title: Multi-Time Systems of Conservation Laws

abstract:
  Motivated by the work of P.L. Lions and J-C. Rochet [12], concerning
multi-time Hamilton-Jacobi equations, we introduce the theory of multi-time
systems of conservation laws. We show the existence and uniqueness of solution
to the Cauchy problem for a system of multi-time conservation laws with two
independent time variables in one space dimension. Our proof relies on a
suitable generalization of the Lax-Oleinik formula.


title:
Semantics out of context: nominal absolute denotations for first-order
  logic and computation

abstract:
  Call a semantics for a language with variables absolute when variables map to
fixed entities in the denotation. That is, a semantics is absolute when the
denotation of a variable a is a copy of itself in the denotation. We give a
trio of lattice-based, sets-based, and algebraic absolute semantics to
first-order logic. Possibly open predicates are directly interpreted as lattice
elements / sets / algebra elements, subject to suitable interpretations of the
connectives and quantifiers. In particular, universal quantification "forall
a.phi" is interpreted using a new notion of "fresh-finite" limit and using a
novel dual to substitution.
  The interest of this semantics is partly in the non-trivial and beautiful
technical details, which also offer certain advantages over existing
semantics---but also the fact that such semantics exist at all suggests a new
way of looking at variables and the foundations of logic and computation, which
may be well-suited to the demands of modern computer science.


title: Near-Optimal Sensor Placement for Linear Inverse Problems

abstract:
  A classic problem is the estimation of a set of parameters from measurements
collected by only a few sensors. The number of sensors is often limited by
physical or economical constraints and their placement is of fundamental
importance to obtain accurate estimates. Unfortunately, the selection of the
optimal sensor locations is intrinsically combinatorial and the available
approximation algorithms are not guaranteed to generate good solutions in all
cases of interest. We propose FrameSense, a greedy algorithm for the selection
of optimal sensor locations. The core cost function of the algorithm is the
frame potential, a scalar property of matrices that measures the orthogonality
of its rows. Notably, FrameSense is the first algorithm that is near-optimal in
terms of mean square error, meaning that its solution is always guaranteed to
be close to the optimal one. Moreover, we show with an extensive set of
numerical experiments that FrameSense achieves state-of-the-art performance
while having the lowest computational cost, when compared to other greedy
methods.


title: Quantum interference through gated single-molecule junctions

abstract:
  We discuss the general form of the transmission spectrum through a molec-
ular junction in terms of the Green function of the isolated molecule. By
introducing a tight binding method, we are able to translate the Green func-
tion properties into practical graphical rules for assessing beforehand the
possible existence of antiresonances in an energy range for a given choice of
connecting sites. The analysis is exemplified with a benzene molecule under a
hypothetical local gate, which allows one to continuously tune the on-site
energy of single atoms, for various connection topologies and gate positions.


title: The spectrum of (h)QCD in the Veneziano limit

abstract:
  In this note we report on the analysis of the zero temperature spectra of
glueballs and mesons for holographic QCD in the Veneziano limit. We work within
a holographic bottom-up model named V-QCD which takes into account the full
backreaction of the flavor degrees of freedom. By studying the fluctuations of
this model we compute spectra of mesons and glueballs as a function of
x=N_f/N_c. The spectra are discrete and gapped (modulo the pions) in the QCD
regime, where x is below the critical value x_c at which the conformal
transition takes place. The masses uniformly converge to zero in the walking
region x -> x_c following Miransky scaling. Moreover, all the ratios of masses
asymptote to finite constants as x -> x_c. Therefore there is no "dilaton" in
the spectrum. Finally, we compute the S-parameter, which is found to be of O(1)
in the walking regime.


title: A stochastic algorithm finding generalized means on compact manifolds

abstract:
  A stochastic algorithm is proposed, finding the set of generalized means
associated to a probability measure on a compact Riemannian manifold M and a
continuous cost function on the product of M by itself. Generalized means
include p-means for p>0, computed with any continuous distance function, not
necessarily the Riemannian distance. They also include means for lengths
computed from Finsler metrics, or for divergences. The algorithm is fed
sequentially with independent random variables Y_n distributed according to the
probability measure on the manifold and this is the only knowledge of this
measure required. It evolves like a Brownian motion between the times it jumps
in direction of the Y_n. Its principle is based on simulated annealing and
homogenization, so that temperature and approximations schemes must be tuned
up. The proof relies on the investigation of the evolution of a
time-inhomogeneous L^2 functional and on the corresponding spectral gap
estimates due to Holley, Kusuoka and Stroock.


title: Derivation of a viscous Boussinesq system for surface water waves

abstract:
  In this article, we derive a viscous Boussinesq system for surface water
waves from Navier-Stokes equations. We use neither the irrotationality
assumption, nor the Zakharov-Craig-Sulem formulation. During the derivation, we
find the bottom shear stress, and also the decay rate for shallow water. In
order to justify our derivation, we derive the viscous Korteweg-de Vries
equation from our viscous Boussinesq system and compare it to the ones found in
the bibliography. We also extend the system to the 3-D case.


title: Is there a flavor hierarchy in the deconfinement transition of QCD?

abstract:
  We present possible indications for flavor separation during the QCD
crossover transition based on continuum extrapolated lattice QCD calculations
of higher order susceptibilities. We base our findings on flavor specific
quantities in the light and strange quark sector. We propose a possible
experimental verification of our prediction, based on the measurement of higher
order moments of identified particle multiplicities. Since all our calculations
are performed at zero baryochemical potential, these results are of particular
relevance for the heavy ion program at the LHC.


title:
Effective Differential Nullstellensatz for Ordinary DAE Systems with
  Constant Coefficients

abstract:
  We give upper bounds for the differential Nullstellensatz in the case of
ordinary systems of differential algebraic equations over any field of
constants $K$ of characteristic $0$. Let $\vec{x}$ be a set of $n$ differential
variables, $\vec{f}$ a finite family of differential polynomials in the ring
$K\{\vec{x}\}$ and $f\in K\{\vec{x}\}$ another polynomial which vanishes at
every solution of the differential equation system $\vec{f}=0$ in any
differentially closed field containing $K$. Let $d:=\max\{\deg(\vec{f}),
\deg(f)\}$ and $\epsilon:=\max\{2,{\rm{ord}}(\vec{f}), {\rm{ord}}(f)\}$. We
show that $f^M$ belongs to the algebraic ideal generated by the successive
derivatives of $\vec{f}$ of order at most $L = (n\epsilon
d)^{2^{c(n\epsilon)^3}}$, for a suitable universal constant $c>0$, and
$M=d^{n(\epsilon +L+1)}$. The previously known bounds for $L$ and $M$ are not
elementary recursive.


title: Quantum transport through single and multilayer icosahedral fullerenes

abstract:
  We use a tight-binding Hamiltonian and Green functions methods to calculate
the quantum transmission through single-wall fullerenes and bilayered and
trilayered onions of icosahedral symmetry attached to metallic leads. The
electronic structure of the onion-like fullerenes takes into account the
curvature and finite size of the fullerenes layers as well as the strength of
the intershell interactions depending on to the number of interacting atom
pairs belonging to adjacent shells. Misalignment of the symmetry axes of the
concentric icosahedral shells produces breaking of the level degeneracies of
the individual shells, giving rise some narrow quasi-continuum bands instead of
the localized discrete peaks of the individual fullerenes. As a result, the
transmission function for non symmetrical onions are rapidly varying functions
of the Fermi energy. Furthermore, we found that most of the features of the
transmission through the onions are due to the electronic structure of the
outer shell with additional Fano-like antiresonances arising from coupling with
or between the inner shells.


title: Subgap states in disordered superconductors

abstract:
  We revise the problem of the density of states in disordered superconductors.
Randomness of local sample characteristics translates to the quenched spatial
inhomogeneity of the spectral gap, smearing the BCS coherence peak. We show
that various microscopic models of potential and magnetic disorder can be
reduced to a universal phenomenological random order parameter model, whereas
the details of the microscopic description are encoded in the correlation
function of the order parameter fluctuations. The resulting form of the density
of states is generally described by two parameters: the width Gamma measuring
the broadening of the BCS peak, and the energy scale Gamma_{tail} which
controls the exponential decay of the density of the subgap states. We refine
the existing instanton approaches for determination of Gamma_{tail} and show
that they appear as limiting cases of a unified theory of optimal fluctuations
in a nonlinear system. Application to various types of disorder is discussed.


title:
Phase-dependent heat transport through magnetic Josephson tunnel
  junctions

abstract:
  We present an exhaustive study of the coherent heat transport through
superconductor-ferromagnet(S-F) Josephson junctions including a spin-filter
(I$_{sf}$) tunneling barrier. By using the quasiclassical Keldysh Green's
function technique we derive a general expression for the heat current flowing
through a S/F/I$_{sf}$/F/S junction and analyze the dependence of the thermal
conductance on the spin-filter efficiency, the phase difference between the
superconductors and the magnetization direction of the ferromagnetic layers. In
the case of non-collinear magnetizations we show explicitly the contributions
to the heat current stemming from the singlet and triplet components of the
superconducting condensate. We also demonstrate that the magnetothermal
resistance ratio of a S/F/I$_{sf}$/F/S heat valve can be increased by the
spin-filter effect under suitable conditions.


title:
A 'Darboux theorem' for derived schemes with shifted symplectic
  structure

abstract:
  We prove a 'Darboux theorem' for derived schemes with symplectic forms of
degree $k<0$, in the sense of Pantev, Toen, Vaquie and Vezzosi arXiv:1111.3209.
More precisely, we show that a derived scheme $X$ with symplectic form $\omega$
of degree $k$ is locally equivalent to (Spec $A,\omega'$) for Spec $A$ an
affine derived scheme whose cdga $A$ has Darboux-like coordinates in which the
symplectic form $\omega'$ is standard, and the differential in $A$ is given by
Poisson bracket with a Hamiltonian function $H$ in $A$ of degree $k+1$.
  When $k=-1$, this implies that a $-1$-shifted symplectic derived scheme
$(X,\omega)$ is Zariski locally equivalent to the derived critical locus
Crit$(H)$ of a regular function $H:U\to{\mathbb A}^1$ on a smooth scheme $U$.
We use this to show that the underlying classical scheme of $X$ has the
structure of an 'algebraic d-critical locus', in the sense of Joyce
arXiv:1304.4508.
  In the sequels arXiv:1211.3259, arXiv:1305.6428, arXiv:1312.0090,
arXiv:1504.00690, 1506.04024 we will discuss applications of these results to
categorified and motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory of Calabi-Yau 3-folds, and to
defining new Donaldson-Thomas type invariants of Calabi-Yau 4-folds, and to
defining 'Fukaya categories' of Lagrangians in algebraic symplectic manifolds
using perverse sheaves, and we will extend the results of this paper and
arXiv:1211.3259, arXiv:1305.6428 from (derived) schemes to (derived) Artin
stacks, and to give local descriptions of Lagrangians in $k$-shifted symplectic
derived schemes.
  Bouaziz and Grojnowski arXiv:1309.2197 independently prove a similar 'Darboux
Theorem'.


