title:
Hybrid plasmonic-photonic crystal formed on gel-immobilized colloidal
  crystal via solvent substitutio

abstract:
  Gel-immobilized colloidal crystals were prepared to obtain hybrid
plasmonic-photonic crystals, in which electric field enhancement to a greater
extent than that due to localized surface plasmons (LSP) alone was expected due
to coupling between LSP and the photonic band. Polystyrene colloidal crystals
immobilized by the N-(hydroxymethyl)acrylamide gel were immersed in an aqueous
dispersion of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Then, the gel-immobilized colloidal
crystals were picked out and immersed in an ionic liquid mixture. The surfaces
of the gel-immobilized colloidal crystals immersed in the AuNP dispersion were
observed via scanning electron microscopy after this solvent substitution. The
lattice spacing of the colloidal crystal varied as the composition of the ionic
liquid mixture was changed. The composition was determined so that the photonic
band gap wavelength coincided with the LSP wavelength. Further, the reflection
spectra were measured. Thus, we successfully prepared a hybrid
plasmonic-photonic crystal.


title: Integrating High Level and Low Level Planning

abstract:
  We present a possible method for integrating high level and low level
planning. To do so, we introduce the global plan random \emph{trajectory}
$\boldsymbol{\eta}_0 \colon [1,T] \to \mathbb R^2$, measured by goals $G_i$ and
governed by the distribution $p(\boldsymbol{\eta}_0 \mid \{ G_i\}_{i=1}^m)$.
This distribution is combined with the low level robot-crowd planner
$p(\mathbf{f}^{R},\mathbf{f}^{1},\ldots,\mathbf{f}^{n}\mid\mathbf{z}_{1:t})$
(from~\cite{trautmanicra2013, trautmaniros}) in the distribution
$p(\boldsymbol{\eta}_0,\mathbf{f}^{(R)},\mathbf{f}\mid\mathbf{z}_{1:t})$. We
explore this \emph{integrated planning} formulation in three case studies, and
in the process find that this formulation 1) generalizes the ROS navigation
stack in a practically useful way 2) arbitrates between high and low level
decision making in a statistically sound manner when unanticipated local
disturbances arise and 3) enables the integration of an onboard operator
providing real time input at either the global (e.g., waypoint designation) or
local (e.g., joystick) level. Importantly, the integrated planning formulation
$p(\boldsymbol{\eta}_0,\mathbf{f}^{(R)},\mathbf{f}\mid\mathbf{z}_{1:t})$
highlights failure modes of the ROS navigation stack (and thus for standard
hierarchical planning architectures); these failure modes are resolved by using
$p(\boldsymbol{\eta}_0,\mathbf{f}^{(R)},\mathbf{f}\mid\mathbf{z}_{1:t})$.
Finally, we conclude with a discussion of how results from formal methods can
guide our factorization of
$p(\boldsymbol{\eta}_0,\mathbf{f}^{(R)},\mathbf{f}\mid\mathbf{z}_{1:t})$.


title:
Algebraic fiber spaces over abelian varieties: around a recent theorem
  by Cao and Paun

abstract:
  We present a simplified proof for a recent theorem by Junyan Cao and Mihai
Paun, confirming a special case of Iitaka's conjecture: if $f \colon X\to Y$ is
an algebraic fiber space, and if the Albanese mapping of $Y$ is generically
finite over its image, then we have the inequality of Kodaira dimensions
$\kappa (X)\geq \kappa (Y)+\kappa (F)$, where $F$ denotes a general fiber of
$f$. We include a detailed survey of the main algebraic and analytic
techniques, especially the construction of singular hermitian metrics on
pushforwards of adjoint bundles (due to Berndtsson, Paun, and Takayama).


title: Secure Fast Fourier Transform using Fully Homomorphic Encryption

abstract:
  Secure signal processing is becoming a de facto model for preserving privacy.
We propose a model based on the Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technique to
mitigate security breaches. Our framework provides a method to perform a Fast
Fourier Transform (FFT) on a user-specified signal. Using encryption of
individual binary values and FHE operations over addition and multiplication,
we enable a user to perform the FFT in a fixed point fractional representation
in binary. Our approach bounds the error of the implementation to enable
user-selectable parameters based on the specific application. We verified our
framework against test cases for one dimensional signals and images (two
dimensional signals).


title:
Distributed Multi-Step Power Scheduling and Cost Allocation for
  Cooperative Microgrids

abstract:
  Microgrids are self-sufficient small-scale power grid systems that can employ
renewable generation sources and energy storage devices and can connect to the
main grid or operate in a stand-alone mode. Most research on energy-storage
management in microgrids does not take into account the dynamic nature of the
problem and the need for fully-distributed, multi-step scheduling. First, we
address these requirements by extending our previously proposed
\textit{multi-step cooperative distributed energy scheduling} (CoDES) algorithm
to include both purchasing power from and selling the generated power to the
main grid. Second, we model the microgrid as a multi-agent system where the
agents (e.g. households) act as players in a cooperative game and employ a
distributed algorithm based on the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS) to fairly
allocate the costs of cooperative power management (computed using CoDES) among
themselves. The dependency of the day-ahead power schedule and the costs on
system parameters, e.g., the price schedule and the user activity level
(measured by whether it owns storage and renewable generation devices), is
analyzed for a three-agent microgrid example.


title: The mod 2 homology of free spectral Lie algebras

abstract:
  The Goodwillie derivatives of the identity functor on pointed spaces form an
operad in spectra. Adapting a definition of Behrens, we introduce mod 2
homology operations for algebras over this operad and prove these operations
account for all the mod 2 homology of free algebras on suspension spectra of
simply-connected spaces.


title:
Substructuring preconditioners with novel interface solvers for general
  elliptic-type equations in three dimensions

abstract:
  In this paper we propose two variants of the substructuring preconditioner
for solving three-dimensional elliptic-type equations with strongly
discontinuous coefficients. In the new preconditioners, we use the simplest
coarse solver associated with the finite element space induced by the coarse
partition, and construct novel interface solvers based on some new
observations. The resulting preconditioners share the merits of the
non-overlapping domain decomposition method (DDM) and the overlapping DDM in
the sense that they not only are cheap but also are easy to implement. We apply
the proposed preconditioners to solve the linear elasticity problems and
Maxwell's equations in three dimensions. Numerical results show that the
convergence rate of PCG method with the preconditioners are nearly optimal, and
also robust with respect to the (possibly large) jumps of the coefficients in
the considered equations.


