title:
Evidence synthesis for count distributions based on heterogeneous and
  incomplete aggregated data

abstract:
  The analysis of count data is commonly done using Poisson models. Negative
binomial models are a straightforward and readily motivated generalization for
the case of overdispersed data, i.e., when the observed variance is greater
than expected under a Poissonian model. Rate and overdispersion parameters then
need to be considered jointly, which in general is not trivial. Here we are
concerned with evidence synthesis in the case where the reporting of data is
rather heterogeneous, i.e., events are reported either in terms of mean event
counts, the proportion of event-free patients, or rate estimates and standard
errors. Either figure carries some information about the relevant parameters,
and it is the joint modeling that allows for coherent inference on the
parameters of interest. The methods are motivated and illustrated by a
systematic review in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


title:
Terrestrial Planet Formation in a protoplanetary disk with a local mass
  depletion: A successful scenario for the formation of Mars

abstract:
  Models of terrestrial planet formation for our solar system have been
successful in producing planets with masses and orbits similar to those of
Venus and Earth. However, these models have generally failed to produce
Mars-sized objects around 1.5 AU. The body that is usually formed around Mars'
semimajor axis is, in general, much more massive than Mars. Only when Jupiter
and Saturn are assumed to have initially very eccentric orbits (e $\sim$ 0.1),
which seems fairly unlikely for the solar system, or alternately, if the
protoplanetary disk is truncated at 1.0 AU, simulations have been able to
produce Mars-like bodies in the correct location. In this paper, we examine an
alternative scenario for the formation of Mars in which a local depletion in
the density of the protosolar nebula results in a non-uniform formation of
planetary embryos and ultimately the formation of Mars-sized planets around 1.5
AU. We have carried out extensive numerical simulations of the formation of
terrestrial planets in such a disk for different scales of the local density
depletion, and for different orbital configurations of the giant planets. Our
simulations point to the possibility of the formation of Mars-sized bodies
around 1.5 AU, specifically when the scale of the disk local mass-depletion is
moderately high (50-75%) and Jupiter and Saturn are initially in their current
orbits. In these systems, Mars-analogs are formed from the protoplanetary
materials that originate in the regions of disk interior or exterior to the
local mass-depletion. Results also indicate that Earth-sized planets can form
around 1 AU with a substantial amount of water accreted via primitive
water-rich planetesimals and planetary embryos. We present the results of our
study and discuss their implications for the formation of terrestrial planets
in our solar system.


title: Radiative effects on the thermoelectric problems

abstract:
  There are two main directions in this paper. One is to find sufficient
conditions to ensure the existence of weak solutions to thermoelectric
problems. At the steady-state, these problems consist by a coupled system of
elliptic equations of the divergence form, commonly accomplished with nonlinear
radiation-type conditions on at least on a nonempty part of the boundary of a
$C^1$ domain. The model under study takes the thermoelectric Peltier and
Seebeck effects into account, whose describe the Joule-Thomson effect. The
proof method makes recourse of a fixed point argument. To this end,
well-determined estimates are our main concern. The paper is in the second
direction for the derivation of explicit $W^{1,p}$-estimates $(p>2)$ for
solutions of nonlinear radiation-type problems, where the leading coefficient
is assumed to be a discontinuous function on the space variable. In particular,
the behavior of the leading coefficient is conveniently explicit on the
estimate of any solution. This regularity result is sufficiently general to
contribute to other problems, in which the dependence on the values of the
involved constants is essential, instead of the problem under study only.


title: Fundamental Limits of Caching with Secure Delivery

abstract:
  Caching is emerging as a vital tool for alleviating the severe capacity
crunch in modern content-centric wireless networks. The main idea behind
caching is to store parts of popular content in end-users' memory and leverage
the locally stored content to reduce peak data rates. By jointly designing
content placement and delivery mechanisms, recent works have shown order-wise
reduction in transmission rates in contrast to traditional methods. In this
work, we consider the secure caching problem with the additional goal of
minimizing information leakage to an external wiretapper. The fundamental cache
memory vs. transmission rate trade-off for the secure caching problem is
characterized. Rather surprisingly, these results show that security can be
introduced at a negligible cost, particularly for large number of files and
users. It is also shown that the rate achieved by the proposed caching scheme
with secure delivery is within a constant multiplicative factor from the
information-theoretic optimal rate for almost all parameter values of practical
interest.


title:
A class of transient acceleration models consistent with Big Bang
  Cosmology

abstract:
  Is it possible that the current cosmic accelerating expansion will turn into
a decelerating one? Can this transition be realized by some viable theoretical
model that is consistent with the standard Big Bang cosmology? We study a class
of phenomenological models of a transient acceleration, based on a dynamical
dark energy with a very general form of equation of state
$p_{de}=\alpha\rho_{de}-\beta\rho_{de}^m$. It mimics the cosmological constant
$\rho_{de}\rightarrow$ const for small scale factor $a$, and behaves as a
barotropic gas with $\rho_{de}\rightarrow a^{-3(\alpha+1)}$ with $\alpha\ge 0$
for large $a$. The cosmic evolution of four models in the class has been
examined in details, and all yields a smooth transient acceleration. Depending
on the specific model, the future universe may be dominated either by the dark
energy or by the matter. In two models, the dynamical dark energy can be
explicitly realized by a scalar field with an analytical potential $V(\phi)$.
Moreover, the statistical analysis shows that the models can be as robust as
$\Lambda$CDM in confronting the observational data of SN Ia, CMB, and BAO. As
improvements over the previous studies, our models overcome the over-abundance
problem of dark energy during early eras, and satisfy the constraints on the
dark energy from WMAP observations of CMB.


title: Optical selection of quasars: SDSS and LSST

abstract:
  Over the last decade, quasar sample sizes have increased from several
thousand to several hundred thousand, thanks mostly to SDSS imaging and
spectroscopic surveys. LSST, the next-generation optical imaging survey, will
provide hundreds of detections per object for a sample of more than ten million
quasars with redshifts of up to about seven. We briefly review optical quasar
selection techniques, with emphasis on methods based on colors, variability
properties and astrometric behavior.


title: The Marangoni flow of soluble amphiphiles

abstract:
  Surfactant distribution heterogeneities at a fluid/fluid interface trigger
the Marangoni effect, i.e. a bulk flow due to a surface tension gradient. The
influence of surfactant solubility in the bulk on these flows remains
incompletely characterized. Here we study Marangoni flows sustained by
injection of hydrosoluble surfactants at the air/water interface. We show that
the flow extent increases with a decrease of the critical micelle
concentration, i.e. the concentration at which these surfactants self-assemble
in water. We document the universality of the surface velocity field and
predict scaling laws based on hydrodynamics and surfactant physicochemistry
that capture the flow features.


title:
Comparison of quenched and annealed invariance principles for random
  conductance model: Part II

abstract:
  We show that there exists an ergodic conductance environment such that the
weak (annealed) invariance principle holds for the corresponding continuous
time random walk but the quenched invariance principle does not hold. In the
present paper we give a proof of the full scaling limit for the weak invariance
principle, improving the result in an earlier paper where we obtained a
subsequential limit.


title: Optical variability of quasars: a damped random walk

abstract:
  A damped random walk is a stochastic process, defined by an exponential
covariance matrix that behaves as a random walk for short time scales and
asymptotically achieves a finite variability amplitude at long time scales.
Over the last few years, it has been demonstrated, mostly but not exclusively
using SDSS data, that a damped random walk model provides a satisfactory
statistical description of observed quasar variability in the optical
wavelength range, for rest-frame timescales from 5 days to 2000 days. The
best-fit characteristic timescale and asymptotic variability amplitude scale
with the luminosity, black hole mass, and rest wavelength, and appear
independent of redshift. In addition to providing insights into the physics of
quasar variability, the best-fit model parameters can be used to efficiently
separate quasars from stars in imaging surveys with adequate long-term
multi-epoch data, such as expected from LSST.


title: Identifying high-redshift GRBs with RATIR

abstract:
  We present a template fitting algorithm for determining photometric
redshifts, $z_{\rm phot}$, of candidate high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).
Using afterglow photometry, obtained by the Reionization And Transients
InfraRed (RATIR) camera, this algorithm accounts for the intrinsic GRB
afterglow spectral energy distribution (SED), host dust extinction and the
effect of neutral hydrogen (local and cosmological) along the line of sight. We
present the results obtained by this algorithm and RATIR photometry of GRB
130606A, finding a range of best fit solutions $5.6 < z_{\rm phot} < 6.0$ for
models of several host dust extinction laws (none, MW, LMC and SMC), consistent
with spectroscopic measurements of the redshift of this GRB. Using simulated
RATIR photometry, we find our algorithm provides precise measures of $z_{\rm
phot}$ in the ranges $4 < z_{\rm phot} \lesssim 8$ and $9 < z_{\rm phot} < 10$
and can robustly determine when $z_{\rm phot}>4$. Further testing highlights
the required caution in cases of highly dust extincted host galaxies. These
tests also show that our algorithm does not erroneously find $z_{\rm phot} < 4$
when $z_{\rm sim}>4$, thereby minimizing false negatives and allowing us to
rapidly identify all potential high-redshift events.


title:
Generalized Approximate Message Passing for Cosparse Analysis
  Compressive Sensing

abstract:
  In cosparse analysis compressive sensing (CS), one seeks to estimate a
non-sparse signal vector from noisy sub-Nyquist linear measurements by
exploiting the knowledge that a given linear transform of the signal is
cosparse, i.e., has sufficiently many zeros. We propose a novel approach to
cosparse analysis CS based on the generalized approximate message passing
(GAMP) algorithm. Unlike other AMP-based approaches to this problem, ours works
with a wide range of analysis operators and regularizers. In addition, we
propose a novel $\ell_0$-like soft-thresholder based on MMSE denoising for a
spike-and-slab distribution with an infinite-variance slab. Numerical
demonstrations on synthetic and practical datasets demonstrate advantages over
existing AMP-based, greedy, and reweighted-$\ell_1$ approaches.