title:
The global solvability of initial-boundary value problem for nondiagonal
  parabolic systems

abstract:
  In this paper we study the quasilinear nondiagonal parabolic type systems. We
assume that the principal elliptic operator, which is part of the parabolic
system, has a divergence structure. Under certain conditions it is proved the
well-posedness of classical solutions, which exist globally in time.


title:
Towers of complements to valuation rings and truncation closed
  embeddings of valued fields

abstract:
  We study necessary and sufficient conditions for a valued field $\KF$ with
value group $G$ and residue field $\kf$ (with char $\KF$ = char $\kf$) to admit
a truncation closed embedding in the field of generalized power series $\kf((G,
f))$ (with factor set $f$). We show that this is equivalent to the existence of
a family ({\it tower of complements}) of $\kf$-subspaces of $\KF$ which are
complements of the (possibly fractional) ideals of the valuation ring. If $\KF$
is a Henselian field of characteristic 0 or, more generally, an algebraically
maximal Kaplansky field, we give an intrinsic construction of such a family
which does not rely on a given truncation closed embedding. We also show that
towers of complements and truncation closed embeddings can be extended from an
arbitrary field to at least one of its maximal immediate extensions.


title:
Phase transitions in the two-dimensional Anisotropic Biquadratic
  Heisenberg Model

abstract:
  In this paper we study the influence of the single-ion anisotropy in the
two-dimensional biquadratic Heisenberg model (ABHM) on the square lattice at
zero and finite low temperatures. It is common to represent the bilinear and
biquadratic terms by $J_1=J\cos\theta$ and $J_2=J\sin\theta$, respectively, and
it is well documented the many phases present in the model as function of
$\theta$. However we have adopted a constant value for the bilinear constant
($J_1=1$) and small values of the biquadratic term ($|J_2|<J_1$). In special,
we have analyzed the quantum phase transition due to the single-ion anisotropic
constant $D$. For values below a critical anisotropic constant $D_{c}$ the
energy spectrum is gapless and at low finite temperatures the order parameter
correlation has an algebraic decay (quasi long-range order). Moreover, in
$D<D_c$ phase there are a transition temperature where the quasi long-range
order (algebric decay) is lost and the decay becomes exponential, similar to
the Berezinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition. For $D > D_c$, the excited
states are gapped and there is no spin long-range order (LRO) even at zero
temperature. Using Schwinger bosonic representation and Self-Consistent
Harmonic Approximation (SCHA), we have studied the quantum and thermal phase
transitions as a function of the bilinear and biquadratic constants.


title: The Complexity of Approximately Counting Tree Homomorphisms

abstract:
  We study two computational problems, parameterised by a fixed tree H.
#HomsTo(H) is the problem of counting homomorphisms from an input graph G to H.
#WHomsTo(H) is the problem of counting weighted homomorphisms to H, given an
input graph G and a weight function for each vertex v of G. Even though H is a
tree, these problems turn out to be sufficiently rich to capture all of the
known approximation behaviour in #P. We give a complete trichotomy for
#WHomsTo(H). If H is a star then #WHomsTo(H) is in FP. If H is not a star but
it does not contain a certain induced subgraph J_3 then #WHomsTo(H) is
equivalent under approximation-preserving (AP) reductions to #BIS, the problem
of counting independent sets in a bipartite graph. This problem is complete for
the class #RHPi_1 under AP-reductions. Finally, if H contains an induced J_3
then #WHomsTo(H) is equivalent under AP-reductions to #SAT, the problem of
counting satisfying assignments to a CNF Boolean formula. Thus, #WHomsTo(H) is
complete for #P under AP-reductions. The results are similar for #HomsTo(H)
except that a rich structure emerges if H contains an induced J_3. We show that
there are trees H for which #HomsTo(H) is #SAT-equivalent (disproving a
plausible conjecture of Kelk). There is an interesting connection between these
homomorphism-counting problems and the problem of approximating the partition
function of the ferromagnetic Potts model. In particular, we show that for a
family of graphs J_q, parameterised by a positive integer q, the problem
#HomsTo(H) is AP-interreducible with the problem of approximating the partition
function of the q-state Potts model. It was not previously known that the Potts
model had a homomorphism-counting interpretation. We use this connection to
obtain some additional upper bounds for the approximation complexity of
#HomsTo(J_q).


title: Generalized space and linear momentum operators in quantum mechanics

abstract:
  We propose a modification of a recently introduced generalized translation
operator, by including a $q$-exponential factor, which implies in the
definition of a Hermitian deformed linear momentum operator $\hat{p}_q$, and
its canonically conjugate deformed position operator $\hat{x}_q$. A canonical
transformation leads the Hamiltonian of a position-dependent mass particle to
another Hamiltonian of a particle with constant mass in a conservative force
field of a deformed phase space. The equation of motion for the classical phase
space may be expressed in terms of the generalized dual $q$-derivative. A
position-dependent mass confined in an infinite square potential well is shown
as an instance. Uncertainty and correspondence principles are analyzed.


title:
Cultural Preferences to Color Quality of Illumination of Different
  Objects

abstract:
  The preferences to color quality of illumination were investigated for
American and Chinese subjects using a solid-state source of white light with
the continuously tunable color saturation ability and correlated color
temperature of quadrichromatic blends. Subjects were asked to identify both
most natural and preferred blends. For very familiar objects, cultural
differences did not affect the average of the selected blends. For less
familiar objects (various paintings), cultural differences in the average
selected blends depended on the level of the familiarity of the content. An
unfamiliar painting also showed preferences to color temperature being
dependent on the cultural background. In all cases, the American subjects
exhibited noticeably wider distributions.


title:
Anisotropic mass ejection from black hole-neutron star binaries:
  Diversity of electromagnetic counterparts

abstract:
  The merger of black hole-neutron star binaries can eject substantial material
with the mass ~0.01-0.1M_sun when the neutron star is disrupted prior to the
merger. The ejecta shows significant anisotropy, and travels in a particular
direction with the bulk velocity ~0.2c. This is drastically different from the
binary neutron star merger, for which ejecta is nearly isotropic. Anisotropic
ejecta brings electromagnetic-counterpart diversity which is unique to black
hole-neutron star binaries, such as viewing-angle dependence, polarization, and
proper motion. The kick velocity of the black hole, gravitational-wave memory
emission, and cosmic-ray acceleration are also discussed.


title: On the simultaneous evolution of massive protostars and their host cores

abstract:
  Studies of the evolution of massive protostars and the evolution of their
host molecular cloud cores are commonly treated as separate problems. However,
interdependencies between the two can be significant. Here, we study the
simultaneous evolution of massive protostars and their host molecular cores
using a multi-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics code that incorporates the
effects of the thermal pressure and radiative acceleration feedback of the
centrally forming protostar. The evolution of the massive protostar is computed
simultaneously using the stellar evolution code STELLAR, modified to include
the effects of variable accretion. The interdependencies are studied in three
different collapse scenarios. For comparison, stellar evolutionary tracks at
constant accretion rates and the evolution of the host cores using pre-computed
stellar evolutionary tracks are computed. The resulting interdependencies of
the protostellar evolution and the evolution of the environment are extremely
diverse and depend on the order of events, in particular the time of
circumstellar accretion disk formation with respect to the onset of the
bloating phase of the star. Feedback mechanisms affect the instantaneous
accretion rate and the protostar's radius, temperature and luminosity on
timescales equal or smaller than 5 kyr, corresponding to the accretion
timescale and Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction timescale, respectively.
Nevertheless, it is possible to approximate the overall protostellar evolution
in many cases by pre-computed stellar evolutionary tracks assuming appropriate
constant average accretion rates.


title: AdS/CFT for Accelerator Physics or Building the Tower of Babel

abstract:
  The crucial property of particle colliders is their ability to convert (e.g.
electrical) energy into the mass of heavy particles. We have become used to the
extremely low efficiency of this conversion and the severe limitations on the
mass scale of heavy particles which can be reached. In view of this situation,
it appears reasonable to ask whether a perfect conversion machine of this type
(a perfect `collider') exists even in principle and whether there is a highest
mass scale which can be reached by such a machine. It turns out that, with a
number of assumptions, such a machine is conceivable in a world with a
strongly-coupled, approximately scale invariant 4d field theory with 5d gravity
dual. This machine can be realized as a 5d tower built on the IR brane (in
Randall-Sundrum model language). Transporting mass to the tip of this tower is,
under certain conditions, equivalent to producing heavy point-like 4d
particles. Hence, this can be thought of as a perfect `collider'. In the
simple, `pure Randall-Sundrum setting' that we analyse, this machine can only
reach a certain maximal energy scale, which falls as the gravity-dual of the 4d
QFT approaches the strong coupling domain. On these grounds, one might expect
that a no-go theorem (in the spirit of that of Carnot for the conversion of
heat into work) exists for weakly-coupled QFTs. We end with some speculations
about collider efficiencies at weak coupling, involving possibly the concept of
entanglement entropy.


title: New ways to TeV scale leptogenesis

abstract:
  We show that by adding to the standard model plus the type I seesaw different
types of scalars, it is possible to construct models that satisfy the three
requirements of (i) generating neutrino masses at the TeV scale, (ii) being
testable at the LHC via direct production of new states, and (iii) allowing for
leptogenesis at temperatures $T\sim O$(TeV).