title: Embedded Bandits for Large-Scale Black-Box Optimization

abstract:
  Random embedding has been applied with empirical success to large-scale
black-box optimization problems with low effective dimensions. This paper
proposes the EmbeddedHunter algorithm, which incorporates the technique in a
hierarchical stochastic bandit setting, following the optimism in the face of
uncertainty principle and breaking away from the multiple-run framework in
which random embedding has been conventionally applied similar to stochastic
black-box optimization solvers. Our proposition is motivated by the bounded
mean variation in the objective value for a low-dimensional point projected
randomly into the decision space of Lipschitz-continuous problems. In essence,
the EmbeddedHunter algorithm expands optimistically a partitioning tree over a
low-dimensional---equal to the effective dimension of the problem---search
space based on a bounded number of random embeddings of sampled points from the
low-dimensional space. In contrast to the probabilistic theoretical guarantees
of multiple-run random-embedding algorithms, the finite-time analysis of the
proposed algorithm presents a theoretical upper bound on the regret as a
function of the algorithm's number of iterations. Furthermore, numerical
experiments were conducted to validate its performance. The results show a
clear performance gain over recently proposed random embedding methods for
large-scale problems, provided the intrinsic dimensionality is low.


title: The Amplification in FEL with Inhomogeneous Magnetic Field

abstract:
  The gain in a plane wiggler with inhomogeneous magnetic field is calculated..
It is shown, that the account of inhomogenity of the magnetic field leads to
appearance of additional peaks in the amplification


title:
Chance-Constrained Two-Stage Unit Commitment under Uncertain Load and
  Wind Power Output Using Bilinear Benders Decomposition

abstract:
  In this paper, we study unit commitment (UC) problems considering the
uncertainty of load and wind power generation. UC problem is formulated as a
chance-constrained two-stage stochastic programming problem where the chance
constraint is used to restrict the probability of load imbalance. In addition
to the conventional mixed integer linear programming formulation using Big-M,
we present the bilinear mixed integer formulation of chance constraint, and
then derive its linear counterpart using McCormick linearization method. Then,
we develop a bilinear variant of Benders decomposition method, which is an
easy-to-implement algorithm, to solve the resulting large-scale linear
counterpart. Our results on typical IEEE systems demonstrate that (i) the
bilinear mixed integer programming formula-tion is stronger than the
conventional one; (ii) the proposed Benders decomposition algorithm is
generally an order of magnitude faster than using a professional solver to
directly compute both linear and bilinear chance-constrained UC models.


title:
Standing on the shoulders of Dwarfs: the Kepler asteroseismic LEGACY
  sample II - radii, masses, and ages

abstract:
  We use asteroseismic data from the Kepler satellite to determine fundamental
stellar properties of the 66 main-sequence targets observed for at least one
full year by the mission. We distributed tens of individual oscillation
frequencies extracted from the time series of each star among seven modelling
teams who applied different methods to determine radii, masses, and ages for
all stars in the sample. Comparisons among the different results reveal a good
level of agreement in all stellar properties, which is remarkable considering
the variety of codes, input physics and analysis methods employed by the
different teams. Average uncertainties are of the order of $\sim$2\% in radius,
$\sim$4\% in mass, and $\sim$10\% in age, making this the best-characterised
sample of main-sequence stars available to date. Our predicted initial
abundances and mixing-length parameters are checked against inferences from
chemical enrichment laws $\Delta Y / \Delta Z$ and predictions from 3D
atmospheric simulations. We test the accuracy of the determined stellar
properties by comparing them to the Sun, angular diameter measurements, Gaia
parallaxes, and binary evolution, finding excellent agreement in all cases and
further confirming the robustness of asteroseismically-determined physical
parameters of stars when individual frequencies of oscillation are available.
Baptised as the Kepler dwarfs LEGACY sample, these stars are the solar-like
oscillators with the best asteroseismic properties available for at least
another decade. All data used in this analysis and the resulting stellar
parameters are made publicly available for the community.


title: Set-Valued Skyline Fillings

abstract:
  Set-valued tableaux play an important role in combinatorial $K$-theory.
Separately, semistandard skyline fillings are a combinatorial model for
Demazure atoms and key polynomials. We unify these two concepts by defining a
set-valued extension of semistandard skyline fillings and then give analogues
of results of J. Haglund, K. Luoto, S. Mason, and S. van Willigenberg.
Additionally, we give a bijection between set-valued semistandard Young
tableaux and C. Lenart's Schur expansion of the Grothendieck polynomial
$G_\lambda$, using the uncrowding operator of V. Reiner, B. Tenner, and A.
Yong.


title:
Convergence in probability of an ergodic and conformal multi-symplectic
  numerical scheme for a damped stochastic NLS equation

abstract:
  In this paper, we investigate the convergence order in probability of a novel
ergodic numerical scheme for damped stochastic nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger
equation with an additive noise. Theoretical analysis shows that our scheme is
of order one in probability under appropriate assumptions for the initial value
and noise. Meanwhile, we show that our scheme possesses the unique ergodicity
and preserves the discrete conformal multi-symplectic conservation law.
Numerical experiments are given to show the longtime behavior of the discrete
charge and the time average of the numerical solution, and to test the
convergence order, which verify our theoretical results.


title:
High-Throughput Data Detection for Massive MU-MIMO-OFDM using Coordinate
  Descent

abstract:
  Data detection in massive multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) wireless systems is among the most critical tasks due to the excessively
high implementation complexity. In this paper, we propose a novel,
equalization-based soft-output data-detection algorithm and corresponding
reference FPGA designs for wideband massive MU-MIMO systems that use orthogonal
frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Our data-detection algorithm performs
approximate minimum mean-square error (MMSE) or box-constrained equalization
using coordinate descent. We deploy a variety of algorithm-level optimizations
that enable near-optimal error-rate performance at low implementation
complexity, even for systems with hundreds of base-station (BS) antennas and
thousands of subcarriers. We design a parallel VLSI architecture that uses
pipeline interleaving and can be parametrized at design time to support various
antenna configurations. We develop reference FPGA designs for massive
MU-MIMO-OFDM systems and provide an extensive comparison to existing designs in
terms of implementation complexity, throughput, and error-rate performance. For
a 128 BS antenna, 8 user massive MU-MIMO-OFDM system, our FPGA design
outperforms the next-best implementation by more than 2.6x in terms of
throughput per FPGA look-up tables.


title: Real-Time Video Highlights for Yahoo Esports

abstract:
  Esports has gained global popularity in recent years and several companies
have started offering live streaming videos of esports games and events. This
creates opportunities to develop large scale video understanding systems for
new product features and services. We present a technique for detecting
highlights from live streaming videos of esports game matches. Most video games
use pronounced visual effects to emphasize highlight moments; we use CNNs to
learn convolution filters of those visual effects for detecting highlights. We
propose a cascaded prediction approach that allows us to deal with several
challenges arise in a production environment. We demonstrate our technique on
our new dataset of three popular game titles, Heroes of the Storm, League of
Legends, and Dota 2. Our technique achieves 18 FPS on a single CPU with an
average precision of up to 83.18%. Part of our technique is currently deployed
in production on Yahoo Esports.


title:
On the {\L}ojasiewicz Exponent of the Quadratic Sphere Constrained
  Optimization Problem

abstract:
  In this paper, we prove that the global version of the ${\L}$ojasiewicz
gradient inequality holds for quadratic sphere constrained optimization problem
with exponent $\theta=\frac{3}{4}$. An example from Ting Kei Pong shows that
$\theta=\frac{3}{4}$ is tight. This is the first ${\L}$ojasiewicz gradient
inequality established for the sphere constrained optimization problem with a
linear term.