title: Background Electromagnetic Fields and NRQED Matching: Scalar Case

abstract:
  The low-energy structure of hadrons can be described systematically using
effective field theory, and the parameters of the effective theory can be
determined from lattice QCD computations. Recent work, however, points to
inconsistencies between the background field method in lattice QCD and
effective field theory matching conditions. We show that the background field
problem necessitates inclusion of operators related by equations of motion. In
the presence of time-dependent electromagnetic fields, for example, such
operators modify Green's functions, thereby complicating the isolation of
hadronic parameters which enter on-shell scattering amplitudes. The
particularly simple case of a scalar hadron coupled to uniform electromagnetic
fields is investigated in detail. At the level of the relativistic effective
theory, operators related by equations of motion are demonstrated to be
innocuous. The same result does not hold in the non-relativistic effective
theory, and inconsistencies in matching are resolved by carefully treating
operators related by equations of motion. As uniform external fields
potentially allow for surface terms, the problem is additionally analyzed on a
torus where such terms are absent. Finite-size corrections are derived for
charged scalar correlation functions in uniform electric fields as a useful
byproduct.


title:
An Extensive Evaluation of Filtering Misclassified Instances in
  Supervised Classification Tasks

abstract:
  Removing or filtering outliers and mislabeled instances prior to training a
learning algorithm has been shown to increase classification accuracy. A
popular approach for handling outliers and mislabeled instances is to remove
any instance that is misclassified by a learning algorithm. However, an
examination of which learning algorithms to use for filtering as well as their
effects on multiple learning algorithms over a large set of data sets has not
been done. Previous work has generally been limited due to the large
computational requirements to run such an experiment, and, thus, the
examination has generally been limited to learning algorithms that are
computationally inexpensive and using a small number of data sets. In this
paper, we examine 9 learning algorithms as filtering algorithms as well as
examining the effects of filtering in the 9 chosen learning algorithms on a set
of 54 data sets. In addition to using each learning algorithm individually as a
filter, we also use the set of learning algorithms as an ensemble filter and
use an adaptive algorithm that selects a subset of the learning algorithms for
filtering for a specific task and learning algorithm. We find that for most
cases, using an ensemble of learning algorithms for filtering produces the
greatest increase in classification accuracy. We also compare filtering with a
majority voting ensemble. The voting ensemble significantly outperforms
filtering unless there are high amounts of noise present in the data set.
Additionally, we find that a majority voting ensemble is robust to noise as
filtering with a voting ensemble does not increase the classification accuracy
of the voting ensemble.


title:
Balancing bike sharing systems (BBSS): instance generation from the
  CitiBike NYC data

abstract:
  Bike sharing systems are a very popular means to provide bikes to citizens in
a simple and cheap way. The idea is to install bike stations at various points
in the city, from which a registered user can easily loan a bike by removing it
from a specialized rack. After the ride, the user may return the bike at any
station (if there is a free rack). Services of this kind are mainly public or
semi-public, often aimed at increasing the attractiveness of non-motorized
means of transportation, and are usually free, or almost free, of charge for
the users. Depending on their location, bike stations have specific patterns
regarding when they are empty or full. For instance, in cities where most jobs
are located near the city centre, the commuters cause certain peaks in the
morning: the central bike stations are filled, while the stations in the
outskirts are emptied. Furthermore, stations located on top of a hill are more
likely to be empty, since users are less keen on cycling uphill to return the
bike, and often leave their bike at a more reachable station. These issues
result in substantial user dissatisfaction which may eventually cause the users
to abandon the service. This is why nowadays most bike sharing system providers
take measures to rebalance them. Over the last few years, balancing bike
sharing systems (BBSS) has become increasingly studied in optimization. As
such, generating meaningful instance to serve as a benchmark for the proposed
approaches is an important task. In this technical report we describe the
procedure we used to generate BBSS problem instances from data of the CitiBike
NYC bike sharing system.


title: Disentangling radiative corrections using high-mass Drell-Yan at the LHC

abstract:
  We present a detailed numerical study of lepton-pair production via the
Drell-Yan process above the Z-peak at the LHC. Our results consistently combine
next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections and next-to-leading order
electroweak effects, and include the leading photon-initiated processes using a
recent extraction of the photon distribution function. We focus on the effects
of electroweak corrections and of photon-photon scattering contributions, and
demonstrate which kinematic distributions exhibit sensitivity to these
corrections. We show that a combination of measurements allows them to be
disentangled and separately determined.


title: Automation of The Guiding Center Expansion

abstract:
  We report on the use of the recently-developed Mathematica package
\emph{VEST} (Vector Einstein Summation Tools) to automatically derive the
guiding center transformation. Our Mathematica code employs a recursive
procedure to derive the transformation order-by-order. This procedure has
several novel features. (1) It is designed to allow the user to easily explore
the guiding center transformation's numerous non-unique forms or
representations. (2) The procedure proceeds entirely in cartesian position and
velocity coordinates, thereby producing manifestly gyrogauge invariant results;
the commonly-used perpendicular unit vector fields $e_1,e_2$ are never even
introduced. (3) It is easy to apply in the derivation of higher-order
contributions to the guiding center transformation without fear of human error.
Our code therefore stands as a useful tool for exploring subtle issues related
to the physics of toroidal momentum conservation in tokamaks.


title: The Hamiltonian Mechanics of Stochastic Acceleration

abstract:
  We show how to find the physical Langevin equation describing the
trajectories of particles undergoing collisionless stochastic acceleration.
These stochastic differential equations retain not only one-, but two-particle
statistics, and inherit the Hamiltonian nature of the underlying microscopic
equations. This opens the door to using stochastic variational integrators to
perform simulations of stochastic interactions such as Fermi acceleration. We
illustrate the theory by applying it to two example problems.


title: Gyrosymmetry: Global Considerations

abstract:
  In the guiding center theory, smooth unit vectors perpendicular to the
magnetic field are required to define the gyrophase. The question of global
existence of these vectors is addressed using a general result from the theory
of characteristic classes. It is found that there is, in certain cases, an
obstruction to global existence. In these cases, the gyrophase cannot be
defined globally. The implications of this fact on the basic structure of the
guiding center theory are discussed. In particular it is demonstrated that the
guiding center asymptotic expansion of the equations of motion can still be
performed in a globally consistent manner when a single global convention for
measuring gyrophase is unavailable. The latter fact is demonstrated directly by
deriving a new expression for the guiding-center Poincar\'e-Cartan form
exhibiting no dependence on the choice of perpendicular unit vectors.


title: A Randomized Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Technique

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider the problem of model reduction of large scale
systems, such as those obtained through the discretization of PDEs. We propose
a randomized proper orthogonal decomposition (RPOD) technique to obtain the
reduced order models by randomly choosing a subset of the inputs/outputs of the
system to construct a suitable small sized Hankel matrix from the full Hankel
matrix. It is shown that the RPOD technique is computationally orders of
magnitude cheaper when compared to techniques such as the Eigensystem
Realization algorithm (ERA)/Balanced POD (BPOD) while obtaining the same
information in terms of the number and accuracy of the dominant modes. The
method is tested on several different advection-diffusion equations.


title: Development of a proton Computed Tomography (pCT) scanner at NIU

abstract:
  We describe the development of a proton Computed Tomography (pCT) scanner at
Northern Illinois University (NIU) in collaboration with Fermilab and Delhi
University. This paper provides an overview of major components of the scanner
and a detailed description of the data acquisition system (DAQ).


title: Application of chiral resonance Lagrangian theories to the muon g-2

abstract:
  We think that phenomenological resonance Lagrangian models, constrained by
global fits from low energy hadron reaction data, can help to improve muon g-2
predictions. The main issue are those contributions which cannot be calculated
by perturbative means: the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) effects and the
hadronic light--by--light (HLbL) scattering contribution. I review recent
progress in the evaluation of the HVP contribution within the broken Hidden
Local Symmetry (HLS) framework, worked out in collaboration with M. Benayoun,
P. David and L. DelBuono. Our HLS driven estimate reads a_mu (LO
had)=(688.60+\-4.24) 10^{-10} and we find a_mu (theory)= (11 659 177.65 +/-
5.76) 10^{-10}.


title: Accelerating Parametric Probabilistic Verification

abstract:
  We present a novel method for computing reachability probabilities of
parametric discrete-time Markov chains whose transition probabilities are
fractions of polynomials over a set of parameters. Our algorithm is based on
two key ingredients: a graph decomposition into strongly connected subgraphs
combined with a novel factorization strategy for polynomials. Experimental
evaluations show that these approaches can lead to a speed-up of up to several
orders of magnitude in comparison to existing approaches


title:
$\sigma$-Biderivations and $\sigma$-commuting maps of triangular
  algebras

abstract:
  Let $\A$ be an algebra and $\sigma$ an automorphism of $\A$. A linear map $d$
of $\A$ is called a $\sigma$-derivation of $\A$ if $d(xy) = d(x)y +
\sigma(x)d(y)$, for all $x, y \in \A$. A bilinear map $D: \A \times \A \to \A$
is said to be a $\sigma$-biderivation of $\A$ if it is a $\sigma$-derivation in
each component. An additive map $\Theta$ of $\A$ is $\sigma$-commuting if it
satisfies $\Theta(x)x - \sigma(x)\Theta(x) = 0$, for all $x \in \A$. In this
paper, we introduce the notions of inner and extremal $\sigma$-biderivations
and of proper $\sigma$-commuting maps. One of our main results states that,
under certain assumptions, every $\sigma$-biderivation of a triangular algebras
is the sum of an extremal $\sigma$-biderivation and an inner
$\sigma$-biderivation. Sufficient conditions are provided on a triangular
algebra for all of its $\sigma$-biderivations (respectively, $\sigma$-commuting
maps) to be inner (respectively, proper). A precise description of
$\sigma$-commuting maps of triangular algebras is also given. A new class of
automorphisms of triangular algebras is introduced and precisely described. We
provide many classes of triangular algebras whose automorphisms can be
precisely described.


title: Joint multi-mode dispersion extraction in Fourier and space time domains

abstract:
  In this paper we present a novel broadband approach for the extraction of
dispersion curves of multiple time frequency overlapped dispersive modes such
as in borehole acoustic data. The new approach works jointly in the Fourier and
space time domains and, in contrast to existing space time approaches that
mainly work for time frequency separated signals, efficiently handles multiple
signals with significant time frequency overlap. The proposed method begins by
exploiting the slowness (phase and group) and time location estimates based on
frequency-wavenumber (f-k) domain sparsity penalized broadband dispersion
extraction method as presented in \cite{AeronTSP2011}. In this context we first
present a Cramer Rao Bound (CRB) analysis for slowness estimation in the (f-k)
domain and show that for the f-k domain broadband processing, group slowness
estimates have more variance than the phase slowness estimates and time
location estimates. In order to improve the group slowness estimates we exploit
the time compactness property of the modes to effectively represent the data as
a linear superposition of time compact space time propagators parameterized by
the phase and group slowness. A linear least squares estimation algorithm in
the space time domain is then used to obtain improved group slowness estimates.
The performance of the method is demonstrated on real borehole acoustic data
sets.


