title:
Nucleon decay via dimension-6 operators in $E_6 \times SU(2)_F \times
  U(1)_A$ SUSY GUT model

abstract:
  In the previous paper, we have shown that $R_1\equiv\frac{\Gamma_{n
\rightarrow \pi^0 + \nu^c}}{\Gamma_{p \rightarrow \pi^0 + e^c}}$ and
$R_2\equiv\frac{\Gamma_{p \rightarrow K^0 + \mu^c}}{\Gamma_{p \rightarrow \pi^0
+ e^c}}$ can identify the grand unification group $SU(5)$, $SO(10)$, or $E_6$
in typical anomalous $U(1)_A$ supersymmetric (SUSY) grand unified theory (GUT)
in which nucleon decay via dimension-6 operators becomes dominant. When $R_1 >
0.4$ the grand unification group is not $SU(5)$, while when $R_1 > 1$ the grand
unification group is $E_6$. Moreover, when $R_2 > 0.3$, $E_6$ is implied. Main
ambiguities come from the diagonalizing matrices for quark and lepton mass
matrices in this calculation once we fix the vacuum expectation values of GUT
Higgs bosons. In this paper, we calculate $R_1$ and $R_2$ in $E_6\times
SU(2)_F$ SUSY GUT with anomalous $U(1)_A$ gauge symmetry, in which realistic
quark and lepton masses and mixings can be obtained though the flavor symmetry
$SU(2)_F$ constrains Yukawa couplings at the GUT scale. The ambiguities of
Yukawa couplings are expected to be reduced. We show that the predicted region
for $R_1$ and $R_2$ is more restricted than in the $E_6$ model without
$SU(2)_F$ as expected. Moreover, we re-examine the previous claim for the
identification of grand unification group with $100$ times more model points
($10^6$ model points), including $E_6 \times SU(2)_F$ model.


title: A new look at Anomalous X-ray Pulsars

abstract:
  We explore a possibility to explain the phenomenon of the Anomalous X-ray
Pulsars (AXP) and Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGR) within the scenario of
fall-back magnetic accretion onto a young isolated neutron star. The X-ray
emission of the pulsar in this case is originated due to accretion of matter
onto the surface of the neutron star from the magnetic slab surrounding its
magnetosphere. The expected spin-down rate of the neutron star within this
approach is close to the observed value. We show that these neutron stars are
relatively young and are going through a transition from the propeller state to
the accretor state. The pulsars activity in the gamma-rays is connected with
their relative youth and is provided by the energy stored in the
non-equilibrium layer located in the crust of low-mass neutron stars. This
energy can be released due to mixing of matter in the neutron star crust with
super heavy nuclei approaching its surface and getting unstable. The nuclei
fission in the low-density region initiates chain reactions leading to the
nuclear explosion. The outbursts are likely to be triggered by an instability
developing in the region where the matter accreted by the neutron star is
accumulated at the magnetic pole regions.


title: Real-time correlation reference update for astronomical adaptive optics

abstract:
  The use of laser guide stars in astronomical adaptive optics results in
elongated Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor image patterns. Image correlation
techniques can be used to determine local wavefront slope by correlating each
sub-aperture image with its expected elongated shape, or reference image. Here,
we present a technique which allows the correlation reference images to be
updated while the adaptive optics loop is closed. We show that this can be done
without affecting the resulting point spread functions. On-sky demonstration is
reported. We compare different techniques for obtaining the reference images,
and investigate performance over a wide range of adaptive optics system
parameters. We find that image correlation techniques perform better than the
standard centre-of-gravity algorithm and are highly suited for use with
open-loop multiple object adaptive optics systems.


title: Resampling images in Fourier domain

abstract:
  When simulating sky images, one often takes a galaxy image $F(x)$ defined by
a set of pixelized samples and an interpolation kernel, and then wants to
produce a new sampled image representing this galaxy as it would appear with a
different point-spread function, a rotation, shearing, or magnification, and/or
a different pixel scale. These operations are sometimes only possible, or most
efficiently executed, as resamplings of the Fourier transform $\tilde F(u)$ of
the image onto a $u$-space grid that differs from the one produced by a
discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of the samples. In some applications it is
essential that the resampled image be accurate to better than 1 part in $10^3$,
so in this paper we first use standard Fourier techniques to show that
Fourier-domain interpolation with a wrapped sinc function yields the exact
value of $\tilde F(u)$ in terms of the input samples and kernel. This operation
scales with image dimension as $N^4$ and can be prohibitively slow, so we next
investigate the errors accrued from approximating the sinc function with a
compact kernel. We show that these approximations produce a multiplicative
error plus a pair of ghost images (in each dimension) in the simulated image.
Standard Lanczos or cubic interpolators, when applied in Fourier domain,
produce unacceptable artifacts. We find that errors $<1$ part in $10^3$ can be
obtained by (1) 4-fold zero-padding of the original image before executing the
$x\rightarrow u$ DFT, followed by (2) resampling to the desired $u$ grid using
a 6-point, piecewise-quintic interpolant that we design expressly to minimize
the ghosts, then (3) executing the DFT back to $x$ domain.


title:
Commensurate-incommensurate transition for graphene on hexagonal boron
  nitride

abstract:
  When a crystal is subjected to a periodic potential, under certain
circumstances (such as when the period of the potential is close to the crystal
periodicity; the potential is strong enough, etc.) it might adjust itself to
follow the periodicity of the potential, resulting in a, so called,
commensurate state. Such commensurate-incommensurate transitions are ubiquitous
phenomena in many areas of condensed matter physics: from magnetism and
dislocations in crystals, to vortices in superconductors, and atomic layers
adsorbed on a crystalline surface. Of particular interest might be the
properties of topological defects between the two commensurate phases:
solitons, domain walls, and dislocation walls. Here we report a
commensurate-incommensurate transition for graphene on top of hexagonal boron
nitride (hBN). Depending on the rotational angle between the two hexagonal
lattices, graphene can either stretch to adjust to a slightly different hBN
periodicity (the commensurate state found for small rotational angles) or
exhibit little adjustment (the incommensurate state). In the commensurate
state, areas with matching lattice constants are separated by domain walls that
accumulate the resulting strain. Such soliton-like objects present significant
fundamental interest, and their presence might explain recent observations when
the electronic, optical, Raman and other properties of graphene-hBN
heterostructures have been notably altered.


title: Conical limit points and the Cannon-Thurston map

abstract:
  Let $G$ be a non-elementary word-hyperbolic group acting as a convergence
group on a compact metrizable space $Z$ so that there exists a continuous
$G$-equivariant map $i:\partial G\to Z$, which we call a \emph{Cannon-Thurston
map}. We obtain two characterzations (a dynamical one and a geometric one) of
conical limit points in $Z$ in terms of their pre-images under the
Cannon-Thurston map $i$. As an application we prove, under the extra assumption
that the action of $G$ on $Z$ has no accidental parabolics, that if the map $i$
is not injective then there exists a non-conical limit point $z\in Z$ with
$|i^{-1}(z)|=1$. This result applies to most natural contexts where the
Cannon-Thurston map is known to exist, including subgroups of word-hyperbolic
groups and Kleinian representations of surface groups. As another application,
we prove that if $G$ is a non-elementary torsion-free word-hyperbolic group
then there exists $x\in \partial G$ such that $x$ is not a "controlled
concentration point" for the action of $G$ on $\partial G$.


title: A Review of Alexander Isaev's Spherical Tube Hypersurfaces

abstract:
  As this is for the Bulletin of the A.M.S., it is not only a review of
Alexander Isaev's Spherical Tube Hypersurfaces but also a brief introduction to
CR geometry.


title:
Universal clustering structure and C~0.85 scaling in complex earthquake
  networks

abstract:
  Earthquake network captures the complexity of seismicity in a peculiar
manner. Given a seismic data, the procedure of constructing an earthquake
network proposed in [S. Abe, N, Suzuki, Europhys. Lett. 65 (2004) 581] contains
as a single parameter the size of the cells, into which a geographical region
under consideration is divided. Then, the characteristics of the network depend
on the cell size, in general. Here, the dependency of the clustering
coefficient, C, of network on the cell size is studied. Remarkably, C of the
earthquake networks constructed from the seismic data taken from California,
Japan and Iran well coincide for each value of the rescaled dimensionless cell
size. It is found that the networks in California and Japan are
three-dimensional, whereas the one in Iran is rather two-dimensional. In
addition, the values of C of all these three networks monotonically converge to
C~0.85 as the dimensionless cell size becomes larger than a common value,
highlighting a universal aspect of the concept of earthquake network. An
implication of the result to understanding the physics of seismicity is
discussed.


title:
Towards a Generic Framework for the Development of Unicode Based Digital
  Sindhi Dictionaries

abstract:
  Dictionaries are essence of any language providing vital linguistic recourse
for the language learners, researchers and scholars. This paper focuses on the
methodology and techniques used in developing software architecture for a
UBSESD (Unicode Based Sindhi to English and English to Sindhi Dictionary). The
proposed system provides an accurate solution for construction and
representation of Unicode based Sindhi characters in a dictionary implementing
Hash Structure algorithm and a custom java Object as its internal data
structure saved in a file. The System provides facilities for Insertion,
Deletion and Editing of new records of Sindhi. Through this framework any type
of Sindhi to English and English to Sindhi Dictionary (belonging to different
domains of knowledge, e.g. engineering, medicine, computer, biology etc.) could
be developed easily with accurate representation of Unicode Characters in font
independent manner.


title:
Hierarchical modelling of faecal egg counts to assess anthelmintic
  efficacy

abstract:
  Counting the number of parasite eggs in faecal samples is a widely used
diagnostic method to evaluate parasite burden. Typically a sub-sample of the
diluted faeces is examined for eggs. The resulting egg counts are multiplied by
a specific correction factor to estimate the mean parasite burden. To detect
anthelmintic resistance, the mean parasite burden from treated and untreated
animals are compared. However, this standard method has some limitations. In
particular, the analysis of repeated samples may produce quite variable results
as the sampling variability due to the counting technique is ignored. We
propose a hierarchical model that takes this sampling variability as well as
between-animal variation into account. Bayesian inference is done via Markov
chain Monte Carlo sampling. The performance of the hierarchical model is
illustrated by a re-analysis of faecal egg count data from a Swedish study
assessing the anthelmintic resistance of nematode parasite in sheep. A
simulation study shows that the hierarchical model provides better
classification of anthelmintic resistance compared to the standard method.


