glazer's
a$^{+}$a$^{-}$c$^{-}$-type rotation of the IrO$_{6}$ octahedra. In order to
accommodate the lower-symmetry structure under the global tetragonal symmetry,
the film breaks into four twinned domains, resulting in the splitting of the
(half-integer, 0, integer) superlattice reflections. Surprisingly, the
splitting of these superlattice reflections decrease with increasing
temperature, eventually disappearing at T$_{S}$ = 510(5) K, which signals a
structural transition to an orthorhombic phase with a$^{+}$a$^{-}$c$^{0}$
octahedral rotation. In contrast, the CSIO/GSO film displays a stable
monoclinic symmetry with a$^{+}$b$^{-}$c$^{-}$ octahedral rotation, showing no
structural instability caused by the substrate up to 520 K. Our study
illustrates the importance of the symmetry in addition to the lattice mismatch
of the substrate in determining the structure of epitaxial thin films.


  The multiplicative Newton-like method developed by the author et al. is
extended to the situation where the dynamics is restricted to the orthogonal
group. A general framework is constructed without specifying the cost function.
Though the restriction to the orthogonal groups makes the problem somewhat
complicated, an explicit expression for the amount of individual jumps is
obtained. This algorithm is exactly second-order-convergent. The global
instability inherent in the Newton method is remedied by a
Levenberg-Marquardt-type variation. The method thus constructed can readily be
applied to the independent component analysis. Its remarkable performance is
illustrated by a numerical simulation.


  Methods developed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) are described
and demonstrated for automating the construction of an elastic, virtual cluster
emulating the Stampede2 high performance computing (HPC) system. The cluster
can be built and/or scaled in a matter of minutes on the Jetstream self-service
cloud system and shares many properties of the original Stampede2, including:
i) common identity management, ii) access to the same file systems, iii)
equivalent software application stack and module system, iv) similar job
scheduling interface via Slurm.
  We measure time-to-solution for a number of common scientific applications on
our virtual cluster against equivalent runs on Stampede2 and develop an
application profile where performance is similar or otherwise acceptable. For
such applications, the virtual cluster provides an effective form of "cloud
bursting" with the potential to significantly improve overall turnaround time,
particularly when Stampede2 is experiencing long queue wait times. In addition,
the virtual cluster can be used for test and debug without directly impacting
Stampede2. We conclude with a discussion of how science gateways can leverage
the TACC Jobs API web service to incorporate this cloud bursting technique
transparently to the end user.


  Traffic forecasting is a fundamental problem in intelligent transportation
systems. Existing traffic predictors are limited by their expressive power to
model the complex spatial-temporal dependencies in traffic data, mainly due to
the following limitations. Firstly, most approaches are primarily designed to
model the local shared patterns, which makes them insufficient to capture the
specific patterns associated with each node globally. Hence, they fail to learn
each node's unique properties and diversified patterns. Secondly, most existing
approaches struggle to accurately model both short- and long-term dependencies
simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a novel traffic predictor, named Meta
Attentive Graph Convolutional Recurrent Network (MAGCRN). MAGCRN utilizes a
Graph Convolutional Recurrent Network (GCRN) as a core module to model local
dependencies and improves its operation with two novel modules: 1) a
Node-Specific Meta Pattern Learning (NMPL) module to capture node-specific
patterns globally and 2) a Node Attention Weight Generation Module (NAWG)
module to capture short- and long-term dependencies by connecting the
node-specific features with the ones learned initially at each time step during
GCRN operation. Experiments on six real-world traffic datasets demonstrate that
NMPL and NAWG together enable MAGCRN to outperform state-of-the-art baselines
on both short- and long-term predictions.


  Rabi oscillations are periodic modulations of populations in two-level
systems interacting with a time-varying field. They are ubiquitous in physics
with applications in different areas such as photonics, nano-electronics,
electron microscopy, and quantum information. While the theory developed by
Rabi was intended for fermions in gyrating magnetic fields, Autler and Townes
realized that it could also be used to describe coherent light-matter
interaction within the rotating wave approximation\cite. Although intense
nanometer-wavelength light-sources have been available for more than a decade,
Rabi dynamics at such short wavelengths have not been observed directly. Here
we show that femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses from a seeded free-electron
laser can drive Rabi oscillations between the ground state and an excited state
in helium atoms. The measured photoemission signal revealed an Autler-Townes
doublet as well as an avoided crossing, phenomena that are both trademarks of
quantum optics. Using theoretical analyses that go beyond the strong-field
approximation, we found that the ultrafast build-up of the doublet structure
follows from a quantum interference effect between resonant and non-resonant
photoionization pathways. Given the recent availability of intense attosecond
and few-femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses, our results offer opportunities
to carry out ultrafast manipulation of coherent processes at short wavelengths
using free-electron lasers.


  The production of $\nu \bar{\nu} \gamma \gamma$ in high-energy $e^+e^-$
collisions offers a window on anomalous quartic gauge boson couplings. We
investigate the effect of two possible anomalous couplings on the cross section
for $\nu \bar{\nu} \gamma \gamma$ production via $WW$-fusion at LEP2 ($\sqrt{s}
= 200$ GeV).


  The evolution of a hadronic system after its chemical decomposition is
described through a model that conserves the hadronic multiplicities to their
values at chemical freeze-out. In the partition function describing the model
all known hadronic resonances with masses up to 2400 MeV have been included.
The state of the system is found as function of temperature and the
corresponding baryon density is evaluated. The baryon density at thermal
decoupling is also computed.


  In this note we describe weight functions that exhibit a transitional
behavior between weak and strong correlation with the Liouville function. We
also describe a binary problem which may be considered as an interpolation
between Chowla's conjecture for two-point correlations of the M\"obius function
and the twin prime conjecture, in view of recent parity breaking results of K.
Matom\"aki, M. Radziwi{\l}{\l} and T. Tao.


  We study the existence and uniqueness of solution of a evolutionary partial
differential equation originating from the continuum limit of a coupled process
of totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) and Langmuir kinetics
(LK). In the fields of physics and biology, the TASEP-LK coupled process has
been extensively studied by Monte Carlo simulations, numerical computations,
and detailed experiments. However, no rigorous mathematical analysis so far has
been given for the corresponding differential equations, especially the
existence and uniqueness of their solutions. In this paper, we prove the
existence of the $C^\infty[0,1]$ steady-state solution by the method of upper
and lower solution, and the uniqueness in both $W^{1,2}(0,1)$ and
$L^\infty(0,1)$ by a generalized maximum principle. We further prove the global
existence and uniqueness of the time-dependent solution in $C([0,1]\times
[0,+\infty))\cap C^{2,1}([0,1]\times (0,+\infty))$, which, for any continuous
initial value, converges to the steady-state solution in $C[0,1]$ (global
attractivity). Our results support the numerical calculations and Monte Carlo
simulations, and provide theoretical foundations for the TASEP-LK coupled
process, especially the most important phase diagram of particle density along
the travel track under different model parameters, which is difficult because
the boundary layers (at one or both boundaries) and domain wall (separating
high and low particle densities) may appear as the length of the travel track
tends to infinity. The methods used in this paper may be instructive for
studies of the more general cases of the TASEP-LK process, such as the one with
multiple travel tracks and/or multiple particle species.


  In the classical Monge-Kantorovich problem, the transportation cost only
depends on the amount of mass sent from sources to destinations and not on the
paths followed by this mass. Thus, it does not allow for congestion effects.
Using the notion of traffic intensity, we propose a variant taking into account
congestion. This leads to an optimization problem posed on a set of probability
measures on a suitable paths space. We establish existence of minimizers and
give a characterization. As an application, we obtain existence and variational
characterization of equilibria of Wardrop type in a continuous space setting.