title:
Full Counting Statistics of Generic Spin Entangler with Quantum
  Dot-Ferromagnet detectors

abstract:
  Entanglement between spatially separated electrons in nanoscale transport is
a fundamental property, yet to be demonstrated experimentally. Here we propose
and analyse theoretically the transport statistics of a generic spin entangler
coupled to a hybrid quantum dot-ferromagnet detector system. We show that the
full distribution of charges arriving at the ferromagnetic terminals provide
complete information on the spin state of the particles emitted by the
entangler. This provides means for spin entanglement detection via electrical
current correlations, with optimal measurement strategies depending on the a
priori knowledge of ferromagnet polarization and spin-flip rates in the
detector dots. The scheme is exemplified by applying it to Andreev and triple
dot entanglers.


title: Nodal Areas and Structured Darkness

abstract:
  Generalized beams of light that are made to turn inside out, creating black
nodal areas of total destructive interference are described. As an example we
experimentally created an elliptical node from a uniformly illuminated
elliptical aperture by use of a lossless phase mask called a q-plate. We
demonstrate how a modified phase retrieval algorithm may be used to design
phase masks that achieve this transformation for an arbitrary aperture shape
when analytical methods are not available. This generic wave phenomenon may
find uses in both optical and non-optical systems.


title: The Type IIb Supernova 2013df and Its Cool Supergiant Progenitor

abstract:
  We have obtained early-time photometry and spectroscopy of Supernova (SN)
2013df in NGC 4414. The SN is clearly of Type IIb, with notable similarities to
SN 1993J. From its luminosity at secondary maximum light, it appears that less
$^{56}$Ni ($\lesssim 0.06\ M_{\odot}$) was synthesized in the SN 2013df
explosion than was the case for the SNe IIb 1993J, 2008ax, and 2011dh. Based on
a comparison of the light curves, the SN 2013df progenitor must have been more
extended in radius prior to explosion than the progenitor of SN 1993J. The
total extinction for SN 2013df is estimated to be $A_V=0.30$ mag. The
metallicity at the SN location is likely to be solar. We have conducted Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) Target of Opportunity observations of the SN with the
Wide Field Camera 3, and from a precise comparison of these new observations to
archival HST observations of the host galaxy obtained 14 years prior to
explosion, we have identified the progenitor of SN 2013df to be a yellow
supergiant, somewhat hotter than a red supergiant progenitor for a normal Type
II-Plateau SN. From its observed spectral energy distribution, assuming that
the light is dominated by one star, the progenitor had effective temperature
$T_{\rm eff} = 4250 \pm 100$ K and a bolometric luminosity $L_{\rm
bol}=10^{4.94 \pm 0.06}\ L_{\odot}$. This leads to an effective radius $R_{\rm
eff} = 545 \pm 65\ R_{\odot}$. The star likely had an initial mass in the range
of 13 to 17 $M_{\odot}$; however, if it was a member of an interacting binary
system, detailed modeling of the system is required to estimate this mass more
accurately. The progenitor star of SN 2013df appears to have been relatively
similar to the progenitor of SN 1993J.


title: Reexamining the half-lives of 195Os and 195Ir

abstract:
  Currently the half-life of 195Os is listed as unknown in most databases
because the value of the only available measurement had been reassigned. We
argue that the original assignment is correct and re-evaluate the half-life of
195Os to be 6.5(11)min, consistent with the original measurement. We also
suggest to reassign the half-life of 195Ir to 2.29(17)h.


title:
Correlations between user voting data, budget, and box office for films
  in the Internet Movie Database

abstract:
  The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is one of the most-visited websites in the
world and the premier source for information on films. Like Wikipedia, much of
IMDb's information is user contributed. IMDb also allows users to voice their
opinion on the quality of films through voting. We investigate whether there is
a connection between this user voting data and certain economic film
characteristics. To this end, we perform distribution and correlation analysis
on a set of films chosen to mitigate effects of bias due to the language and
country of origin of films. We show that production budget, box office gross,
and total number of user votes for films are consistent with double-log normal
distributions for certain time periods. Both total gross and user votes are
consistent with a double-log normal distribution from the late 1980s onward,
while for budget, it extends from 1935 to 1979. In addition, we find a strong
correlation between number of user votes and the economic statistics,
particularly budget. Remarkably, we find no evidence for a correlation between
number of votes and average user rating. As previous studies have found a
strong correlation between production budget and marketing expenses, our
results suggest that total user votes is an indicator of a film's prominence or
notability, which can be quantified by its promotional costs.


title: Classical Light Beams and Geometric Phases

abstract:
  We present a study of geometric phases in classical wave and polarisation
optics using the basic mathematical framework of quantum mechanics. Important
physical situations taken from scalar wave optics, pure polarisation optics,
and the behaviour of polarisation in the eikonal or ray limit of Maxwell's
equations in a transparent medium are considered. The case of a beam of light
whose propagation direction and polarisation state are both subject to change
is dealt with, attention being paid to the validity of Maxwell's equations at
all stages. Global topological aspects of the space of all propagation
directions are discussed using elementary group theoretical ideas, and the
effects on geometric phases are elucidated.


title:
Disentangling degenerate solutions from primary transit and secondary
  eclipse spectroscopy of exoplanets

abstract:
  Infrared transmission and emission spectroscopy of exoplanets, recorded from
primary transit and secondary eclipse measurements, indicate the presence of
the most abundant carbon and oxygen molecular species (H2O, CH4, CO, and CO2)
in a few exoplanets. However, efforts to constrain the molecular abundances to
within several orders of magnitude are thwarted by the broad range of
degenerate solutions that fit the data. Here we explore, with radiative
transfer models and analytical approximations, the nature of the degenerate
solution sets resulting from the sparse measurements of "hot Jupiter"
exoplanets. As demonstrated with simple analytical expressions, primary transit
measurements probe roughly 4 atmospheric scale heights at each wavelength band.
Derived mixing ratios from these data are highly sensitive to errors in the
radius in planet (at a reference pressure), which are approximately a few
percent. For example, an uncertainty of 1% in the radius of a 1000 K and
H2-based exoplanet with Jupiter's radius and mass, causes an uncertainty of a
factor of ~100-10000 in the derived gas mixing ratios. The degree of
sensitivity depends on how the line strength increases with the optical depth
(i.e. the curve of growth) and the atmospheric scale height. Temperature
degeneracies in the solutions of the primary transit data, which manifest their
effects through scale height and absorption coefficients, are smaller. We argue
that these challenges can be partially surmounted by a combination of selected
wavelength sampling of optical and IR measurements and, when possible, the
joint analysis of transit and secondary eclipse data of exoplanets.


title: Classifiers With a Reject Option for Early Time-Series Classification

abstract:
  Early classification of time-series data in a dynamic environment is a
challenging problem of great importance in signal processing. This paper
proposes a classifier architecture with a reject option capable of online
decision making without the need to wait for the entire time series signal to
be present. The main idea is to classify an odor/gas signal with an acceptable
accuracy as early as possible. Instead of using posterior probability of a
classifier, the proposed method uses the "agreement" of an ensemble to decide
whether to accept or reject the candidate label. The introduced algorithm is
applied to the bio-chemistry problem of odor classification to build a novel
Electronic-Nose called Forefront-Nose. Experimental results on wind tunnel
test-bed facility confirms the robustness of the forefront-nose compared to the
standard classifiers from both earliness and recognition perspectives.


title: ECOC-Based Training of Neural Networks for Face Recognition

abstract:
  Error Correcting Output Codes, ECOC, is an output representation method
capable of discovering some of the errors produced in classification tasks.
This paper describes the application of ECOC to the training of feed forward
neural networks, FFNN, for improving the overall accuracy of classification
systems. Indeed, to improve the generalization of FFNN classifiers, this paper
proposes an ECOC-Based training method for Neural Networks that use ECOC as the
output representation, and adopts the traditional Back-Propagation algorithm,
BP, to adjust weights of the network. Experimental results for face recognition
problem on Yale database demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. With a
rejection scheme defined by a simple robustness rate, high reliability is
achieved in this application.


title:
Biological mechanism and identifiability of a class of stationary
  conductance model for Voltage-gated Ion channels

abstract:
  The physiology of voltage gated ion channels is complex and insights into
their gating mechanism is incomplete. Their function is best represented by
Markov models with relatively large number of distinct states that are
connected by thermodynamically feasible transitions. On the other hand, popular
models such as the one of Hodgkin and Huxley have empirical assumptions that
are generally unrealistic. Experimental protocols often dictate the number of
states in proposed Markov models, thus creating disagreements between various
observations on the same channel. Here we aim to propose a limit to the minimum
number of states required to model ion channels by employing a paradigm to
define stationary conductance in a class of ion-channels. A simple expression
is generated using concepts in elementary thermodynamics applied to protein
conformational transitions. Further, it matches well many published channel
current-voltage characteristics and parameters of the model are found to be
identifiable and easily determined from usual experimental protocols.


title: Strict self-adjointness and shallow water models

abstract:
  We consider a class of third order equations from the point of view of strict
self-adjointness. Necessary and sufficient conditions to the investigated class
be strictly self-adjoint are obtained. Then, from a strictly self-adjoint
subclass we consider those who admits a suitable scaling transformation.
Consequently it is derived a family of equations including the
Benjamin-Bona-Mahony, Camassa-Holm and Novikov equation. By a suitable choice
of the parameters, we deduce an one-parameter family of equations unifying the
last two mentioned equations. Then, using some recent techniques for
constructing conserved vectors, we show that from the scale invariance it is
obtained as a conserved density the same quantity employed to construct one of
the well known Hamiltonians for the cited integrable equations.


title:
Identities of symmetry for (h;q)-extension of higher-order Euler
  polynomials

abstract:
  In this paper, we study some symmetric properties of the multiple q-Euler
zeta function. From these properties, we derive several identities of symmetry
for the (h;q)-extension of higher-order Euler polynomials.


title: Plasmon resonance and heat generation model in nanostructures

abstract:
  In this paper, we investigate the photothermal effects of the plasmon
resonance. Metal nanoparticles efficiently generate heat in the presence of
electromagnetic radiation. The process is strongly enhanced when a fixed
frequency of the incident wave illuminate on nanoprticles such that plasmon
resonance happen. We shall introduce the electromagnetic radiation model and
show exactly how and when the plasmon resonance happen. We then construct the
heat generation and transfer model and derive the heat effect induced by
plasmon resonance. Finally, we consider the heat generation under plasmon
resonance in a concentric nanoshell structure.