title: On the physical consequences of a Weyl invariant theory of gravity

abstract:
  In this paper we explore the physical consequences of assuming Weyl
invariance of the laws of gravity from the classical standpoint exclusively.
Actual Weyl invariance requires to replace the underlying Riemannian
geometrical structure of the background spacetimes by Weyl integrable geometry
(WIG). We show that gauge freedom, a distinctive feature of Weyl invariant
theories of gravity, leads to very unusual consequences. For instance, within
the cosmological setting in a WIG-based conformal invariant gravity theory,
also known as conformal general relativity (CGR), a static universe is
physically equivalent to a universe undergoing de Sitter expansion. It happens
also that spherically symmetric black holes are physically equivalent to
singularity-free wormholes. Another outstanding consequence of gauge freedom in
the framework of CGR is that inflation is not required to explain the flatness,
horizon and relict particle abundances, among other puzzles that arise in
standard GR-based cosmology. Besides, the cosmological constant and the mass
hierarchy problems do not arise neither in this setup.


title: Some Historical Aspects of Error Calculus by Dirichlet Forms

abstract:
  We discuss the main stages of development of the error calculation since the
beginning of XIX-th century by insisting on what prefigures the use of
Dirichlet forms and emphasizing the mathematical properties that make the use
of Dirichlet forms more relevant and efficient. The purpose of the paper is
mainly to clarify the concepts. We also indicate some possible future research.


title: A Note On Multi Poly-Euler Numbers And Bernoulli Polynomials

abstract:
  In this paper we introduce the generalization of Multi Poly-Euler polynomials
and we investigate some relationship involving Multi Poly-Euler polynomials.
Obtaining a closed formula for generalization of Multi Poly-Euler numbers
therefore seems to be a natural and important problem.


title: Long-time behavior for a class of Feller processes

abstract:
  In this paper, as a main result, we derive a Chung-Fuchs type condition for
the recurrence of Feller processes associated with pseudo-differential
operators. In the L\'evy process case, this condition reduces to the classical
and well-known Chung-Fuchs condition. Further, we also discuss the recurrence
and transience of Feller processes with respect to the dimension of the state
space and Pruitt indices and the recurrence and transience of Feller-Dynkin
diffusions and stable-like processes. Finally, in the one-dimensional symmetric
case, we study perturbations of Feller processes which do not affect their
recurrence and transience properties, and we derive sufficient conditions for
their recurrence and transience in terms of the corresponding L\'evy measure.
In addition, some comparison conditions for recurrence and transience also in
terms of the L\'evy measures are obtained.


title:
The Unreasonable Success of Quantum Probability I: Quantum Measurements
  as Uniform Fluctuations

abstract:
  We introduce a 'uniform tension-reduction' (UTR) model, which allows to
represent the probabilities associated with an arbitrary measurement situation
and use it to explain the emergence of quantum probabilities (the Born rule) as
'uniform' fluctuations on this measurement situation. The model exploits the
geometry of simplexes to represent the states, in a way that the measurement
probabilities can be derived as the 'Lebesgue measure' of suitably defined
convex subregions of the simplexes. We consider a very simple and evocative
physical realization of the abstract model, using a material point particle
which is acted upon by elastic membranes, which by breaking and collapsing
produce the different possible outcomes. This easy to visualize mechanical
realization allows one to gain considerable insight into the possible hidden
structure of an arbitrary measurement process. We also show that the UTR-model
can be further generalized into a 'general tension-reduction' (GTR) model,
describing conditions of lack of knowledge generated by 'non-uniform'
fluctuations. In this ampler framework, particularly suitable to describe
experiments in cognitive science, we define and motivate a notion of 'universal
measurement', describing the most general possible condition of lack of
knowledge in a measurement, emphasizing that the uniform fluctuations
characterizing quantum measurements can also be understood as an average over
all possible forms of non-uniform fluctuations which can be actualized in a
measurement context. This means that the Born rule of quantum mechanics can be
understood as a first order approximation of a more general non-uniform theory,
thus explaining part of the great success of quantum probability in the
description of different domains of reality. This is the first part of a
two-part article.


title: The membership problem for 3-manifold groups is solvable

abstract:
  We show that the Membership Problem for finitely generated subgroups of
3-manifold groups is solvable.


title: Personalised Medicine: Taking a New Look at the Patient

abstract:
  Personalised medicine strives to identify the right treatment for the right
patient at the right time, integrating different types of biological and
environmental information. Such information come from a variety of sources:
omics data (genomic, proteomic, metabolomic, etc.), live molecular diagnostics,
and other established diagnostics routinely used by medical doctors.
Integrating these different kinds of data, which are all high-dimensional,
presents significant challenges in knowledge representation and subsequent
reasoning. The ultimate goal of such a modelling effort is to elucidate the
flow of information that links genes, protein signalling and other
physiological responses to external stimuli such as environmental conditions or
the progress of a disease.


title:
The Unreasonable Success of Quantum Probability II: Quantum Measurements
  as Universal Measurements

abstract:
  In the first part of this two-part article, we have introduced and analyzed a
multidimensional model, called the 'general tension-reduction' (GTR) model,
able to describe general quantum-like measurements with an arbitrary number of
outcomes, and we have used it as a general theoretical framework to study the
most general possible condition of lack of knowledge in a measurement, so
defining what we have called a 'universal measurement'. In this second part, we
present the formal proof that universal measurements, which are averages over
all possible forms of fluctuations, produce the same probabilities as
measurements characterized by 'uniform' fluctuations on the measurement
situation. Since quantum probabilities can be shown to arise from the presence
of such uniform fluctuations, we have proven that they can be interpreted as
the probabilities of a first-order non-classical theory, describing situations
in which the experimenter lacks complete knowledge about the nature of the
interaction between the measuring apparatus and the entity under investigation.
This same explanation can be applied -- mutatis mutandis -- to the case of
cognitive measurements, made by human subjects on conceptual entities, or in
decision processes, although it is not necessarily the case that the structure
of the set of states would be in this case strictly Hilbertian. We also show
that universal measurements correspond to maximally 'robust' descriptions of
indeterministic reproducible experiments, and since quantum measurements can
also be shown to be maximally robust, this adds plausibility to their
interpretation as universal measurements, and provides a further element of
explanation for the great success of the quantum statistics in the description
of a large class of phenomena.


title: An Overview of Schema Theory

abstract:
  The purpose of this paper is to give an introduction to the field of Schema
Theory written by a mathematician and for mathematicians. In particular, we
endeavor to to highlight areas of the field which might be of interest to a
mathematician, to point out some related open problems, and to suggest some
large-scale projects. Schema theory seeks to give a theoretical justification
for the efficacy of the field of genetic algorithms, so readers who have
studied genetic algorithms stand to gain the most from this paper. However,
nothing beyond basic probability theory is assumed of the reader, and for this
reason we write in a fairly informal style.
  Because the mathematics behind the theorems in schema theory is relatively
elementary, we focus more on the motivation and philosophy. Many of these
results have been proven elsewhere, so this paper is designed to serve a
primarily expository role. We attempt to cast known results in a new light,
which makes the suggested future directions natural. This involves devoting a
substantial amount of time to the history of the field.
  We hope that this exposition will entice some mathematicians to do research
in this area, that it will serve as a road map for researchers new to the
field, and that it will help explain how schema theory developed. Furthermore,
we hope that the results collected in this document will serve as a useful
reference. Finally, as far as the author knows, the questions raised in the
final section are new.


title: Localization and Entanglement in Relativistic Quantum Physics

abstract:
  The combination of quantum theory and special relativity leads to structures
that differ in several respects from non-relativistic quantum mechanics of
particles. These differences are quite familiar to practitioners of Algebraic
Quantum Field Theory but less well known outside this community. The paper is
intended as a concise survey of some selected aspects of relativistic quantum
physics, in particular regarding localization and entanglement.


title: Equivariant absolute extensor property on hyperspaces of convex sets

abstract:
  Let G be a compact group acting on a Banach space L by means of linear
isometries. The action of G on L induces a natural continuous action on cc(L),
the hyperspace of all compact convex subsets of L endowed with the Hausdorff
metric topology. The main result of this paper states that the G-space cc(L) is
a G-AE. Under some extra assumptions, this result can be extended to CB(L), the
hyperspace of all closed and bounded convex subsets of L.


title:
Limits on TMD Evolution From Semi-Inclusive Deep Inelastic Scattering at
  Moderate $Q$

abstract:
  In the QCD evolution of transverse momentum dependent parton distribution and
fragmentation functions, the Collins-Soper evolution kernel includes both a
perturbative short-distance contribution as well as a large-distance
non-perturbative, but strongly universal, contribution. In the past, global
fits, based mainly on larger $Q$ Drell-Yan-like processes, have found
substantial contributions from non-perturbative regions in the Collins-Soper
evolution kernel. In this article, we investigate semi-inclusive deep inelastic
scattering measurements in the region of relatively small $Q$, of the order of
a few GeV, where sensitivity to non-perturbative transverse momentum dependence
may become more important or even dominate the evolution. Using recently
available deep inelastic scattering data from the COMPASS experiment, we
provide estimates of the regions of coordinate space that dominate in TMD
processes when the hard scale is of the order of only a few GeV. We find that
distance scales that are much larger than those commonly probed in large $Q$
measurements become important, suggesting that the details of non-perturbative
effects in TMD evolution are especially significant in the region of
intermediate $Q$. We highlight the strongly universal nature of the
non-perturbative component of evolution, and its potential to be tightly
constrained by fits from a wide variety of observables that include both large
and moderate $Q$. On this basis, we recommend detailed treatments of the
non-perturbative component of the Collins-Soper evolution kernel for future TMD
studies.


title: Serfati solutions to the 2D Euler equations on exterior domains

abstract:
  We prove existence and uniqueness of a weak solution to the incompressible 2D
Euler equations in the exterior of a bounded smooth obstacle when the initial
data is a bounded divergence-free velocity field having bounded scalar curl.
This work completes and extends the ideas outlined by P. Serfati for the same
problem in the whole-plane case. With non-decaying vorticity, the Biot-Savart
integral does not converge, and thus velocity cannot be reconstructed from
vorticity in a straightforward way. The key to circumventing this difficulty is
the use of the Serfati identity, which is based on the Biot-Savart integral,
but holds in more general settings.