title:
Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks as Signatures of Planets: II. Inclined
  Disks

abstract:
  We examine the observational appearance of partial gaps being opened by
planets in protoplanetary disks, considering the effects of the inclination
relative to the line of sight. The gap's trough is darkened by both shadowing
and cooling, relative to the uninterrupted disk. The gap's outer wall is
brightened by direct illumination and also by heating, which puffs it up so
that it intercepts more starlight. In this paper, we examine the effects of
inclination on resolved images of disks with and without gaps at a wide range
of wavelengths. The scattering surface's offset from the disk midplane creates
a brightness asymmetry along the axis of inclination, making the disk's near
side appear brighter than the far side in scattered light. Finite disk
thickness also causes the projected distances of equidistant points on the disk
surface to be smaller on the near side of the disk as compared to the far side.
Consequently, the gap shoulder on the near side of the disk should appear
brighter and closer to the star than on the far side. However, if the angular
resolution of the observation is coarser than the width of the brightened gap
shoulder, then the gap shoulder on the far side may appear brighter because of
its larger apparent size. We present a formula to recover the scale height and
inclination angle of an imaged disk using simple geometric arguments and
measuring disk asymmetries. Resolved images of circumstellar disks have
revealed clearings and gaps, such as the transitional disk in LkCa 15. Models
created using our synthetic imaging attempting to match the morphology of
observed scattered light images of LkCa 15 indicate that the H-band flux
deficit in the inner $\sim0.5\arcsec$ of the disk can be explained with a
planet of mass greater than 0.5 Jupiter mass.


title: 1/16 BPS States in N=4 SYM

abstract:
  We investigate the problem of counting 1/16 BPS operators in N=4
Super-Yang-Mills theory at weak coupling. We present the complete set of 1/16
BPS operators in the infinite N limit, which agrees with the counting of free
BPS multi-graviton states in the gravity dual AdS5xS5. Further, we conjecture
that all 1/16 BPS operators in N=4 SYM are of the multi-graviton form, and give
numerical evidences for this conjecture. We discuss the implication of our
conjecture and the seeming failure in reproducing the entropy of large 1/16 BPS
black holes in AdS5.


title: A Shape Dynamical Approach to Holographic Renormalization

abstract:
  We provide a bottom-up argument to derive some known results from holographic
renormalization using the classical bulk-bulk equivalence of General Relativity
and Shape Dynamics, a theory with spatial conformal (Weyl) invariance. The
purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to advertise the simple classical
mechanism: trading of gauge symmetries, that underlies the bulk-bulk
equivalence of General Relativity and Shape Dynamics to readers interested in
dualities of the type of AdS/CFT; and 2) to highlight that this mechanism can
be used to explain certain results of holographic renormalization, providing an
alternative to the AdS/CFT conjecture for these cases. To make contact with
usual the semiclassical AdS/CFT correspondence, we provide, in addition, a
heuristic argument that makes it plausible why the classical equivalence
between General Relativity and Shape Dynamics turns into a duality between
radial evolution in gravity and the renormalization group flow of a conformal
field theory. We believe that Shape Dynamics provides a new perspective on
gravity by giving conformal structure a primary role within the theory. It is
hoped that this work provides the first steps towards understanding what this
new perspective may be able to teach us about holographic dualities.


title: Gemini Spectroscopy of Ultra-Compact Dwarfs in the Fossil Group NGC 1132

abstract:
  A spectroscopic follow up of Ultra-Compact Dwarf (UCD) candidates in the
fossil group NGC 1132 is undertaken with the Gemini Multi Object Spectrograph
(GMOS). These new Gemini spectra prove the presence of six UCDs in the fossil
group NGC 1132 at a distance of D~100 Mpc and a recessional velocity of v_r =
6935 +/- 11 km/s. The brightest and largest member of the UCD population is an
M32 analog with a size of 77.1 pc and a magnitude of M_V=-14.8 mag with the
characteristics in between those of the brightest UCDs and compact elliptical
galaxies. The ensemble of UCDs have an average radial velocity of <v_r> = 6966
+/- 208 km/s and a velocity dispersion of sigma_v = 169 +/-18 km/s similar to
the one of poor galaxy groups. This work shows that UCDs can be used as test
particles to determine the dynamical properties of galaxy groups. The presence
of UCDs in the fossil group environment is confirmed and thus the fact that
UCDs can form across diverse evolutionary conditions.


title:
The Pa{\alpha} Luminosity Function of HII Regions in Nearby Galaxies
  from HST/NICMOS

abstract:
  The HII region luminosity function (LF) is an important tool for deriving the
birthrates and mass distribution of OB associations, and is an excellent tracer
of the newly formed massive stars and associations. To date, extensive work
(predominantly in H{\alpha}) has been done from the ground, which is hindered
by dust extinction and the severe blending of adjacent (spatially or in
projection) HII regions. Reliably measuring the properties of HII regions
requires a linear resolution <40 pc, but analyses satisfying this requirement
have been done only in a handful of galaxies, so far. As the first space-based
work using a galaxy sample, we have selected 12 galaxies from our HST NICMOS
Pa{\alpha} survey and studied the luminosity function and size distribution of
HII regions both in individual galaxies and cumulatively, using a virtually
extinction-free tracer of the ionizing photon rate. The high angular resolution
and low sensitivity to diffuse emission of NICMOS also offer an advantage over
ground-based imaging by enabling a higher degree of de-blending of the HII
regions. We do not confirm the broken power-law LFs found in ground-based
studies. Instead, we find that the LFs, both individual and co-added, follow a
single power law dN(L)/dlnL ~ L^-1, consistent with the mass function of star
clusters in nearby galaxies, and in agreement with the results of the existing
analyses with HST data. The individual and co-added size distribution of HII
regions are both roughly consistent with dN(D)/dlnD ~ D^-3, but the power-law
scaling is probably contaminated by blended regions or complexes.


title: Quark (Anti) Nugget Dark Matter

abstract:
  Prepared for Snowmass 2013 e-Proceedings. We review a testable dark matter
model outside of the standard WIMP paradigm in which the observed ratio
Omega_{dark} ~ 5 Omega_{visible} for visible and dark matter densities finds
its natural explanation as a result of their common QCD origin. Special
emphasis is placed on the observational consequences of this model and on the
detection prospects for present or planned experiments. In particular, we argue
that the relative intensities for a number of observed excesses of emission
(covering more than 11 orders of magnitude) can be explained by this model
without any new fundamental parameters as all relative intensities for these
emissions are determined by standard and well established physics.


title: Recursive prescription for logarithmic jet rate coefficients

abstract:
  We derive a recursion relation for the analytic leading logarithmic
coefficients of a final state gluon cascade. We demonstrate the potential of
our method by analytically computing the rate coefficients for the emission of
up to 80 gluons in both the exclusive-kT (Durham) and generalized inclusive-kT
class of jet algorithms. There is a particularly simple form for the ratios of
resolved coefficients. We suggest potential applications including the
efficient generation of shower histories.


title: Distribution of Human Response Times

abstract:
  We demonstrate that distributions of human response times have power-law
tails and, among closed-form distributions, are best fit by the generalized
inverse gamma distribution. We speculate that the task difficulty tracks the
half-width of the distribution and show that it is related to the exponent of
the power-law tail.


title: Higher Spin de Sitter Holography from Functional Determinants

abstract:
  We discuss further aspects of the higher spin dS/CFT correspondence. Using a
recent result of Dunne and Kirsten, it is shown how to numerically compute the
partition function of the free Sp(N) model for a large class of SO(3)
preserving deformations of the flat/round metric on R^3/S^3 and the source of
the spin-zero single-trace operator dual to the bulk scalar. We interpret this
partition function as a Hartle-Hawking wavefunctional. It has a local maximum
about the pure de Sitter vacuum. Restricting to SO(3) preserving deformations,
other local maxima (which exceed the one near the de Sitter vacuum) can peak at
inhomogeneous and anisotropic values of the late time metric and scalar
profile. Numerical experiments suggest the remarkable observation that, upon
fixing a certain average of the bulk scalar profile at I^+, the wavefunction
becomes normalizable in all the other (infinite) directions of the deformation.
We elucidate the meaning of double trace deformations in the context of dS/CFT
as a change of basis and as a convolution. Finally, we discuss possible
extensions of higher spin de Sitter holography by coupling the free theory to a
Chern-Simons term.


title: M-Strings

abstract:
  M2 branes suspended between adjacent parallel M5 branes lead to light
strings, the `M-strings'. In this paper we compute the elliptic genus of
M-strings, twisted by maximally allowed symmetries that preserve 2d (2,0)
supersymmetry. In a codimension one subspace of parameters this reduces to the
elliptic genus of the (4,4) supersymmetric A_{n-1} quiver theory in 2d. We
contrast the elliptic genus of N M-strings with the (4,4) sigma model on the
N-fold symmetric product of R^4. For N=1 they are the same, but for N>1 they
are close, but not identical. Instead the elliptic genus of (4,4) N M-strings
is the same as the elliptic genus of (4,0) sigma models on the N-fold symmetric
product of R^4, but where the right-moving fermions couple to a modification of
the tangent bundle. This construction arises from a dual A_{n-1} quiver 6d
gauge theory with U(1) gauge groups. Moreover we compute the elliptic genus of
domain walls which separate different numbers of M2 branes on the two sides of
the wall.


title:
Efficiency of the Price Formation Process in Presence of High Frequency
  Participants: a Mean Field Game analysis

abstract:
  This paper deals with a stochastic order-driven market model with waiting
costs, for order books with heterogenous traders. Offer and demand of liquidity
drives price formation and traders anticipate future evolutions of the order
book. The natural framework we use is mean field game theory, a class of
stochastic differential games with a continuum of anonymous players. Several
sources of heterogeneity are considered including the mean size of orders. Thus
we are able to consider the coexistence of Institutional Investors and High
Frequency Traders (HFT). We provide both analytical solutions and numerical
experiments. Implications on classical quantities are explored: order book
size, prices, and effective bid/ask spread. According to the model, in markets
with Institutional Investors only we show the existence of inefficient
liquidity imbalances in equilibrium, with two symmetrical situations
corresponding to what we call liquidity calls for liquidity. During these
situations the transaction price significantly moves away from the fair price.
However this macro phenomenon disappears in markets with both Institutional
Investors and HFT, although a more precise study shows that the benefits of the
new situation go to HFT only, leaving Institutional Investors even with higher
trading costs.


title: A general approach of least squares estimation and optimal filtering

abstract:
  The least squares method allows fitting parameters of a mathematical model
from experimental data. This article proposes a general approach of this
method. After introducing the method and giving a formal definition, the
transitivity of the method as well as numerical considerations are discussed.
Then two particular cases are considered: the usual least squares method and
the Generalized Least Squares method. In both cases, the estimator and its
variance are characterized in the time domain and in the Fourier domain.
Finally, the equivalence of the Generalized Least Squares method and the
optimal filtering technique using a matched filter is established.