title: Probing Electron Spin Resonance in Monolayer Graphene

abstract:
  The precise value of the $g$-factor in graphene is of fundamental interest
for all spin-related properties and their application. We investigate monolayer
graphene on a Si/SiO2 substrate by resistively detected electron spin resonance
(ESR). Surprisingly, the magnetic moment and corresponding g-factor of
1.952+/-0.002 is insensitive to charge carrier type, concentration, and
mobility.


title:
Strong gravitational lensing for the photons coupled to Weyl tensor in a
  Kerr black hole spacetime

abstract:
  We present firstly equation of motion for the photon coupled to Weyl tensor
in a Kerr black hole spacetime and then study further the corresponding strong
gravitational lensing. We find that black hole rotation makes propagation of
the coupled photons more complicated, which brings some new features for
physical quantities including the marginally circular photon orbit, the
deflection angle, the observational gravitational lensing variables and the
time delay between two relativistic images. There is a critical value of the
coupling parameter for existence of the marginally circular photon orbit
outside the event horizon, which depends on the rotation parameter of black
hole and the polarization direction of photons. As the value of coupling
parameter is near the critical value, we find that the marginally circular
photon orbit for the retrograde photon increases with the rotation parameter,
which modifies a common feature of the marginally circular photon orbit in a
rotating black hole spacetime since it always decreases monotonously with the
rotation parameter in the case without Weyl coupling. Combining with the
supermassive central object in our Galaxy, we estimated the observables
including time delays between the relativistic images in the strong
gravitational lensing as the photons couple to Weyl tensor.


title: Impact of Dimensionality on PN Junctions

abstract:
  Low dimensional material systems provide a unique set of properties useful
for solid-state devices. The building block of these devices is the PN
junction. In this work, we present a dramatic difference in the electrostatics
of PN junctions in lower dimensional systems, as against the well understood
three dimensional systems. Reducing the dimensionality increases the fringing
fields and depletion width significantly. We propose a novel method to derive
analytic equations in 2D and 1D that considers the impact of neutral regions.
The analytical results show an excellent match with both the experimental
measurements and numerical simulations. The square root dependence of the
depletion width on the ratio of dielectric constant and doping in 3D changes to
a linear and exponential dependence for 2D and 1D respectively. This higher
sensitivity of 1D PN junctions to its control parameters can be used towards
new sensors.


title: Photon emission in QGP using AdS/QCD at finite chemical potential

abstract:
  We calculate the photon emission rate and the electrical conductivity of the
QGP at finite temperature and finite chemical potential using AdS/QCD
approximations in an AdS Reissner Nordstrom background. To do so, we supposed
the medium properties to be encoded in a geometric background. The results
obtained in the hard wall and soft wall model are consistent with the observed
phenomenology and they also in agree with other holographic results, as the
D3/D7 or the Sakai Sugimoto models, suggesting the universality of AdS/CFT
conjecture as tool to explore QCD.


title:
The quasi-two-body decays $B_{(s)} \to (D_{(s)},\bar{D}_{(s)}) \rho \to
  (D_{(s)}, \bar{D}_{(s)})\pi \pi$ in the perturbative QCD factorization
  approach

abstract:
  In this paper, we studied the $B_{(s)} \to (D_{(s)},\bar{D}_{(s)}) \rho \to
(D_{(s)}, \bar{D}_{(s)})\pi \pi$ decays by employing a framework for the
quasi-two-body decays in the perturbative QCD (PQCD) factorization approach. We
use the two-pion distribution amplitudes $\Phi_{\pi\pi}$, which contains both
resonant and nonresonant contributions from the pion pair, to describe the
final state interactions (FSIs) between the pions in the resonant region. We
found that (a) for all considered decays, the PQCD predictions for their
branching ratios based on the quasi-two-body and the two-body framework agree
well with each other due to ${\cal B}(\rho \to \pi\pi) \approx 100\%$; For
$B^+\to \bar{D^0}\rho^+\to \bar{D^0}\pi^+ \pi^0$ and other four considered
decay modes, the PQCD predictions do agree well with the measured values within
errors; (b) the great difference between the PQCD predictions for ${\cal
B}(B\to \bar{D} \rho \to \bar{D} \pi\pi)$ and ${\cal B}(B\to D \rho \to D
\pi\pi)$ can be understood by the strong CKM suppression factor $ R_{\rm CKM}
\approx 3 \times 10^{-4}$; (c) for the $B_s\to D \rho \to D \pi\pi$ and $B_s\to
\bar{D} \rho \to \bar{D} \pi\pi$ decays, however, the PQCD predictions of
$R_{\rm s1}\approx 0.13$ and $R_{\rm s2}\approx 0.14$ do agree very well with
the moderate CKM suppression factor $R^s_{\rm CKM}\approx 0.14$; and (d) the
PQCD predictions for the ratios $R_{D\rho}$ and the strong phase difference
$\cos\delta_{D\rho}$ of the three $B \to \bar{D} \rho$ decay modes agree well
with the LHCb measurements within one standard deviation.


title:
Analytical solution to DGLAP integro-differential equation in a simple
  toy-model with a fixed gauge coupling

abstract:
  We consider a simple model for QCD dynamics in which DGLAP
integro-differential equation may be solved analytically. This is a gauge model
which possesses dominant evolution of gauge boson (gluon) distribution and in
which the gauge coupling does not run. This may be ${\cal N} =4$ supersymmetric
gauge theory with softly broken supersymmetry, other finite supersymmetric
gauge theory with lower level of supersymmetry, or topological Chern-Simons
field theories. We maintain only one term in the splitting function of
unintegrated gluon distribution and solve DGLAP analytically for this
simplified splitting function. The solution is found by use of the Cauchy
integral formula. The solution restricts form of the unintegrated gluon
distribution as function of transfer momentum and of Bjorken $x$. Then we
consider an almost realistic splitting function of unintegrated gluon
distribution as an input to DGLAP equation and solve it by the same method
which we have developed to solve DGLAP equation for the toy-model. We study a
result obtained for the realistic gluon distribution and find a singular
Bessel-like behaviour in the vicinity of the point $x=0$ and a smooth behaviour
in the vicinity of the point $x=1.$


title:
SAD-GAN: Synthetic Autonomous Driving using Generative Adversarial
  Networks

abstract:
  Autonomous driving is one of the most recent topics of interest which is
aimed at replicating human driving behavior keeping in mind the safety issues.
We approach the problem of learning synthetic driving using generative neural
networks. The main idea is to make a controller trainer network using images
plus key press data to mimic human learning. We used the architecture of a
stable GAN to make predictions between driving scenes using key presses. We
train our model on one video game (Road Rash) and tested the accuracy and
compared it by running the model on other maps in Road Rash to determine the
extent of learning.