title: Linear Perturbation constraints on Multi-coupled Dark Energy

abstract:
  The Multi-coupled Dark Energy (McDE) scenario has been recently proposed as a
specific example of a cosmological model characterized by a non-standard
physics of the dark sector of the universe that nevertheless gives an expansion
history which does not significantly differ from the one of the standard
$\Lambda $CDM model. In this work, we present the first constraints on the McDE
scenario obtained by comparing the predicted evolution of linear density
perturbations with a large compilation of recent data sets for the growth rate
$f\sigma_{8}$, including 6dFGS, LRG, BOSS, WiggleZ and VIPERS. Confirming
qualitative expectations, growth rate data provide much tighter bounds on the
model parameters as compared to the extremely loose bounds that can be obtained
when only the background expansion history is considered. In particular, the
$95\%$ confidence level on the coupling strength $|\beta |$ is reduced from
$|\beta |\leq 83$ (background constraints only) to $|\beta |\leq 0.88$
(background and linear perturbation constraints). We also investigate how these
constraints further improve when using data from future wide-field surveys such
as supernova data from LSST and growth rate data from Euclid-type missions. In
this case the $95\%$ confidence level on the coupling further reduce to $|\beta
|\leq 0.85$. Such constraints are in any case still consistent with a scalar
fifth-force of gravitational strength, and we foresee that tighter bounds might
be possibly obtained from the investigation of nonlinear structure formation in
McDE cosmologies.[Abridged]


title:
The Missing Ones: Key Ingredients Towards Effective Ambient Assisted
  Living Systems

abstract:
  The population of elderly people keeps increasing rapidly, which becomes a
predominant aspect of our societies. As such, solutions both efficacious and
cost-effective need to be sought. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a new
approach which promises to address the needs from elderly people. In this
paper, we claim that human participation is a key ingredient towards effective
AAL systems, which not only saves social resources, but also has positive
relapses on the psychological health of the elderly people. Challenges in
increasing the human participation in ambient assisted living are discussed in
this paper and solutions to meet those challenges are also proposed. We use our
proposed mutual assistance community, which is built with service oriented
approach, as an example to demonstrate how to integrate human tasks in AAL
systems. Our preliminary simulation results are presented, which support the
effectiveness of human participation.


title:
Why Lead Methylammonium tri-IODIDE perovskite-based solar cells requires
  a mesoporous electron transporting scaffold (but not necessarily a hole
  conductor)

abstract:
  CH3NH3PbI3-based solar cells were characterized with electron beam-induced
current (EBIC), and compared to CH3NH3PbI3-xClx ones. A spatial map of charge
separation efficiency in working cells shows p-i-n structures for both thin
film cells. Effective diffusion lengths, LD, (from EBIC profile) show that
holes are extracted significantly more efficiently than electrons in
CH3NH3PbI3, explaining why CH3NH3PbI3-based cells require mesoporous electron
conductors, while CH3NH3PbI3-xClx ones, where LD values are comparable for both
charge types, do not.


title: A combinatorial proof on partition function parity

abstract:
  One of the most basic results concerning the number-theoretic properties of
the partition function $p(n)$ is that $p(n)$ takes each value of parity
infinitely often. This statement was first proved by Kolberg in 1959, and it
was strengthened by Subbarao in 1966 to say that both $p(2n)$ and $p(2n+1)$
take each value of parity infinitely often. These results have received several
other proofs, each relying to some extent on manipulating generating functions.
We give a new, self-contained proof of Subbarao's result by constructing a
series of bijections and involutions, along the way getting a more general
theorem concerning the enumeration of a special subset of integer partitions.


title:
The straight line, the catenary, the brachistochrone, the circle, and
  Fermat

abstract:
  This paper shows that the well-known curve optimization problems which lead
to the straight line, the catenary curve, the brachistochrone, and the circle,
can all be handled using a unified formalism. Furthermore, from the general
differential equation fulfilled by these geodesics, we can guess additional
functions and the required metric. The parabola, for example, is a geodesic
under a metric guessed in this way. Numerical solutions are found for the
curves corresponding to geodesics in the various metrics using a ray-tracing
approach based on Fermat's principle.


title: Irreducible bimodules over alternative algebras and superalgebras

abstract:
  The irreducible alternative superbimodules are studied. The complete
classification is obtained for even bimodules of arbitrary dimension and for
finite-dimensional irreducible superbimodules over an algebraically closed
field.


title: Directed Width Parameters and Circumference of Digraphs

abstract:
  We prove that the directed treewidth, DAG-width and Kelly-width of a digraph
are bounded above by its circumference plus one.


title: Dictionary-Based Concept Mining: An Application for Turkish

abstract:
  In this study, a dictionary-based method is used to extract expressive
concepts from documents. So far, there have been many studies concerning
concept mining in English, but this area of study for Turkish, an agglutinative
language, is still immature. We used dictionary instead of WordNet, a lexical
database grouping words into synsets that is widely used for concept
extraction. The dictionaries are rarely used in the domain of concept mining,
but taking into account that dictionary entries have synonyms, hypernyms,
hyponyms and other relationships in their meaning texts, the success rate has
been high for determining concepts. This concept extraction method is
implemented on documents, that are collected from different corpora.


title: Sign changing solution of the hardy-sobolev-maz'ya equation

abstract:
  In this article we will study the existence, multiplicity and Morse index of
sign changing solutions for the Hardy-Sobolev-Maz'ya(HSM) equation in bounded
domain and involving critical growth. We obtain infinitely many sign changing
solutions for HSM equation. We also establish an estimate on the Morse index
for the sign changing solutions.


title: Perfect Reeb flows and action-index relations

abstract:
  We study non-degenerate Reeb flows arising from perfect contact forms, i.e.,
the forms with vanishing contact homology differential. In particular, we
obtain upper bounds on the number of simple closed Reeb orbits for such forms
on a variety of contact manifolds and certain action-index resonance relations
for the standard contact sphere. Using these results, we reprove a theorem due
to Bourgeois, Cieliebak and Ekholm characterizing perfect Reeb flows on the
standard contact three-sphere as non-degenerate Reeb flows with exactly two
simple closed orbits.


title:
Classification of Solutions to a Critically Nonlinear System of Elliptic
  Equations on Euclidean Half-Space

abstract:
  For $N\geq 3$ and non-negative real numbers $a_{ij}$ and $b_{ij}$ ($i,j= 1,
\cdots, m$), the semi-linear elliptic system
  \begin{equation*}
  \begin{cases}
  \Delta u_i + \prod_{j = 1}^m u_j^{a_{ij}} = 0
  &
  \text{ in } \mathbb R_+^N,
  \frac{\partial u_i}{\partial y_N}
  = c_i \prod_{j = 1}^m u_j^{b_{ij}}
  &
  \text{ on } \partial \mathbb R_+^N
  \end{cases}
  \qquad i = 1, \cdots, m \end{equation*} % is considered, where $\mathbb
R_+^N$ is the upper half of $N$-dimensional Euclidean space. Under suitable
assumptions on the exponents $a_{ij}$ and $b_{ij}$, a classification theorem
for the positive $C^2(\mathbb R_+^N)\cap C^1(\overline{\mathbb
R_+^N})$-solutions of this system is proven.


title:
Static detectors and circular-geodesic detectors on the Schwarzschild
  black hole

abstract:
  We examine the response of an Unruh-DeWitt particle detector coupled to a
massless scalar field on the (3+1)-dimensional Schwarzschild spacetime, in the
Boulware, Hartle-Hawking and Unruh states, for static detectors and detectors
on circular geodesics, by primarily numerical methods. For the static detector,
the response in the Hartle-Hawking state exhibits the known thermality at the
local Hawking temperature, and the response in the Unruh state is thermal at
the local Hawking temperature in the limit of a large detector energy gap. For
the circular-geodesic detector, we find evidence of thermality in the limit of
a large energy gap for the Hartle-Hawking and Unruh states, at a temperature
that exceeds the Doppler-shifted local Hawing temperature. Detailed
quantitative comparisons between the three states are given. The response in
the Hartle-Hawking state is compared with the response in the Minkowski vacuum
and in the Minkowski thermal state for the corresponding Rindler, drifted
Rindler, and circularly accelerated trajectories. The analysis takes place
within first-order perturbation theory and relies in an essential way on
stationarity.


title:
MRFalign: Protein Homology Detection through Alignment of Markov Random
  Fields

abstract:
  Sequence-based protein homology detection has been extensively studied and so
far the most sensitive method is based upon comparison of protein sequence
profiles, which are derived from multiple sequence alignment (MSA) of sequence
homologs in a protein family. A sequence profile is usually represented as a
position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM) or an HMM (Hidden Markov Model) and
accordingly PSSM-PSSM or HMM-HMM comparison is used for homolog detection. This
paper presents a new homology detection method MRFalign, consisting of three
key components: 1) a Markov Random Fields (MRF) representation of a protein
family; 2) a scoring function measuring similarity of two MRFs; and 3) an
efficient ADMM (Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers) algorithm aligning
two MRFs. Compared to HMM that can only model very short-range residue
correlation, MRFs can model long-range residue interaction pattern and thus,
encode information for the global 3D structure of a protein family.
Consequently, MRF-MRF comparison for remote homology detection shall be much
more sensitive than HMM-HMM or PSSM-PSSM comparison. Experiments confirm that
MRFalign outperforms several popular HMM or PSSM-based methods in terms of both
alignment accuracy and remote homology detection and that MRFalign works
particularly well for mainly beta proteins. For example, tested on the
benchmark SCOP40 (8353 proteins) for homology detection, PSSM-PSSM and HMM-HMM
succeed on 48% and 52% of proteins, respectively, at superfamily level, and on
15% and 27% of proteins, respectively, at fold level. In contrast, MRFalign
succeeds on 57.3% and 42.5% of proteins at superfamily and fold level,
respectively. This study implies that long-range residue interaction patterns
are very helpful for sequence-based homology detection. The software is
available for download at http://raptorx.uchicago.edu/download/.


title: On-line vertex ranking of trees

abstract:
  A $k$-ranking of a graph $G$ is a labeling of its vertices from
$\{1,\ldots,k\}$ such that any nontrivial path whose endpoints have the same
label contains a larger label. The least $k$ for which $G$ has a $k$-ranking is
the ranking number of $G$, also known as tree-depth. Applications of rankings
include VLSI design, parallel computing, and factory scheduling. The on-line
ranking problem asks for an algorithm to rank the vertices of $G$ as they are
presented one at a time along with all previously ranked vertices and the edges
between them (so each vertex is presented as the lone unranked vertex in a
partially labeled induced subgraph of $G$ whose final placement in $G$ is not
specified). The on-line ranking number of $G$ is the minimum over all such
algorithms of the largest label that algorithm can be forced to use. We give
bounds on the on-line ranking number of trees in terms of maximum degree,
diameter, and number of interior vertices.