title:
Multi-core computation of transfer matrices for strip lattices in the
  Potts model

abstract:
  The transfer-matrix technique is a convenient way for studying strip lattices
in the Potts model since the compu- tational costs depend just on the periodic
part of the lattice and not on the whole. However, even when the cost is
reduced, the transfer-matrix technique is still an NP-hard problem since the
time T(|V|, |E|) needed to compute the matrix grows ex- ponentially as a
function of the graph width. In this work, we present a parallel
transfer-matrix implementation that scales performance under multi-core
architectures. The construction of the matrix is based on several repetitions
of the deletion- contraction technique, allowing parallelism suitable to
multi-core machines. Our experimental results show that the multi-core
implementation achieves speedups of 3.7X with p = 4 processors and 5.7X with p
= 8. The efficiency of the implementation lies between 60% and 95%, achieving
the best balance of speedup and efficiency at p = 4 processors for actual
multi-core architectures. The algorithm also takes advantage of the lattice
symmetry, making the transfer matrix computation to run up to 2X faster than
its non-symmetric counterpart and use up to a quarter of the original space.


title: Sur une classe de groupoides riemanniens

abstract:
  In this work we show that there is a Riemannian groupoid whose orbits are the
closures of the leaves of a regular Riemannian foliation on a compact manifold.
This groupoid is equivalent (in a generalized sense of Haefliger) with a
transformational groupoid on the basic manifold.


title: Development of a confocal rheometer for soft and biological materials

abstract:
  We discuss the design and operation of a confocal rheometer, formed by
integrating an Anton Paar MCR301 stress-controlled rheometer with a Leica SP5
laser scanning confocal microscope. Combining two commercial instruments
results in a system which is straightforward to assemble that preserves the
performance of each component with virtually no impact on the precision of
either device. The instruments are configured so that the microscope can
acquire time-resolved, three-dimensional volumes of a sample whose bulk
viscoelastic properties are being measured simultaneously. We describe several
aspects of the design and, to demonstrate the system's capabilities, present
the results of a few common measurements in the study of soft materials.


title: Relative dimension of morphisms and dimension for algebraic stacks

abstract:
  Motivated by applications in moduli theory, we introduce a flexible and
powerful language for expressing lower bounds on relative dimension of
morphisms of schemes, and more generally of algebraic stacks. We show that the
theory is robust and applies to a wide range of situations. Consequently, we
obtain simple tools for making dimension-based deformation arguments on moduli
spaces. Additionally, in a complementary direction we develop the basic
properties of codimension for algebraic stacks. One of our goals is to provide
a comprehensive toolkit for working transparently with dimension statements in
the context of algebraic stacks.


title: Stiefel tropical linear spaces

abstract:
  The tropical Stiefel map associates to a tropical matrix A its tropical
Pluecker vector of maximal minors, and thus a tropical linear space L(A). We
call the L(A)s obtained in this way Stiefel tropical linear spaces. We prove
that they are dual to certain matroid subdivisions of polytopes of transversal
matroids, and we relate their combinatorics to a canonically associated
tropical hyperplane arrangement. We also explore a broad connection with the
secondary fan of the Newton polytope of the product of all maximal minors of a
matrix. In addition, we investigate the natural parametrization of L(A) arising
from the tropical linear map defined by A.


title:
An Abel map to the compactified Picard scheme realizes Poincar\'e
  duality

abstract:
  For a smooth algebraic curve X over a field, applying H_1 to the Abel map X
-> Pic (X/\partial X) to the Picard scheme of X modulo its boundary realizes
the Poincar\'e duality isomorphism H_1(X, Z/ n) -> H^1(X/ \partial X, Z/n(1)) =
H^1_c(X, Z/n(1)). We show the analogous statement for the Abel map X/\partial X
-> Picbar (X/\partial X) to the compactified Picard, or Jacobian, scheme,
namely this map realizes the Poincar\'e duality isomorphism H_1(X/ \partial X,
Z/n) -> H^1(X, Z/n(1)). In particular, H_1 of this Abel map is an isomorphism.
  In proving this result, we prove some results about Picbar that are of
independent interest. The singular curve X/\partial X has a unique singularity
that is an ordinary fold point, and we describe the compactified Picard scheme
of such a curve up to universal homeomorphism using a presentation scheme. We
construct a Mayer-Vietoris sequence for certain push-outs of schemes, and an
isomorphism of functors \pi_1^{ell} Pic^0(-) = H^1(-,Z_ell(1)).


title: Dynamical systems and \sigma-symmetries

abstract:
  A deformation of the standard prolongation operation, defined on sets of
vector fields in involution rather than on single ones, was recently introduced
and christened "\sigma-prolongation"; correspondingly one has
"\sigma-symmetries" of differential equations. These can be used to reduce the
equations under study, but the general reduction procedure under
\sigma-symmetries fails for equations of order one. In this note we discuss how
\sigma-symmetries can be used to reduce dynamical systems, i.e. sets of first
order ODEs in the form dx^a/dt = f^a (x).


title:
The Story of Telebrain: A multi-performer telematic platform for
  performatization

abstract:
  This paper presents Telebrain, a browser-based performatization platform
invented for organizing real-time telematic performances. Performatization is
the human performance of algorithms. When computers and humans performatize
cooperatively, the human-computer interaction (HCI) becomes the location of
computation. Novel modes of machine-human communication are necessary for
organizing performatizations. Telebrain is designed to facilitate machine-human
languages. Capitalizing on the ubiquity and cross-platform compatibility of the
Internet, Telebrain is an open-source web application supporting PerPL
(Performer Programming Language), a human-interpreted configurable language of
multi-media instructions used to program performers. Telebrain facilitates a
variety of performance disciplines such as music, theater, dance, computational
performance, networked scoring (image and audio), prompted improvisation,
real-space multi-player gaming, collaborative transdisciplinary karaoke and
quantum square-dancing. (http://telebrain.org)


title:
Model operator approach to the Lamb shift calculations in relativistic
  many-electron atoms

abstract:
  A model operator approach to calculations of the QED corrections to energy
levels in relativistic many-electron atomic systems is developed. The model
Lamb shift operator is represented by a sum of local and nonlocal potentials
which are defined using the results of ab initio calculations of the diagonal
and nondiagonal matrix elements of the one-loop QED operator with H-like wave
functions. The model operator can be easily included in any calculations based
on the Dirac-Coulomb-Breit Hamiltonian. Efficiency of the method is
demonstrated by comparison of the model QED operator results for the Lamb
shifts in many-electron atoms and ions with exact QED calculations.


title:
Conductivity of Coulomb interacting massless Dirac particles in
  graphene: Regularization-dependent parameters and symmetry constraints

abstract:
  We compute the Coulomb correction $\mathcal{C}$ to the a. c. conductivity of
interacting massless Dirac particles in graphene in the collisionless limit
using the polarization tensor approach in a regularization independent
framework. Arbitrary parameters stemming from differences between
logarithmically divergent integrals are fixed on physical grounds exploiting
only spatial $O(2)$ rotational invariance of the model which amounts to
transversality of the polarization tensor. Consequently $\mathcal{C}$ is
unequivocally determined to be $(19- 6\pi)/12$ within this effective model. We
compare our result with explicit regularizations and discuss the origin of
others results for $\mathcal{C}$ found in the literature.


title:
Investigation of positive and negative modes of nanosecond pulsed
  discharge in water and electrostriction model of initiation

abstract:
  This work investigates the development of nanosecond pulsed discharges in
water ignited with the application of both positive and negative polarity
pulses to submerged pin to plane electrodes. Optical diagnostics are used to
study two main aspects of these discharges: the initiation phase, and the
development phase. Nanosecond pulses up to 24 kV with 4 ns rise time, 10 ns
duration and 5 ns fall time are used to ignite discharges in a 1.5 mm gap
between a copper plate and a tungsten needle with radius of curvature of 25 um.
Fast ICCD imaging is used to trace the discharge development over varying
applied pulse amplitudes for both positively and negatively applied pulses to
the pin electrode. The discharge is found to progress similar to that of
discharges in long gaps in gases, both in structure and development. The more
important initiation phase is investigated via Schlieren transmission imaging.
The region near the tip of the electrode is investigated for slightly
under-breakdown conditions, and changes in the liquids refractive index and
density are observed over the duration of the applied pulse. An attempt to
explain the results is made based on the electrostriction model of discharge
initiation.


title:
Adaptive Reduced-Rank Processing Using a Projection Operator Based on
  Joint Iterative Optimization of Adaptive Filters For CDMA Interference
  Suppression

abstract:
  This paper proposes a novel adaptive reduced-rank filtering scheme based on
the joint iterative optimization of adaptive filters. The proposed scheme
consists of a joint iterative optimization of a bank of full-rank adaptive
filters that constitutes the projection matrix and an adaptive reduced-rank
filter that operates at the output of the bank of filters. We describe minimum
mean-squared error (MMSE) expressions for the design of the projection matrix
and the reduced-rank filter and simple least-mean squares (LMS) adaptive
algorithms for its computationally efficient implementation. Simulation results
for a CDMA interference suppression application reveals that the proposed
scheme significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art reduced-rank schemes,
while requiring a significantly lower computational complexity.


title:
Low complexity methods for discretizing manifolds via Riesz energy
  minimization

abstract:
  Let $A$ be a compact $d$-rectifiable set embedded in Euclidean space $\RR^p$,
$d\le p$. For a given continuous distribution $\sigma(x)$ with respect to
$d$-dimensional Hausdorff measure on $A$, our earlier results provided a method
for generating $N$-point configurations on $A$ that have asymptotic
distribution $\sigma (x)$ as $N\to \infty$; moreover such configurations are
"quasi-uniform" in the sense that the ratio of the covering radius to the
separation distance is bounded independent of $N$. The method is based upon
minimizing the energy of $N$ particles constrained to $A$ interacting via a
weighted power law potential $w(x,y)|x-y|^{-s}$, where $s>d$ is a fixed
parameter and $w(x,y)=\left(\sigma(x)\sigma(y)\right)^{-({s}/{2d})}$.
  Here we show that one can generate points on $A$ with the above mentioned
properties keeping in the energy sums only those pairs of points that are
located at a distance of at most $r_N=C_N N^{-1/d}$ from each other, with $C_N$
being a positive sequence tending to infinity arbitrarily slowly. To do this we
minimize the energy with respect to a varying truncated weight
$v_N(x,y)=\Phi\(\left|x-y\right|/r_N\)w(x,y)$, where $\Phi:(0,\infty)\to
[0,\infty)$ is a bounded function with $\Phi(t)=0$, $t\geq 1$, and $\lim_{t\to
0^+}\Phi(t)=1$. This reduces, under appropriate assumptions, the complexity of
generating $N$ point `low energy' discretizations to order $N C_N^d$
computations.