title: Handwriting Profiling using Generative Adversarial Networks

abstract:
  Handwriting is a skill learned by humans from a very early age. The ability
to develop one's own unique handwriting as well as mimic another person's
handwriting is a task learned by the brain with practice. This paper deals with
this very problem where an intelligent system tries to learn the handwriting of
an entity using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). We propose a modified
architecture of DCGAN (Radford, Metz, and Chintala 2015) to achieve this. We
also discuss about applying reinforcement learning techniques to achieve faster
learning. Our algorithm hopes to give new insights in this area and its uses
include identification of forged documents, signature verification, computer
generated art, digitization of documents among others. Our early implementation
of the algorithm illustrates a good performance with MNIST datasets.


title: Quantitative $K$-theory for Banach algebras

abstract:
  Quantitative (or controlled) $K$-theory for $C^*$-algebras was used by
Guoliang Yu in his work on the Novikov conjecture, and later developed more
formally by Yu together with Herv\'e Oyono-Oyono. In this paper, we extend
their work by developing a framework of quantitative $K$-theory for the class
of algebras of bounded linear operators on subquotients (i.e., subspaces of
quotients) of $L_p$ spaces. We also prove the existence of a controlled
Mayer-Vietoris sequence in this framework.


title: Learning without recall in directed circles and rooted trees

abstract:
  This work investigates the case of a network of agents that attempt to learn
some unknown state of the world amongst the finitely many possibilities. At
each time step, agents all receive random, independently distributed private
signals whose distributions are dependent on the unknown state of the world.
However, it may be the case that some or any of the agents cannot distinguish
between two or more of the possible states based only on their private
observations, as when several states result in the same distribution of the
private signals. In our model, the agents form some initial belief (probability
distribution) about the unknown state and then refine their beliefs in
accordance with their private observations, as well as the beliefs of their
neighbors. An agent learns the unknown state when her belief converges to a
point mass that is concentrated at the true state. A rational agent would use
the Bayes' rule to incorporate her neighbors' beliefs and own private signals
over time. While such repeated applications of the Bayes' rule in networks can
become computationally intractable, in this paper, we show that in the
canonical cases of directed star, circle or path networks and their
combinations, one can derive a class of memoryless update rules that replicate
that of a single Bayesian agent but replace the self beliefs with the beliefs
of the neighbors. This way, one can realize an exponentially fast rate of
learning similar to the case of Bayesian (fully rational) agents. The proposed
rules are a special case of the Learning without Recall.

categories: stat.AP cs.IT cs.SI math.IT math.PR stat.ML


title:
Theoretical study on the stimulated Brillouin scattering in a
  sub-wavelength anisotropic waveguide: Acousto-optical coupling coefficients
  and effects of transverse anisotropies

abstract:
  A theoretical study on the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in a
sub-wavelength anisotropic waveguide is conducted. The optical, photoelastic
and mechanical anisotropies of the waveguide materials are all taken into
account. First, the integral formulae for calculating the acousto-optical
coupling coefficients (AOCCs) due to the photoelastic and moving interface
effects in SBS are extended to an optically anisotropic waveguide. Then, with
the extended formulae, the SBSs in an elliptical nanowire with strong
transverse anisotropies are simulated. In the simulations, the elastic fields
are computed with the inclusion of mechanical anisotropy. Observable effects of
the strong transverse anisotropies are found in numerical results. Most
notably, the SBS gains of some elastic modes are found to be very sensitive to
the small misalignment between the waveguide axes and the principal material
axes. Detailed physical interpretations of this interesting phenomenon are
provided. This interesting phenomenon implies an attractive way for more
sensitive tuning of the SBS gain without significantly changing the phononic
frequency.


title: Vacancy Relaxation in Cuprous Oxide (Cu$_{2-x}$O$_{1-y}$)

abstract:
  Phonons are produced when an excited vacancy in cuprous oxide (Cu$_2$O)
relaxes. Time resolved luminescence was used to find the excited copper vacancy
(acceptor) and oxygen vacancy (donor) trap levels and lifetimes. It was also
used to determine the typical energy and number of phonons in the phonon pulses
emitted by vacancies. The vacancy properties of cuprous oxide are controlled by
several synthesis parameters and by the temperature. We directly demonstrate
the absorption of light by oxygen vacancies with transient absorption. Copper
and oxygen vacancies behave differently, in part because the two kinds of traps
capture carriers from different states. For example, the copper vacancy
luminescence lifetime is around 25 times greater at low temperature. However,
both kinds of vacancy luminescence are consistent with a Poissonian multiple
phonon emission model.


title:
A multi-wavelength observation and investigation of six infrared dark
  clouds

abstract:
  Context. Infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) are ubiquitous in the Milky Way, yet
they play a crucial role in breeding newly-formed stars.
  Aims. With the aim of further understanding the dynamics, chemistry, and
evolution of IRDCs, we carried out multi-wavelength observations on a small
sample.
  Methods. We performed new observations with the IRAM 30 m and CSO 10.4 m
telescopes, with tracers ${\rm HCO^+}$, HCN, ${\rm N_2H^+}$, ${\rm C^{18}O}$,
DCO$^+$, SiO, and DCN toward six IRDCs G031.97+00.07, G033.69-00.01,
G034.43+00.24, G035.39-00.33, G038.95-00.47, and G053.11+00.05.
  Results. We investigated 44 cores including 37 cores reported in previous
work and seven newly-identified cores. Toward the dense cores, we detected 6
DCO$^+$, and 5 DCN lines. Using pixel-by-pixel spectral energy distribution
(SED) fits of the $\textit{Herschel}$ 70 to 500 $\mu$m, we obtained dust
temperature and column density distributions of the IRDCs. We found that ${\rm
N_2H^+}$ emission has a strong correlation with the dust temperature and column
density distributions, while ${\rm C^{18}O}$ showed the weakest correlation. It
is suggested that ${\rm N_2H^+}$ is indeed a good tracer in very dense
conditions, but ${\rm C^{18}O}$ is an unreliable one, as it has a relatively
low critical density and is vulnerable to freezing-out onto the surface of cold
dust grains. The dynamics within IRDCs are active, with infall, outflow, and
collapse; the spectra are abundant especially in deuterium species.
  Conclusions. We observe many blueshifted and redshifted profiles,
respectively, with ${\rm HCO^+}$ and ${\rm C^{18}O}$ toward the same core. This
case can be well explained by model "envelope expansion with core collapse
(EECC)".


title:
A Potential Model Approach in the Study of Static and Dynamic properties
  of Heavy-Light Quark-Antiquark Systems

abstract:
  We report some approximate analytic form of meson wave function constructed
upon solving Schrodinger equation with linear plus Coulomb type Cornell
potential. With this wave function, we study Isgur-Wise function and its
derivatives for heavy-light mesons in the infinite heavy quark mass limit. We
also explore the elastic form factors, charge radii and decay constants of
pseudoscalar mesons in this QCD inspired quark model approach.