title: An absolute Z/2 grading on bordered Heegaard Floer homology

abstract:
  Bordered Heegaard Floer homology is an invariant for 3-manifolds, which
associates to a surface F an algebra A(F), and to a 3-manifold Y with boundary,
together with an orientation-preserving diffeomorphism from F to the boundary
of Y, a module over A(F). In a previous paper, we defined relative Z/2
differential gradings on the algebra A(F) and the modules over it. In this
paper, we turn the relative grading into an absolute one, and show that the
resulting Z/2-graded module is an invariant of the bordered 3-manifold.


title: Topological Superconducting Phases of Weakly Coupled Quantum Wires

abstract:
  An array of quantum wires is a natural starting point in realizing
two-dimensional topological phases. We study a system of weakly coupled quantum
wires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, proximity coupled to a conventional
s-wave superconductor. A variety of topological phases are found in this model.
These phases are characterized by "Strong" and "Weak" topological invariants,
that capture the appearance of mid-gap Majorana modes (either chiral or
non-chiral) on edges along and perpendicular to the wires. In particular, a
phase with a single chiral Majorana edge mode (analogous to a $p+ip$
superconductor) can be realized. At special values of the magnetic field and
chemical potential, this edge mode is almost completely localized at the
outmost wires. In addition, a phase with two co-propagating chiral edge modes
is observed. We also consider ways to distinguish experimentally between the
different phases in tunneling experiments.


title: On a Duality Between Recoverable Distributed Storage and Index Coding

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce a model of a single-failure locally recoverable
distributed storage system. This model appears to give rise to a problem
seemingly dual of the well-studied index coding problem. The relation between
the dimensions of an optimal index code and optimal distributed storage code of
our model has been established in this paper. We also show some extensions to
vector codes.


title: Scattering theory of topological phases in discrete-time quantum walks

abstract:
  One-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks show a rich spectrum of
topological phases that have so far been exclusively analysed in momentum
space. In this work we introduce an alternative approach to topology which is
based on the scattering matrix of a quantum walk, adapting concepts from
time-independent systems. For gapped quantum walks, topological invariants at
quasienergies 0 and {\pi} probe directly the existence of protected boundary
states, while quantum walks with a non-trivial quasienergy winding have a
discrete number of perfectly transmistting unidirectional modes. Our
classification provides a unified framework that includes all known types of
topology in one dimensional discrete-time quantum walks and is very well suited
for the analysis of finite size and disorder effects. We provide a simple
scheme to directly measure the topological invariants in an optical quantum
walk experiment.


title:
Sub-nanometer resolution in three-dimensional magnetic-resonance imaging
  of individual dark spins

abstract:
  Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has revolutionized biomedical science by
providing non-invasive, three-dimensional biological imaging. However, spatial
resolution in conventional MRI systems is limited to tens of microns, which is
insufficient for imaging on molecular and atomic scales. Here we demonstrate an
MRI technique that provides sub-nanometer spatial resolution in three
dimensions, with single electron-spin sensitivity. Our imaging method works
under ambient conditions and can measure ubiquitous 'dark' spins, which
constitute nearly all spin targets of interest and cannot otherwise be
individually detected. In this technique, the magnetic quantum-projection noise
of dark spins is measured using a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) magnetometer
located near the surface of a diamond chip. The spatial distribution of spins
surrounding the NV magnetometer is imaged with a scanning magnetic-field
gradient. To evaluate the performance of the NV-MRI technique, we image the
three-dimensional landscape of dark electronic spins at and just below the
diamond surface and achieve an unprecedented combination of resolution (0.8 nm
laterally and 1.5 nm vertically) and single-spin sensitivity. Our measurements
uncover previously unidentified electronic spins on the diamond surface, which
can potentially be used as resources for improved magnetic imaging of samples
proximal to the NV-diamond sensor. This three-dimensional NV-MRI technique is
immediately applicable to diverse systems including imaging spin chains,
readout of individual spin-based quantum bits, and determining the precise
location of spin labels in biological systems.


title: Werner's Measure on Self-Avoiding Loops and Welding

abstract:
  Werner's conformally invariant family of measures on self-avoiding loops on
Riemann surfaces is determined by a single measure $\mu_0$ on self-avoiding
loops in ${\mathbb C} \setminus\{0\}$ which surround $0$. Our first major
objective is to show that the measure $\mu_0$ is infinitesimally invariant with
respect to conformal vector fields (essentially the Virasoro algebra of
conformal field theory). This makes essential use of classical variational
formulas of Duren and Schiffer, which we recast in representation theoretic
terms for efficient computation. We secondly show how these formulas can be
used to calculate (in principle, and sometimes explicitly) quantities (such as
moments for coefficients of univalent functions) associated to the conformal
welding for a self-avoiding loop. This gives an alternate proof of the
uniqueness of Werner's measure. We also attempt to use these variational
formulas to derive a differential equation for the (Laplace transform of) the
"diagonal distribution" for the conformal welding associated to a loop; this
generalizes in a suggestive way to a deformation of Werner's measure
conjectured to exist by Kontsevich and Suhov (a basic inspiration for this
paper).


title:
Lectures on mathematical aspects of (twisted) supersymmetric gauge
  theories

abstract:
  Supersymmetric gauge theories have played a central role in applications of
quantum field theory to mathematics. Topologically twisted supersymmetric gauge
theories often admit a rigorous mathematical description: for example, the
Donaldson invariants of a 4-manifold can be interpreted as the correlation
functions of a topologically twisted N=2 gauge theory. The aim of these
lectures is to describe a mathematical formulation of partially-twisted
supersymmetric gauge theories (in perturbation theory). These partially twisted
theories are intermediate in complexity between the physical theory and the
topologically twisted theories. Moreover, we will sketch how the operators of
such a theory form a two complex dimensional analog of a vertex algebra.
Finally, we will consider a deformation of the N=1 theory and discuss its
relation to the Yangian, as explained in arXiv:1308.0370 and arXiv:1303.2632.


title: Garside-theoretic analysis of Burau representations

abstract:
  We establish relations between both the classical and the dual Garside
structures of the braid group and the Burau representation. Using the classical
structure, we formulate a non-vanishing criterion for the Burau representation
of the 4-strand braid group. In the dual context, it is shown that the Burau
representation for arbitrary braid index is injective when restricted to the
set of \emph{simply-nested braids}.


title: Inference in High Dimensions with the Penalized Score Test

abstract:
  In recent years, there has been considerable theoretical development
regarding variable selection consistency of penalized regression techniques,
such as the lasso. However, there has been relatively little work on
quantifying the uncertainty in these selection procedures. In this paper, we
propose a new method for inference in high dimensions using a score test based
on penalized regression. In this test, we perform penalized regression of an
outcome on all but a single feature, and test for correlation of the residuals
with the held-out feature. This procedure is applied to each feature in turn.
Interestingly, when an $\ell_1$ penalty is used, the sparsity pattern of the
lasso corresponds exactly to a decision based on the proposed test. Further,
when an $\ell_2$ penalty is used, the test corresponds precisely to a score
test in a mixed effects model, in which the effects of all but one feature are
assumed to be random. We formulate the hypothesis being tested as a compromise
between the null hypotheses tested in simple linear regression on each feature
and in multiple linear regression on all features, and develop reference
distributions for some well-known penalties. We also examine the behavior of
the test on real and simulated data.


title:
Oscillatory Properties of Solutions of the Fourth Order Difference
  Equations with Quasidifferences

abstract:
  A class of fourth--order neutral type difference equations with
quasidifferences and deviating arguments is considered. Our approach is based
on studying the considered equation as a system of a four--dimensional
difference system. The sufficient conditions under which the considered
equation has no quickly oscillatory solutions are given.


title: Spectra of Composition Operators with Symbols in S(2)

abstract:
  Let H^2(D) denote the classical Hardy space of the open unit disk D in the
complex plane. We obtain descriptions of both the spectrum and essential
spectrum of composition operators on H^2(D) whose symbols belong to the class
S(2) introduced by Kriete and Moorhouse [Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., 359, 2007].
Our work reveals new possibilities for the shapes of composition-operator
spectra, settling a conjecture of Cowen's [J. Operator Th. 9, 1983]. Our
results depend on a number of lemmas, perhaps of independent interest, that
provide spectral characterizations of sums of elements of a unital algebra over
a field when certain pairwise products of the summands are zero.


title: Countable locally 2-arc-transitive bipartite graphs

abstract:
  We present an order-theoretic approach to the study of countably infinite
locally 2-arc-transitive bipartite graphs. Our approach is motivated by
techniques developed by Warren and others during the study of cycle-free
partial orders. We give several new families of previously unknown countably
infinite locally-2-arc-transitive graphs, each family containing continuum many
members. These examples are obtained by gluing together copies of incidence
graphs of semilinear spaces, satisfying a certain symmetry property, in a
tree-like way. In one case we show how the classification problem for that
family relates to the problem of determining a certain family of highly
arc-transitive digraphs. Numerous illustrative examples are given.


title:
Modeling delay in genetic networks: From delay birth-death processes to
  delay stochastic differential equations

abstract:
  Delay is an important and ubiquitous aspect of many biochemical processes.
For example, delay plays a central role in the dynamics of genetic regulatory
networks as it stems from the sequential assembly of first mRNA and then
protein. Genetic regulatory networks are therefore frequently modeled as
stochastic birth-death processes with delay. Here we examine the relationship
between delay birth-death processes and their appropriate approximating delay
chemical Langevin equations. We prove that the distance between these two
descriptions, as measured by expectations of functionals of the processes,
converges to zero with increasing system size. Further, we prove that the delay
birth-death process converges to the thermodynamic limit as system size tends
to infinity. Our results hold for both fixed delay and distributed delay.
Simulations demonstrate that the delay chemical Langevin approximation is
accurate even at moderate system sizes. It captures dynamical features such as
the spatial and temporal distributions of transition pathways in metastable
systems, oscillatory behavior in negative feedback circuits, and
cross-correlations between nodes in a network. Overall, these results provide a
foundation for using delay stochastic differential equations to approximate the
dynamics of birth-death processes with delay.


title: Thinking outside the box: fluctuations and finite size effects

abstract:
  The isothermal compressibility of an interacting or non interacting system
may be extracted from the fluctuations of the number of particles in a well
chosen control volume. Finite size effects are prevalent and should then be
accounted for to obtain a meaningful, thermodynamic compressibility. In the
traditional computational setup where a given simulation box is replicated with
periodic boundary conditions, we study particle number fluctuations outside the
box (i.e. when the control volume exceeds the box itself), which bear relevant
thermodynamic information. We also investigate the related problem of
extracting the compressibility from the structure factor in the small
wave-vector limit ($k\to 0$). The calculation should be restricted to the
discrete set of wave-vectors $k$ that are compatible with the periodicity of
the system, and we assess the consequences of considering other $k$ values, a
widespread error among beginners.