title:
Non-Hermitian quantum dynamics and entanglement of coupled nonlinear
  resonators

abstract:
  We consider a generalization of recently proposed non-Hermitian model for
resonant cavities coupled by a chiral mirror by taking into account number
non-conservation and nonlinear interactions. We analyze non-Hermitian quantum
dynamics of populations and entanglement of the cavity modes. We find that an
interplay of initial coherence and non-Hermitian coupling leads to a
counterintuitive population transfer. While an initially coherent cavity mode
is depleted, the other empty cavity can be populated more or less than the
initially filled one. Moreover, presence of nonlinearity yields population
collapse and revival as well as bipartite entanglement of the cavity modes. In
addition to coupled cavities, we point out that similar models can be found in
$\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric Bose-Hubbard dimers of Bose-Einstein condensates or in
coupled soliton-plasmon waveguides. We specifically illustrate quantum dynamics
of populations and entanglement in a heuristic model that we propose for a
soliton-plasmon system with soliton amplitude dependent asymmetric interaction.
Degree of asymmetry, nonlinearity and coherence are examined to control plasmon
excitations and soliton-plasmon entanglement. Relations to $\mathcal{PT}$
symmetric lasers and Jahn-Teller systems are pointed out.


title: CANFAR+Skytree: A Cloud Computing and Data Mining System for Astronomy

abstract:
  At the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre, we have combined our cloud computing
system, CANFAR, with the world's most advanced machine learning software,
Skytree, to create the world's first cloud computing system for data mining in
astronomy. CANFAR provides a generic environment for the storage and processing
of large datasets, removing the requirement to set up and maintain a computing
system when implementing an extensive undertaking such as a survey pipeline.
500 processor cores and several hundred terabytes of persistent storage are
currently available to users. The storage is implemented via the International
Virtual Observatory Alliance's VOSpace protocol, and is accessible both
interactively, and to all processing jobs. The user interacts with CANFAR by
utilizing virtual machines, which appear to them as equivalent to a desktop.
Each machine is replicated as desired to perform large-scale parallel
processing. Such an arrangement enables the user to immediately install and run
the same astronomy code that they already utilize, in the same way as on a
desktop. In addition, unlike many cloud systems, batch job scheduling is
handled for the user on multiple virtual machines by the Condor job queueing
system. Skytree is installed and run just as any other software on the system,
and thus acts as a library of command line data mining functions that can be
integrated into one's wider analysis. Thus we have created a generic
environment for large-scale analysis by data mining, in the same way that
CANFAR itself has done for storage and processing. Because Skytree scales to
large data in linear runtime, this allows the full sophistication of the huge
fields of data mining and machine learning to be applied to the hundreds of
millions of objects that make up current large datasets. We demonstrate the
utility of the CANFAR+Skytree system by showing science results obtained.
[Abridged]


title:
Focus Demo: CANFAR+Skytree: A Cloud Computing and Data Mining System for
  Astronomy

abstract:
  This is a companion Focus Demonstration article to the CANFAR+Skytree poster
(Ball 2012), demonstrating the usage of the Skytree machine learning software
on the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research (CANFAR) cloud
computing system. CANFAR+Skytree is the world's first cloud computing system
for data mining in astronomy.


title: Exploring the blazar zone in High Energy flares of FSRQs

abstract:
  The gamma-ray emission offers a powerful diagnostic tool to probe jets and
their surroundings in flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ). In particular,
sources emitting at high energies (>10 GeV) give us the strongest constraints.
This motivates us to start a systematic study of flares with bright emission
above 10 GeV, examining archival data of Fermi-LAT gamma-ray telescope. At the
same time, we began to trigger Target of Opportunity observations to the Swift
observatory at the occurrence of high-energy flares, obtaining a wide coverage
of the spectral energy distributions for several FSRQs during flares. Among the
others we investigate the SED of a peculiar flare of 3C 454.3, showing a
remarkable hard gamma-ray spectrum, quite different from the brightest flares
of this source, and a bright flare of CTA 102. We modeled the SED in the
framework of the one--zone leptonic model, using also archival optical
spectroscopic data to derive the luminosity of the broad lines and thus
estimate the disk luminosity, from which the structural parameters of the FSRQ
nucleus can be inferred. The model allowed us to evaluate the magnetic field
intensity in the blazar zone, and to locate the emitting region of gamma rays
in the particular case in which gamma-ray spectra show neither absorption from
the BLR, nor the Klein-Nishina curvature expected in leptonic models assuming
the BLR as source of seed photons for the External Compton. For FSRQs bright
above 10 GeV, we where able to identify short periods lasting less than 1 day
characterized by high rate of high energy gamma rays, and hard gamma-ray
spectra. We discussed the observed spectra and variability timescales in terms
of injection and cooling of energetic particles, arguing that these flares
could be triggered by magnetic reconnections events or turbulence in the flow.


title:
Electron Delocalization Determined Anomalous Stability in Small Water
  Rings

abstract:
  Water clusters are known to form through hydrogen bonding. However, this
study shows that the formation of very small water clusters significantly
deviates from this mechanism and instead involves both hydrogen bonding and
electron delocalization. Our density functional theory calculations show that
small water rings (H2O)n of n=3 or 4 show strong electron delocalization
originating from both the hydrogen and oxygen atoms and extending to the ring
center. This is very different from larger rings. Further energy decomposition
of rings with n=3-6 demonstrates an upward trend in the polarization component
but an decrease in the electrostatic and exchange repulsion components,
presenting a minimum and accounting for 33% of interaction energy at n=3. This
significantly promotes stability of the small water rings. Our findings provide
a comprehensive analysis and improve our understanding of the stability
characteristics of water clusters.


title: Average clock times for scattering through asymmetric barriers

abstract:
  The reflection and transmission Salecker-Wigner-Peres clock times averaged
over the post-selected reflected and transmitted sub-ensembles, respectively,
are investigated for the one dimensional scattering of a localized wave packet
through an asymmetric barrier. The dwell time averaged over the same
post-selected sub-ensembles is also considered. The emergence of negative
average reflection times is examined and we show that while the average over
the reflected sub-ensemble eliminates the negative peaks at resonance for the
clock time, it still allows negative values for transparent barriers. The
saturation of the average times with the barrier width (Hartman effect) is also
addressed.


title: A Generalization of the Marshal-Olkin Scheme and Related Processes

abstract:
  A generalization of the Marshal-Olkin parametrization scheme is developed and
stochastic models related to it are discussed here.


title: A K-theory approach to the tangent invariants of blow-ups

abstract:
  We extend the formula for the Chern classes of blow-ups of algebraic
varieties due to Porteous and Lascu-Scott, and of symplectic and complex
manifolds due to Geiges and Pasquotto, to the blow-ups of almost complex
manifolds. Our approach is based on a concrete partition for the tangent bundle
of a blow-up. The use of topological K-theory of vector bundles simplifies the
classical approaches.


title: Asynchronous Physical-Layer Network Coding with Quasi-Cyclic Codes

abstract:
  Communication in the presence of bounded timing asynchronism which is known
to the receiver but cannot be easily compensated is studied. Examples of such
situations include point-to-point communication over inter-symbol interference
(ISI) channels and asynchronous wireless networks. In these scenarios, although
the receiver may know all the delays, it is often not be an easy task for the
receiver to compensate the delays as the signals are mixed together. A novel
framework called interleave/deinterleave transform (IDT) is proposed to deal
with this problem. It is shown that the IDT allows one to design the delays so
that quasi-cyclic (QC) codes with a proper shifting constraint can be used
accordingly. When used in conjunction with QC codes, IDT provides significantly
better performance than existing schemes relying solely on cyclic codes. Two
instances of asynchronous physical-layer network coding, namely the
integer-forcing equalization for ISI channels and asynchronous
compute-and-forward, are then studied. For integer-forcing equalization, the
proposed scheme provides improved performance over using cyclic codes. For
asynchronous compute-and-forward, the proposed scheme shows that there is no
loss in the achievable information due to delays which are integer multiples of
the symbol duration. Further, the proposed approach shows that delays
introduced by the channel can sometimes be exploited to obtain higher
information rates than those obtainable in the synchronous case. The proposed
IDT can be thought of as a generalization of the interleaving/deinterleaving
idea proposed by Wang et al. which allows the use of QC codes thereby
substantially increasing the design space.


title:
Production and decays of a light $\phi^0$ in the LRTH model under the
  LHC Higgs data

abstract:
  In this paper we study the production and decays of a light pseudoscalar
boson $\phi^0$ with $m_{\phi^0} \leq m_h/2$ appeared in the left-right twin
Higgs (LRTH) model, and explore its phenomenological consequences when the
latest LHC Higgs data are taken into account. We found that (a) the decay rate
$Br(h\to \phi^0\phi^0)$ can be as large as $80\%$ and can suppress
significantly the visible $\gamma\gamma$ signal rate, but the latest LHC Higgs
data put a strong constraint on it: $Br(h \to \phi^0\phi^0) \leq 30\%$ at
$3\sigma$ level; (b) the $p$-value of the LRTH model is around $0.6$, smaller
than that of the SM in most of the parameter space and approaches the SM value
$0.8$ for a sufficiently large $f$ parameter; (c) the neutral pseudoscalar
$\phi^0$ dominantly decay into $b\bar{b}$ and the decay rate $Br(\phi^0\to
b\bar{b})$ can be larger than $80\%$ for $m_{\phi^0}\leq 60$ GeV, and the
second main decay mode is $\phi^0\to \tau^{+}\tau^{-}$ with a branching ratio
about $14\%$; and (d) at the future $e^-e^+$ collider with $\sqrt{s}=250$ GeV,
the processes $e^{+}e^{-}\to Zh\to Z(\phi^0\phi^0)\to Z(4b,2b2\tau)$ are
promising for discovering such a light pseudoscalar $\phi^0$.