title:
Deep Deformable Registration: Enhancing Accuracy by Fully Convolutional
  Neural Net

abstract:
  Deformable registration is ubiquitous in medical image analysis. Many
deformable registration methods minimize sum of squared difference (SSD) as the
registration cost with respect to deformable model parameters. In this work, we
construct a tight upper bound of the SSD registration cost by using a fully
convolutional neural network (FCNN) in the registration pipeline. The upper
bound SSD (UB-SSD) enhances the original deformable model parameter space by
adding a heatmap output from FCNN. Next, we minimize this UB-SSD by adjusting
both the parameters of the FCNN and the parameters of the deformable model in
coordinate descent. Our coordinate descent framework is end-to-end and can work
with any deformable registration method that uses SSD. We demonstrate
experimentally that our method enhances the accuracy of deformable registration
algorithms significantly on two publicly available 3D brain MRI data sets.


title:
A Novel, Compact Optical Device for Estimating the Methane Emissions in
  Geological Environment

abstract:
  Quantifying spontaneous, fugitive and venting related methane emissions are
often difficult and cumbersome. However, auditing the methane emissions due to
conventional and un-conventional hydrocarbon exploitation techniques are
becoming necessary. Present generation compact chemical sensors are slower,
degrade very fast, and are sensitive broad-spectrum gases. On the other hand,
optical sensors are very fast in detection of gases and more precise and can be
easily employed in various environments like boreholes and soils. In this
study, we report development of an optical sensor that is methane specific,
fast for real time applications and has tremendous application potential in the
exploration of coal bed methane and other hydrocarbon reserves with methane as
a major constituent. The detection process is based on the principle of
spectroscopic absorption of light. The detector, NiSi Schottky diode, was
fabricated and characterized exclusively for the 1.65 um, narrow bandwidth
methane absorption. The probe is of 20 cm length and comprises of a laser
source and the NiSi detector aligned optically. This probe can be employed in
boreholes, mine vents and soil layers for measuring real-time fluxes in methane
concentrations. From the laboratory based experiments it is observed that the
detection limits of the developed device is very low (3% by volume) and the
response time of detection is very rapid (about 2 seconds). Based on the
materials used, fabrication procedures adopted, sensitivity of the device and
its compactness, the developed sensor can be considered as a novel, economic
device for exploration of coal bed methane.


title:
Multipacting studies of beta_g=0.61 and beta_g =0.9, 650 MHz Elliptical
  SRF Cavities

abstract:
  Multipacting is seen as a performance limiting phenomenon for the
superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities. Numerical simulations are
essential to pre-empt the experimentally observed multipacting conditions.
Readily available codes(e.g. FISHPACT, MULTIPACT,CST etc.) are widely used to
simulate the phenomenon of multipacting in such cases. Most of the contemporary
two dimensional (2D) codes are unable to detect multipacting in the elliptical
cavities because they use a simplistic secondary emission model, where a
constant value of emission kinetic energy of secondary electrons is assumed.
Some three-dimensional (3D) codes, which use a more realistic and sophisticated
secondary emission model (Furman model) by following a probability distribution
for the emission kinetic energy of secondary electrons, are able to correctly
predict the occurance of multipacting. These 3D softwares however require large
data handling and are slower than contemporary 2D codes. We have developed a 2D
code for the multipacting analysis for axisymmetric structures, which is based
on the Furman model. Since our code is 2D, it is faster than the 3D codes. This
makes it possible to perform an accurate multipacting analysis of multipacting
within a resaonalble computational time, thus achieving an accuracy as good as
in the case of 3D codes, but requiring significantly less computing time. We
have used our code for determining the multipacting prone range of values for
Eacc in beta_g =0.61 and beta_g =0.9, 650 MHz mid-cell elliptical cavities that
we have recently designed for the medium and high energy section of the
proposed Indian Spallation Neutron Source (ISNS) project.


title: Pseudo-Riemannian foliations and their graphs

abstract:
  We prove that a foliation $(M, F)$ of codimension $q$ on a
$n$-dimen\-sio\-nal pseudo-Riemannian manifold is pseudo-Riemannian if and only
if any geodesic that is orthogonal at one point to a leaf is orthogonal to
every leaf it intersects. We show that on the graph $G = G(F)$ of a
pseudo-Riemannian foliation there exists a unique pseudo-Riemannian metric such
that canonical projections are pse\-u\-do-Rieman\-ni\-an submersions and the
fibres of different projections are orthogonal at common points. Relatively
this metric the induced foliation $(G,\mathbb{F})$ on the graph is
pseudo-Riemannian and the structure of the leaves of $(G,\mathbb{F})$ is
described. Special attention is given to the structure of graphs of
transversally (geodesically) complete pseudo-Riemannian foliations and totally
geodesic pseudo-Riemannian ones.


title: On Sub-Propositional Fragments of Modal Logic

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider the well-known modal logics $\mathbf{K}$,
$\mathbf{T}$, $\mathbf{K4}$, and $\mathbf{S4}$, and we study some of their
sub-propositional fragments, namely the classical Horn fragment, the Krom
fragment, the so-called core fragment, defined as the intersection of the Horn
and the Krom fragments, plus their sub-fragments obtained by limiting the use
of boxes and diamonds in clauses. We focus, first, on the relative expressive
power of such languages: we introduce a suitable measure of expressive power,
and we obtain a complex hierarchy that encompasses all fragments of the
considered logics. Then, after observing the low expressive power, in
particular, of the Horn fragments without diamonds, we study the computational
complexity of their satisfiability problem, proving that, in general, it
becomes polynomial.


title: Lie symmetries of the Shigesada-Kawasaki-Teramoto system

abstract:
  The Shigesada-Kawasaki-Teramoto system, which consists of two
reaction-diffusion equations with variable cross-diffusion and quadratic
nonlinearities, is considered. The system is the most important case of the
biologically motivated model proposed by Shigesada et al. A complete
description of Lie symmetries for this system is derived. It is proved that the
Shigesada-Kawasaki-Teramoto system admits a wide range of different Lie
symmetries depending on coefficient values. In particular, the Lie symmetry
operators with highly unusual structure are unveiled and applied for finding
exact solutions of the relevant nonlinear system with cross-diffusion.


title: Relative entropies and their use in quantum information theory

abstract:
  This dissertation investigates relative entropies, also called generalized
divergences, and how they can be used to characterize information-theoretic
tasks in quantum information theory. The main goal is to further refine
characterizations of the optimal rates for quantum source coding, state
redistribution, and measurement compression with quantum side information via
second order asymptotic expansions and strong converse theorems. The
dissertation consists of a mathematical and an information-theoretic part. In
the mathematical part, we focus on the $\alpha$-sandwiched R\'enyi divergence
($\alpha$-SRD). We first investigate the limit $\alpha\to 0$ to determine
whether this recovers the well-known $0$-R\'enyi relative divergence. We then
prove various new results for entropic quantities derived from the
$\alpha$-SRD, including dimension bounds and useful bounds in terms of the
fidelity between two quantum states. Furthermore, we derive a necessary and
sufficient algebraic condition for equality in the data processing inequality
(viz. monotonicity under quantum operations) for the $\alpha$-SRD, and give
applications to entropic bounds. In the information-theoretic part, we first
derive the second order asymptotics of visible quantum source coding using a
mixed source. For the achievability part, we develop universal quantum source
codes achieving a given second order rate for a memoryless source. As a
corollary of the main result, we obtain the second order asymptotics of quantum
source coding using a single memoryless source. We then prove strong converse
theorems for state redistribution (with or without feedback) and measurement
compression with quantum side information. The key ingredients in proving these
theorems are the aforementioned fidelity bounds on R\'enyi entropic quantities
derived from the $\alpha$-SRD.