  In this paper, we introduce Hardy spaces with variable exponents defined on a
probability space and develop the martingale theory of variable Hardy spaces.
We prove the weak type and strong type inequalities on Doob's maximal operator
and get a $(1,p(\cdot),\infty)$-atomic decomposition for Hardy martingale
spaces associated with conditional square functions. As applications, we obtain
a dual theorem and the John-Nirenberg inequalities in the frame of variable
exponents. The key ingredient is that we find a condition with probabilistic
characterization of $p(\cdot)$ to replace the so-called log-H\"{o}lder
continuity condition in $\mathbb {R}^n.$


  Next generation robots will need to understand intricate and articulated
objects as they cooperate in human environments. To do so, these robots will
need to move beyond their current abilities--- working with relatively simple
objects in a task-indifferent manner--- toward more sophisticated abilities
that dynamically estimate the properties of complex, articulated objects. To
that end, we make two compelling contributions toward general articulated
(physical) object understanding in this paper. First, we introduce a new
dataset, SPARE: Simulated and Physical ARticulated Extendable dataset. SPARE is
an extendable open-source dataset providing equivalent simulated and physical
instances of articulated objects (kinematic chains), providing the greater
research community with a training and evaluation tool for methods generating
kinematic descriptions of articulated objects. To the best of our knowledge,
this is the first joint visual and physical (3D-printable) dataset for the
Vision community. Second, we present a deep neural network that can predit the
number of links and the length of the links of an articulated object. These new
ideas outperform classical approaches to understanding kinematic chains, such
tracking-based methods, which fail in the case of occlusion and do not leverage
multiple views when available.


  The development of the new logic of partitions (= equivalence relations) dual
to the usual Boolean logic of subsets, and its quantitative version as the new
logical theory of information provide the basic mathematical concepts to
describe distinctions/indistinctions, definiteness/indefiniteness, and
distinguishability/indistinguishability. They throw some new light on the
objective indefiniteness or literal interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM)
advocated by Abner Shimony. This paper shows how the mathematics of QM is the
math of indefiniteness and thus, literally and realistically interpreted, it
describes an objectively indefinite reality at the quantum level. In
particular, the mathematics of wave propagation is shown to also be the math of
the evolution of indefinite states that do not change the degree of
indistinctness between states. This corrects the historical wrong turn of
seeing QM as "wave mechanics" rather than the mechanics of particles with
indefinite/definite properties. For example, the so-called "wave-particle
duality' for particles is the juxtaposition of the evolution of a particle
having an indefinite position ("wave-like" behavior) with a particle having a
definite position (particle-like behavior).


  We address the performance of an interferometric setup in which a squeezed
single photon interferes at a beam splitter with a coherent state. Our analysis
in based on both the quantum Fisher information and the sensitivity when a
Mach-Zehnder setup is considered and the difference photocurrent is detected at
the output. We compare our results with those obtained feeding the
interferometer with a squeezed vacuum (with the same squeezing parameter of the
squeezed single photon) and a coherent state in order to have the same total
number of photons circulating in the interferometer. We find that for fixed
squeezing parameter and total number of photons there is a threshold of the
coherent amplitude interfering with the squeezed single photon above which the
squeezed single photons outperform the performance of squeezed vacuum (showing
the highest quantum Fisher information). When the difference photocurrent
measurement is considered, we can always find a threshold of the squeezing
parameter (given the total number of photons and the coherent amplitude) above
which squeezed single photons can be exploited to reach a better sensitivity
with respect to the use of squeezed vacuum states also in the presence of non
unit quantum efficiency.


  Qubit networks with long-range interactions inspired by the Hebb rule can be
used as quantum associative memories. Starting from a uniform superposition,
the unitary evolution generated by these interactions drives the network
through a quantum phase transition at a critical computation time, after which
ferromagnetic order guarantees that a measurement retrieves the stored memory.
The maximum memory capacity p of these qubit networks is reached at a memory
density p/n=1.


  Developing a general algorithm that learns to solve tasks across a wide range
of applications has been a fundamental challenge in artificial intelligence.
Although current reinforcement learning algorithms can be readily applied to
tasks similar to what they have been developed for, configuring them for new
application domains requires significant human expertise and experimentation.
We present DreamerV3, a general algorithm that outperforms specialized methods
across over 150 diverse tasks, with a single configuration. Dreamer learns a
model of the environment and improves its behavior by imagining future
scenarios. Robustness techniques based on normalization, balancing, and
transformations enable stable learning across domains. Applied out of the box,
Dreamer is the first algorithm to collect diamonds in Minecraft from scratch
without human data or curricula. This achievement has been posed as a
significant challenge in artificial intelligence that requires exploring
farsighted strategies from pixels and sparse rewards in an open world. Our work
allows solving challenging control problems without extensive experimentation,
making reinforcement learning broadly applicable.


  We introduce a new Bose-Fermi framework for studying spectral properties and
quantum phase transitions (QPTs) in odd-mass nuclei, in the presence of
configuration mixing. A detailed analysis of odd-mass Nb isotopes discloses the
effects of an abrupt crossing of states in normal and intruder configurations
(Type II QPT), accompanied by a gradual evolution from spherical- to
deformed-core shapes within the intruder configuration (Type I QPT). The
pronounced presence of both types of QPTs demonstrates, for the first time, the
occurrence of intertwined QPTs in odd-mass nuclei.


  We prove that actions of complex reductive Lie groups on a complex compact
manifold are locally extendable to its Kuranishi family. This can be seen as an
analogue of Rim's result (see [11]) in the analytic setting.


  We discuss aspects of theories with superpotentials given by Arnold's $A,D,E$
singularities, particularly the novelties that arise when the fields are
matrices. We focus on 4d ${\cal N}=1$ variants of susy QCD, with $U(N_c)$ or
$SU(N_c)$ gauge group, $N_f$ fundamental flavors, and adjoint matter fields $X$
and $Y$ appearing in $W_{A,D,E}(X,Y)$ superpotentials. Many of our
considerations also apply in other possible contexts for matrix-variable
$W_{A,D,E}$. The 4d $W_{A,D,E}$ SQCD-type theories RG flow to superconformal
field theories, and there are proposed duals in the literature for the
$W_{A_k}$, $W_{D_k}$, and $W_{E_7}$ cases. As we review, the
$W_{D_\text{even}}$ and $W_{E_7}$ duals rely on a conjectural, quantum
truncation of the chiral ring. We explore these issues by considering various
deformations of the $W_{A,D,E}$ superpotentials, and the resulting RG flows and
IR theories. Rather than finding supporting evidence for the quantum truncation
and $W_{D_\text{even}}$ and $W_{E_7}$ duals, we note some challenging evidence
to the contrary.


  A base for a permutation group $G$ acting on a set $\Omega$ is a subset
$\mathcal{B}$ of $\Omega$ such that the pointwise stabiliser
$G_{(\mathcal{B})}$ is trivial. Let $n$ and $r$ be positive integers with
$n>2r$. The symmetric and alternating groups $\mathrm{S}_n$ and $\mathrm{A}_n$
admit natural primitive actions on the set of $r$-element subsets of
$\{1,2,\dots, n\}$. Building on work of Halasi [6], we provide explicit
expressions for the base sizes of all of these actions, and hence determine the
base size of all primitive actions of $\mathrm{S}_n$ and $\mathrm{A}_n$.


  By introducing Crossing functions and hyper-parameters I show that the
Bayesian interpretation of the Crossing Statistics [1] can be used trivially
for the purpose of model selection among cosmological models. In this approach
to falsify a cosmological model there is no need to compare it with other
models or assume any particular form of parametrization for the cosmological
quantities like luminosity distance, Hubble parameter or equation of state of
dark energy. Instead, hyper-parameters of Crossing functions perform as
discriminators between correct and wrong models. Using this approach one can
falsify any assumed cosmological model without putting priors on the underlying
actual model of the universe and its parameters, hence the issue of dark energy
parametrization is resolved. It will be also shown that the sensitivity of the
method to the intrinsic dispersion of the data is small that is another
important characteristic of the method in testing cosmological models dealing
with data with high uncertainties.


  Straightforward combination of tree search with matching pursuits, which was
suggested in 2001 by Cotter and Rao, and then later developed by some other
authors, has been revisited recently as multipath matching pursuit (MMP). In
this comment, we would like to point out some major issues regarding this
publication. First, the idea behind MMP is not novel, and the related
literature has not been properly referenced. MMP has not been compared to
closely related algorithms such as A* orthogonal matching pursuit (A*OMP). The
theoretical analyses do ignore the pruning strategies applied by the authors in
practice. All these issues have the potential to mislead the reader and lead to
misinterpretation of the results. With this short paper, we intend to clarify
the relation of MMP to existing literature in the area and compare its
performance with A*OMP.


  The radiative corrections to the pure leptonic decay $B_c \to \ell\nu_{\ell}$
up-to one-loop order is presented. How to cancel the infrared divergences
appearing in the loop calculations, and the radiative decay $B_c \to
\ell\nu_{\ell}\gamma$ is shown precisely. It is emphasized that the radiative
decay may be separated properly and may compare with measurements directly as
long as the theoretical `softness' of the photon corresponds to the
experimental resolutions. Furthermore with a kind of non-relativistic
constituent quark model, a kind of typical long distance contributions to the
radiative decays is estimated, and it is shown that the contributions are
negligible in comparison with the accuracy of one-loop corrections and the
expected experimental measurements.