title: Triangle anomaly in Weyl semi-metals

abstract:
  Weyl semimetals possess massless chiral quasi-particles, and are thus
affected by the triangle anomalies. We discuss the features of the chiral
magnetic and chiral vortical effects specific to Weyl semimetals, and then
propose three novel phenomena caused by the triangle anomalies in this
material: 1) anomaly cooling; 2) charge transport by soliton waves as described
by the Burgers' equation, and 3) the shift of the BKT phase transition of
superfluid vortices coupled to Weyl fermions. In addition, we establish the
conditions under which the chiral magnetic current exists in real materials.


title: Universality of scholarly impact metrics

abstract:
  Given the growing use of impact metrics in the evaluation of scholars,
journals, academic institutions, and even countries, there is a critical need
for means to compare scientific impact across disciplinary boundaries.
Unfortunately, citation-based metrics are strongly biased by diverse field
sizes and publication and citation practices. As a result, we have witnessed an
explosion in the number of newly proposed metrics that claim to be "universal."
However, there is currently no way to objectively assess whether a normalized
metric can actually compensate for disciplinary bias. We introduce a new method
to assess the universality of any scholarly impact metric, and apply it to
evaluate a number of established metrics. We also define a very simple new
metric hs, which proves to be universal, thus allowing to compare the impact of
scholars across scientific disciplines. These results move us closer to a
formal methodology in the measure of scholarly impact.


title: Monotone false discovery rate

abstract:
  This paper proposes a procedure to obtain monotone estimates of both the
local and the tail false discovery rates that arise in large-scale multiple
testing. The proposed monotonization is asymptotically optimal for controlling
the false discovery rate and also has many attractive finite-sample properties.


title:
Information conservation is fundamental: recovering the lost information
  in Hawking radiation

abstract:
  In both classical and quantum world, information cannot appear or disappear.
This fundamental principle, however, is questioned for a black hole, by the
acclaimed "information loss paradox". Based on the conservation laws of energy,
charge, and angular momentum, we recently show the total information encoded in
the correlations among Hawking radiations equals exactly to the same amount
previously considered lost, assuming the non-thermal spectrum of Parikh and
Wilczek. Thus the information loss paradox can be falsified through experiments
by detecting correlations, for instance, through measuring the covariances of
Hawking radiations from black holes, such as the manmade ones speculated to
appear in LHC experiments. The affirmation of information conservation in
Hawking radiation will shine new light on the unification of gravity with
quantum mechanics.


title: Ergodic properties of random holomorphic endomorphisms of $\Bbb{P}^k$

abstract:
  We study ergodic properties of compositions of holomorphic endomorphisms of
the complex projective space chosen independently at random according to some
probability distribution. Along the way, we construct positive closed currents
which have good invariance and convergence properties. We provide a sufficient
condition for these currents to have H\"{o}lder continuous quasi-potentials. We
also prove central limit theorem for d.s.h and H\"{o}lder continuous
observables.


title: Black holes vs. firewalls and thermo-field dynamics

abstract:
  In this essay, we examine the implications of the ongoing black holes vs.
firewalls debate for the thermo-field dynamics of black holes by analyzing a
CFT in a thermal state in the context of AdS/CFT. We argue that the themo-field
doubled copy of the thermal CFT should be thought of not as a fictitious
system, but as the image of the CFT in the heat-bath. While this idea was
proposed earlier by Papadodimas et al., our following conclusions differ from
theirs. In case of strong coupling between the CFT and the heat-bath this image
allows for free infall through the horizon and the system is described by a
black hole. Conversely, firewalls are the appropriate dual description in case
of weak interaction of the CFT with its heat bath.


title:
Factorization of Constrained Energy K-Network Reliability with Perfect
  Nodes

abstract:
  This paper proves a new general K-network constrained energy reliability
global factorization theorem. As in the unconstrained case, beside its
theoretical mathematical importance the theorem shows how to do parallel
processing in exact network constrained energy reliability calculations in
order to reduce the processing time of this NP-hard problem. Followed by a new
simple factorization formula for its calculation, we propose a new definition
of constrained energy network reliability motivated by the factorization
theorem and the accomplishment of parallel processing, something impossible
with the original definition.


title:
Determination of the magnetic dipole moment of the rho meson using 4
  pion electroproduction data

abstract:
  We determine the magnetic dipole moment of the rho meson using preliminary
data from the BaBar Collaboration for the $e^+ e^- \to \pi^+ \pi^- 2 \pi^0$
process, in the center of mass energy range from 0.9 to 2.2 GeV. We describe
the $\gamma^* \to 4\pi$ vertex using a vector meson dominance model, including
the intermediate resonance contributions relevant at these energies. We find
that $\mu_\rho = 2.1 \pm 0.5$ in $e/2 m_\rho$ units.


title: Bouncing cosmologies in massive gravity on de Sitter

abstract:
  In the framework of massive gravity with a de Sitter reference metric, we
study homogeneous and isotropic solutions with positive spatial curvature.
Remarkably, we find that bounces can occur when cosmological matter satisfies
the strong energy condition, in contrast to what happens in classical general
relativity. This is due to the presence in the Friedmann equations of
additional terms, which depend on the scale factor and its derivatives and can
be interpreted as an effective fluid. We present a detailed study of the system
using a phase space analysis. After having identified the fixed points of the
system and investigated their stability properties, we discuss the cosmological
evolution in the global physical phase space. We find that bouncing solutions


title: Toric origami manifolds and multi-fans

abstract:
  The notion of a toric origami manifold, which weakens the notion of a
symplectic toric manifold, was introduced by Cannas da Silva-Guillemin-Pires
\cite{ca-gu-pi11} and they show that toric origami manifolds bijectively
correspond to origami templates via moment maps, where an origami template is a
collection of Delzant polytopes with some folding data. Like a fan is
associated to a Delzant polytope, a multi-fan introduced in \cite{ha-ma03} and
\cite{masu99} can be associated to an oriented origami template. In this paper,
we discuss their relationship and show that any simply connected compact smooth
4-manifold with a smooth action of $T^2$ can be a toric origami manifold. We
also characterize products of even dimensional spheres which can be toric
origami manifolds.


title:
Finite temperature Fermionic Casimir interaction in Anti-de Sitter
  spacetime

abstract:
  We study the finite temperature Casimir interactions on two parallel
boundaries in the anti-de Sitter spacetime AdS$_{D+1}$ induced by the vacuum
fluctuations of a massive fermionic field with MIT bag boundary conditions. As
in the Minkowski spacetime, the Casimir interaction always tends to attract the
two boundaries to each other at any temperature and for any mass. For bosonic
fields, it is well known that the high temperature leading term of the Casimir
interaction is linear in temperature. However, for fermionic fields, the
Casimir interaction decays exponentially at high temperature due to the absence
of zero Matsubara frequency.


title: Global communication algorithms for Cayley graphs

abstract:
  We discuss several combinatorial problems that arise when one looks at
computational algorithms for highly symmetric networks of processors. More
specifically, we are interested in minimal times associated with four
communication tasks (defined more precisely below): universal broadcast, every
processor has a vector that it wishes to broadcast to all the others; universal
accumulation, every processor wishes to receive the sum of all the vectors
being sent to it by all the other processors; universal exchange, every
processor wishes to exchange a vector with each other processor; and global
summation, every processor wants the sum of the vectors in all the processors


title:
An efficient dynamic ID based remote user authentication scheme using
  self-certified public keys for multi-server environment

abstract:
  Recently, Li et al. analyzed Lee et al.'s multi-server authentication scheme
and proposed a novel smart card and dynamic ID based remote user authentication
scheme for multi-server environments. They claimed that their scheme can resist
several kinds of attacks. However, through careful analysis, we find that Li et
al.'s scheme is vulnerable to stolen smart card and offline dictionary attack,
replay attack, impersonation attack and server spoofing attack. By analyzing
other similar schemes, we find that the certain type of dynamic ID based
multi-server authentication scheme in which only hash functions are used and no
registration center participates in the authentication and session key
agreement phase is hard to provide perfect efficient and secure authentication.
To compensate for these shortcomings, we improve the recently proposed Liao et
al.'s multi-server authentication scheme which is based on pairing and
self-certified public keys, and propose a novel dynamic ID based remote user
authentication scheme for multi-server environments. Liao et al.'s scheme is
found vulnerable to offline dictionary attack and denial of service attack, and
cannot provide user's anonymity and local password verification. However, our
proposed scheme overcomes the shortcomings of Liao et al.'s scheme. Security
and performance analyses show the proposed scheme is secure against various
attacks and has many excellent features.


title: Water vapor in nearby infrared galaxies as probed by Herschel

abstract:
  We report the first systematic study of the submillimeter water vapor
rotational emission lines in infrared (IR) galaxies based on the Fourier
Transform Spectrometer (FTS) data of {\it Herschel} SPIRE. Among the 176
galaxies with publicly available FTS data, 45 have at least one H$_2$O emission
line detected. The H$_2$O line luminosities range from $\sim 1 \times 10^5$
$L_{\odot}$ to $\sim 5 \times 10^7 L_{\odot}$ while the total IR luminosities
($L_\mathrm{IR}$) have a similar spread ($\sim 1-300 \times 10^{10}
L_{\odot}$). In addition, emission lines of H$_2$O$^+$ and H$_2^{18}$O are also
detected. H$_2$O is found, for most galaxies, to be the strongest molecular
emitter after CO in FTS spectra. The luminosity of the five most important
H$_2$O lines is near-linearly correlated with $L_\mathrm{IR}$, no matter
whether strong active galactic nucleus signature is present or not. However,
the luminosity of H$_2$O($2_{11}-2_{02}$) and H$_2$O($2_{20}-2_{11}$) appears
to increase slightly faster than linear with $L_\mathrm{IR}$. Although the
slope turns out to be slightly steeper when $z\sim 2-4$ ULIRGs are included,
the correlation is still closely linear. We find that
$L_\mathrm{H_2O}/L_\mathrm{IR}$ decreases with increasing $f_{25}/f_{60}$, but
see no dependence on $f_{60}/f_{100}$, possibly indicating that very warm dust
contributes little to the excitation of the submillimeter H$_2$O lines. The
average spectral line energy distribution (SLED) of the entire sample is
consistent with individual SLEDs and the IR pumping plus collisional excitation
model, showing that the strongest lines are H$_2$O($2_{02}-1_{11}$) and
H$_2$O($3_{21}-3_{12}$).