title:
Tuning Magnetic Coupling in Sr$_2$IrO$_4$ Thin Films with Epitaxial
  Strain

abstract:
  We report x-ray resonant magnetic scattering (XRMS) and resonant inelastic
x-ray scattering (RIXS) studies of epitaxially-strained $\mathrm{Sr_2IrO_4}$
thin films. The films were grown on $\mathrm{SrTiO_3}$ and
$\mathrm{(LaAlO_3)_{0.3}(Sr_2AlTaO_6)_{0.7}}$ substrates, under slight tensile
and compressive strains, respectively. Although the films develop a magnetic
structure reminiscent of bulk $\mathrm{Sr_2IrO_4}$, the magnetic correlations
are extremely anisotropic, with in-plane correlation lengths significantly
longer than the out-of-plane correlation lengths. In addition, the compressive
(tensile) strain serves to suppress (enhance) the magnetic ordering temperature
$\mathrm{T_N}$, while raising (lowering) the energy of the zone boundary
magnon. Quantum chemical calculations show that the tuning of magnetic energy
scales can be understood in terms of strain-induced change in bond lengths.


title:
Three-dimensional Mid-air Acoustic Manipulation by Ultrasonic Phased
  Arrays

abstract:
  The essence of levitation technology is the countervailing of gravity. It is
known that an ultrasound standing wave is capable of suspending small particles
at its sound pressure nodes. The acoustic axis of the ultrasound beam in
conventional studies was parallel to the gravitational force, and the levitated
objects were manipulated along the fixed axis (i.e. one-dimensionally) by
controlling the phases or frequencies of bolted Langevin-type transducers. In
the present study, we considered extended acoustic manipulation whereby
millimetre-sized particles were levitated and moved three-dimensionally by
localised ultrasonic standing waves, which were generated by ultrasonic phased
arrays. Our manipulation system has two original features. One is the direction
of the ultrasound beam, which is arbitrary because the force acting toward its
centre is also utilised. The other is the manipulation principle by which a
localised standing wave is generated at an arbitrary position and moved
three-dimensionally by opposed and ultrasonic phased arrays. We experimentally
confirmed that expanded-polystyrene particles of 0.6 mm and 2 mm in diameter
could be manipulated by our proposed method.


title:
On Real and Virtual Photons in the Davies Theory of Time-Symmetric
  Quantum Electrodynamics

abstract:
  This paper explores the distinction between virtual and real photons in the
context of the Davies quantum relativistic extension of the Wheeler-Feynman
classical electromagnetic theory. An alternative way of understanding this
distinction is proposed, based on the transactional model.


title:
Gauge Equivalence and the Inverse Spectral Problem for the Magnetic
  Schr\"odinger Operator on the Torus

abstract:
  We study the inverse spectral problem for the Schr\"odinger operator $H$ on
the two-dimensional torus with even magnetic field $B(x)$ and even electric
potential $V(x)$. V.Guillemin [11] proved that the spectrum of $H$ determines
$B(x)$ and $V(x)$. A simple proof of Guillemin's results was given by the
authors in [3]. In the present paper we consider gauge equivalent classes of
magnetic potentials and give conditions which imply that the gauge equivalence
class and the spectrum of $H$ determine the magnetic field and the electric
potential. We also show that generically the spectrum and the magnetic field
determine the "extended" gauge equivalence class of the magnetic potential. The
proof is a modification of the proof in [3] with some corrections and
clarifications.


title: Small knot mosaics and partition matrices

abstract:
  Lomonaco and Kauffman introduced knot mosaic system to give a definition of
quantum knot system. This definition is intended to represent an actual
physical quantum system. A knot $(m,n)$-mosaic is an $m \times n$ matrix of
mosaic tiles which are $T_0$ through $T_{10}$ depicted as below, representing a
knot or a link by adjoining properly that is called suitably connected. An
interesting question in studying mosaic theory is how many knot $(m,n)$-mosaics
are there. $D_{m,n}$ denotes the total number of all knot $(m,n)$-mosaics. This
counting is very important because the total number of knot mosaics is indeed
the dimension of the Hilbert space of these quantum knot mosaics.
  In this paper, we find a table of the precise values of $D_{m,n}$ for $4 \leq
m \leq n \leq 6$ as below. Mainly we use a partition matrix argument which
turns out to be remarkably efficient to count small knot mosaics.
  \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{|c|r|r|r|} \hline $D_{m,n}$ & $n=4$ & $n=5$ &
$n=6$ \\ \hline $m=4$ & $2594$ & $54,226$ & $1,144,526$ \\ \hline $m=5$ & &
$4,183,954$ & $331,745,962$ \\ \hline $m=6$ & & & $101,393,411,126$ \\ \hline
\end{tabular} \end{center}


title:
Higgs Precision Measurements and Flavor Physics: A Supersymmetric
  Example

abstract:
  [Review for "Chinese Science Bulletin" and CEPC+SPPC Proposal] Rare decays in
flavor physics often suffer from Helicity suppress and Loop suppress. Helicity
flip is a direct consequence of chiral $U(3)$ symmetry breaking and electroweak
symmetry breaking. The identical feature is also shared by the mass generation
of SM fermions. In this review, we use MSSM as an example to illustrate an
explicit connection between bottom Yukawa coupling and rare decay process of
$b\to s\gamma$. We take a symmetry approach to study the common symmetry
breaking in supersymmetric correction to bottom quark mass generation and $b\to
s\gamma$. We show that Large Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking effect and
$R$-symmetry breaking effect required by $b\to s\gamma$ inevitably lead to
significant reduction of bottom Yukawa ${y}_{b}$. To compromise the reduction
in $b\bar{b}$, a new decay is also needed to keep the Higgs total width as the
SM value.


title:
Spin-Orbit Driven Transitions Between Mott Insulators and Finite
  Momentum Superfluids of Bosons in Optical Lattices

abstract:
  Synthetic spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atomic gases can be taken to
extremes rarely found in solids. We study a two dimensional Hubbard model of
bosons in an optical lattice in the presence of spin-orbit coupling strong
enough to drive direct transitions from Mott insulators to superfluids. Here we
find phase-modulated superfluids with finite momentum that are generated
entirely by spin-orbit coupling. We investigate the rich phase patterns of the
superfluids, which may be directly probed using time-of-flight imaging of the
spin-dependent momentum distribution.


title: Oblivious Query Processing

abstract:
  Motivated by cloud security concerns, there is an increasing interest in
database systems that can store and support queries over encrypted data. A
common architecture for such systems is to use a trusted component such as a
cryptographic co-processor for query processing that is used to securely
decrypt data and perform computations in plaintext. The trusted component has
limited memory, so most of the (input and intermediate) data is kept encrypted
in an untrusted storage and moved to the trusted component on ``demand.''
  In this setting, even with strong encryption, the data access pattern from
untrusted storage has the potential to reveal sensitive information; indeed,
all existing systems that use a trusted component for query processing over
encrypted data have this vulnerability. In this paper, we undertake the first
formal study of secure query processing, where an adversary having full
knowledge of the query (text) and observing the query execution learns nothing
about the underlying database other than the result size of the query on the
database. We introduce a simpler notion, oblivious query processing, and show
formally that a query admits secure query processing iff it admits oblivious
query processing. We present oblivious query processing algorithms for a rich
class of database queries involving selections, joins, grouping and
aggregation. For queries not handled by our algorithms, we provide some initial
evidence that designing oblivious (and therefore secure) algorithms would be
hard via reductions from two simple, well-studied problems that are generally
believed to be hard. Our study of oblivious query processing also reveals
interesting connections to database join theory.


title: Integrable hydrodynamic chains for WZNW model

abstract:
  The new integrable hydrodynamic equations obtained for WZNW model with
$SU(2)$, $SO(3)$, $SP(2)$ and $SU(\infty )$ constant torsions


title:
A Simple Method to Produce Algorithmic MIDI Music based on Randomness,
  Simple Probabilities and Multi-Threading

abstract:
  This paper introduces a simple method for producing multichannel MIDI music
that is based on randomness and simple probabilities. One distinctive feature
of the method is that it produces and sends in parallel to the sound card more
than one unsynchronized channels by exploiting the multi-threading capabilities
of general purpose programming languages. As consequence the derived sound
offers a quite ``full" and ``unpredictable" acoustic experience to the
listener. Subsequently the paper reports the results of an evaluation with
users. The results were very surprising: the majority of users responded that
they could tolerate this music in various occasions.


title: The Garnir Relations for Weyl Groups

abstract:
  The so-called Garnir relations are very important in the representation
theory of the symmetric groups. In this paper, we give a possible extension of
Garnir relations for Weyl groups in general.


title: Hybrid Radio-map for Noise Tolerant Wireless Indoor Localization

abstract:
  In wireless networks, radio-map based locating techniques are commonly used
to cope the complex fading feature of radio signal, in which a radio-map is
built by calibrating received signal strength (RSS) signatures at training
locations in the offline phase. However, in severe hostile environments, such
as in ship cabins where severe shadowing, blocking and multi-path fading
effects are posed by ubiquitous metallic architecture, even radio-map cannot
capture the dynamics of RSS. In this paper, we introduced multiple feature
radio-map location method for severely noisy environments. We proposed to add
low variance signature into radio map. Since the low variance signatures are
generally expensive to obtain, we focus on the scenario when the low variance
signatures are sparse. We studied efficient construction of multi-feature
radio-map in offline phase, and proposed feasible region narrowing down and
particle based algorithm for online tracking. Simulation results show the
remarkably performance improvement in terms of positioning accuracy and
robustness against RSS noises than the traditional radio-map method.


title:
Possible Astrophysical Observables of Quantum Gravity Effects near Black
  Holes

abstract:
  Recent implications of results from quantum information theory applied to
black holes has led to the confusing conclusions that requires either
abandoning the equivalence principle (e.g. the firewall picture), or the
no-hair theorem (e.g. the fuzzball picture), or even more unpalatable options.
The recent discovery of a pulsar orbiting a black hole opens up new
possibilities for tests of theories of gravity. We examine possible
observational effects of semiclassical quantum gravity in the vicinity of black
holes, as probed by pulsars and event horizon telescope imaging of flares.
Pulsar radiation is observable at wavelengths only two orders of magnitude
shorter than the Hawking radiation, so precision interferometry of lensed
pulsar images may shed light on the quantum gravitational processes and
interaction of Hawking radiation with the spacetime near the black hole. This
paper discusses the impact on the pulsar radiation interference pattern, which
is observable through the modulation index in the foreseeable future, and
discusses a possible classical limit of BHC.