  We present a general Bayesian method for quantifying the statistical
reliability of one-dimensional measures of scientific quality based on citation
data. Two quality measures used in practice -- ``papers per year'' and
``Hirsch's $h$'' -- are shown to lack the accuracy and precision necessary to
be useful. The mean, median and maximum number of citations are on the other
hand reliable and permit accurate predictions of future author performance on
the basis of as few as 50 publications.


  We present optical and near-infrared Keck spectroscopy of CXOHDFN
J123635.6+621424 (hereafter HDFX28), a hard X-ray source at a redshift of z =
2.011 in the flanking fields of the Hubble Deep Field-North (HDF-N). HDFX28 is
a red source (R - K_s = 4.74) with extended steep-spectrum (alpha > 0.87)
microjansky radio emission and significant emission (441 microJy) at 15
microns. Accordingly, initial investigations prompted the interpretation that
HDFX28 is powered by star formation. Subsequent Chandra imaging, however,
revealed hard (Gamma = 0.30) X-ray emission indicative of absorbed AGN
activity, implying that HDFX28 is an obscured, Type II AGN. The optical and
near-infrared spectra presented herein corroborate this result; the
near-infrared emission lines cannot be powered by star formation alone, and the
optical emission lines indicate a buried AGN. HDFX28 is identified with a
face-on, moderately late-type spiral galaxy. Multi-wavelength morphological
studies of the HDF-N have heretofore revealed no galaxies with any kind of
recognizable spiral structure beyond z > 2. We present a quantitative analysis
of the morphology of HDFX28, and we find the measures of central concentration
and asymmetry to be indeed consistent with those expected for a rare
high-redshift spiral galaxy.


  Animal groups frequently move in a highly organized manner, as represented by
flocks of birds and schools of fish. Despite being an everyday occurrence, we
do not yet fully understand how this works. What type of social interactions
between animals gives rise to the overall flock structure and behavior we
observe? This question is often investigated using self-propelled particle
models where particles represent the individual animals. These models differ in
the social interactions used, individual particle properties, and various
technical assumptions. One particular technical assumption relates to whether
all particles update their headings and positions at exactly the same time
(synchronous update) or not (asynchronous update). Here we investigate the
causal effects of this assumption in a specific model and find that it has a
dramatic impact. In particular, polarized groups do not form when synchronous
update is used, but are always produced with asynchronous updates. We also show
that full asynchrony is not required for polarized groups to form and quantify
time to polarized group formation. Since many important models in the
literature have been implemented with synchronous update only, we speculate
that our understanding of these models, or rather the social interactions on
which they are based, may be incomplete. Perhaps a range of previously
unobserved dynamic phenomena will emerge if other potentially more realistic
update schemes are chosen.


  In this short note we study the semantics of two basic computational effects,
exceptions and states, from a new point of view. In the handling of exceptions
we dissociate the control from the elementary operation which recovers from the
exception. In this way it becomes apparent that there is a duality, in the
categorical sense, between exceptions and states.


  Following the method of combinatorial telescoping for alternating sums given
by Chen, Hou and Mu, we present a combinatorial telescoping approach to
partition identities on sums of positive terms. By giving a classification of
the combinatorial objects corresponding to a sum of positive terms, we
establish bijections that lead a telescoping relation. We illustrate this idea
by giving a combinatorial telescoping relation for a classical identity of
MacMahon. Recently, Andrews posed a problem of finding a combinatorial proof of
an identity on the q-little Jacobi polynomials which was derived based on a
recurrence relation. We find a combinatorial classification of certain triples
of partitions and a sequence of bijections. By the method of cancelation, we
see that there exists an involution for a recurrence relation that implies the
identity of Andrews.


  We predict the existence of spatial-spectral vortex solitons in
one-dimensional periodic waveguide arrays with quadratic nonlinear response. In
such vortices the energy flow forms a closed loop through the simultaneous
effects of phase gradients at the fundamental frequency and second-harmonic
fields, and the parametric frequency conversion between the spectral
components. The linear stability analysis shows that such modes are stable in a
broad parameter region.


  It is proved that discrete shock profiles (DSPs) for the Lax-Friedrichs
scheme for a system of conservation laws do not necessarily depend continuously
in BV on their speed. We construct examples of $2 \times 2$-systems for which
there are sequences of DSPs with speeds converging to a rational number. Due to
a resonance phenomenon, the difference between the limiting DSP and any DSP in
the sequence will contain an order-one amount of variation.


  X-ray phase-contrast imaging has experienced rapid development over the last
few decades, and in this technology, the phase modulation strategy of
phase-stepping is used most widely to measure the sample's phase signal.
However, because of its discontinuous nature, phase-stepping has the defects of
worse mechanical stability and high exposure dose, which greatly hinder its
wide application in dynamic phase measurement and potential clinical
applications. In this manuscript, we demonstrate preliminary research on the
use of integrating-bucket phase modulation method to retrieve the phase
information in grating-based X-ray phase-contrast imaging. Experimental results
showed that our proposed method can be well employed to extract the
differential phase-contrast image, compared with the current mostly used
phase-stepping strategy, advantage of integrating-bucket phase modulation
technique is that fast measurement and low dose are promising.


  Machine-learned interatomic potentials (MLIPs) show promise in accurately
describing the physical properties of materials, but there is a need for a
higher throughput method of validation. Here, we demonstrate using that MLIPs
and molecular dynamics can accurately capture the potential energy landscape
and lattice dynamics that are needed to describe electron thermal diffuse
scattering. Using SrTiO$_3$ as a test-bed at cryogenic and room temperatures,
we compare electron thermal diffuse scattering simulations using different
approximations to incorporate thermal motion. Only when the simulations are
based on quantum mechanically accurate MLIPs in combination with path-integral
molecular dynamics that include nuclear quantum effects, there is excellent
agreement with experiment\end{abstract}


  Recent advances in neural reconstruction using posed image sequences have
made remarkable progress. However, due to the lack of depth information,
existing volumetric-based techniques simply duplicate 2D image features of the
object surface along the entire camera ray. We contend this duplication
introduces noise in empty and occluded spaces, posing challenges for producing
high-quality 3D geometry. Drawing inspiration from traditional multi-view
stereo methods, we propose an end-to-end 3D neural reconstruction framework
CVRecon, designed to exploit the rich geometric embedding in the cost volumes
to facilitate 3D geometric feature learning. Furthermore, we present
Ray-contextual Compensated Cost Volume (RCCV), a novel 3D geometric feature
representation that encodes view-dependent information with improved integrity
and robustness. Through comprehensive experiments, we demonstrate that our
approach significantly improves the reconstruction quality in various metrics
and recovers clear fine details of the 3D geometries. Our extensive ablation
studies provide insights into the development of effective 3D geometric feature
learning schemes. Project page: https://cvrecon.ziyue.cool/


  Monitoring treatment response in longitudinal studies plays an important role
in clinical practice. Accurately identifying lesions across serial imaging
follow-up is the core to the monitoring procedure. Typically this incorporates
both image and anatomical considerations. However, matching lesions manually is
labor-intensive and time-consuming. In this work, we present deep lesion
tracker (DLT), a deep learning approach that uses both appearance- and
anatomical-based signals. To incorporate anatomical constraints, we propose an
anatomical signal encoder, which prevents lesions being matched with visually
similar but spurious regions. In addition, we present a new formulation for
Siamese networks that avoids the heavy computational loads of 3D
cross-correlation. To present our network with greater varieties of images, we
also propose a self-supervised learning (SSL) strategy to train trackers with
unpaired images, overcoming barriers to data collection. To train and evaluate
our tracker, we introduce and release the first lesion tracking benchmark,
consisting of 3891 lesion pairs from the public DeepLesion database. The
proposed method, DLT, locates lesion centers with a mean error distance of 7
mm. This is 5% better than a leading registration algorithm while running 14
times faster on whole CT volumes. We demonstrate even greater improvements over
detector or similarity-learning alternatives. DLT also generalizes well on an
external clinical test set of 100 longitudinal studies, achieving 88% accuracy.
Finally, we plug DLT into an automatic tumor monitoring workflow where it leads
to an accuracy of 85% in assessing lesion treatment responses, which is only
0.46% lower than the accuracy of manual inputs.