title:
Improving Quality of Clustering using Cellular Automata for Information
  retrieval

abstract:
  Clustering has been widely applied to Information Retrieval (IR) on the
grounds of its potential improved effectiveness over inverted file search.
Clustering is a mostly unsupervised procedure and the majority of the
clustering algorithms depend on certain assumptions in order to define the
subgroups present in a data set .A clustering quality measure is a function
that, given a data set and its partition into clusters, returns a non-negative
real number representing the quality of that clustering. Moreover, they may
behave in a different way depending on the features of the data set and their
input parameters values. Therefore, in most applications the resulting
clustering scheme requires some sort of evaluation as regards its validity. The
quality of clustering can be enhanced by using a Cellular Automata Classifier
for information retrieval. In this study we take the view that if cellular
automata with clustering is applied to search results (query-specific
clustering), then it has the potential to increase the retrieval effectiveness
compared both to that of static clustering and of conventional inverted file
search. We conducted a number of experiments using ten document collections and
eight hierarchic clustering methods. Our results show that the effectiveness of
query-specific clustering with cellular automata is indeed higher and suggest
that there is scope for its application to IR.


title: Flavor physics with $\Lambda_b$ baryons

abstract:
  At the LHC, bottom baryons are being produced in unprecedented quantities,
which opens up a new field for flavor physics. For example, the decay
$\Lambda_b \to p \mu^- \bar{\nu}$ can be used to obtain a novel determination
of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$, and the decay $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda
\mu^+ \mu^-$ probes the weak interactions at the loop level. The first lattice
calculations of the relevant $\Lambda_b \to p$ and $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda$ form
factors have recently been performed using domain-wall light quarks and static
$b$ quarks. To further reduce the theoretical uncertainty, one has to go beyond
the static approximation. Here I present new calculations of $\Lambda_b \to p$,
$\Lambda_b \to \Lambda$, and $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c$ form factors using a
relativistic heavy-quark action.


title:
A parameterless scale-space approach to find meaningful modes in
  histograms - Application to image and spectrum segmentation

abstract:
  In this paper, we present an algorithm to automatically detect meaningful
modes in a histogram. The proposed method is based on the behavior of local
minima in a scale-space representation. We show that the detection of such
meaningful modes is equivalent in a two classes clustering problem on the
length of minima scale-space curves. The algorithm is easy to implement, fast,
and does not require any parameters. We present several results on histogram
and spectrum segmentation, grayscale image segmentation and color image
reduction.


title:
Microcanonical quantum cosmology: gauge fixing and functional
  determinants on a circle

abstract:
  Gauge fixing procedure in the path integral for the microcanonical
statistical sum in quantum cosmology is considered in a special class of gauge
conditions free from residual gauge ambiguities. Relevant functional
determinants, path integrals and functional delta-functions on a circle are
considered.


title:
PSMACA: An Automated Protein Structure Prediction Using MACA (Multiple
  Attractor Cellular Automata)

abstract:
  Protein Structure Predication from sequences of amino acid has gained a
remarkable attention in recent years. Even though there are some prediction
techniques addressing this problem, the approximate accuracy in predicting the
protein structure is closely 75%. An automated procedure was evolved with MACA
(Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata) for predicting the structure of the
protein. Most of the existing approaches are sequential which will classify the
input into four major classes and these are designed for similar sequences.
PSMACA is designed to identify ten classes from the sequences that share
twilight zone similarity and identity with the training sequences. This method
also predicts three states (helix, strand, and coil) for the structure. Our
comprehensive design considers 10 feature selection methods and 4 classifiers
to develop MACA (Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata) based classifiers that
are build for each of the ten classes. We have tested the proposed classifier
with twilight-zone and 1-high-similarity benchmark datasets with over three
dozens of modern competing predictors shows that PSMACA provides the best
overall accuracy that ranges between 77% and 88.7% depending on the dataset.


title: Updating the error term in the prime number theorem

abstract:
  An improved estimate is given for $|\theta(x) -x|$, where $\theta(x) =
\sum_{p\leq x} \log p$. Three applications are given: the first to arithmetic
progressions that have points in common, the second to primes in short
intervals, and the third to a conjecture by C. Pomerance.


title: Distance Landmarks Revisited for Road Graphs

abstract:
  Computing shortest distances is one of the fundamental problems on graphs,
and remains a {\em challenging} task today. {\em Distance} {\em landmarks} have
been recently studied for shortest distance queries with an auxiliary data
structure, referred to as {\em landmark} {\em covers}. This paper studies how
to apply distance landmarks for fast {\em exact} shortest distance query
answering on large road graphs. However, the {\em direct} application of
distance landmarks is {\em impractical} due to the high space and time cost. To
rectify this problem, we investigate novel techniques that can be seamlessly
combined with distance landmarks. We first propose a notion of {\em hybrid
landmark covers}, a revision of landmark covers. Second, we propose a notion of
{\em agents}, each of which represents a small subgraph and holds good
properties for fast distance query answering. We also show that agents can be
computed in {\em linear time}. Third, we introduce graph partitions to deal
with the remaining subgraph that cannot be captured by agents. Fourth, we
develop a unified framework that seamlessly integrates our proposed techniques
and existing optimization techniques, for fast shortest distance query
answering. Finally, we experimentally verify that our techniques significantly
improve the efficiency of shortest distance queries, using real-life road
graphs.


title: The Location of the First Ascent in a 123-Avoiding Permutation

abstract:
  It is natural to ask, given a permutation with no three-term ascending
subsequence, at what index the first ascent occurs. We shall show, using both a
recursion and a bijection, that the number of 123-avoiding permutations at
which the first ascent occurs at positions $k,k+1$ is given by the $k$-fold
Catalan convolution $C_{n,k}$. For $1\le k\le n$, $C_{n,k}$ is also seen to
enumerate the number of 123-avoiding permutations with $n$ being in the $k$th
position. Two interesting discrete probability distributions, related obliquely
to the Poisson and geometric random variables, are derived as a result.


title:
On the Optimality of Treating Interference as Noise for $K$ user
  Parallel Gaussian Interference Networks

abstract:
  It has been shown recently by Geng et al. that in a $K$ user Gaussian
interference network, if for each user the desired signal strength is no less
than the sum of the strengths of the strongest interference from this user and
the strongest interference to this user (all signal strengths measured in dB
scale), then power control and treating interference as noise (TIN) is
sufficient to achieve the entire generalized degrees of freedom (GDoF) region.
Motivated by the intuition that the deterministic model of Avestimehr et al.
(ADT deterministic model) is particularly suited for exploring the optimality
of TIN, the results of Geng et al. are first re-visited under the ADT
deterministic model, and are shown to directly translate between the Gaussian
and deterministic settings. Next, we focus on the extension of these results to
parallel interference networks, from a sum-capacity/sum-GDoF perspective. To
this end, we interpret the explicit characterization of the
sum-capacity/sum-GDoF of a TIN optimal network (without parallel channels) as a
minimum weighted matching problem in combinatorial optimization, and obtain a
simple characterization in terms of a partition of the interference network
into vertex-disjoint cycles. Aided by insights from the cyclic partition, the
sum-capacity optimality of TIN for $K$ user parallel interference networks is
characterized for the ADT deterministic model, leading ultimately to
corresponding GDoF results for the Gaussian setting. In both cases, subject to
a mild invertibility condition the optimality of TIN is shown to extend to
parallel networks in a separable fashion.


title: On List-decodability of Random Rank Metric Codes

abstract:
  In the present paper, we consider list decoding for both random rank metric
codes and random linear rank metric codes. Firstly, we show that, for arbitrary
$0<R<1$ and $\epsilon>0$ ($\epsilon$ and $R$ are independent), if
$0<\frac{n}{m}\leq \epsilon$, then with high probability a random rank metric
code in $F_{q}^{m\times n}$ of rate $R$ can be list-decoded up to a fraction
$(1-R-\epsilon)$ of rank errors with constant list size $L$ satisfying $L\leq
O(1/\epsilon)$. Moreover, if $\frac{n}{m}\geq\Theta_R(\epsilon)$, any rank
metric code in $F_{q}^{m\times n}$ with rate $R$ and decoding radius
$\rho=1-R-\epsilon$ can not be list decoded in ${\rm poly}(n)$ time. Secondly,
we show that if $\frac{n}{m}$ tends to a constant $b\leq 1$, then every
$F_q$-linear rank metric code in $F_{q}^{m\times n}$ with rate $R$ and list
decoding radius $\rho$ satisfies the Gilbert-Varsharmov bound, i.e., $R\leq
(1-\rho)(1-b\rho)$. Furthermore, for arbitrary $\epsilon>0$ and any $0<\rho<1$,
with high probability a random $F_q$-linear rank metric codes with rate
$R=(1-\rho)(1-b\rho)-\epsilon$ can be list decoded up to a fraction $\rho$ of
rank errors with constant list size $L$ satisfying $L\leq O(\exp(1/\epsilon))$.


title: Asymptotic density of k-almost primes

abstract:
  Landau's well known asymptotic formula $$N_k(x):=\ \mid\{n\leq x :
\Omega(n)=k\}\mid \ \sim \left( \frac{x}{\log x} \right) \frac{(\log\log
x)^{k-1}}{(k - 1)!}\ \ (x \rightarrow \infty),$$ which also holds for
$$\pi_k(x):=\ \mid\{n\leq x : \omega(n)=k\}\mid,$$ is known to be fairly poor
for $k > 1$, and when $k$ is allowed to tend to infinity with $x$, the study of
$N_k(x)$ and $\pi_k(x)$ becomes very technical [1, Chapter II.6, $\S$ 6.1,
p.200]. I hope to show that the method described below provides not only a more
accurate approach, but rather increases in its asymptotic accuracy as $k$ tends
to infinity.


title:
Theory of strain tunning exction coupling in self-assembled InAs/GaAs
  quantum dots

abstract:
  We derive analytically the change of exciton fine structure splitting (FSS)
under the external stresses in the self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots using
the Bir-Pikus model. We find that the FSS change is mainly due to the strain
induced valence bands mixing and valence-conduction band coupling. The exciton
polarization angle under strain are determined by the argument of the
electron-hole off-diagonal exchange integrals. The theory agrees well with the
empirical pseudopotential calculations.