title:
Bicrossed Products, Matched Pair Deformations and the Factorization
  Index for Lie Algebras

abstract:
  For a perfect Lie algebra $\mathfrak{h}$ we classify all Lie algebras
containing $\mathfrak{h}$ as a subalgebra of codimension $1$. The automorphism
groups of such Lie algebras are fully determined as subgroups of the semidirect
product $\mathfrak{h} \ltimes (k^* \times {\rm Aut}_{\rm Lie} (\mathfrak{h}))$.
In the non-perfect case the classification of these Lie algebras is a difficult
task. Let $\mathfrak{l} (2n+1, k)$ be the Lie algebra with the bracket $[E_i,
G] = E_i$, $[G, F_i] = F_i$, for all $i = 1, \dots, n$. We explicitly describe
all Lie algebras containing $\mathfrak{l} (2n+1, k)$ as a subalgebra of
codimension $1$ by computing all possible bicrossed products $k \bowtie
\mathfrak{l} (2n+1, k)$. They are parameterized by a set of matrices ${\rm M}_n
(k)^4 \times k^{2n+2}$ which are explicitly determined. Several matched pair
deformations of $\mathfrak{l} (2n+1, k)$ are described in order to compute the
factorization index of some extensions of the type $k \subset k \bowtie
\mathfrak{l} (2n+1, k)$. We provide an example of such extension having an
infinite factorization index.


title: Study of the apsidal precession of the Physical Symmetrical Pendulum

abstract:
  We study the apsidal precession of a Physical Symmetrical Pendulum (Allais'
precession) as a generalization of the precession corresponding to the Ideal
Spherical Pendulum (Airy's Precession). Based on the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism
and using the technics of variation of parameters along with the averaging
method, we obtain approximate solutions, in terms of which the motion of both
systems admits a simple geometrical description. The method developed in this
paper is considerably simpler than the standard one in terms of elliptical
functions and the numerical agreement with the exact solutions is excellent. In
addition, the present procedure permits to show clearly the origin of the
Airy's and Allais' precession, as well as the effect of the spin of the
Physical Pendulum on the Allais' precession. Further, the method can be
extended to the study of the asymmetrical pendulum in which an exact solution
is not possible anymore.


title: Trkalian fields: ray transforms and mini-twistors

abstract:
  We study X-ray and Divergent beam transforms of Trkalian fields and their
relation with Radon transform. We make use of four basic mathematical methods
of tomography due to Grangeat, Smith, Tuy and Gelfand-Goncharov for an integral
geometric view on them. We also make use of direct approaches which provide a
faster but restricted view of the geometry of these transforms. These reduce to
well known geometric integral transforms on a sphere of the Radon or the
spherical Curl transform in Moses eigenbasis, which are members of an analytic
family of integral operators. We also discuss their inversion. The X-ray (also
Divergent beam) transform of a Trkalian field is Trkalian. Also the Trkalian
subclass of X-ray transforms yields Trkalian fields in the physical space. The
Riesz potential of a Trkalian field is proportional to the field. Hence, the
spherical mean of the X-ray (also Divergent beam) transform of a Trkalian field
over all lines passing through a point yields the field at this point. The
pivotal point is the simplification of an intricate quantity: Hilbert transform
of the derivative of Radon transform for a Trkalian field in the Moses basis.
We also define the X-ray transform of the Riesz potential (of order 2) and
Biot-Savart integrals. Then, we discuss a mini-twistor respresentation,
presenting a mini-twistor solution for the Trkalian fields equation. This is
based on a time-harmonic reduction of wave equation to Helmholtz equation. A
Trkalian field is given in terms of a null vector in C3 with an arbitrary
function and an exponential factor resulting from this reduction.


title:
New approach to finding the maximum number of mutually unbiased bases in
  $\mathbb{C}^6$

abstract:
  There has been great interest in finding sets of $m$ mutually unbiased bases
which are compatible with a given space $\mathbb{C}^d$, specially in physics
due to their interesting applications in quantum information theory. Several
general results have been obtained so far, but surprising results may occur for
definite $(m,d)$-values. One such case that has remained an open question (the
simplest case) is the one regarding the existence of $m=4$ mutually orthogonal
bases for $d=6$. In the present work we introduce a new approach to the problem
by translating it into an optimization procedure for a given pair $(m,d)$.


title: Extended Armendariz Rings

abstract:
  In this note we introduce central linear Armendariz rings as a generalization
of Armendariz rings and investigate their properties.


title: On A Class of Lifting Modules

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce principally $\delta$-lifting modules which are
analogous to $\delta$-lifting modules and principally $\delta$-semiperfect
modules as a generalization of $\delta$-semiperfect modules and investigate
their properties.


title: Rings in which every nilpotent is central

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce a class of rings in which every nilpotent element
is central. This class of rings generalizes so-called reduced rings. A ring $R$
is called {\it central reduced} if every nilpotent element of $R$ is central.
  For a ring $R$, we prove that $R$ is central reduced if and only if
  $R[x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n]$ is central reduced if and only if
$R[[x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n]]$ is central reduced if and only if
$R[x_1,x_1^{-1},x_2,x_2^{-1},\ldots,x_n,x_n^{-1}]$ is central reduced.
Moreover, if $R$ is a central reduced ring, then the trivial extension $T(R,R)$
is central Armendariz.


title:
Functional renormalization group study of superconductivity in doped
  Sr$_2$IrO$_4$

abstract:
  Using functional renormalization group we investigated possible
superconductivity in doped Sr$_2$IrO$_4$. In the electron doped case, a
$d^*_{x^2-y^2}$-wave superconducting phase is found in a narrow doping region.
The pairing is driven by spin fluctuations within the single conduction band.
In contrast, for hole doping an $s^*_{\pm}$-wave phase is established,
triggered by spin fluctuations within and across the two conduction bands. In
all cases there are comparable singlet and triplet components in the pairing
function. The Hund's rule coupling reduces (enhances) superconductivity for
electron (hole) doping. Our results imply that hole doping is more promising to
achieve a higher transition temperature. Experimental perspectives are
discussed.


title: Achieving Fully Proportional Representation: Approximability Results

abstract:
  We study the complexity of (approximate) winner determination under the
Monroe and Chamberlin--Courant multiwinner voting rules, which determine the
set of representatives by optimizing the total (dis)satisfaction of the voters
with their representatives. The total (dis)satisfaction is calculated either as
the sum of individual (dis)satisfactions (the utilitarian case) or as the
(dis)satisfaction of the worst off voter (the egalitarian case). We provide
good approximation algorithms for the satisfaction-based utilitarian versions
of the Monroe and Chamberlin--Courant rules, and inapproximability results for
the dissatisfaction-based utilitarian versions of them and also for all
egalitarian cases. Our algorithms are applicable and particularly appealing
when voters submit truncated ballots. We provide experimental evaluation of the
algorithms both on real-life preference-aggregation data and on synthetic data.
These experiments show that our simple and fast algorithms can in many cases
find near-perfect solutions.


title:
Application of Computational Physics: Blood Vessel Constrictions and
  Medical Infuses

abstract:
  Application of computation in many fields are growing fast in last two
decades. Increasing on computation performance helps researchers to understand
natural phenomena in many fields of science and technology including in life
sciences. Computational fluid dynamic is one of numerical methods which is very
popular used to describe those phenomena. In this paper we propose moving
particle semi-implicit (MPS) and molecular dynamics (MD) to describe different
phenomena in blood vessel. The effect of increasing the blood pressure on
vessel wall will be calculate using MD methods, while the two fluid blending
dynamics will be discussed using MPS. Result from the first phenomenon shows
that around 80% of constriction on blood vessel make blood vessel increase and
will start to leak on vessel wall, while from the second phenomenon the result
shows the visualization of two fluids mixture (drugs and blood) influenced by
ratio of drugs debit to blood debit.
  Keywords: molecular dynamic, blood vessel, fluid dynamic, moving particle
semi implicit.

categories: physics.bio-ph cond-mat.soft physics.med-ph q-bio.TO


title:
Isomorphism classes and invariants of low dimensional filiform Leibniz
  algebras

abstract:
  In this study, we extend the result on classification of a subclass of
filiform Leibniz algebras in low dimensions to dimensions seven and eight based
on the technique used by Rakhimov and Bekbaev for classification of subclasses
which arise from naturally graded non-Lie filiform Leibniz algebras. The
subclass considered here arises from naturally graded filiform Lie algebras.
This subclass contains the class of filiform Lie algebras and consequently, by
classifying this subclass, we again re-examine the classification of filiform
Lie algebras. Our resulting list of filifom Lie algebras is compared with that
given by Ancoch\'ea-Bermudez and Goze in 1988 and by G\'{o}mez, Jimenez-Merchan
and Khakimdjanov in 1998.


title:
Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Soft Grains: Malaria-Infected Red Blood
  Cells Motion within Obstructed 2-D Capillary Vessel

abstract:
  Molecular dynamics has been widely used to numerically solve equation of
motion of classical many-particle system. It can be used to simulate many
systems including biophysics, whose complexity level is determined by the
involved elements. Based on this method, a numerical model had been constructed
to mimic the behaviour of malaria-infected red blood cells within capillary
vessel. The model was governed by three forces namely Coulomb force, normal
force, and Stokes force. By utilizing two dimensional four-cells scheme,
theoretical observation was carried out to test its capability. Although the
parameters were chosen deliberately, all of the quantities were given arbitrary
value. Despite this fact, the results were quite satisfactory. Combined with
the previous results, it can be said that the proposed model were sufficient
enough to mimic the malaria-infected red blood cells motion within obstructed
capillary vessel.
  Keywords: molecular dynamics, two-dimensional model, red-blood cell motion,
malaria


title: Polynomial Hamiltonian Systems with Movable Algebraic Singularities

abstract:
  The singularity structure of solutions of a class of Hamiltonian systems of
ordinary differential equations in two dependent variables is studied. It is
shown that for any solution, all movable singularities, obtained by analytic
continuation along a rectifiable curve, are at most algebraic branch points.