  Tesla turbines are an attractive but less explored area in low-power
applications. This article presents an experimental investigation of a
centimeter scale Tesla turbine in bi and unidirectional outlet configuration
with compressed air at 6 bar. The turbine's performance is enhanced by
approximately 38% for a unidirectional outlet configuration. Furthermore, we
also investigate the electrical power of the turbine in a bi-directional outlet
configuration by coupling the turbine with a generator. Despite achieving
higher performance in unidirectional outlet configuration, we observe
substantial losses at the inlet we use for the experiment. To illustrate and
improve the losses, we numerically investigate the turbine inlet at a total
pressure and temperature difference of 2 bar and 50 degree K, respectively.
Subsequently, we design two more nozzles and compared their performance with
the nozzle we used in our experiment. Our findings suggest that nozzle 3
performs the best in delivering the highest Mach no and uniformity across the
slits. This observation would help optimize the nozzle suitable for the Tesla
turbine.


  Pathway enrichment analysis has become a key tool for biomedical researchers
to gain insight into the underlying biology of differentially expressed genes,
proteins and metabolites. It reduces complexity and provides a system-level
view of changes in cellular activity in response to treatments and/or in
disease states. Methods that use existing pathway network information have been
shown to outperform simpler methods that only take into account pathway
membership. However, despite significant progress in understanding the
association amongst members of biological pathways, and expansion of data bases
containing information about interactions of biomolecules, the existing network
information may be incomplete or inaccurate, and is not cell-type or disease
condition-specific. We propose a constrained network estimation framework that
combines network estimation based on cell- and condition-specific
high-dimensional Omics data with interaction information from existing data
bases. The resulting pathway topology information is subsequently used to
provide a framework for simultaneous testing of differences in expression
levels of pathway members, as well as their interactions. We study the
asymptotic properties of the proposed network estimator and the test for
pathway enrichment, and investigate its small sample performance in simulated
and real data settings.


  Krifka [1993] has suggested that focus should be seen as a means of providing
material for a range of semantic and pragmatic functions to work on, rather
than as a specific semantic or pragmatic function itself. The current paper
describes an implementation of this general idea, and applies it to the
interpretation of {\em only} and {\em not}.


  In this talk we discuss finite-volume computations of two-body hadronic
decays below the inelastic threshold (e.g. $K\to\pi\pi$ decays). In particular
we show how the relation between finite-volume matrix elements and physical
amplitudes, recently derived by Lellouch and L\"uscher, can be extended to all
elastic states under the inelastic threshold. We also provide a derivation of
the L\"uscher quantization condition directly in quantum field theory.


  We determine conditions for the presence of stochastic resonance in a lossy
bosonic channel with a nonlinear, threshold decoding. The stochastic resonance
effect occurs if and only if the detection threshold is outside of a "forbidden
interval". We show that it takes place in different settings: when transmitting
classical messages through a lossy bosonic channel, when transmitting over an
entanglement-assisted lossy bosonic channel, and when discriminating channels
with different loss parameters. Moreover, we consider a setting in which
stochastic resonance occurs in the transmission of a qubit over a lossy bosonic
channel with a particular encoding and decoding. In all cases, we assume the
addition of Gaussian noise to the signal and show that it does not matter who,
between sender and receiver, introduces such a noise. Remarkably, different
results are obtained when considering a setting for private communication. In
this case the symmetry between sender and receiver is broken and the "forbidden
interval" may vanish, leading to the occurrence of stochastic resonance effects
for any value of the detection threshold.


Recent works on the Dyadosphere are reviewed.


  We introduce a novel sufficient dimension-reduction (SDR) method which is
robust against outliers using $\alpha$-distance covariance (dCov) in
dimension-reduction problems. Under very mild conditions on the predictors, the
central subspace is effectively estimated and model-free advantage without
estimating link function based on the projection on the Stiefel manifold. We
establish the convergence property of the proposed estimation under some
regularity conditions. We compare the performance of our method with existing
SDR methods by simulation and real data analysis and show that our algorithm
improves the computational efficiency and effectiveness.


  The collapse of degenerate oxygen-neon cores (i.e., electron-capture
supernovae or accretion-induced collapse) proceeds through a phase in which a
deflagration wave ("flame") forms at or near the center and propagates through
the star. In models, the assumed speed of this flame influences whether this
process leads to an explosion or to the formation of a neutron star. We
calculate the laminar flame speeds in degenerate oxygen-neon mixtures with
compositions motivated by detailed stellar evolution models. These mixtures
include trace amounts of carbon and have a lower electron fraction than those
considered in previous work. We find that trace carbon has little effect on the
flame speeds, but that material with electron fraction $Y_e \approx 0.48-0.49$
has laminar flame speeds that are $\approx 2$ times faster than those at $Y_e =
0.5$. We provide tabulated flame speeds and a corresponding fitting function so
that the impact of this difference can be assessed via full star hydrodynamical
simulations of the collapse process.


  Intention recognition is an important step to facilitate collaboration among
multiple agents. Existing work mainly focuses on intention recognition in a
single-agent setting and uses a descriptive model, e.g. Bayesian networks, in
the recognition process. In this article, we develop a new approach of
identifying intentions for multiple agents through a clustering algorithm. We
first define an intention model for multiple agents of interest. We use a
prescriptive approach to model agents' behaviours where their intentions are
hidden in the implementation of their plans. We introduce landmarks into the
behavioural model therefore enhancing informative features to identify common
intentions for multiple agents. Subsequently, we further refine the model by
focusing only action sequences in their plan and provide a light model for
identifying and comparing their intentions. The new models provide a simple
approach of grouping agents' common intentions upon partial plans observed in
agents' interactions. Then, we transform the intention recognition into an
un-supervised learning problem and adapt a clustering algorithm to group
intentions of multiple agents through comparing their behavioural models. We
conduct the clustering process by measuring similarity of probability
distributions over potential landmarks in intention models so as to discover
agents' common intentions. Finally, we examine the new intention recognition
approaches in two problem domains. We demonstrate importance of recognising
common intentions of multiple agents in achieving their goals and provide
experimental results to show performance of the new approaches.


  We present the potential of the ATLAS detector to discover new massive gauge
bosons in their leptonic decay channels: W' -> l nu_l and Z' -> l+ l-. Emphasis
is placed on early data-taking at the LHC with low luminosity (up to 1 fb^-1).


  This paper presents a simple ball-and-spring model for the propagation of
small amplitude vibrations in a granular material. In this model, the
positional disorder in the sample is ignored and the particles are placed on
the vertices of a square lattice. The inter-particle forces are modeled as
linear springs, with the only disorder in the system coming from a random
distribution of spring constants. Despite its apparent simplicity, this model
is able to reproduce the complex frequency response seen in measurements of
sound propagation in a granular system. In order to understand this behavior,
the role of the resonance modes of the system is investigated. Finally, this
simple model is generalized to include relaxation behavior in the force network
-- a behavior which is also seen in real granular materials. This model gives
quantitative agreement with experimental observations of relaxation.


  In this paper we study Tikhonov regularization for the stable solution of an
ill-posed non-linear operator equation. The operator we consider, which is
related to an active contour model for image segmentation, is continuous,
compact, but nowhere differentiable. Nevertheless we are able to derive
convergence rates under different smoothness assumptions on the true solution
by employing the method of variational or source inequalities. With this
approach, we can prove up to linear convergence with respect to the norm.


  The author provides some definitions and structural results about Fell
bundles, defined as C^*-algebra bundles over topological groupoids. Such
bundles are a mutual generalization of semi-direct products of groups with
C^*-algebras and C^*-algebra bundles over topological spaces. In particular a
Morita equivalence theorem with semi-direct products is established.


  This paper describes that semi-supervised learning called peer collaborative
learning (PCL) can be applied to the polyphonic sound event detection (PSED)
task, which is one of the tasks in the Detection and Classification of Acoustic
Scenes and Events (DCASE) challenge. Many deep learning models have been
studied to find out what kind of sound events occur where and for how long in a
given audio clip. The characteristic of PCL used in this paper is the
combination of ensemble-based knowledge distillation into sub-networks and
student-teacher model-based knowledge distillation, which can train a robust
PSED model from a small amount of strongly labeled data, weakly labeled data,
and a large amount of unlabeled data. We evaluated the proposed PCL model using
the DCASE 2019 Task 4 datasets and achieved an F1-score improvement of about
10% compared to the baseline model.


  A large set of complex path solutions for the Hartle Hawking semi-classical
wave function are found for an inflationary universe in the "slow roll" regime.
The implication of these for the semi-classical evolution of the universe is
also studied.