title: Partitioning a graph into highly connected subgraphs

abstract:
  Given $k\ge 1$, a $k$-proper partition of a graph $G$ is a partition
${\mathcal P}$ of $V(G)$ such that each part $P$ of ${\mathcal P}$ induces a
$k$-connected subgraph of $G$. We prove that if $G$ is a graph of order $n$
such that $\delta(G)\ge \sqrt{n}$, then $G$ has a $2$-proper partition with at
most $n/\delta(G)$ parts. The bounds on the number of parts and the minimum
degree are both best possible. We then prove that If $G$ is a graph of order
$n$ with minimum degree $\delta(G)\ge\sqrt{c(k-1)n}$, where
$c=\frac{2123}{180}$, then $G$ has a $k$-proper partition into at most
$\frac{cn}{\delta(G)}$ parts. This improves a result of Ferrara, Magnant and
Wenger [Conditions for Families of Disjoint $k$-connected Subgraphs in a Graph,
Discrete Math. 313 (2013), 760--764] and both the degree condition and the
number of parts are best possible up to the constant $c$.


title:
Restrictions on the prime to $p$ fundamental group of a smooth
  projective variety

abstract:
  The goal of this paper is to obtain restrictions on the prime to p quotient
of the \'etale fundamental group of a smooth projective variety in
characteristic $p\ge 0$. The results are analogues some theorems in the study
of K\"ahler groups. Our first main result is that such groups are
indecomposable under coproduct. The second gives a classification of the
pro-$\ell$ parts of one relator groups in this class.


title:
Quantitative Chemistry and the Discrete Geometry of Conformal Atom-Thin
  Crystals

abstract:
  When flat or on a firm mechanical substrate, the atomic composition and
atomistic structure of two-dimensional crystals dictate their chemical,
electronic, optical, and mechanical properties. These properties change when
the two-dimensional and ideal crystal structure evolves into arbitrary shapes,
providing a direct and dramatic link among geometry and material properties due
to the larger structural flexibility when compared to bulk three-dimensional
materials. We describe methods to understand the local geometrical information
of two-dimensional conformal crystals quantitatively and directly from atomic
positions, even in the presence of atomistic defects. We then discuss direct
relations among the discrete geometry and chemically-relevant quantities
--mean-bond-lengths, hybridization angles and $\sigma-\pi$ hybridization. These
concepts are illustrated for carbon-based materials and ionic crystals. The
piramidalization angle turns out to be linearly proportional to the mean
curvature for relevant crystalline configurations. Discrete geometry provides
direct quantitative information on the potential chemistry of conformal
two-dimensional crystals.


title:
Time evolution of flares in GRB 130925A: jet precession in black hole
  accretion system

abstract:
  GRB 130925A, composed of three gamma-ray emission episodes and a series of
orderly flares, has been detected by $Swift$, Fermi, Konus-$Wind$, and
$INTEGRAL$. If the third weakest gamma-ray episode can be considered as a giant
flare, we find that after the second gamma-ray episode observed by $INTEGRAL$
located at about 2000 s, there exists a positive relation between the time
intervals of the adjacent flares and the time since the episode. We suggest
that the second gamma-ray episode and its flares originate from the resumption
of the accretion process due to the fragments from the collapsar falling back,
such a relation may be related to a hyperaccretion disk around a precessed
black hole (BH). We propose that the origin and time evolution of the flares,
and the approximately symmetrical temporal structure and spectral evolution of
the single flare, can be explained well by the jet precession model
\citep{Liu2010}. In addition, the mass and spin of the BH can be constrained,
which indicates a stellar-mass, fast rotating BH located in the center of GRB
130925A.


title: Comparative simulations of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami with MOST and Cliffs

abstract:
  Wet-dry interface which appreciably increases accuracy of tsunami simulations
with the MOST model (Method of Splitting Tsunamis, adapted by the NOAA for
tsunami forecasting operations) is highlighted here with a few comparative
simulations. The new solution, termed Cliffs, exceeds all MOST versions in
accuracy of computing later waves. This is demonstrated with simulation of the
Tohoku-2011 tsunami to Monterey Bay, CA, and into fiords, bays, and inlets of
southeastern Alaska, followed by comparison with tide gage records.


title:
Holographic entanglement entropy and thermodynamic instability of planar
  R-charged black holes

abstract:
  The holographic entanglement entropy of an infinite strip subsystem on the
asymptotic AdS boundary is used as a probe to study the thermodynamic
instabilities of planar R-charged black holes (or their dual field theories).
We focus on the single-charge AdS black holes in $D=5$, which correspond to
spinning D3-branes with one non-vanishing angular momentum. Our results show
that the holographic entanglement entropy indeed exhibits the thermodynamic
instability associated with the divergence of the specific heat. When the width
of the strip is large enough, the finite part of the holographic entanglement
entropy as a function of the temperature resembles the thermal entropy, as is
expected. As the width becomes smaller, however, the two entropies behave
differently. In particular, there exists a critical value for the width of the
strip, below which the finite part of the holographic entanglement entropy as a
function of the temperature develops a self-intersection. We also find similar
behavior in the single-charge black holes in $D=4$ and $7$.


title: Clearing Markets via Bundles

abstract:
  We study algorithms for combinatorial market design problems, where a set of
heterogeneous and indivisible objects are priced and sold to potential buyers
subject to equilibrium constraints. Extending the CWE notion introduced by
Feldman et al. [STOC 2013], we introduce the concept of a Market-Clearing
Combinatorial Walrasian Equilibium (MC-CWE) as a natural relaxation of the
classical Walrasian equilibrium (WE) solution concept. The only difference
between a MC-CWE and a WE is the ability for the seller to bundle the items
prior to sale. This innocuous and natural bundling operation imposes a plethora
of algorithmic and economic challenges and opportunities. Unlike WE, which is
guaranteed to exist only for (gross) substitutes valuations, a MC-CWE always
exists. The main algorithmic challenge, therefore, is to design computationally
efficient mechanisms that generate MC-CWE outcomes that approximately maximize
social welfare. For a variety of valuation classes encompassing substitutes and
complements (including super-additive, single-minded and budget-additive
valuations), we design polynomial-time MC-CWE mechanisms that provide tight
welfare approximation results.


title:
Asymptotics of unitary multimatrix models: The Schwinger-Dyson lattice
  and topological recursion

abstract:
  We prove the existence of a 1/N expansion in unitary multimatrix models which
are Gibbs perturbations of the Haar measure, and express the expansion
coefficients recursively in terms of the unique solution of a noncommutative
initial value problem. The recursion obtained is closely related to the
"topological recursion" which underlies the asymptotics of many random matrix
ensembles and appears in diverse enumerative geometry problems, but has not
previously appeared in the context of random unitary matrices. Our approach
consists of two main ingredients: an asymptotic study of the Schwinger-Dyson
lattice over noncommutative Laurent polynomials, and uniform control on the
cumulants of Gibbs measures on product unitary groups. The required cumulant
bounds are obtained by concentration of measure arguments.


title: Transition magnetic moment of Majorana neutrinos in the $\mu\nu$SSM

abstract:
  The nonzero vacuum expectative values of sneutrinos induce spontaneously
R-parity and lepton number violation, and generate three tiny Majorana neutrino
masses through the seesaw mechanism in the $\mu\nu$SSM, which is one of
Supersymmetric extensions beyond Standard Model. Applying effective Lagrangian
method, we study the transition magnetic moment of Majorana neutrinos in the
model here. Under the constraints from neutrino oscillations, we consider the
two possibilities on the neutrino mass spectrum with normal or inverted
ordering.


title:
On classical solutions of the compressible magnetohydrodynamic equations
  with vacuum

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider the 3-D compressible isentropic MHD equations with
infinity electric conductivity. The existence of unique local classical
solutions is firstly established when the initial data is arbitrarily large,
contains vacuum and satisfies some initial layer compatibility condition. The
initial mass density needs not be bounded away from zero and may vanish in some
open set. Moreover, we prove that the $L^\infty$ norm of the deformation tensor
of velocity gradients controls the possible blow-up (see \cite{olga}\cite{zx})
for classical (or strong) solutions, which means that if a solution of the
compressible MHD equations is initially regular and loses its regularity at
some later time, then the formation of singularity must be caused by the losing
the bound of the deformtion tensor as the critical time approches. Our result
(see (1.12) is the same as Ponce's criterion for $3$-D incompressible Euler
equations \cite{pc} and Huang-Li-Xin's blow-up criterion for the $3$-D
compressible Navier-stokes equations \cite{hup}.


title: Mutually unbiased measurements in finite dimensions

abstract:
  We generalize the concept of mutually unbiased bases (MUB) to measurements
which are not necessarily described by rank one projectors. As such, these
measurements can be a useful tool to study the long standing problem of the
existence of MUB. We derive their general form, and show that in a finite,
$d$-dimensional Hilbert space, one can construct a complete set of $d+1$
mutually unbiased measurements. Beside of their intrinsic link to MUB, we show,
that these measurements' statistics provide complete information about the
state of the system. Moreover, they capture the physical essence of
unbiasedness, and in particular, they satisfy non-trivial entropic uncertainty
relation similar to $d+1$ MUB.


title: Cycle factors and renewal theory

abstract:
  For which values of $k$ does a uniformly chosen $3$-regular graph $G$ on $n$
vertices typically contain $ n/k$ vertex-disjoint $k$-cycles (a $k$-cycle
factor)? To date, this has been answered for $k=n$ and for $k \ll \log n$; the
former, the Hamiltonicity problem, was finally answered in the affirmative by
Robinson and Wormald in 1992, while the answer in the latter case is negative
since with high probability most vertices do not lie on $k$-cycles.
  Here we settle the problem completely: the threshold for a $k$-cycle factor
in $G$ as above is $\kappa_0 \log_2 n$ with $\kappa_0=[1-\frac12\log_2
3]^{-1}\approx 4.82$. Precisely, we prove a 2-point concentration result: if $k
\geq \kappa_0 \log_2(2n/e)$ divides $n$ then $G$ contains a $k$-cycle factor
w.h.p., whereas if $k<\kappa_0\log_2(2n/e)-\frac{\log^2 n}n$ then w.h.p. it
does not. As a byproduct, we confirm the "Comb Conjecture," an old problem
concerning the embedding of certain spanning trees in the random graph
$G(n,p)$.
  The proof follows the small subgraph conditioning framework, but the
associated second moment analysis here is far more delicate than in any earlier
use of this method and involves several novel features, among them a sharp
estimate for tail probabilities in renewal processes without replacement which
may be of independent interest.