title: Discovering Walking Technicolor at LHC and Lattice

abstract:
  Walking technicolor, having a large anomalous dimension $\gamma_m \simeq 1$
and approximate scale symmetry, predicts Technidilaton, a light composite Higgs
as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of the approximate scale symmetry, which can
be identified with the 125 GeV boson discovered at LHC. I will describe how
such a {\it weakly coupled light composite scalar} can be dynamically realized
in the {\it strongly coupled dynamics}, and can be fit to the current data at
LHC, based on the ladder-like computation and the holographic one. I will also
present results of our lattice collaboration (LatKMI Collaboration) searching
for a walking theory and a light flavor-singlet scalar bound state in large
$N_f$ QCD.


title:
Non-natural non-symplectic involutions on symplectic manifolds of
  K3^{[2]}-type

abstract:
  We study non-symplectic involutions on irreducible symplectic manifolds of
K3^{[2]}-type with 19 parameters, which is the second largest possible. We
classify the conjugacy classes of cohomological representations into four
different types and show that there are at most five deformation types, two of
which are given by natural involutions and their flops. Next, we give a
geometric realisation of one of the new types using moduli spaces of sheaves on
K3 surfaces. The geometry of the manifold and the new involution is described
in detail.


title:
Can Massive Gravity Explain the Mass Discrepancy - Acceleration Relation
  of Disk Galaxies?

abstract:
  The empirical mass discrepancy-acceleration (MDA) relation of disk galaxies
provides a key test for models of galactic dynamics. In terms of modified laws
of gravity and/or inertia, the MDA relation quantifies the transition from
Newtonian to modified dynamics at low centripetal accelerations a_c < 10^-10
m/s^2. As yet, neither dynamical models based on dark matter nor proposed
modifications of the laws of gravity/inertia have predicted the functional form
of the MDA relation. In this work, I revisit the MDA data and compare them to
four different theoretical scaling laws. Three of these scaling laws are
entirely empirical, the fourth one - the "simple mu" function of Modified
Newtonian Dynamics - derives from a toy model of gravity based on massive
gravitons (the "graviton picture"). All theoretical MDA relations comprise one
free parameter of the dimension of an acceleration, Milgrom's constant a_M. I
find that the "simple mu" function provides a good fit to the data free of
notable systematic residuals and provides the best fit among the four scaling
laws tested. The best-fit value of Milgrom's constant is a_M = (1.06 +/-
0.05)*10^-10 m/s^2. Given the successful prediction of the functional form of
the MDA relation, plus an overall agreement with the observed kinematics of
stellar systems spanning eight orders of magnitude in size and 14 orders of
magnitude in mass, I conclude that the "graviton picture" is sufficient (albeit
probably not a necessary or unique approach) to describe galactic dynamics on
all scales well beyond the scale of the solar system. This suggests that, at
least on galactic scales, gravity behaves as if it was mediated by massive
particles.


title: On multi-time-step monolithic coupling algorithms for elastodynamics

abstract:
  We present a way of constructing multi-time-step monolithic coupling methods
for elastodynamics. The governing equations for constrained multiple subdomains
are written in dual Schur form and enforce the continuity of velocities at
system time levels. The resulting equations will be in the form of
differential-algebraic equations. To crystallize the ideas we shall employ
Newmark family of time-stepping schemes. The proposed method can handle
multiple subdomains, and allows different time-steps as well as different time
stepping schemes from the Newmark family in different subdomains. We shall use
the energy method to assess the numerical stability, and quantify the influence
of perturbations under the proposed coupling method. We also discuss the
conditions under which the proposed method will be energy preserving, and the
conditions under which the method will be energy conserving. Several numerical
examples are presented to illustrate the accuracy and stability properties of
the proposed method. We shall also compare the proposed multi-time-step
coupling method with some other similar methods available in the literature.


title: The sign changes of Fourier coefficients of Eisenstein series

abstract:
  In this paper we prove a number of theorems that determine the extent to
which the signs of the Hecke eigenvalues of an Eisenstein newform determine the
newform. We address this problem broadly and provide theorems of both
individual and statistical nature. Many of these results are Eisenstein series
analogues of well-known theorems for cusp forms. For instance, we determine how
often the p-th Fourier coefficients of an Eisenstein newform begin with a fixed
sequence of signs \varepsilon_p = {\pm 1, 0}. Moreover, we prove the following
variant of the strong multiplicity-one theorem: an Eisenstein newform is
uniquely determined by the signs of its Hecke eigenvalues with respect to any
set of primes with density greater than 1/2.


title: Weighted projections into closed subspaces

abstract:
  In this paper we study $A$-projections, i.e. operators of a Hilbert space
$\HH$ which act as projections when a seminorm is considered in $\HH$.
$A$-projections were introduced by Mitra and Rao \cite{[MitRao74]} for finite
dimensional spaces. We relate this concept to the theory of compatibility
between positive operators and closed subspaces of $\HH$. We also study the
relationship between weighted least squares problems and compatibility.


title: Using Blogs to Promote Writing Skill in ESL Classroom

abstract:
  This study provides details on the motivational factors for using blogs as an
essential tool to promote students writing skills in ESL classrooms. The study
aims to discuss how using blogs may be integrated into classroom activities to
promote students writing skills as well as polishing their skills. It would
also illustrate the features offered in blogs as well as the motivational
essence that is attached to the blogs. To achieve the aim of the study, a
semi-structured interview protocol was used to collect the required qualitative
data. The findings of the study would serve as an insistent reminder that the
blogs which have been clearly underlined in the curriculum should be
re-orchestrated more effectively again by the teachers of English as a Second
Language (ESL).


title:
Characterizing the rate and coherence of single-electron tunneling
  between two dangling bonds on the surface of silicon

abstract:
  We devise a scheme to characterize tunneling of an excess electron shared by
a pair of tunnel-coupled dangling bonds on a silicon surface -- effectively a
two-level system. Theoretical estimates show that the tunneling should be
highly coherent but too fast to be measured by any conventional techniques. Our
approach is instead to measure the time-averaged charge distribution of our
dangling-bond pair by a capacitively coupled atomic-force-microscope tip in the
presence of both a surface-parallel electrostatic potential bias between the
two dangling bonds and a tunable midinfrared laser capable of inducing Rabi
oscillations in the system. With a nonresonant laser, the time-averaged charge
distribution in the dangling-bond pair is asymmetric as imposed by the bias.
However, as the laser becomes resonant with the coherent electron tunneling in
the biased pair the theory predicts that the time-averaged charge distribution
becomes symmetric. This resonant symmetry effect should not only reveal the
tunneling rate, but also the nature and rate of decoherence of single-electron
dynamics in our system.


title:
Using Visual Aids as a Motivational Tool in Enhancing Students Interest
  in Reading Literary Texts

abstract:
  This study aims to investigate the teachers perceptions on the use of visual
aids (e.g., animation videos, pictures, films and projectors) as a motivational
tool in enhancing students interest in reading literary texts. To achieve the
aim of the study, the mixed-method approach was used to collect the required
data. Therefore, 52 English teachers from seven national secondary schools in
Kapit, Sarawak, Malaysia were selected. Five of the respondents were also
randomly selected for the interview. The analysis of the data indicated that
the majority of the teachers had positive perceptions of the use of visual
aids. The use of visual aids enable the teachers to engage their students
closely with the literary texts despite of being able to facilitate students of
different English proficiency level in reading the texts with interest. This
aspect is vital as literature helps to generate students creative and critical
thinking skills. Although the teachers had positive attitudes towards the use
of visual aids, the study suggests that it will be more interesting and precise
if it includes students perceptions as well.


title:
Ground-State Ferromagnetic Transition in Strongly Repulsive
  One-Dimensional Fermi Gases

abstract:
  We prove that as a one-dimensional Fermi gas is brought across the resonance
adiabatically from large repulsion to large attraction, the singlet ground
state will give way to the maximum spin state, which is the lowest energy state
among the states accessible to the system in this process. In the presence of
tiny symmetry breaking fields that destroy spin conservation, the singlet
ground state can evolve to the ferromagnetic state or a spin segregated state.
We have demonstrated these effects by exact calculations on fermion cluster
relevant to current experiments, and have worked out the quantum mechanical
wavefunction that exhibits phase separation.


title: Single W and Z production, asymmetry, and V+jetse at the Tevatron

abstract:
  We present the most recent W and Z production, asymmetries, and V+jets
results from the Tevatron collider at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV, analyzing data
collected by CDF and DZero detectors between 2002-2011. The results include the
measurements of the W and Z bosons properties, include boson p_T and
asymmetries measurements, and also the W and Z boson plus jets productions.
Those measurements provide the precision tests on the electroweak in Standard
Model (SM), and high order theoretical predictions.


title:
Anisotropic propagative excitations and quadrupolar effects in
  Tb$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$

abstract:
  The dynamical magnetic correlations in \tbti\, have been investigated using
polarized inelastic neutron scattering. Dispersive excitations are observed,
emerging from pinch points in reciprocal space and characterized by an
anisotropic spectral weight. Anomalies in the crystal field and phonon
excitation spectrum at Brillouin zone centers are also reported. These findings
suggest that Coulomb phases, although they present a disordered ground state
with dipolar correlations, allow the propagation of collective excitations.
They also point out a strong spin-lattice coupling, which likely drives
effective interactions between the $4f$ quadrupolar moments.


title: Unraveling the origin of exponential law in intra-urban human mobility

abstract:
  The vast majority of travel takes place within cities. Recently, new data has
become available which allows for the discovery of urban mobility patterns
which differ from established results about long distance travel. Specifically,
the latest evidence increasingly points to exponential trip length
distributions, contrary to the scaling laws observed on larger scales. In this
paper, in order to explore the origin of the exponential law, we propose a new
model which can predict individual flows in urban areas better. Based on the
model, we explain the exponential law of intra-urban mobility as a result of
the exponential decrease in average population density in urban areas. Indeed,
both empirical and analytical results indicate that the trip length and the
population density share the same exponential decaying rate.


title: Transcriptional delay stabilizes bistable gene networks

abstract:
  Transcriptional delay can significantly impact the dynamics of gene networks.
Here we examine how such delay affects bistable systems. We investigate several
stochastic models of bistable gene networks and find that increasing delay
dramatically increases the mean residence times near stable states. To explain
this, we introduce a non-Markovian, analytically tractable reduced model. The
model shows that stabilization is the consequence of an increased number of
failed transitions between stable states. Each of the bistable systems that we
simulate behaves in this manner.