  We establish the existence of free energy limits for several combinatorial
models on Erd\"{o}s-R\'{e}nyi graph $\mathbb {G}(N,\lfloor cN\rfloor)$ and
random $r$-regular graph $\mathbb {G}(N,r)$. For a variety of models, including
independent sets, MAX-CUT, coloring and K-SAT, we prove that the free energy
both at a positive and zero temperature, appropriately rescaled, converges to a
limit as the size of the underlying graph diverges to infinity. In the zero
temperature case, this is interpreted as the existence of the scaling limit for
the corresponding combinatorial optimization problem. For example, as a special
case we prove that the size of a largest independent set in these graphs,
normalized by the number of nodes converges to a limit w.h.p. This resolves an
open problem which was proposed by Aldous (Some open problems) as one of his
six favorite open problems. It was also mentioned as an open problem in several
other places: Conjecture 2.20 in Wormald [In Surveys in Combinatorics, 1999
(Canterbury) (1999) 239-298 Cambridge Univ. Press]; Bollob\'{a}s and Riordan
[Random Structures Algorithms 39 (2011) 1-38]; Janson and Thomason [Combin.
Probab. Comput. 17 (2008) 259-264] and Aldous and Steele [In Probability on
Discrete Structures (2004) 1-72 Springer].


  This paper presents a statistical method for use in music transcription that
can estimate score times of note onsets and offsets from polyphonic MIDI
performance signals. Because performed note durations can deviate largely from
score-indicated values, previous methods had the problem of not being able to
accurately estimate offset score times (or note values) and thus could only
output incomplete musical scores. Based on observations that the pitch context
and onset score times are influential on the configuration of note values, we
construct a context-tree model that provides prior distributions of note values
using these features and combine it with a performance model in the framework
of Markov random fields. Evaluation results show that our method reduces the
average error rate by around 40 percent compared to existing/simple methods. We
also confirmed that, in our model, the score model plays a more important role
than the performance model, and it automatically captures the voice structure
by unsupervised learning.


  We study the dynamics of edge states of the two dimensional BHZ Hamiltonian
in a ribbon geometry following a sudden quench to the quantum critical point
separating the topological insulator phase from the trivial insulator phase.
The effective edge state Hamiltonian is a collection of decoupled qubit-like
two-level systems which get coupled to bulk states following the quench. We
notice a pronounced collapse and revival of the Loschmidt echo for low-energy
edge states illustrating the oscillation of the state between the two edges. We
also observe a similar collapse and revival in the spin Hall current carried by
these edge states, leading to a persistence of its time-averaged value.


  The Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) is one of the most powerful and
successful deep learning approaches. DCNNs have already provided superior
performance in different modalities of medical imaging including breast cancer
classification, segmentation, and detection. Breast cancer is one of the most
common and dangerous cancers impacting women worldwide. In this paper, we have
proposed a method for breast cancer classification with the Inception Recurrent
Residual Convolutional Neural Network (IRRCNN) model. The IRRCNN is a powerful
DCNN model that combines the strength of the Inception Network (Inception-v4),
the Residual Network (ResNet), and the Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network
(RCNN). The IRRCNN shows superior performance against equivalent Inception
Networks, Residual Networks, and RCNNs for object recognition tasks. In this
paper, the IRRCNN approach is applied for breast cancer classification on two
publicly available datasets including BreakHis and Breast Cancer Classification
Challenge 2015. The experimental results are compared against the existing
machine learning and deep learning-based approaches with respect to
image-based, patch-based, image-level, and patient-level classification. The
IRRCNN model provides superior classification performance in terms of
sensitivity, Area Under the Curve (AUC), the ROC curve, and global accuracy
compared to existing approaches for both datasets.


  Strongly anisotropic media with hyperbolic dispersion can be used for
claddings of plasmonic waveguides. In order to analyze the fundamental
properties of such waveguides, we analytically study 1D waveguides arranged of
a hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) in a HMM-Insulator-HMM (HIH) structure. We show
that hyperbolic metamaterial claddings give flexibility in designing the
properties of HIH waveguides. Our comparative study on 1D plasmonic waveguides
reveals that HIH-type waveguides can have a higher performance than MIM or IMI
waveguides.


  Photoproduction is an important mode for the production of jets and
electro-weak particles at lepton--lepton and lepton--hadron colliders and
allows for interesting studies of exclusive production at hadron--hadron
colliders. In this talk, I will review recent efforts of extending the Sherpa
event generator to include the calculation of photoproduction cross sections
for electron and proton beams, including the simulation of underlying events.
The framework is validated using data of jet production at the HERA and LEP
experiments and lepton production at the LHC. I will discuss advances towards
achieving matched NLO accuracy and fully capturing the dynamics of inclusive
and exclusive photoproduction at different colliders.


  Axial anomaly leads to exact sum rules for transition form factors providing
the important constraints to respective distribution amplitudes. This rigorous
NPQCD approach is valid even if QCD factorization is broken. The status of
possible small non-OPE corrections to continuum in comparison to BABAR and
BELLE data is discussed.


  Recent developments in piezoelectric films have heightened the need for the
reliable methods to correctly characterize their piezoelectric coefficients.
Here, we demonstrate that capacitive displacement method can be used to
determine longitudinal piezoelectric coefficients in both bulk and thin film of
piezoelectric materials reliably and simply. Our technique allows accurate
detection of elastic displacement at a level of 2 pm. This achievement is of
great interest and significance for the development of piezoelectric
integration technology in modern smartdevices.


  This is an article for a general mathematical audience on the author's work,
joint with Terence Tao, establishing that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic
progressions of primes.
  It is based on several one hour lectures, chiefly given at British
universities.


  We have studied the inclusive photon spectra in Upsilon(2S) and \Upsilon(3S)
decays using a large statistics data sample obtained with the CLEO III
detector. We present the most precise measurements of electric dipole (E1)
photon transition rates and photon energies for Upsilon(2S)->gamma chi_bJ(1P)
and Upsilon(3S)->gamma chi_bJ(2P) J=0,1,2. We measure the rate for a rare E1
transition Upsilon(3S)->gamma chi_b0(1P) for the first time. We also set upper
limits on the rates for the hindered magnetic dipole (M1) transitions to the
eta_b(1S) and eta_b(2S) states.


  Interstellar dust spans a wide range in size distribution, ranging from
ultrasmall grains of a few Angstroms to micrometer-size grains. While the
presence of nanometer-size dust grains in the Galactic interstellar medium was
speculated six decades ago and was previously suggested based on early infrared
observations, systematic and direct analysis of their properties over a wide
range of environments has been lacking. Here we report the detection of
nanometer-size dust grains that appear to be universally present in a wide
variety of astronomical environments, from Galactic high-latitude clouds to
nearby star-forming galaxies and galaxies with low levels of nuclear activity.
The prevalence of such a grain population is revealed conclusively as prominent
mid-infrared continuum emission at wavelength short than 10\mu m seen in the
Spitzer/IRS data, characterized by temperatures of ~300-400K that are
significantly higher than the equilibrium temperatures of common,
submicron-size grains in typical galactic environments. We propose that the
optimal carriers of this pervasive, featureless hot dust component are very
small carbonaceous (e.g., graphite) grains of nanometer size that are
transiently heated by single-photon absorption. This grain population accounts
for ~1.4% of the total infrared emission at ~5-3000\mu m and ~0.4% of the total
interstellar dust mass.


  We study the initial-boundary value problem for the Majda-Biello system posed
on the right half line. We prove local well-posedness on the half line,
matching the local theory on the real line established by Oh (2008). The
approach combines the Laplace transform method of Bona-Sun-Zhang with adapted
estimates from the work of Colliander and Kenig on the KdV half line
initial-boundary value problem.


  Two recent measurements by the D0 Collaboration of spin correlation in ttbar
production using 5.4 fb^-1 of Tevatron ppbar collider data are presented. Both
rely on the dilepton final state of ttbar. One measurement relies on full
reconstruction of the top quark kinematics, and the other makes use of
leading-order matrix elements to characterize the kinematics. The latter
measurement is the first ever to have sufficient analyzing power to exclude the
no-correlation hypothesis.