title:
On the Casimir energy of the electromagnetic field in the dispersive and
  absorptive medium

abstract:
  The microscopic theory of the Casimir effect in the dielectric is studied in
the framework when absorption is realized via a reservoir modeled by a set of
oscillators with continuously distributed frquencies with the aim to see if the
effects depend on the form of interaction with the reservoir. A simple case of
the one-dimensional dielectric between two metallic plates is considered. Two
possible models are investigated, the direct interaction of the electromagnetic
field with the reservoir and indirect interaction via an intermediate
oscillator imitating the atom. It is found that with the same dielectric
constant the Casimir effect is different in these two cases, which implies that
in the second model it cannot be entirely expressed via the dielectric constant
as in the well-known Lifshitz formula.


title:
A quantum linguistic characterization of the reverse relation between
  confidence interval and hypothesis testing

abstract:
  Although there are many ideas for the formulations of statistical hypothesis
testing, we consider that the likelihood ratio test is the most reasonable and
orthodox. However, it is not handy, and thus, it is not usual in elementary
books. That is, the statistical hypothesis testing written in elementary books
is different from the likelihood ratio test. Thus, from the theoretical point
of view, we have the following question: "What is the statistical hypothesis
testing written in elementary books?" For example, we consider that even the
difference between "one sided test" and "two sided test" is not clear yet. In
this paper, we give an answer to this question. That is, we propose a new
formulation of statistical hypothesis testing, which is contrary to the
confidence interval methods. In other words, they are two sides of the same
coin. This will be done in quantum language (or, measurement theory), which is
characterized as the linguistic turn of the Copenhagen interpretation of
quantum mechanics, and also, a kind of system theory such that it is applicable
to both classical and quantum systems. Since quantum language is suited for
theoretical arguments, we believe that our results are essentially final as a
general theory.


title: The threshold for combs in random graphs

abstract:
  For $k\mid n$ let $Comb_{n,k}$ denote the tree consisting of an
$(n/k)$-vertex path with disjoint $k$-vertex paths beginning at each of its
vertices. An old conjecture says that for any $k=k(n)$ the threshold for the
random graph $G(n,p)$ to contain $Comb_{n,k}$ is at $p\asymp \frac{\log n}n$.
Here we verify this for $k \leq C\log n$ with any fixed $C>0$. In a companion
paper, using very different methods, we treat the complementary range, proving
the conjecture for $k\geq \kappa_0 \log n$ (with $\kappa_0\approx 4.82$).


title: The Berger-Wang formula for the Markovian joint spectral radius

abstract:
  The Berger-Wang formula establishes equality between the joint and
generalized spectral radii of a set of matrices. For matrix products whose
multipliers are applied not arbitrarily but in accordance with some Markovian
law, there are also known analogs of the joint and generalized spectral radii.
However, the known proofs of the Berger-Wang formula hardly can be directly
applied in the case of Markovian products of matrices since they essentially
rely on the arbitrariness of appearance of different matrices in the related
matrix products. Nevertheless, as has been shown by X. Dai the Berger-Wang
formula is valid for the case of Markovian analogs of the joint and the
generalized spectral radii too, although the proof in this case heavily
exploits the more involved techniques of multiplicative ergodic theory. In the
paper we propose a matrix theory construction allowing to deduce the Markovian
analog of the Berger-Wang formula from the classical Berger-Wang formula.


title:
Association of a planetary tidal effect with the time variation of the
  ~13.5 day component of geomagnetic activity

abstract:
  We show that there is a previously unreported quad-annual variation in the
~13.5 day component of the aa index of geomagnetic activity. We derive a model
based on the planetary tidal effect at the solar surface due to Mercury and
Jupiter that, when combined with an equinoctial response of the magnetosphere,
predicts the times of occurrence of predominantly quad-annual variation or
predominantly semi-annual variation in the ~13.5 day component of the aa index.
In support of the model we show that, during years when the quad-annual
variation in the ~13.5 day component of aa index is predominant there is a
large component at the 88 day periodicity of Mercury in the ~13.5 day component
of solar wind speed. As further support for the model we establish that
significant peaks in the aa index spectrum are due to an 88 day modulation of
27 day period solar activity. The model also predicts the occurrence of
planetary tidal effect maximum in anti-phase with solar cycle maximums around
1970 and we show this is consistent with prior observations of higher solar
emissions during the 1975 solar cycle minimum than in the following solar cycle
maximum. This effect offers a possible explanation of the reduced solar cycle
maximums around 1970 and during the Dalton Minimum.


title:
Entropy Rates of the Multidimensional Moran Processes and
  Generalizations

abstract:
  The interrelationships of the fundamental biological processes natural
selection, mutation, and stochastic drift are quantified by the entropy rate of
Moran processes with mutation, measuring the long-run variation of a Markov
process. The entropy rate is shown to behave intuitively with respect to
evolutionary parameters such as monotonicity with respect to mutation
probability (for the neutral landscape), relative fitness, and strength of
selection. Strict upper bounds, depending only on the number of replicating
types, for the entropy rate are given and the neutral fitness landscape attains
the maximum in the large population limit. Various additional limits are
computed including small mutation, weak and strong selection, and large
population holding the other parameters constant, revealing the individual
contributions and dependences of each evolutionary parameter on the long-run
outcomes of the processes.


title: Deterministic Logics for UL

abstract:
  The class of Unambiguous Star-Free Regular Languages (UL) was defined by
Schutzenberger as the class of languages defined by Unambiguous Polynomials. UL
has been variously characterized (over finite words) by logics such as
TL[X_a,Y_a], UITL, TL[F,P], FO2[<], the variety DA of monoids, as well as
partially-ordered two-way DFA (po2DFA). We revisit this language class with
emphasis on notion of unambiguity and develop on the concept of Deterministic
Logics for UL. The formulas of deterministic logics uniquely parse a word in
order to evaluate satisfaction. We show that several deterministic logics
robustly characterize UL. Moreover, we derive constructive reductions from
these logics to the po2DFA automata. These reductions also allow us to show
NP-complete satisfaction complexity for the deterministic logics considered.
  Logics such as TL[F,P], FO2[<] are not deterministic and have been shown to
characterize UL using algebraic methods. However there has been no known
constructive reduction from these logics to po2DFA. We use deterministic logics
to bridge this gap. The language-equivalent po2DFA for a given TL[F,P] formula
is constructed and we analyze its size relative to the size of the TL[F,P]
formula. This is an efficient reduction which gives an alternate proof to
NP-complete satisfiability complexity of TL[F,P] formulas.


title: Quasistatic nonlinear viscoelasticity and gradient flows

abstract:
  We consider the equation of motion for one-dimensional nonlinear
viscoelasticity of strain-rate type under the assumption that the stored-energy
function is $\lambda$-convex, which allows for solid phase transformations. We
formulate this problem as a gradient flow, leading to existence and uniqueness
of solutions. By approximating general initial data by those in which the
deformation gradient takes only finitely many values, we show that under
suitable hypotheses on the stored-energy function the deformation gradient is
instantaneously bounded and bounded away from zero. Finally, we discuss the
open problem of showing that every solution converges to an equilibrium state
as time $t \to \infty$ and prove convergence to equilibrium under a
nondegeneracy condition. We show that this condition is satisfied in particular
for any real analytic cubic-like stress-strain function.


title: Erasure List-Decodable Codes from Random and Algebraic Geometry Codes

abstract:
  Erasure list decoding was introduced to correct a larger number of erasures
with output of a list of possible candidates. In the present paper, we consider
both random linear codes and algebraic geometry codes for list decoding erasure
errors. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, we show that,
for arbitrary $0<R<1$ and $\epsilon>0$ ($R$ and $\epsilon$ are independent),
with high probability a random linear code is an erasure list decodable code
with constant list size $2^{O(1/\epsilon)}$ that can correct a fraction
$1-R-\epsilon$ of erasures, i.e., a random linear code achieves the
information-theoretic optimal trade-off between information rate and fraction
of erasure errors. Secondly, we show that algebraic geometry codes are good
erasure list-decodable codes. Precisely speaking, for any $0<R<1$ and
$\epsilon>0$, a $q$-ary algebraic geometry code of rate $R$ from the
Garcia-Stichtenoth tower can correct
$1-R-\frac{1}{\sqrt{q}-1}+\frac{1}{q}-\epsilon$ fraction of erasure errors with
list size $O(1/\epsilon)$. This improves the Johnson bound applied to algebraic
geometry codes. Furthermore, list decoding of these algebraic geometry codes
can be implemented in polynomial time.


title: Generalized solutions for inextensible string equations

abstract:
  We study the system of equations of motion for inextensible strings. This
system possesses many internal symmetries, and is related to discontinuous
systems of conservation laws and the total variation wave equation. We prove
existence of generalized Young measure solutions with non-negative tension
after transforming the problem into a system of conservation laws and
approximating it with a regularized system for which we obtain uniform
estimates of the energy and the tension. We also discuss sufficient conditions
for non-negativity of the tension for strong solutions.


title:
Trapping of slow-speed particles in a gas cell by the nonhomogeneous
  electromagnetic field intensifying with time

abstract:
  Author suggests and analyzes new universal trapping method of comparatively
slow-speed particles of a rarefied gas medium in the potential well induced by
the nonhomogeneous electromagnetic field increasing with time (up to some
moment). Given method is especially effective at inelastic collisions of
particles with walls of the gas cell when necessary preliminary slowdown of
particles is possible for their following capture even to a highly shallow
potential depth. Corresponding sufficiently compact and simple electromagnetic
traps may be used for capture and accumulation not only slow-speed micro- and
nano-particles in the high vacuum but also atoms and molecules of a rarefied
gas in a cell.


title: Three low surface brightness dwarfs discovered around NGC 4631

abstract:
  We report the discovery of three low surface brightness companions to the
spiral galaxy NGC 4631, made with small amateur telescopes. Assuming their
distances to be 7.4 Mpc, the same as that of NGC 4631, the absolute magnitudes
and linear diameters of the dwarfs are ranged within [-12.5, -9.6] mag and [4.7
- 1.3] kpc, respectively. These new three dwarfs, together with the discovered
by us diffuse structure called "bridge", look like parts of a tidal filament
directed towards NGC 4656 at total extended over 100 kpc.