title: Quantum advantage by weak measurements

abstract:
  Weak measurements may result in extra quantity of quantumness of correlations
compared with standard projective measurement on a bipartite quantum state. We
show that the quantumness of correlations by weak measurements can be consumed
for information encoding which is only accessible by coherent quantum
interactions. Then it can be considered as a resource for quantum information
processing and can quantify this quantum advantage. We conclude that weak
measurements can create more valuable quantum correlation.


title:
Representation type of finite quiver Hecke algebras of type
  $D^{(2)}_{\ell+1}$

abstract:
  We give Erdmann-Nakano type theorem for the finite quiver Hecke algebras
$R^{\Lambda_0}(\beta)$ of affine type $D^{(2)}_{\ell+1}$, which tells their
representation type. If $R^{\Lambda_0}(\beta)$ is not of wild representation
type, we may compute its stable Auslander-Reiten quiver.


title:
Optical measurement of acoustic radiation pressure of the near-field
  acoustic levitation through transparent object

abstract:
  It is known that macroscopic objects can be levitated for few to several
hundred micrometers by near-field acoustic field and this phenomenon is called
near-field acoustic levitation (NFAL). Although there are various experiments
conducted to measure integrated acoustic pressure on the object surface, up to
now there was no direct method to measure pressure distribution. In this study
we measured the acoustic radiation pressure of the near-field acoustic
levitation via pressure-sensitive paint.


title:
A poor man's improvement on Zhang's result: there are infinitely many
  prime gaps less than 60 million

abstract:
  Taking the easy option I prove that one can lower Zhang's bound on prime gaps
from 70 million to 60 million. A poor man's improvement indeed!


title:
Three-Dimensional MHD Simulations of Emerging Active Region Flux in a
  Turbulent Rotating Solar Convective Envelope: the Numerical Model and Initial
  Results

abstract:
  We describe a 3D finite-difference spherical anelastic MHD (FSAM) code for
modeling the subsonic dynamic processes in the solar convective envelope. A
comparison of this code with the widely used global spectral anlastic MHD code,
ASH (Anelastic Spherical Harmonics), shows that FSAM produces convective flows
with statistical properties and mean flows similar to the ASH results. Using
FSAM, we first simulate the rotating solar convection in a partial spherical
shell domain and obtain a statistically steady, giant-cell convective flow with
a solar-like differential rotation. We then insert buoyant toroidal flux tubes
near the bottom of the convecting envelope and simulate the rise of the flux
tubes in the presence of the giant cell convection. We find that for buoyant
flux tubes with an initial field strength of 100 kG, the magnetic buoyancy
largely determines the rise of the tubes although strong down flows produce
significant undulation and distortion to the shape of the emerging
$\Omega$-shaped loops. The convective flows significantly reduce the rise time
it takes for the apex of the flux tube to reach the top. For the weakly twisted
and untwisted cases we simulated, the apex portion is found to rise nearly
radially to the top in about a month, and produce an emerging region (at a
depth of about 30 Mm below the photosphere) with an overall tilt angle
consistent with the active region tilts, although the emergence pattern is more
complex compared to the case without convection. Near the top boundary at a
depth of about 30 Mm, the emerging flux shows a retrograde zonal flow of about
345 m/s relative to the mean flow at that latitude.


title:
On $\xi^{(s)}$-Quadratic Stochastic Operators on two Dimensional simplex
  and their behavior

abstract:
  A quadratic stochastic operator (in short QSO) is usually used to present the
time evolution of differing species in biology. Some quadratic stochastic
operators have been studied by Lotka and Volterra. The general problem in the
nonlinear operator theory is to study the behavior of operators. This problem
was not fully finished even for quadratic stochastic operators which are the
simplest nonlinear operators. To study this problem, it was investigated
several classes of QSO. In this paper, we study $\xi^{(s)}$--QSO defined on 2D
simplex. We first classify $\xi^{(s)}$--QSO into 20 non-conjugate classes.
Further, we investigate the dynamics of three classes of such operators.


title: Multiple testing of local maxima for detection of peaks in ChIP-Seq data

abstract:
  A topological multiple testing approach to peak detection is proposed for the
problem of detecting transcription factor binding sites in ChIP-Seq data. After
kernel smoothing of the tag counts over the genome, the presence of a peak is
tested at each observed local maximum, followed by multiple testing correction
at the desired false discovery rate level. Valid p-values for candidate peaks
are computed via Monte Carlo simulations of smoothed Poisson sequences, whose
background Poisson rates are obtained via linear regression from a Control
sample at two different scales. The proposed method identifies nearby binding
sites that other methods do not.


title:
Flavour structure of the nucleon electromagnetic form factors and
  transverse charge densities in the chiral quark-soliton model

abstract:
  We investigate the flavour decomposition of the electromagnetic form factors
of the nucleon, based on the chiral quark-soliton model ($\chi$QSM) with
symmetry-conserving quantisation. We consider the rotational $1/N_c$ and linear
strange-quark mass ($m_s$) corrections. We discuss the results of the
flavour-decomposed electromagnetic form factors in comparison with the recent
experimental data. In order to see the effects of the strange quark, we compare
the SU(3) results with those of SU(2). We finally discuss the transverse charge
densities for both unpolarised and polarised nucleons. The transverse charge
density inside a neutron turns out to be negative in the vicinity of the centre
within the SU(3) $\chi$QSM, which can be explained by the contribution of the
strange quark.


title:
Electrostatic Potential of a Point Charge in a Brans-Dicke
  Reissner-Nordstrom Field

abstract:
  We consider the Brans-Dicke Reissner-Nordstrom spacetime in isotropic
coordinates and the electrostatic field of an electric point charge placed
outside its surface of inversion. We treat the static electric point charge as
a linear perturbation on the Brans-Dicke Reissner-Nordstrom background. We
develop a method based upon the Copson method to convert the governing Maxwell
equation on the electrostatic potential generated by the static electric point
charge into a solvable linear second order ordinary differential equation. We
obtain a closed form fundamental solution of the curved space Laplace equation
arising from the background metric, which is shown to be regular everywhere
except at the point charge and its image point inside the surface of inversion.
We also develop a method that demonstrates that the solution does not contain
any other charge that may creep into the region that lies beyond the surface of
inversion and which is not covered by the isotropic coordinates. The
Brans-Dicke Reissner-Nordstrom spacetime therefore is linearly stable under
electrostatic perturbations. This stability result includes the three
degenerate cases of the fundamental solution that correspond to the Brans Type
1, the Reissner-Nordstrom and the Schwarzschild background spacetimes.


title: Conditionally valid uncertainty relations

abstract:
  It is shown that the well-defined unbiased measurement or disturbance of a
dynamical variable is not maintained for the precise measurement of the
conjugate variable, independently of uncertainty relations. The conditionally
valid uncertainty relations on the basis of those additional assumptions, which
include most of the familiar Heisenberg-type relations, thus become singular
for the precise measurement. We clarify some contradicting conclusions in the
literature concerning those conditionally valid uncertainty relations: The
failure of a naive Heisenberg-type error-disturbance relation and the modified
Arthurs-Kelly relation in the recent spin measurement is attributed to this
singular behavior. The naive Heisenberg-type error-disturbance relation is
formally preserved in quantum estimation theory, which is shown to be based on
the strict unbiased measurement and disturbance, but it leads to unbounded
disturbance for bounded operators such as spin variables. In contrast, the
Heisenberg-type error-error uncertainty relation and the Arthurs-Kelly
relation, as conditionally valid uncertainty relations, are consistently
maintained.


title: Fractional Pebbling Game Lower Bounds

abstract:
  Fractional pebbling is a generalization of black-white pebbling introduced
recently. In this reasearch paper we solve an open problem by proving a tight
lower bound on the pebble weight required to fractionally pebble a balanced
d-ary tree of height h. This bound has close ties with branching programs and
the separation of P from NL.


title:
Uniform and optimal error estimates of an exponential wave integrator
  sine pseudospectral method for the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with wave
  operator

abstract:
  We propose an exponential wave integrator sine pseudospectral (EWI-SP) method
for the nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation (NLS) with wave operator (NLSW), and
carry out rigorous error analysis. The NLSW is NLS perturbed by the wave
operator with strength described by a dimensionless parameter
$\varepsilon\in(0,1]$. As $\varepsilon\to0^+$, the NLSW converges to the NLS
and for the small perturbation, i.e. $0<\varepsilon\ll1$, the solution of the
NLSW differs from that of the NLS with a function oscillating in time with
$O(\varepsilon^2)$-wavelength at $O(\varepsilon^2)$ and $O(\varepsilon^4)$
amplitudes for ill-prepared and well-prepared initial data, respectively. This
rapid oscillation in time brings significant difficulties in designing and
analyzing numerical methods with error bounds uniformly in $\varepsilon$. In
this work, we show that the proposed EWI-SP possesses the optimal uniform error
bounds at $O(\tau^2)$ and $O(\tau)$ in $\tau$ (time step) for well-prepared
initial data and ill-prepared initial data, respectively, and spectral accuracy
in $h$ (mesh size) for the both cases, in the $L^2$ and semi-$H^1$ norms. This
result significantly improves the error bounds of the finite difference methods
for the NLSW. Our approach involves a careful study of the error propagation,
cut-off of the nonlinearity and the energy method. Numerical examples are
provided to confirm our theoretical analysis.


title:
Scalar particle in general inertial and gravitational fields and
  conformal invariance revisited

abstract:
  The new manifestation of conformal invariance for a massless scalar particle
in a Riemannian spacetime of general relativity is found. Conformal
transformations conserve the Hamiltonian and wave function in the
Foldy-Wouthuysen representation. Similarity of manifestations of conformal
invariance for massless scalar and Dirac particles is proved. New exact
Foldy-Wouthuysen Hamiltonians are derived for both massive and massless scalar
particles in a general static spacetime and in a frame rotating in the Kerr
field approximated by a spatially isotropic metric. The latter case covers an
observer on the ground of the Earth or on a satellite and takes into account
the Lense-Thirring effect. High-precision formulas are obtained for an
arbitrary spacetime metric. General quantum-mechanical equations of motion are
derived. Their classical limit coincides with corresponding classical
equations.