title:
Study Of Internal Response Of Epoxy Due To Compressive Load Via
  Experiment And Simulation Using Abaqus FEA Software

abstract:
  Epoxy is widely used primarily as a matrix material in the manufacture of
polymer matrix composite. Epoxy behavior under compression load has to be
understood before the mechanical behavior of polymer matrix composite can be
accurately predicted. Simulation model combined with experiment and image
analysis have been used to investigate internal response of epoxy polymeric
materials subjected to compressive loads. In the experiment, small carbon-based
material rods are inserted in the epoxy. The samples are held in one side and
subjected to compressive load on the other side. All the samples swell at load
sides. Image analysis on the carbon-based rods figures out the internal
response, which seems to be isotropy in lateral direction. The results are
compared to simulation results. The simulation is conducted using Abaqus FEA
software. Similar condition is obtained when a brittle thin material is stuck
to the top of simulation model.
  Keywords: Abaqus FEA, compression, epoxy, polymer matrix composites


title:
Static bending and free vibration of cross ply laminated composite
  plates using NURBS based finite element method and unified formulation

abstract:
  This paper presents an effective formulation to study the response of
laminated composites based on isogeometric approach (IGA) and Carrera unified
formulation (CUF). The IGA utilizes the non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS)
functions which allows to construct higher order smooth functions with less
computational effort. The static bending and the free vibration of thin and
moderately thick laminates plates are studied. The present approach also
suffers from shear locking when lower order functions are employed and the
shear locking is suppressed by introducing a modification factor. The
combination of the IGA with the CUF allows a very accurate prediction of the
field variables. The effectiveness of the formulation is demonstrated through
numerical examples.


title:
On the Homogenization of Geological Fissured Systems With Curved
  non-periodic Cracks

abstract:
  We analyze the steady fluid flow in a porous medium containing a network of
thin fissures i.e. width $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon)$, where all the cracks are
generated by the rigid translation of a continuous piecewise $C^{1}$ functions
in a fixed direction. The phenomenon is modeled in mixed variational
formulation, using the stationary Darcy's law and setting coefficients of low
resistance $\mathcal{O}(\epsilon)$ on the network. The singularities are
removed performing asymptotic analysis as $\epsilon \rightarrow 0$ which yields
an analogous system hosting only tangential flow in the fissures. Finally the
fissures are collapsed into two dimensional manifolds.


title:
Analysis of a class of degenerate parabolic equations with saturation
  mechanisms

abstract:
  We analyze a family of degenerate parabolic equations with linear growth
Lagrangian having the form $u_t=\div (\varphi(u)\psi(\nabla u/u))$. Here
$|\psi|\le 1$ and saturates at infinity. We present a simple and natural set of
assumptions on the functions $\psi,\varphi$, under which: 1) these equations
fall in the framework provided by \cite{ACMEllipticFLDE, ACMMRelat} and hence
they are well posed, 2) we can ensure finite propagation speed for these
models, 3) a Rankine--Hugoniot analysis on traveling fronts is also performed.
On the particular case of $\varphi(u)=u$ we get more detailed information on
the spreading rate of compactly supported solutions and some interesting
connections with optimal mass transportation theory.


title: Simple predictions from multifield inflationary models

abstract:
  We explore whether multifield inflationary models make unambiguous
predictions for fundamental cosmological observables. Focusing on $N$-quadratic
inflation, we numerically evaluate the full perturbation equations for models
with 2, 3, and $\mathcal{O}(100)$ fields, using several distinct methods for
specifying the initial values of the background fields. All scenarios are
highly predictive, with the probability distribution functions of the
cosmological observables becoming more sharply peaked as $N$ increases. For
$N=100$ fields, 95% of our Monte Carlo samples fall in the ranges $n_s \in
(0.9455,0.9534)$; $\alpha \in (-9.741,-7.047)\times 10^{-4}$;
$r\in(0.1445,0.1449)$; and $r_\mathrm{iso} \in (0.02137,3.510)\times 10^{-3}$
for the spectral index, running, tensor-to-scalar ratio, and
isocurvature-to-adiabatic ratio, respectively. The expected amplitude of
isocurvature perturbations grows with $N$, raising the possibility that
many-field models may be sensitive to post-inflationary physics and suggesting
new avenues for testing these scenarios.


title:
Mind Your Language: Effects of Spoken Query Formulation on Retrieval
  Effectiveness

abstract:
  Voice search is becoming a popular mode for interacting with search engines.
As a result, research has gone into building better voice transcription
engines, interfaces, and search engines that better handle inherent verbosity
of queries. However, when one considers its use by non- native speakers of
English, another aspect that becomes important is the formulation of the query
by users. In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary study that we
conducted with non-native English speakers who formulate queries for given
retrieval tasks. Our results show that the current search engines are sensitive
in their rankings to the query formulation, and thus highlights the need for
developing more robust ranking methods.


title: The Nagell-Ljunggren equation via Runge's method

abstract:
  The Diophantine equation (x^n-1)/(x-1)=y^q has four known solutions in
integers x, y, q and n with |x|, |y|, q > 1 and n > 2. Whilst we expect that
there are, in fact, no more solutions, such a result is well beyond current
technology. In this paper, we prove that if (x,y,n,q) is a solution to this
equation, then n has three or fewer prime divisors, counted with multiplicity.
This improves a result of Bugeaud and Mihailescu.


title: CONCOCT: Clustering cONtigs on COverage and ComposiTion

abstract:
  Metagenomics enables the reconstruction of microbial genomes in complex
microbial communities without the need for culturing. Since assembly typically
results in fragmented genomes the grouping of genome fragments (contigs)
belonging to the same genome, a process referred to as binning, remains a major
informatics challenge. Here we present CONCOCT, a computer program that
combines three types of information - sequence composition, coverage across
multiple sample, and read-pair linkage - to automatically bin contigs into
genomes. We demonstrate high recall and precision rates of the program on
artificial as well as real human gut metagenome datasets.


title:
Comment on the paper Photoionization of endohedral atoms using R-matrix
  methods: application to Xe@C60 by T. W. Gorczyca, M. F. Hasoglu and S. T.
  Manson, Phys. Rev. A86, 033204 (2012) [1]

abstract:
  We demonstrate serious misrepresentation of existing experimental data and
important omissions in the List of references in the paper [1]. We demonstrate
that what is called in [1] total photoionization cross-section is in fact a
partial photoionization cross-section. We demonstrate that long before [1] and
presented there experimental data for photoionization of Xe@C60+ were obtained,
a theoretical prediction for Xe@C60 have been published that was in a
reasonable agreement with experiment. These data are even not mentioned in [1].


title: Hole dynamics in vertically vibrated liquids and suspensions

abstract:
  We study the dynamics of holes created in vertically vibrated dense
suspensions and viscous Newtonian liquids. We find that all holes oscillate
with the driving frequency, with a phase shift of $\pi/2$. In Newtonian liquids
holes always close, while in suspensions holes may grow in time. We present a
lubrication model for the closure of holes which is in good agreement with the
experiments in Newtonian liquids. The growth rate of growing holes in
suspensions is found to scale with the particle diameter over the suspending
liquid viscosity. Comparing closing holes in Newtonian liquids to growing holes
in dense suspensions we find a sinusoidal, linear response in the first, and a
highly non-linear one in the latter. Moreover, the symmetry of the oscillation
is broken and is shown to provide an explanation for the observation that holes
in dense suspensions can grow.


title:
Effective photons in weakly absorptive dielectric media and the
  Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law

abstract:
  We derive effective photon modes that facilitate an intuitive and convenient
picture of photon dynamics in a structured Kramers-Kronig dielectric in the
limit of weak absorption. Each mode is associated with an effective line-width
which determines the temporal decay rate of the photon. These results are then
applied to obtain an expression for the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law absorption
coefficient for unidirectional propagation in structured media consisting of
dispersive, weakly absorptive dielectric materials.


title: Chaotic Encryption Scheme Using 1-D Chaotic Map

abstract:
  This paper proposes three different chaotic encryption methods using 1-D
chaotic map known as Logistic map named as Logistic, NLFSR and Modified NLFSR
according to the name of chaotic map and non-linear function involved in the
scheme. The designed schemes have been crypt analyzed for five different
methods for testing its strength. Cryptanalysis has been performed for various
texts using various keys selected from domain of key space. Logistic and NLFSR
methods are found to resist known plaintext attack for available first two
characters of plaintext. Plaintext sensitivity of both methods is within small
range along with medium key sensitivity. Identifiability for keys of first two
of the scheme has not been derived concluding that methods may prove to be weak
against brute-force attack. In the last modified scheme avalanche effect found
to be improved compared to the previous ones and method is found to resist
brute-force attack as it derives the conclusion for identifiability.


title: Parametrized Invariance for Infinite State Processes

abstract:
  We study the uniform verification problem for infinite state processes, which
consists of proving that the parallel composition of an arbitrary number of
processes satisfies a temporal property. Our practical motivation is to build a
general framework for the temporal verification of concurrent datatypes. The
contribution of this paper is a general method for the verification of safety
properties of parametrized programs that manipulate complex local and global
data, including mutable state in the heap. This method is based on the
separation between two concerns: (1) the interaction between executing
threads---handled by novel parametrized invariance rules---,and the data being
manipulated---handled by specialized decision procedures. The proof rules
discharge automatically a finite collection of verification conditions (VCs),
the number depending only on the size of the program description and the
specification, but not on the number of processes in any given instance or on
the kind of data manipulated. Moreover, all VCs are quantifier free, which
eases the development of decision procedures for complex data-types on top of
off-the-shelf SMT solvers. We discuss the practical verification (of shape and
also functional correctness properties) of a concurrent list implementation
based on the method presented in this paper. Our tool also all VCs using a
decision procedure for a theory of list layouts in the heap built on top of
state-of-the-art SMT solvers.


title:
CACO : Competitive Ant Colony Optimization, A Nature-Inspired
  Metaheuristic For Large-Scale Global Optimization

abstract:
  Large-scale problems are nonlinear problems that need metaheuristics, or
global optimization algorithms. This paper reviews nature-inspired
metaheuristics, then it introduces a framework named Competitive Ant Colony
Optimization inspired by the chemical communications among insects. Then a case
study is presented to investigate the proposed framework for large-scale global
optimization.


title:
The Hercules-Lyra Association revisited New age estimation and
  multiplicity study

abstract:
  The Her-Lyr assoc., a nearby young MG, contains a few tens of ZAMS stars of
SpT F to M. The existence and the properties of the Her-Lyr assoc. are
controversial and discussed in the literature. The present work reassesses
properties and the member list of Her-Lyr assoc., based on kinematics and age.
Many objects form multiple systems or have low-mass companions and so we need
to account for multiplicity. We use our own new imaging obs. and archival data
to identify multiple systems. The colors and magnitudes of kinematic candidates
are compared to isochrones. We derive further information on the age based on
Li depletion, rotation, and coronal and chromospheric activity. A set of
canonical members is identified to infer mean properties. Membership criteria
are derived from the mean properties and used to discard non-members. The
candidates selected from the literature belong to 35 stellar systems, 42.9% of
which are multiple. Four multiple systems are confirmed in this work by common
proper motion. An orbital solution is presented for the binary system HH Leo B
and C. Indeed, a group of candidates displays signatures of youth. 7 canonical
members are identified. The distribution of EWLi of canonical Her-Lyr members
is spread widely and is similar to that of the Pleiades and the UMa group.
Gyrochronology gives an age of 257+-46 Myr which is in between the ages of the
Pleiades and the Ursa Major group. The measures of chromospheric and coronal
activity support the young age. Four membership criteria are presented based on
kinematics, EWLi, chromospheric activity, and gyro. age. In total, 11 stars are
identified as certain members including co-moving objects plus additional 23
possible members while 14 candidates are doubtful or can be rejected. A
comparison to the mass function, however, indicates the presence of a large
number of additional unidentified low-mass members.