title:
A hierarchically blocked Jacobi SVD algorithm for single and multiple
  graphics processing units

abstract:
  We present a hierarchically blocked one-sided Jacobi algorithm for the
singular value decomposition (SVD), targeting both single and multiple graphics
processing units (GPUs). The blocking structure reflects the levels of GPU's
memory hierarchy. The algorithm may outperform MAGMA's dgesvd, while retaining
high relative accuracy. To this end, we developed a family of parallel pivot
strategies on GPU's shared address space, but applicable also to inter-GPU
communication. Unlike common hybrid approaches, our algorithm in a single GPU
setting needs a CPU for the controlling purposes only, while utilizing GPU's
resources to the fullest extent permitted by the hardware. When required by the
problem size, the algorithm, in principle, scales to an arbitrary number of GPU
nodes. The scalability is demonstrated by more than twofold speedup for
sufficiently large matrices on a Tesla S2050 system with four GPUs vs. a single
Fermi card.


title: Fr\'echet derivative for light-like Wilson Loops

abstract:
  We address the equations of motion for the light-like QCD Wilson exponentials
defined in the generalized loop space. We attribute an important class of the
infinitesimal shape variations of the rectangular light-like Wilson loops to
the Fr\'echet derivative associated to a diffeomorphism in loop space what
enables the derivation of the law of the classically conformal-invariant shape
variations. We show explicitly that the Fr\'echet derivative coincides (at
least in the leading perturbative or- der) with the area differential operator
introduced in the previous works. We discuss interesting implications of this
result which will allow one to relate the rapidity evolution and ultra-violet
evolution of phenomenologically important quantum correlation functions (such
as 3-dimensional parton distribution functions) and geometrical properties of
the light-like cusped Wilson loops.


title: The shuffle estimator for explainable variance in fMRI experiments

abstract:
  In computational neuroscience, it is important to estimate well the
proportion of signal variance in the total variance of neural activity
measurements. This explainable variance measure helps neuroscientists assess
the adequacy of predictive models that describe how images are encoded in the
brain. Complicating the estimation problem are strong noise correlations, which
may confound the neural responses corresponding to the stimuli. If not properly
taken into account, the correlations could inflate the explainable variance
estimates and suggest false possible prediction accuracies. We propose a novel
method to estimate the explainable variance in functional MRI (fMRI) brain
activity measurements when there are strong correlations in the noise. Our
shuffle estimator is nonparametric, unbiased, and built upon the random effect
model reflecting the randomization in the fMRI data collection process.
Leveraging symmetries in the measurements, our estimator is obtained by
appropriately permuting the measurement vector in such a way that the noise
covariance structure is intact but the explainable variance is changed after
the permutation. This difference is then used to estimate the explainable
variance. We validate the properties of the proposed method in simulation
experiments. For the image-fMRI data, we show that the shuffle estimates can
explain the variation in prediction accuracy for voxels within the primary
visual cortex (V1) better than alternative parametric methods.


title:
An Investigation into Surface Temperature Distributions of High-B
  Pulsars

abstract:
  Bearing in mind the application to high-magnetic-field (high-B) radio
pulsars, we investigate two-dimensional (2D) thermal evolutions of neutron
stars (NSs). We pay particular attention to the influence of different
equilibrium configurations on the surface temperature distributions. The
equilibrium configurations are constructed in a systematic manner, in which
both toroidal and poloidal magnetic fields are determined self-consistently
with the inclusion of general relativistic effects. To solve the 2D heat
transfer inside the NS interior out to the crust, we have developed an implicit
code based on a finite-difference scheme that deals with anisotropic thermal
conductivity and relevant cooling processes in the context of a standard
cooling scenario. In agreement with previous studies, the surface temperatures
near the pole become higher than those in the vicinity of the equator as a
result of anisotropic heat transfer. Our results show that the ratio of the
highest to the lowest surface temperatures changes maximally by one order of
magnitude, depending on the equilibrium configurations. Despite such
difference, we find that the area of such hot and cold spots is so small that
the simulated X-ray spectrum could be well reproduced by a single temperature
blackbody fitting.


title: Capturing Evidence From Wireless Internet Services Development

abstract:
  The merging of the Internet with the Wireless services domain has created a
potential market whose characteristics are new technologies and time-to-market
pressure. The lack of knowledge about new technologies and the need to be
competitive in a short time demand that software organizations learn quickly
about this domain and its characteristics. Additionally, the effects of
development techniques in this context need to be understood. Learning from
previous experiences in such a changing environment demands a clear
understanding of the evidence to be captured, and how it could be used in the
future. This article presents definitions of quantitative and qualitative
evidence, and templates for capturing such evidence in a systematic way. Such
templates were used in the context of two pilot projects dealing with the
development of Wireless Internet Services.


title:
The modular group for the total ancestor potential of Fermat simple
  elliptic singularities

abstract:
  In a series of papers \cite{KS,MR}, Krawitz, Milanov, Ruan, and Shen have
verified the so-called Landau-Ginzburg/Calabi-Yau (LG/CY) correspondence for
simple elliptic singularities $E_N^{(1,1)}$ ($N=6,7,8$). As a byproduct it was
also proved that the orbifold Gromov--Witten invariants of the orbifold
projective lines $\mathbb{P}^1_{3,3,3}$, $\mathbb{P}^1_{4,4,2}$, and
$\mathbb{P}^1_{6,3,2}$ are quasi-modular forms on an appropriate modular group.
While the modular group for $\mathbb{P}^1_{3,3,3}$ is $\Gamma(3)$, the modular
groups in the other two cases were left unknown. The goal of this paper is to
prove that the modular groups in the remaining two cases are respectively
$\Gamma(4)$ and $\Gamma(6)$.


title: Boundary slopes of some non-Montesinos knots

abstract:
  It is shown that there exist alternating non-Montesinos knots whose essential
spanning surfaces with maximal and minimal boundary slopes are not realised by
the checkerboard surfaces coming from a reduced alternating planar diagram.


title: Hardware Implementation of four byte per clock RC4 algorithm

abstract:
  In the field of cryptography till date the 2-byte in 1-clock is the best
known RC4 hardware design [1], while 1-byte in 1-clock [2], and the 1-byte in 3
clocks [3][4] are the best known implementation. The design algorithm in[2]
considers two consecutive bytes together and processes them in 2 clocks. The
design [1] is a pipelining architecture of [2]. The design of 1-byte in
3-clocks is too much modular and clock hungry. In this paper considering the
RC4 algorithm, as it is, a simpler RC4 hardware design providing higher
throughput is proposed in which 6 different architecture has been proposed. In
design 1, 1-byte is processed in 1-clock, design 2 is a dynamic KSA-PRGA
architecture of Design 1. Design 3 can process 2 byte in a single clock, where
as Design 4 is Dynamic KSA-PRGA architecture of Design 3. Design 5 and Design 6
are parallelization architecture design 2 and design 4 which can compute 4 byte
in a single clock. The maturity in terms of throughput, power consumption and
resource usage, has been achieved from design 1 to design 6. The RC4 encryption
and decryption designs are respectively embedded on two FPGA boards as
co-processor hardware, the communication between the two boards performed using
Ethernet.


title:
A semiparametric approach to mixed outcome latent variable models:
  Estimating the association between cognition and regional brain volumes

abstract:
  Multivariate data that combine binary, categorical, count and continuous
outcomes are common in the social and health sciences. We propose a
semiparametric Bayesian latent variable model for multivariate data of
arbitrary type that does not require specification of conditional
distributions. Drawing on the extended rank likelihood method by Hoff [Ann.
Appl. Stat. 1 (2007) 265-283], we develop a semiparametric approach for latent
variable modeling with mixed outcomes and propose associated Markov chain Monte
Carlo estimation methods. Motivated by cognitive testing data, we focus on
bifactor models, a special case of factor analysis. We employ our
semiparametric Bayesian latent variable model to investigate the association
between cognitive outcomes and MRI-measured regional brain volumes.


title:
Vacuum-fluctuation-induced Dephasing of a Qubit in Circuit Quantum
  Electrodynamics

abstract:
  We investigate the measurement-induced dephasing of a qubit coupled with a
single-mode cavity in the vacuum limit. Dephasing of the qubit state takes
place through the ntanglement of the qubit and the single probe photon sent to
the cavity, while the cavity mode never occupies a photon. We find that the
qubit state is dephased even if the cavity is always in the vacuum state. This
dephasing is caused purely by the interaction between the qubit and the vacuum
field. We also show that this vacuum-fluctuation-induced dephasing takes place
much faster than the spontaneous decay of the qubit excited state, and
therefore our prediction is observable in a real experiment.


title: Estimating the Effort Overhead in Global Software Development

abstract:
  Models for effort and cost estimation are important for distributed software
development as well as for collocated software and system development. Standard
cost models only insufficiently consider the characteristics of distributed
development such as dissimilar abilities at the different sites or significant
overhead due to remote collaboration. Therefore, explicit cost models for
distributed development are needed. In this article, we present the initial
development of a cost overhead model for a Spanish global software development
organization. The model was developed using the CoBRA approach for cost
estimation. As a result, cost drivers for the specific distributed development
context were identified and their impact was quantified on an empirical basis.
The article presents related work, an overview of the approach, and its
application in the industrial context. Finally, we sketch the inclusion of the
model in an approach for systematic task allocation and give an overview of
future work.


title:
A Rule-based Model for Customized Risk Identification in Distributed
  Software Development Projects

abstract:
  Many project risks in distributed software development are very different
from the ones in collocated development and therefore are often overlooked. At
the same time, they depend to a large extent on project-specific
characteristics. This article presents a model for identifying risks early in a
project. This model systematically captures experiences from past projects and
is based on a set of logical rules describing how project characteristics
influence typical risks in distributed development. Thus, the model is able to
assess risks individually for each project. It was developed by applying
qualitative content analysis to 19 interviews with practitioners. An evaluation
using expert interviews showed that the risks identified by the model matched
the actual experiences in 81% of the cases; of these, 40% have not been
regarded yet at project start. The article describes the concepts of the model,
its instantiation and evaluation, followed by a conclusion and future work.


title:
Fault Detection for RC4 Algorithm and its Implementation on FPGA
  Platform

abstract:
  In hardware implementation of a cryptographic algorithm, one may achieve
leakage of secret information by creating scopes to introduce controlled faulty
bit(s) even though the algorithm is mathematically a secured one. The technique
is very effective in respect of crypto processors embedded in smart cards. In
this paper few fault detecting architectures for RC4 algorithm are designed and
implemented on Virtex5(ML505, LX110t) FPGA board. The results indicate that the
proposed architectures can handle most of the faults without loss of throughput
consuming marginally additional hardware and power.