title: Robust Precision Positioning Control on Linear Ultrasonic Motor

abstract:
  Ultrasonic motors used in high-precision mechatronics are characterized by
strong frictional effects, which are among the main problems in precision
motion control. The traditional methods apply model-based nonlinear feedforward
to compensate the friction, thus requiring closed-loop stability and safety
constraint considerations. Implementation of these methods requires complex
designed experiments. This paper introduces a systematic approach using
piecewise affine models to emulate the friction effect of the motor motion. The
well-known model predictive control method is employed to deal with piecewise
affine models. The increased complexity of the model offers a higher tracking
precision on a simpler gain scheduling scheme.


title:
An addendum to `A rigidity property for the set of all characters
  induced by valuations'

abstract:
  This corrects and amplifies some comments made in a paper by Robert Bieri and
the author with the above title.


title: Circularly-polarized plane waves in a deformed Hadamard material

abstract:
  Small amplitude inhomogeneous plane waves propagating in any direction in a
homogeneously deformed Hadamard material are considered. Conditions for
circular polarization are established. The analysis relies on the use of
complex vectors (or bivectors) to describe the slowness and the polarization of
the waves. Generally, homogeneous circularly-polarized plane waves may
propagate in only two directions, the directions of the acoustic axes, in a
homogeneously deformed Hadamard material. For inhomogeneous
circularly-polarized plane waves, the number of possibilities is far greater.
They include an infinity of "transverse waves", as well as "longitudinal
waves", and the superposition of "transverse waves" and "longitudinal waves",
where "transverse" and "longitudinal" are used in the bivector sense. Each and
every possibility of circular polarization is examined in turn, and explicit
examples of solutions are given in every case.


title: Quantum Restoration of Broken Symmetry in one Dimensional Loop Space

abstract:
  For 1 Dimensional loop space, a nonlinear nonlocal transformation of fields
is given to make the action of the self-interacting quantum field to the free
one. A specific type of Classically broken symmetry is restored in Quantum
theory. 1-D Sine Gordon system and Sech interactions are treated as the
explicit example.


title:
High-fidelity view of the structure and fragmentation of the high-mass,
  filamentary IRDC G11.11-0.12

abstract:
  Star formation in molecular clouds is intimately linked to their internal
mass distribution. We present an unprecedentedly detailed analysis of the
column density structure of a high-mass, filamentary molecular cloud, namely
IRDC G11.11-0.12 (G11). We use two novel column density mapping techniques:
high-resolution (FWHM=2", or ~0.035 pc) dust extinction mapping in near- and
mid-infrared, and dust emission mapping with the Herschel satellite. These two
completely independent techniques yield a strikingly good agreement,
highlighting their complementarity and robustness. We first analyze the dense
gas mass fraction and linear mass density of G11. We show that G11 has a top
heavy mass distribution and has a linear mass density (M_l ~ 600 Msun pc^{-1})
that greatly exceeds the critical value of a self-gravitating, non-turbulent
cylinder. These properties make G11 analogous to the Orion A cloud, despite its
low star-forming activity. This suggests that the amount of dense gas in
molecular clouds is more closely connected to environmental parameters or
global processes than to the star-forming efficiency of the cloud. We then
examine hierarchical fragmentation in G11 over a wide range of size-scales and
densities. We show that at scales 0.5 pc > l > 8 pc, the fragmentation of G11
is in agreement with that of a self-gravitating cylinder. At scales smaller
than l < 0.5 pc, the results agree better with spherical Jeans' fragmentation.
One possible explanation for the change in fragmentation characteristics is the
size-scale-dependent collapse time-scale that results from the finite size of
real molecular clouds: at scales l < 0.5 pc, fragmentation becomes sufficiently
rapid to be unaffected by global instabilities.


title:
Structures of cycloserine and 2-oxazolidinone probed by X-ray
  photoelectron spectroscopy

abstract:
  The electronic structures and properties of 2-oxazolidinone and the related
compound cycloserine (CS) have been investigated using core and valence
photoelectron spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. Isomerization of the
central oxazolidine heterocycle and the addition of an amino group yields
cycloserine. Theory correctly predicts the C, N and O 1s core spectra, and
additionally we report theoretical natural bond orbital (NBO) charges. The
valence ionization energies are also in agreement with theory and previous
measurements. Although the lowest binding energy part of the spectra of the two
compounds show superficial similarities, analysis of the charge densities of
the frontier orbitals indicates substantial reorganization of the wave
functions as a result of isomerization. The Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital
of CS has leading carbonyl {\pi} character with contributions from other heavy
atoms in the molecule, while the Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital of
2-oxazolidinone has leading nitrogen, carbon and oxygen p{\pi} character. At
laboratory temperatures, CS is predicted to exist mainly as two low energy
conformers in the gas phase, separated in energy by 4.6 kJ mol-1, whereas
2-oxazolidinone is present as a single conformer in the gas phase. However the
experimental spectra do not provide proof of the presence of these
conformers.....


title: On global schemes for highly degenerate Navier Stokes equation systems

abstract:
  First order semi-linear coupling of scalar hypoelliptic equations of second
order leads to a natural class of incompressible Navier Stokes equation
systems, which encompasses systems with variable viscosity and essentially
Navier Stokes equation systems on manifolds. We introduce a controlled global
solution scheme which is based on a) local contraction results in function
spaces with polynomial decay of some order at spatial infinity related to the
polynomial growth factors of standard a priori estimates of densities and their
derivatives for hypoelliptic diffusions of Hoermander type (cf. [15]), and b)
on a controlled equation system where we discuss variations of the scheme we
considered in [10]. We supplement our notes on global bounds of the Leray
projection term in that paper and related controlled Navier Stokes equation
schemes in [6, 7, 9, 10, 12]. Some arguments concerning linear upper bounds of
the control function are added.


title: Inverse variational problem for non-standard Lagrangians

abstract:
  The non-standard Lagrangians (NSLs) for dissipative-like dynamical systems
were introduced in an ad hoc fashion rather than being derived from the
solution of the inverse problem of variational calculus. We begin with the
first integral of the equation of motion and solve the associated inverse
problem to obtain some of the existing results for NSLs. In addition, we
provide a number of alternative Lagrangian representations. The case studies
envisaged by us include (i) the usual modified Emden-type equation, (ii)
Emden-type equation with dissipative term quadratic in velocity and (iii)
Lokta-Volterra model. We point out that our method is quite general for
applications to other physical systems.


title: Higher-order Segmentation via Multicuts

abstract:
  Multicuts enable to conveniently represent discrete graphical models for
unsupervised and supervised image segmentation, in the case of local energy
functions that exhibit symmetries. The basic Potts model and natural extensions
thereof to higher-order models provide a prominent class of such objectives,
that cover a broad range of segmentation problems relevant to image analysis
and computer vision. We exhibit a way to systematically take into account such
higher-order terms for computational inference. Furthermore, we present results
of a comprehensive and competitive numerical evaluation of a variety of
dedicated cutting-plane algorithms. Our approach enables the globally optimal
evaluation of a significant subset of these models, without compromising
runtime. Polynomially solvable relaxations are studied as well, along with
advanced rounding schemes for post-processing.


title:
The primitive ideals of the Cuntz-Krieger algebra of a row-finite
  higher-rank graph with no sources

abstract:
  We catalogue the primitive ideals of the Cuntz-Krieger algebra of a
row-finite higher-rank graph with no sources. Each maximal tail in the vertex
set has an abelian periodicity group of finite rank at most that of the graph;
the primitive ideals in the Cuntz-Krieger algebra are indexed by pairs
consisting of a maximal tail and a character of its periodicity group. The
Cuntz-Krieger algebra is primitive if and only if the whole vertex set is a
maximal tail and the graph is aperiodic.


title: Quantum canonical tensor model and an exact wave function

abstract:
  Tensor models in various forms are being studied as models of quantum
gravity. Among them the canonical tensor model has a canonical pair of
rank-three tensors as dynamical variables, and is a pure constraint system with
first-class constraints. The Poisson algebra of the first-class constraints has
structure functions, and provides an algebraically consistent way of
discretizing the Dirac first-class constraint algebra for general relativity.
This paper successfully formulates the Wheeler-DeWitt scheme of quantization of
the canonical tensor model; the ordering of operators in the constraints is
determined without ambiguity by imposing Hermiticity and covariance on the
constraints, and the commutation algebra of constraints takes essentially the
same from as the classical Poisson algebra, i.e. is first-class. Thus one could
consistently obtain, at least locally in the configuration space, wave
functions of "universe" by solving the partial differential equations
representing the constraints, i.e. the Wheeler-DeWitt equations for the quantum
canonical tensor model. The unique wave function for the simplest non-trivial
case is exactly and globally obtained. Although this case is far from being
realistic, the wave function has a few physically interesting features; it
shows that locality is favored, and that there exists a locus of configurations
with features of beginning of universe.


title: Near-Optimal Truthful Auction Mechanisms in Secondary Spectrum Markets

abstract:
  In this work, we study spectrum auction problem where each request from
secondary users has spatial, temporal, and spectral features. With the requests
of secondary users and the reserve price of the primary user, our goal is to
design truthful mechanisms that will either maximize the social efficiency or
maximize the revenue of the primary user. As the optimal conflict-free spectrum
allocation problem is NP-hard, in this work, we design near optimal spectrum
allocation mechanisms separately based on the following techniques:
derandomized allocation from integer programming formulation, its linear
programming (LP) relaxation, and the dual of the LP. We theoretically prove
that 1) our near optimal allocation methods are bid monotone, which implys
truthful auction mechanisms; and 2) our near optimal allocation methods can
achieve a social efficiency or a revenue that is at least $1-\frac{1}{e}$ times
of the optimal respectively. At last, we conduct extensive simulations to study
the performances (social efficiency, revenue) of the proposed methods, and the
simulation results corroborate our theoretical analysis.


title: The Role of Electroweak Corrections for the Dark Matter Relic Abundance

abstract:
  We analyze the validity of the theorems concerning the cancellation of the
infrared and collinar divergences in the case of dark matter freeze-out in the
early universe. In particular, we compute the electroweak logarithmic
corrections of infrared origin to the annihilation cross section of a dark
matter particle being the neutral component of a SU(2)_L multiplet. The
inclusion of processes with final state W can modify significantly the cross
sections computed with only virtual W exchange. Our results show that the
inclusion of infrared logs is necessary for a precise computation of the dark
matter relic abundance.


title: The Boson star equation with initial data of low regularity

abstract:
  The Cauchy problem for the L^2-critical boson star equation with initial data
of low regularity in spatial dimension d=3 is studied. Local well-posedness in
H^s for s > 1/4 is proved. Moreover, for radial initial data, local
well-posedness is established in H^s for s > 0. Both results are shown to be
almost optimal by providing complementary ill-posedness results.