  The X-ray scattering intensities I(k) of linear alkanols OH(CH2)n-1CH3,
obtained from experiments (methanol to 1-undecanol) and computer simulations
(methanol to 1-nonanol) of different force field models, are comparatively
studied, particularly in order to explain the origin and the properties of the
scattering pre-peak in the k-vector range 0.3A^{-1}-1A^{-1}. The experimental
I(k) show two apparent features: the pre-peak position kP decreases with
increasing n, and more intriguingly, the amplitude AP goes through a maximum at
1-butanol (n=4). The first feature is well reproduced by all force field
models, while the second shows a strong model dependence. The simulations
reveal various shapes of clusters of the hydroxyl head-group, from n>2. kP is
directly related to the size of the \emph{meta-objects} corresponding to such
clusters surrounded by their alkyl tails. The explanation of the Ap turnover at
n=4 is more involved, in terms of cancellations of atom-atom S(k) contributions
related to domain ordering. The flexibility of the alkyl tails tend to reduce
the cross contributions, thus revealing the crucial importance of this
parameter in the models. Force fields with all-atom representation are less
successful in reproducing the pre-peak features for smaller alkanols n<6,
possibly because they blur the charge ordering process since all atoms bear
partial charges. The analysis clearly shows that it is not possible to obtain a
model free explanation of the features of I(k)


  In soccer, contextual player performance metrics are invaluable to coaches.
For example, the ability to perform under pressure during matches distinguishes
the elite from the average. Appropriate pressure metric enables teams to assess
players' performance accurately under pressure and design targeted training
scenarios to address their weaknesses. The primary objective of this paper is
to leverage both tracking and event data and game footage to capture the
pressure experienced by the possession team in a soccer game scene. We propose
a player pressure map to represent a given game scene, which lowers the
dimension of raw data and still contains rich contextual information. Not only
does it serve as an effective tool for visualizing and evaluating the pressure
on the team and each individual, but it can also be utilized as a backbone for
accessing players' performance. Overall, our model provides coaches and
analysts with a deeper understanding of players' performance under pressure so
that they make data-oriented tactical decisions.


  The microscopic doping mechanism behind the superconductor-to-insulator
transition of a thin film of YBa2Cu3O7 was recently identified as due to the
migration of O atoms from the CuO chains of the film. Here we employ
density-functional theory calculations to study the evolution of the electronic
structure of a slab of YBa2 Cu3 O7 in presence of oxygen vacancies under the
influence of an external electric field. We find that under massive electric
fields isolated O atoms are pulled out of the surface consisting of CuO chains.
As vacancies accumulate at the surface, a configuration with vacancies located
in the chains inside the slab becomes energetically preferred thus providing a
driving force for O migration towards the surface. Regardless of the defect
configuration studied, the electric field is always fully screened near the
surface thus negligibly affecting diffusion barriers across the film.


  Let $k=k_0(\sqrt[3]{d})$ be a cubic Kummer extension of
$k_0=\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_3)$ with $d>1$ a cube-free integer and $\zeta_3$ a
primitive third root of unity. Denote by $C_{k,3}^{(\sigma)}$ the $3$-group of
ambiguous classes of the extension $k/k_0$ with relative group
$G=\operatorname{Gal}(k/k_0)=\langle\sigma\rangle$. The aims of this paper are
to characterize all extensions $k/k_0$ with cyclic $3$-group of ambiguous
classes $C_{k,3}^{(\sigma)}$ of order $3$, to investigate the multiplicity
$m(f)$ of the conductors $f$ of these abelian extensions $k/k_0$, and to
classify the fields $k$ according to the cohomology of their unit groups
$E_{k}$ as Galois modules over $G$. The techniques employed for reaching these
goals are relative $3$-genus fields, Hilbert norm residue symbols, quadratic
$3$-ring class groups modulo $f$, the Herbrand quotient of $E_{k}$, and central
orthogonal idempotents. All theoretical achievements are underpinned by
extensive computational results.


  We consider a weakly nonlinear solution of the Cauchy problem for the
regularised Boussinesq equation, which constitutes an extension of the
classical d'Alembert's formula for the linear wave equation. The solution is
given by a simple and explicit formula, expressed in terms of two special
functions solving the initial-value problems for two Korteweg-de Vries
equations. We test the formula by considering several examples with `exactly
solvable initial conditions' and their perturbations. Explicit analytical
solutions are compared with the results of direct numerical simulations.


  In this paper, we present a model for generating summaries of text documents
with respect to a query. This is known as query-based summarization. We adapt
an existing dataset of news article summaries for the task and train a
pointer-generator model using this dataset. The generated summaries are
evaluated by measuring similarity to reference summaries. Our results show that
a neural network summarization model, similar to existing neural network models
for abstractive summarization, can be constructed to make use of queries to
produce targeted summaries.


  The $\epsilon$-approximate degree $deg_\epsilon(f)$ of a Boolean function $f$
is the least degree of a real-valued polynomial that approximates $f$ pointwise
to error $\epsilon$. The approximate degree of $f$ is at least $k$ iff there
exists a pair of probability distributions, also known as a dual polynomial,
that are perfectly $k$-wise indistinguishable, but are distinguishable by $f$
with advantage $1 - \epsilon$. Our contributions are:
  We give a simple new construction of a dual polynomial for the AND function,
certifying that $deg_\epsilon(f) \geq \Omega(\sqrt{n \log 1/\epsilon})$. This
construction is the first to extend to the notion of weighted degree, and
yields the first explicit certificate that the $1/3$-approximate degree of any
read-once DNF is $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$.
  We show that any pair of symmetric distributions on $n$-bit strings that are
perfectly $k$-wise indistinguishable are also statistically $K$-wise
indistinguishable with error at most $K^{3/2} \cdot \exp(-\Omega(k^2/K))$ for
all $k < K < n/64$. This implies that any symmetric function $f$ is a
reconstruction function with constant advantage for a ramp secret sharing
scheme that is secure against size-$K$ coalitions with statistical error
$K^{3/2} \exp(-\Omega(deg_{1/3}(f)^2/K))$ for all values of $K$ up to $n/64$
simultaneously. Previous secret sharing schemes required that $K$ be determined
in advance, and only worked for $f=$ AND.
  Our analyses draw new connections between approximate degree and
concentration phenomena.
  As a corollary, we show that for any $d < n/64$, any degree $d$ polynomial
approximating a symmetric function $f$ to error $1/3$ must have $\ell_1$-norm
at least $K^{-3/2} \exp({\Omega(deg_{1/3}(f)^2/d)})$, which we also show to be
tight for any $d > deg_{1/3}(f)$. These upper and lower bounds were also
previously only known in the case $f=$ AND.


  We report on new VLT optical spectroscopic and multi-wavelength archival
observations of SN1996cr, a previously identified ULX known as Circinus Galaxy
X-2. Our optical spectrum confirms SN1996cr as a bona fide type IIn SN, while
archival imaging isolates its explosion date to between 1995-02-28 and
1996-03-16. SN1996cr is one of the closest SNe (~3.8 Mpc) in the last several
decades and in terms of flux ranks among the brightest radio and X-ray SNe ever
detected. The wealth of optical, X-ray, and radio observations that exist for
this source provide relatively detailed constraints on its post-explosion
expansion and progenitor history, including an preliminary angular size
constaint from VLBI. The archival X-ray and radio data imply that the
progenitor of SN1996cr evacuated a large cavity just prior to exploding: the
blast wave likely expanded for ~1-2 yrs before eventually striking the dense
circumstellar material which surrounds SN1996cr. The X-ray and radio emission,
which trace the progenitor mass-loss rate, have respectively risen by a factor
of ~2 and remained roughly constant over the past 7 yr. This behavior is
reminiscent of the late rise of SN1987A, but 1000 times more luminous and much
more rapid to onset. Complex Oxygen line emission in the optical spectrum
further hints at a possible concentric shell or ring-like structure. The
discovery of SN1996cr suggests that a substantial fraction of the closest SNe
observed in the last several decades have occurred in wind-blown bubbles. An
Interplanetary Network position allows us to reject a tentative GRB association
with BATSE 4B960202. [Abridged]


  Assuming that MSW neutrino oscillations occur and ignoring all solar physics
except for the constraint that nuclear fusion produces the solar luminosity, we
show that new solar neutrino experiments are required to rule out empirically
the hypothesis that the sun shines via the CNO cycle.