title: A Linear-time Algorithm for Integral Multiterminal Flows in Trees

abstract:
  In this paper, we study the problem of finding an integral multiflow which
maximizes the sum of flow values between every two terminals in an undirected
tree with a nonnegative integer edge capacity and a set of terminals. In
general, it is known that the flow value of an integral multiflow is bounded by
the cut value of a cut-system which consists of disjoint subsets each of which
contains exactly one terminal or has an odd cut value, and there exists a pair
of an integral multiflow and a cut-system whose flow value and cut value are
equal; i.e., a pair of a maximum integral multiflow and a minimum cut. In this
paper, we propose an $O(n)$-time algorithm that finds such a pair of an
integral multiflow and a cut-system in a given tree instance with $n$ vertices.
This improves the best previous results by a factor of $\Omega (n)$. Regarding
a given tree in an instance as a rooted tree, we define $O(n)$ rooted tree
instances taking each vertex as a root, and establish a recursive formula on
maximum integral multiflow values of these instances to design a dynamic
programming that computes the maximum integral multiflow values of all $O(n)$
rooted instances in linear time. We can prove that the algorithm implicitly
maintains a cut-system so that not only a maximum integral multiflow but also a
minimum cut-system can be constructed in linear time for any rooted instance
whenever it is necessary. The resulting algorithm is rather compact and
succinct.


title: Structure and decay of the pygmy dipole resonance in 26Ne

abstract:
  The low-lying spectra of $^{24,25,26}{\rm Ne}$ and the structure of the pygmy
dipole resonance (PDR) in $^{26}{\rm Ne}$ have been theoretically studied by
the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) and its extended version called
shifted-basis AMD. The calculated energy and strength of the PDR reasonably
agree with the observation, and the analysis of the wave function shows that
the PDR is dominated by neutron excitation coupled to the quadrupole excited
core nucleus $^{25}{\rm Ne}$, which explains the observed unexpected decay of
PDR to the excited states of $^{25}{\rm Ne}$. The large isoscalar component of
PDR is also shown and the enhancement of the core excitation in neutron-rich Ne
isotopes is conjectured.


title:
Multiuser separation and performance analysis of millimeter wave
  channels with linear precoding

abstract:
  In the conventional multiuser MIMO systems, user selection and scheduling has
previously been used as an effective way to increase the sum rate performance
of the system. However, the recent concepts of the massive MIMO systems (at
centimeter wavelength frequencies) have shown that with higher spatial
resolution of antenna arrays different users in the dense scenarios can be
spatially separated. This in turn significantly reduces the signal processing
efforts required for multiuser selection algorithms. On the other hand, recent
measurements at millimeter wave frequencies show that multipath components only
arrive from few angular directions leading to high spatial correlation between
the paths and co-located users. This paper focus at the investigation of
spatial separation among the users at the millimeter wave frequencies with
fully digital linear zero-forcing transmit precoding considering various
channel propagation parameters. Our analysis results convincingly give a proof
that multiuser selection algorithms are still important for millimeter wave
communication systems. Results also show that increased number of antenna
elements does not give a major benefit to sum rate improvements as compared to
the selection of correct number of users to be selected/scheduled.


title:
Hypergeometric heritage of W.N. Bailey. With an appendix: Bailey's
  letters to F. Dyson

abstract:
  We review some of W.N. Bailey's work on hypergeometric functions that found
solid applications in number theory. The text is complemented by Bailey's
letters to Freeman Dyson from the 1940s.


title: The polysemy of the words that children learn over time

abstract:
  Here we study polysemy as a potential learning bias in vocabulary learning in
children. Words of low polysemy could be preferred as they reduce the
disambiguation effort for the listener. However, such preference could be a
side-effect of another bias: the preference of children for nouns in
combination with the lower polysemy of nouns with respect to other
part-of-speech categories. Our results show that mean polysemy in children
increases over time in two phases, i.e. a fast growth till the 31st month
followed by a slower tendency towards adult speech. In contrast, this evolution
is not found in adults interacting with children. This suggests that children
have a preference for non-polysemous words in their early stages of vocabulary
acquisition. Interestingly, the evolutionary pattern described above weakens
when controlling for syntactic category (noun, verb, adjective or adverb) but
it does not disappear completely, suggesting that it could result from
acombination of a standalone bias for low polysemy and a preference for nouns.


title:
Distinguishing Kerr naked singularities and black holes using the spin
  precession of a test gyro in strong gravitational fields

abstract:
  We study here the precession of the spin of a test gyroscope attached to a
stationary observer in the Kerr spacetime, specifically, to distinguish naked
singularity (NS) from black hole (BH). It was shown recently that for gyros
attached to static observers, their precession frequency became arbitrarily
large in the limit of approach to the ergosurface. For gyros attached to
stationary observers that move with non-zero angular velocity $\Omega$, this
divergence at the ergosurface can be avoided. Specifically, for such gyros, the
precession frequencies diverge on the event horizon of a BH, but are finite and
regular for NS everywhere except at the singularity itself. Therefore a genuine
detection of the event horizon becomes possible in this case. We also show that
for a near-extremal NS ($1<a_* < 1.1$), characteristic features appear in the
radial profiles of the precession frequency, using which we can further
distinguish a near-extremal NS from a BH, or even from NS with larger angular
momentum. We then investigate the Lense-Thirring (LT) precession or nodal plane
precession frequency of the accretion disk around a BH and NS to show that
clear distinctions exist for these configurations in terms of radial variation
features. The LT precession in equatorial circular orbits increases with
approach to a BH, whereas for NS it increases, attains a peak and then
decreases. Interestingly, for $a_*=1.089$, it decreases until it vanishes at a
certain radius, and acquires negative values for $a_* > 1.089$ for a certain
range of $r$. For $1<a_*<1.089$, a peak appears, but the LT frequency remains
positive definite. There are important differences in accretion disk LT
frequencies for BH and NS and since LT frequencies are intimately related to
observed QPOs, these features might allow us to determine whether a given
rotating compact astrophysical object is BH or NS.