title: Uniqueness of blowups and Lojasiewicz inequalities

abstract:
  Once one knows that singularities occur, one naturally wonders what the
singularities are like. For minimal varieties the first answer, already known
to Federer-Fleming in 1959, is that they weakly resemble cones. For mean
curvature flow, by the combined work of Huisken, Ilmanen, and White,
singularities weakly resemble shrinkers. Unfortunately, the simple proofs leave
open the possibility that a minimal variety or a mean curvature flow looked at
under a microscope will resemble one blowup, but under higher magnification, it
might (as far as anyone knows) resemble a completely different blowup. Whether
this ever happens is perhaps the most fundamental question about singularities.
It is this long standing open question that we settle here for mean curvature
flow at all generic singularities and for mean convex mean curvature flow at
all singularities.


title: Tight-Binding Study of Boron Structures

abstract:
  We have performed Linearized Augmented Plane Wave (LAPW) calculations for
five crystal structures (alpha, dhcp, sc, fcc, bcc) of Boron which we then
fitted to a non-orthogonal tight-binding model following the Naval Research
Laboratory Tight-Binding (NRL-TB) method. The predictions of the NRL-TB
approach for complicated Boron structures such as R105 (or
\b{eta}-rhombohedral) and T190 are in agreement with recent first-principles
calculations. Fully utilizing the computational speed of the NRL-TB method we
calculated the energetic differences of various structures including those
containing vacancies using supercells with up to 5000 atoms.


title:
Toward an agent based distillation approach for protesting crowd
  simulation

abstract:
  This paper investigates the problem of protesting crowd simulation. It
considers CROCADILE, an agent based distillation system, for this purpose. A
model of protesting crowd was determined and then a CROCADILE model of
protesting crowd was engineered and demonstrated. We validated the model by
using two scenarios where protesters are varied with different personalities.
The results indicated that CROCADILE served well as the platform for protesting
crowd modeling simulation


title: Quark confinement mechanism for baryons

abstract:
  The confinement mechanism proposed earlier and then successfully applied to
meson spectroscopy by the author is extended over baryons. For this aim the
wave functions of baryons are built as tensorial products of those
corresponding to the 2-body problem underlying the confinement mechanism of two
quarks. This allows one to obtain the Hamiltonian of the quark interactions in
a baryon and, accordingly, the possible energy spectrum of the latter. Also one
may construct the electric and magnetic form factors of baryon in a natural way
which entails the expressions for the root-mean-square radius and anomalous
magnetic moment. To ullustrate the formalism in the given Chapter for the sake
of simplicity only symmetrical baryons (i.e., composed from three quarks of the
same flavours) $\Delta^{++}$, $\Delta^{-}$, $\Omega^-$ are considered. For them
the masses, the root-mean-square radii and anomalous magnetic moments are
expressed in an explicit analytical form through the parameters of the
confining SU(3)-gluonic field among quarks and that enables one to get a number
of numerical estimates for the mentioned parameters from experimental data. We
also discuss chiral limit for the baryons under consideration and estimate the
purely gluonic contribution to their masses. Further the problem of masses in
particle physics is shortly discussed within the framework of the given
approach. Finally, a few remarks are made about the so-called Yang-Mills
Millennium problem and a possible way for proving it is outlined.


title:
About the Injectivity Radius and the Ricci Tensor of a Complete
  Riemannian Manifold

abstract:
  In this paper we obtain a simple upper bound for the infimum of the Ricci
curvatures of a complete Riemannian manifold with nonzero injectivity radius
i(M) depending only on of the i(M). In case of rigidity the Riemannian manifold
must be an Euclidean sphere(Euclidean space) conform the injectivity radius be
finite(infinite). Furthermore with the additional assumption that the second
derivative of the Ricci tensor is null we prove that the same upper bound for
the infimum of the Ricci curvatures holds for the supremum of the Ricci
curvatures and $M^n$ has, in fact, parallel Ricci tensor.


title:
Seasonal and radial trends in Saturn's thermal plasma between the main
  rings and enceladus

abstract:
  A goal of Cassini's extended mission has been to examine the seasonal
variations of Saturn's magnetosphere, moons, and rings. Recently we showed that
the magnetospheric plasma between the main rings and Enceladus exhibited a time
dependence that we attributed to a seasonally variable source of oxygen from
the main rings (Elrod et al., 2012). Such a temporal variation was subsequently
seen in the energetic ion composition (Christon et al., 2013). Here we include
the most recent measurements by the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) in our
analysis (Elrod et al., 2012) and modeling (Tseng et al., 2013a) of the
temporal and radial dependence of the thermal plasma in the region between the
main rings and the orbit of Enceladus. Data taken in 2012, well past equinox
for which the northern side of the main rings were illuminated, appear
consistent with a seasonal variation. Although the thermal plasma in this
region comes from two sources, the extended ring atmosphere and the Enceladus
torus that have very different radial and temporal trends, the heavy ion
density is found to exhibit a steep radial dependence that is similar for all
years examined. Using our chemical model, we show that this dependence requires
a radial dependence for Enceladus torus than differs from recent models or,
more likely, enhanced heavy ion quenching with decreasing distance from the
edge of the main rings. We examine the possible physical processes and suggest
that the precipitation of the inward diffusing high energy background radiation
onto the edge of the main rings could play an important role.


title: Controlling Selmer groups in the higher core rank case

abstract:
  We define Kolyvagin systems and Stark systems attached to $p$-adic
representations in the case of arbitrary `core rank' (the core rank is a
measure of the generic Selmer rank in a family of Selmer groups). Previous work
dealt only with the case of core rank one, where the Kolyvagin and Stark
systems are collections of cohomology classes. For general core rank, they are
collections of elements of exterior powers of cohomology groups. We show under
mild hypotheses that for general core rank these systems still control the size
and structure of Selmer groups, and that the module of all Kolyvagin (or Stark)
systems is free of rank one.


title: Refined class number formulas for $\mathbb{G}_m$

abstract:
  We formulate a generalization of a `refined class number formula' of Darmon.
Our conjecture deals with Stickelberger-type elements formed from generalized
Stark units, and has two parts: the `order of vanishing' and the `leading
term'. Using the theory of Kolyvagin systems we prove a large part of this
conjecture when the order of vanishing of the corresponding complex
$L$-function is $1$.


title: Higher cohomology of parabolic actions on certain homogeneous spaces

abstract:
  We show that for a parabolic R^d-action on a compact quotient of PSL(2,R)^d,
the cohomologies in degrees 1 through d-1 trivialize, and we give the
obstructions to solving the degree-d coboundary equation, along with bounds on
Sobolev norms of primitives. In previous papers we have established these
results for certain Anosov systems. The present work extends the methods of
those papers to systems that are not Anosov. The main new idea is in Section 4,
where we define special elements of representation spaces that allow us to
modify the arguments from the previous papers. In Section 7 we discuss how one
may generalize this strategy to R^d-systems coming from a product of Lie
groups, like in the systems we have here.


title:
Dynamical core polarization of two-active-electron systems in strong
  laser fields

abstract:
  The ionization of two-active-electron systems by intense laser fields is
investigated theoretically. In comparison with time-dependent Hartree-Fock and
exact two electron simulation, we show that the ionization rate is
overestimated in SAE approximation. A modified single-active-electron model is
formulated by taking into account of the dynamical core polarization. Applying
the new approach to Ca atoms, it is found that the polarization of the core can
be considered instantaneous and the large polarizability of the cation
suppresses the ionization by 50% while the photoelectron cut-off energy
increases slightly. The existed tunneling ionization formulation can be
corrected analytically by considering core polarization.


title:
Quantum Model for a Periodically Driven Selectivity Filter in K$^{+}$
  Ion Channel

abstract:
  In this work, we present a quantum transport model for the selectivity filter
in the KcsA potassium ion channel. This model is fully consistent with the fact
that two conduction pathways are involved in the translocation of ions thorough
the filter, and we show that the presence of a second path may actually bring
advantages for the filter as a result of quantum interference. To highlight
interferences and resonances in the model, we consider the selectivity filter
to be driven by a controlled time-dependent external field which changes the
free energy scenario and consequently the conduction of the ions. In
particular, we demonstrate that the two-pathway conduction mechanism is more
advantageous for the filter when dephasing in the transient configurations is
lower than in the main configurations. As a matter of fact, K$^+$ ions in the
main configurations are highly coordinated by oxygen atoms of the filter
backbone and this increases noise. Moreover, we also show that, for a wide
range of dephasing rates and driving frequencies, the two-pathway conduction
used by the filter leads indeed to higher ionic currents when compared with the
single path model.


title: Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look

abstract:
  I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct and non-intuitive approximation
of Newtonian physics in the suitable domain (motion in fluids), in the same
technical sense in which Newton theory is an approximation of Einstein's
theory. Aristotelian physics lasted long not because it became dogma, but
because it is a very good empirically grounded theory. The observation suggests
some general considerations on inter-theoretical relations.


title:
Robust Bias Estimation for Kaplan-Meier Survival Estimator with
  Jackknifing

abstract:
  For studying or reducing the bias of functionals of the Kaplan-Meier survival
estimator, the jackknifing approach of Stute and Wang (1994) is natural. We
have studied the behavior of the jackknife estimate of bias under different
configurations of the censoring level, sample size, and the censoring and
survival time distributions. The empirical research reveals some new findings
about robust calculation of the bias, particularly for higher censoring levels.
We have extended their jackknifing approach to cover the case where the largest
observation is censored, using the imputation methods for the largest
observations proposed in Khan and Shaw (2013b). This modification to the
existing formula reduces the number of conditions for creating jackknife bias
estimates to one from the original two, and also avoids the problem that the
Kaplan--Meier estimator can be badly underestimated by the existing jackknife
formula.