  The metal-semiconductor-metal transition in dense lithium is considered as an
archetype of interplay between interstitial electron localization and
delocalization induced by compression, which leads to exotic electride phases.
In this work, the dynamic dielectric response and optical properties of the
high-pressure electride phases of cI16, oC40 and oC24 in lithium spanning a
wide pressure range from 40 to 200 GPa by first-principles calculations are
reported. Both interband and intraband contribution to the dielectric function
are deliberately treated with the linear response theory. One intraband and two
interband plasmons in cI16 at 70 GPa induced by a structural distortion at 2.1,
4.1, and 7.7 eV are discovered, which make the reflectivity of this weak
metallic phase abnormally lower than the insulating phase oC40 at the
corresponding frequencies. More strikingly, oC24 as a reentrant metallic phase
with higher conductivity becomes more transparent than oC40 in infrared and
visible light range due to its unique electronic structure around Fermi
surface. An intriguing reflectivity anisotropy in both oC40 and oC24 is
predicted, with the former being strong enough for experimental detection
within the spectrum up to 10 eV. The important role of interstitial localized
electrons is highlighted, revealing diversity and rich physics in electrides.


  The weak decays of $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda l^{+} l^{-}$ ($l=e, \mu$) are
investigated in Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and also in
Supersymmetric (SUSY) SO(10) Grand Unified Models. In MSSM the special
attention is paid to the Neutral Higgs Bosons (NHBs) as they make quite a large
contribution in exclusive $B \to X_{s} l^{+} l^{-}$ decays at large
$\tan{\beta}$ regions of parameter space of SUSY models, since part of SUSY
contributions is proportional to $\tan^{3}{\beta}$. The analysis of decay rate,
forward-backward asymmetries, lepton polarization asymmetries and the
polarization asymmetries of $\Lambda $ baryon in $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda l^{+}
l^{-}$ show that the values of these physical observables are greatly modified
by the effects of NHBs. In SUSY SO(10) GUT model, the new physics contribution
comes from the operators which are induced by the NHBs penguins and also from
the operators having chirality opposite to that of the corresponding SM
operators. SUSY SO(10) effects show up only in the decay $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda
+\tau^{+} \tau^{-}$ where the longitudinal and transverse lepton polarization
asymmetries are deviate significantly from the SM value while the effects in
the decay rate, forward-backward asymmetries and polarization asymmetries of
final state $\Lambda$ baryon are very mild. The transverse lepton polarization
asymmetry in $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda +\tau^{+} \tau^{-}$ is almost zero in SM
and in MSSM model. However, it can reach to -0.1 in SUSY SO(10) GUT model and
could be seen at the future colliders; hence this asymmetry observable will
provide us useful information to probe new physics and discriminate between
different models.


  The Stirling numbers of the first kind can be represented in terms of a new
class of polynomials that are closely related to the Bernoulli polynomials.
Recursion relations for these polynomials are given.


  We theoretically investigate the indirect optical injection of carriers and
spins in bulk silicon, using an empirical pseudopotential description of
electron states and an adiabatic bond charge model for phonon states. We
identify the selection rules, the contribution to the carrier and spin
injection in each conduction band valley from each phonon branch and each
valence band, and the temperature dependence of these processes. The transition
from the heavy hole band to the lowest conduction band dominates the injection
due to the large joint density of states. For incident light propagating along
the $[00\bar{1}]$ direction, the injection rates and the degree of spin
polarization of injected electrons show strong valley anisotropy. The maximum
degree of spin polarization is at the injection edge with values 25% at low
temperature and 15% at high temperature.


  The space of couplings of a given theory is the arena of interest in this
article. Equipped with a metric ansatz akin to the Fisher information matrix in
the space of parameters in statistics (similar metrics in physics are the
Zamolodchikov metric or the O'Connor--Stephens metric) we investigate the
geometry of theory space through a study of specific examples. We then look
into renormalisation group flows in theory space and make an attempt to
characterise such flows via its isotropic expansion, rotation and shear.
Consequences arising from the evolution equation for the isotropic expansion
are discussed. We conclude by pointing out generalisations and pose some open
questions.


  Given a pair of nilpotent Lie algebras $A$ and $B$, an extension
$0\xrightarrow{} A\xrightarrow{} L\xrightarrow{} B\xrightarrow{} 0$ is not
necessarily nilpotent. However, if $L_1$ and $L_2$ are extensions which
correspond to lifts of a map $\Phi:B\xrightarrow{} \text{Out}(A)$, it has been
shown that $L_1$ is nilpotent if and only if $L_2$ is nilpotent. In the present
paper, we prove analogues of this result for the algebras of Loday. As an
important consequence, we thereby gain its associative analogue as a special
case of diassociative algebras.


  While quantum phase transitions share many characteristics with thermodynamic
phase transitions, they are also markedly different as they occur at zero
temperature. Hence, it is not immediately clear whether tools and frameworks
that capture the properties of thermodynamic phase transitions also apply in
the quantum case. Concerning the crossing of thermodynamic critical points and
describing its non-equilibrium dynamics, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism and linear
response theory have been demonstrated to be among the very successful
approaches. In the present work, we show that these two approaches are
consistent also in the description of quantum phase transitions, and that
linear response theory can even inform arguments of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism.
In particular, we show that the relaxation time provided by linear response
theory gives a rigorous argument for why to identify the "gap" as a relaxation
rate, and we verify that the excess work computed from linear response theory
exhibits Kibble-Zurek scaling.


  Dual resonance is one of the great miracles of string theory. At a
fundamental level, it implies that the particles exchanged in different
channels are subtly equivalent. Furthermore, it is inextricably linked to the
property of exceptionally tame high-energy behavior. In this paper, we present
explicit, closed-form expressions for a new class of dual resonant amplitudes
describing an infinite tower of spins for an arbitrary mass spectrum. In
particular, the input of our construction is a user-defined, fully customizable
choice of masses. The resulting "bespoke" amplitudes are well behaved in the
ultraviolet and analytic except at simple poles whose residues are polynomial
in the momentum transfer, in accordance with locality. The absence of branch
cuts can be seen using Newton's identities, but can also be made manifest by
expressing the amplitudes as a simple dlog integral of the Veneziano amplitude
that remaps the linear Regge trajectories of the string to a tunable spectrum.
We identify open regions of parameter space that firmly deviate from string
theory but nevertheless comport with partial wave unitarity. Last but not
least, we generalize our construction to the scattering of any number of
particles in terms of a dlog transform of the Koba-Nielsen worldsheet integral
formula.


  We investigated four major solar flare events that occurred in active regions
NOAA 10930 (December 13 and 14, 2006) and NOAA 11158 (February 13 and 15, 2011)
by using data observed by the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) onboard the Hinode
satellite. To reveal the trigger mechanism of solar flares, we analyzed the
spatio-temporal correlation between the detailed magnetic field structure and
the emission image of the Ca H line at the central part of flaring regions for
several hours prior to the onset of flares. We observed in all the flare events
that the magnetic shear angle in the flaring regions exceeded 70 degrees, as
well as that characteristic magnetic disturbances developed at the centers of
flaring regions in the pre-flare phase. These magnetic disturbances can be
classified into two groups depending on the structure of their magnetic
polarity inversion lines; the so-called "Opposite-Polarity" and
"Reversed-Shear" magnetic field recently proposed by our group, although the
magnetic disturbance in one event of the four samples is too subtle to clearly
recognize the detailed structure. The result suggests that some major solar
flares are triggered by rather small magnetic disturbances. We also show that
the critical size of the flare-trigger field varies among flare events and
briefly discuss how the flare-trigger process depends on the evolution of
active regions.


  We present ALMA and VLA detections of the dense molecular gas tracers HCN,
HCO$^+$ and HNC in two lensed, high-redshift starbursts selected from the {\it
Herschel}-ATLAS survey: {\it H}-ATLAS\,J090740.0$-$004200 (SDP.9, $z \sim 1.6$)
and {\it H}-ATLAS\,J091043.1$-$000321 (SDP.11, $z \sim 1.8$). ALMA observed the
$J = 3-2$ transitions in both sources, while the VLA observed the $J = 1-0$
transitions in SDP.9. We have detected all observed HCN and HCO$^+$ lines in
SDP.9 and SDP.11, and also HNC(3--2) in SDP.9. The amplification factors for
both galaxies have been determined from sub-arcsec resolution CO and dust
emission observations carried out with NOEMA and the SMA. The
HNC(1--0)/HCN(1--0) line ratio in SDP.9 suggests the presence of
photon-dominated regions, as it happens to most local (U)LIRGs. The CO, HCN and
HCO$^+$ SLEDs of SDP.9 are compatible to those found for many local, infrared
(IR) bright galaxies, indicating that the molecular gas in local and
high-redshift dusty starbursts can have similar excitation conditions. We
obtain that the correlation between total IR ($L_{\rm IR}$) and dense line
($L_{\rm dense}$) luminosity in SDP.9 and SDP.11 and local star-forming
galaxies can be represented by a single relation. The scatter of the $L_{\rm
IR} - L_{\rm dense}$ correlation, together with the lack of sensitive dense
molecular gas tracer observations for a homogeneous sample of high-redshift
galaxies, prevents us from distinguishing differential trends with redshift.
Our results suggest that the intense star formation found in some high-redshift
dusty, luminous starbursts is associated with more massive dense molecular gas
reservoirs and higher dense molecular gas fractions.