title: Fixed-Parameter Algorithms for DAG Partitioning

abstract:
  Finding the origin of short phrases propagating through the web has been
formalized by Leskovec et al. [ACM SIGKDD 2009] as DAG Partitioning: given an
arc-weighted directed acyclic graph on $n$ vertices and $m$ arcs, delete arcs
with total weight at most $k$ such that each resulting weakly-connected
component contains exactly one sink---a vertex without outgoing arcs. DAG
Partitioning is NP-hard.
  We show an algorithm to solve DAG Partitioning in $O(2^k \cdot (n+m))$ time,
that is, in linear time for fixed $k$. We complement it with linear-time
executable data reduction rules. Our experiments show that, in combination,
they can optimally solve DAG Partitioning on simulated citation networks within
five minutes for $k\leq190$ and $m$ being $10^7$ and larger. We use our
obtained optimal solutions to evaluate the solution quality of Leskovec et
al.'s heuristic.
  We show that Leskovec et al.'s heuristic works optimally on trees and
generalize this result by showing that DAG Partitioning is solvable in
$2^{O(w^2)}\cdot n$ time if a width-$w$ tree decomposition of the input graph
is given. Thus, we improve an algorithm and answer an open question of Alamdari
and Mehrabian [WAW 2012].
  We complement our algorithms by lower bounds on the running time of exact
algorithms and on the effectivity of data reduction.


title: Newforms in the Kohnen plus space

abstract:
  In this paper we want to define the Kohnen plus space for Hilbert modular
forms with a odd square-free level and a quadratic character by a
representation-theoretic way. We will show that in the classical case the one
we defined is the same with the one given by Kohnen. Also, we will interpret
the actions of the Hecke operators on the new forms in the plus space and give
a characterization for the new forms using Hecke operators. All the results
with respect to Hecke operators can are comparable with the integral weight
case.


title:
Learning-Based Coexistence in Two-Tier Heterogeneous Networks with
  Cognitive Small Cells

abstract:
  We study the coexistence problem in a two-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet)
with cognitive small cells. In particular, we consider an underlay HetNet,
where the cognitive small base station (C-SBS) is allowed to use the frequency
bands of the macro cell with an access probability (AP) as long as the C-SBS
satisfies a preset interference probability (IP) constraint at macro users
(MUs). To enhance the AP (or transmission opportunity) of the C-SBS, we propose
a learning-based algorithm for the C-SBS and exploit the distance information
between the macro base station (MBS) and MUs. Generally, the signal from the
MBS to a specific MU contains the distance information between the MBS to the
MU. We enable the C-SBS to analyze the MBS signal on a target frequency band,
and learn the distance information between the MBS and the corresponding MU.
With the learnt distance information, we calculate the upper bound of the
probability that the C-SBS may interfere with the MU, and design an AP with a
closed-form expression under the IP constraint. Numerical results indicate that
the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing methods up to $60\%$ AP (or
transmission opportunity).


title:
Kernel classification of connectomes based on earth mover's distance
  between graph spectra

abstract:
  In this paper, we tackle a problem of predicting phenotypes from structural
connectomes. We propose that normalized Laplacian spectra can capture
structural properties of brain networks, and hence graph spectral distributions
are useful for a task of connectome-based classification. We introduce a kernel
that is based on earth mover's distance (EMD) between spectral distributions of
brain networks. We access performance of an SVM classifier with the proposed
kernel for a task of classification of autism spectrum disorder versus typical
development based on a publicly available dataset. Classification quality (area
under the ROC-curve) obtained with the EMD-based kernel on spectral
distributions is 0.71, which is higher than that based on simpler graph
embedding methods.


title: Semi Supervised Preposition-Sense Disambiguation using Multilingual Data

abstract:
  Prepositions are very common and very ambiguous, and understanding their
sense is critical for understanding the meaning of the sentence. Supervised
corpora for the preposition-sense disambiguation task are small, suggesting a
semi-supervised approach to the task. We show that signals from unannotated
multilingual data can be used to improve supervised preposition-sense
disambiguation. Our approach pre-trains an LSTM encoder for predicting the
translation of a preposition, and then incorporates the pre-trained encoder as
a component in a supervised classification system, and fine-tunes it for the
task. The multilingual signals consistently improve results on two
preposition-sense datasets.


title:
Hierarchy of Universal Relations for Neutron Stars in Terms of Multipole
  Moments

abstract:
  Recent studies of the analytical and numerical models of neutron stars
suggest that their exterior field can be described by only four arbitrary
parameters of the 2-soliton solution of Einstein's equations. Assuming that
this is the case, we show that there exists an infinite hierarchy of the
universal relations for neutron stars in terms of multipole moments that arises
as a series of the degeneration conditions for generic soliton solutions. Our
analysis of the simplest of these relations shows that the no-hair conjecture
for neutron stars proposed by Yagi {\it et al.} fails to be verified by the
perfect fluid models, but we argue that the conjecture could still be true for
the models involving anisotropic fluid.


title:
Did Evolution get it right? An evaluation of Near-Infrared imaging in
  semantic scene segmentation using deep learning

abstract:
  Animals have evolved to restrict their sensing capabilities to certain region
of electromagnetic spectrum. This is surprisingly a very narrow band on a vast
scale which makes one think if there is a systematic bias underlying such
selective filtration. The situation becomes even more intriguing when we find a
sharp cutoff point at Near-infrared point whereby almost all animal vision
systems seem to have a lower bound. This brings us to an interesting question:
did evolution "intentionally" performed such a restriction in order to evolve
higher visual cognition? In this work this question is addressed by
experimenting with Near-infrared images for their potential applicability in
higher visual processing such as semantic segmentation. A modified version of
Fully Convolutional Networks are trained on NIR images and RGB images
respectively and compared for their respective effectiveness in the wake of
semantic segmentation. The results from the experiments show that visible part
of the spectrum alone is sufficient for the robust semantic segmentation of the
indoor as well as outdoor scenes.


title:
A complete laboratory for transport studies of electron-hole
  interactions in GaAs/AlGaAs systems

abstract:
  We present GaAs/AlGaAs double quantum well devices that can operate as both
electron-hole (e-h) and hole-hole (h-h) bilayers, with separating barriers as
narrow as 5 nm or 7.5 nm. With such narrow barriers, in the h-h configuration
we observe signs of magnetic-field-induced exciton condensation in the quantum
Hall bilayer regime. In the same devices we can study the zero-magnetic-field
e-h and h-h bilayer states using Coulomb drag. Very strong e-h Coulomb drag
resistivity (up to 10% of the single layer resistivity) is observed at liquid
helium temperatures, but no definite signs of exciton condensation are seen in
this case. Self-consistent calculations of the electron and hole wavefunctions
show this might be because the average interlayer separation is larger in the
e-h case than the h-h case.


title:
A General Truncated Regularization Framework for Contrast-Preserving
  Variational Signal and Image Restoration: Motivation and Implementation

abstract:
  Variational methods have become an important kind of methods in signal and
image restoration - a typical inverse problem. One important minimization model
consists of the squared $\ell_2$ data fidelity (corresponding to Gaussian
noise) and a regularization term constructed by a potential function composed
of first order difference operators. It is well known that total variation (TV)
regularization, although achieved great successes, suffers from a contrast
reduction effect. Using a typical signal, we show that, actually all convex
regularizers and most nonconvex regularizers have this effect. With this
motivation, we present a general truncated regularization framework. The
potential function is a truncation of existing nonsmooth potential functions
and thus flat on $(\tau,+\infty)$ for some positive $\tau$. Some analysis in 1D
theoretically demonstrate the good contrast-preserving ability of the
framework. We also give optimization algorithms with convergence verification
in 2D, where global minimizers of each subproblem (either convex or nonconvenx)
are calculated. Experiments numerically show the advantages of the framework.