  Most studies indicate that intelligence (g) is positively correlated with
cortical thickness. However, the interindividual variability of cortical
thickness has not been taken into account. In this study, we aimed to identify
the association between intelligence and cortical thickness in adolescents from
both the group's mean and dispersion point of view, utilizing the structural
brain imaging from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD)
Consortium, the largest cohort in early adolescents around 10 years old. The
mean and dispersion parameters of cortical thickness and their association with
intelligence were estimated using double generalized linear models(DGLM). We
found that for the mean model part, the thickness of the frontal lobe like
superior frontal gyrus was negatively related to intelligence, while the
surface area was most positively associated with intelligence in the frontal
lobe. In the dispersion part, intelligence was negatively correlated with the
dispersion of cortical thickness in widespread areas, but not with the surface
area. These results suggested that people with higher IQ are more similar in
cortical thickness, which may be related to less differentiation or
heterogeneity in cortical columns.


  We give an explicit expression for the frequencies of slowly damped
quasinormal modes of near-extreme Kerr black holes. It follows from this
expression that the near-extreme Kerr holes obey the Hod's bound: in the limit
of maximal rotation, $\lim \sup \omega_{IS}/T\leq \pi / \hbar$, where $\omega
_{IS}$ is the decay rate of the slowest decaying quasinormal mode, $T$ is the
black hole temperature. On the other hand, the bound is not saturated in the
sense that $\lim \inf \omega_{IS}/T< \pi /\hbar$ is a strict inequality. {\it
It remains unclear} whether the bound is saturated in the sense that $\lim \sup
\omega_{IS}/T= \pi /\hbar$.


  Label propagation has proven to be an extremely fast method for detecting
communities in large complex networks. Furthermore, due to its simplicity, it
is also currently one of the most commonly adopted algorithms in the
literature. Despite various subsequent advances, an important issue of the
algorithm has not yet been properly addressed. Random (node) update orders
within the algorithm severely hamper its robustness, and consequently also the
stability of the identified community structure. We note that an update order
can be seen as increasing propagation preferences from certain nodes, and
propose a balanced propagation that counteracts for the introduced randomness
by utilizing node balancers. We have evaluated the proposed approach on
synthetic networks with planted partition, and on several real-world networks
with community structure. The results confirm that balanced propagation is
significantly more robust than label propagation, when the performance of
community detection is even improved. Thus, balanced propagation retains high
scalability and algorithmic simplicity of label propagation, but improves on
its stability and performance.


  The baryon-strangeness correlation in the hadronization of the quark matter
is studied within the quark combination mechanism. We calculate the correlation
coefficient $C_{BS} = -3\big(\langle B S \rangle -\langle B\rangle \langle
S\rangle\big)/\big( \langle S^2 \rangle-\langle S \rangle^2 \big)$ of initial
hadrons produced from the deconfined free quark system with $C^{(q)}_{BS}=1$.
The competition of the production of baryons against that of mesons is the key
dynamics that is most relevant to the change of baryon-strangeness correlation
during system hadronization. Results of quark combination under the Poisson
statistics agree with the statistical model predictions for a hadron resonance
gas at vanishing chemical potential but differ from those at relatively large
chemical potentials. Results beyond Poisson statistics are also obtained and
are compared with calculations of Lattice QCD in the phase boundary, giving the
best agreement at temperature $T =163$ MeV. We predict the dependence of the
$C_{BS}$ of hadron system on the baryon chemical potential and strangeness.
These predictions are expected to be tested by the future Lattice QCD
calculations at non-zero chemical potentials and/or by the Beam Energy Scan
experiment of STAR Collaboration at RHIC.


  An automated driving system should have the ability to supervise its own
performance and to request human driver to take over when necessary. In the
lane keeping scenario, the prediction of vehicle future trajectory is the key
to realize safe and trustworthy driving automation. Previous studies on vehicle
trajectory prediction mainly fall into two categories, i.e. physics-based and
manoeuvre-based methods. Using a physics-based methodology, this paper proposes
a lane departure prediction algorithm based on closed-loop vehicle dynamics
model. We use extended Kalman filter to estimate the current vehicle states
based on sensing module outputs. Then a Kalman Predictor with actual lane
keeping control law is used to predict steering actions and vehicle states in
the future. A lane departure assessment module evaluates the probabilistic
distribution of vehicle corner positions and decides whether to initiate a
human takeover request. The prediction algorithm is capable to describe the
stochastic characteristics of future vehicle pose, which is preliminarily
proved in simulated tests. Finally, the on-road tests at speeds of 15 to 50
km/h further show that the pro-posed method can accurately predict vehicle
future trajectory. It may work as a promising solution to lane departure risk
assessment for automated lane keeping functions.


  We theoretically study discrete photonic lattices in more than three
dimensions and point out that such systems can exist in continuous
three-dimensional (3D) space. We study discrete diffraction in the linear
regime, and predict the existence of four-dimensional (4D) tesseract solitons
in nonlinear 4D periodic photonic lattices. Finally, we propose a design
towards a potential realization of such periodic 4D lattices in experiments.


  This is a review of the present status of loop and spin foam approaches to
quantization of four-dimensional general relativity. It aims at raising various
issues which seem to challenge some of the methods and the results often taken
as granted in these domains. A particular emphasis is given to the issue of
diffeomorphism and local Lorentz symmetries at the quantum level and to the
discussion of new spin foam models. We also describe modifications of these two
approaches which may overcome their problems and speculate on other promising
research directions.


  AI language models trained on Web data generate prose that reflects human
knowledge and public sentiments, but can also contain novel insights and
predictions. We asked the world's best language model, GPT-3, fifteen difficult
questions about the nature, value, and future of library and information
science (LIS), topics that receive perennial attention from LIS scholars. We
present highlights from its 45 different responses, which range from platitudes
and caricatures to interesting perspectives and worrisome visions of the
future, thus providing an LIS-tailored demonstration of the current performance
of AI language models. We also reflect on the viability of using AI to forecast
or generate research ideas in this way today. Finally, we have shared the full
response log online for readers to consider and evaluate for themselves.


  We show that in the fundamental groups of closed manifolds without conjugate
points centralizers of all elements virtually split.


  Drone-mounted base stations (DBSs) are promising solutions to provide
ubiquitous connections to users and support many applications in the fifth
generation of mobile networks while full duplex communications has the
potential to improve the spectrum efficiency. In this paper, we have
investigated the backhaul-aware uplink communications in a full-duplex
DBS-aided HetNet (BUD) problem with the objective to maximize the total
throughput of the network, and this problem is decomposed into two
sub-problems: the DBS Placement problem (including the vertical dimension and
horizontal dimensions) and the joint UE association, power and bandwidth
assignment (Joint-UPB) problem. Since the BUD problem is NP-hard, we propose
approximation algorithms to solve the sub-problems and another, named the
AA-BUD algorithm, to solve the BUD problem with guaranteed performance. The
performance of the AA-BUD algorithm has been demonstrated via extensive
simulations, and it is superior to two benchmark algorithms with up to 45.8%
throughput improvement.


  We introduce new generalizations of the Gamma and the Beta functions. Their
properties are investigated and known results are obtained as particular cases.


  Rare-earth (RE) atoms in solid-state materials are attractive components for
photonic quantum information systems because of their coherence properties even
in high-temperature environments. We have experimentally performed the
single-site optical spectroscopy and optical addressing of a single RE atom in
an amorphous silica optical fiber at room temperature. The single-site optical
spectroscopy of the tapered RE-doped fiber shows nonresonant emission lines
similar to those seen in the case of an unstructured fiber and the
autocorrelation function of photons emitted from the fiber shows the
antibunching effect due to the spatial isolation given by the tapered fiber
structure. The ability to address single RE atoms at room temperature provides
a very stable and cost-effective technical platform for the realization of a
solid-state system for a large-scale quantum optical network and other quantum
technologies based on a large number of spectral channels from visible to
midinfrared wavelengths.