title: A remark on the motive of the Fano variety of lines of a cubic

abstract:
  Let $X$ be a smooth cubic hypersurface, and let $F$ be the Fano variety of
lines on $X$. We establish a relation between the Chow motives of $X$ and $F$.
This relation implies in particular that if $X$ has finite-dimensional motive
(in the sense of Kimura), then $F$ also has finite-dimensional motive. This
proves finite-dimensionality for motives of Fano varieties of cubics of
dimension $3$ and $5$, and of certain cubics in other dimensions.


title: Hard Lefschetz for Chow groups of generalized Kummer varieties

abstract:
  The main result of this note is a hard Lefschetz theorem for the Chow groups
of generalized Kummer varieties. The same argument also proves hard Lefschetz
for Chow groups of Hilbert schemes of abelian surfaces. As a consequence, we
obtain new information about certain pieces of the Chow groups of generalized
Kummer varieties, and Hilbert schemes of abelian surfaces. The proofs are based
on work of Shen-Vial and Fu-Tian-Vial on multiplicative Chow-K\"unneth
decompositions.


title: Some elementary examples of quartics with finite-dimensional motive

abstract:
  This small note contains some easy examples of quartic hypersurfaces that
have finite-dimensional motive. As an illustration, we verify a conjecture of
Voevodsky (concerning smash-equivalence) for some of these special quartics.


title: Algebraic cycles on surfaces with $p_g=1$ and $q=2$

abstract:
  This note is about an old conjecture of Voisin, which concerns zero--cycles
on the self-product of surfaces of geometric genus one. We prove this
conjecture for surfaces with $p_g=1$ and $q=2$.


title:
On the Spatial Separation of Multi-user channels Using 73 GHz
  Statistical Channel Models

abstract:
  This paper focuses at the investigation of the degree of orthogonality of
channels of multiple users in densely populated indoor and outdoor scenarios.
For this purpose, a statistical millimeter wave (mmwave) MIMO channel simulator
is carefully designed using state of the art channel models. At the mmwave
frequencies, human/vehicular mobility around the mobile users may partially or
completely block the communication link. This give rise to the consideration of
new channel modeling parameter i.e. probability of a user to be in LOS
dynamics. Higher line of sight (LOS) probabilities may increase the spatial
correlation among the multiuser channels. Therefore, quantification of the
spatial separation of users in different scenarios with distinct LOS
probabilities is crucial and it is the subject of investigation of this paper.
Additionally, the mutual orthogonality of channels by changing the number of
base station (BS) antennas and inter antenna element distance (IED) have also
been investigated. Analysis shows that LOS blockage of certain scenario has
more impact at the degree of orthogonality among users as compared to the
number of BS antennas and the spacing between the antenna elements.


title:
Forces and torques on rigid inclusions in an elastic environment:
  resulting matrix-mediated interactions, displacements, and rotations

abstract:
  Embedding rigid inclusions into elastic matrix materials is a procedure of
high practical relevance, for instance for the fabrication of elastic composite
materials. We theoretically analyze the following situation. Rigid spherical
inclusions are enclosed by a homogeneous elastic medium under stick boundary
conditions. Forces and torques are directly imposed from outside onto the
inclusions, or are externally induced between them. The inclusions respond to
these forces and torques by translations and rotations against the surrounding
elastic matrix. This leads to elastic matrix deformations, and in turn results
in mutual long-ranged matrix-mediated interactions between the inclusions.
Adapting a well-known approach from low-Reynolds-number hydrodynamics, we
explicitly calculate the displacements and rotations of the inclusions from the
externally imposed or induced forces and torques. Analytical expressions are
presented as a function of the inclusion configuration in terms of
displaceability and rotateability matrices. The role of the elastic environment
is implicitly included in these relations. That is, the resulting expressions
allow a calculation of the induced displacements and rotations directly from
the inclusion configuration, without having to explicitly determine the
deformations of the elastic environment. In contrast to the hydrodynamic case,
compressibility of the surrounding medium is readily taken into account. We
present the complete derivation based on the underlying equations of linear
elasticity theory. In the future, the method will, for example, be helpful to
characterize the behavior of externally tunable elastic composite materials, to
accelerate numerical approaches, as well as to improve the quantitative
interpretation of microrheological results.


title: World-line perturbation theory

abstract:
  The motion of a compact body in space and time is commonly described by the
world line of a point representing the instantaneous position of the body. In
General Relativity such a world-line formalism is not quite straightforward
because of the strict impossibility to accommodate point masses and rigid
bodies. In many situations of practical interest it can still be made to work
using an effective hamiltonian or energy-momentum tensor for a finite number of
collective degrees of freedom of the compact object. Even so exact solutions of
the equations of motion are often not available. In such cases families of
world lines of compact bodies in curved space-times can be constructed by a
perturbative procedure based on generalized geodesic deviation equations.
Examples for simple test masses and for spinning test bodies are presented.


title: Stabilization of linear time-delayed systems by delayed feedback

abstract:
  In this paper, stability analysis of time delay systems is considered based
on decomposition of the systems to subsystems. The decomposition process needs
matrices of these systems to be simultaneously block triangularize. We show
that a finite set of matrices are simultaneously block triangularize if and
only if they have a common invariant subspace. The importance of the
decomposition is highlighted by some systems that their characteristic equation
has repeated roots on the imaginary axis. For such systems, the cluster
treatment method and the direct method cannot be employed to analyze the
stability of them, unless, we decompose the systems to subsystems. On the other
hand, it has been shown that stabilization of time delay systems can be done by
delayed feedback. Moreover, this kind of feedback is applied to design a
controller.


title: Phragm\'en's and Thiele's election methods

abstract:
  The election methods introduced in 1894--1895 by Phragm\'en and Thiele, and
their somewhat later versions for ordered (ranked) ballots, are discussed in
detail. The paper includes definitions and examples and discussion of whether
the methods satisfy some properties, including monotonicity, consistency and
various proportionality criteria. The relation with STV is also discussed. The
paper also contains historical information on the methods.


title: Ideals of regular functions of a quaternionic variable

abstract:
  In this paper we prove that, for any $n\in \mathbb N$, the ideal generated by
$n$ slice regular functions $f_1,\ldots,f_n$ having no common zeros concides
with the entire ring of slice regular functions. The proof required the study
of the non-commutative syzygies of a vector of regular functions, that manifest
a different character when compared with their complex counterparts.


title: Lectures on Soft-Collinear Effective Theory

abstract:
  Introductory lectures on SCET mainly following the first chapters of
arXiv:1410.1892


title: X-Rule's Precursor is also Logically Universal

abstract:
  We re-examine the isotropic Precursor-Rule (of the anisotropic X-Rule) and
show that it is also logically universal. The Precursor-Rule was selected from
a sample of biased cellular automata rules classified by input-entropy. These
biases followed most "Life-Like" constraints --- in particular isotropy, but
not simple birth/survival logic. The Precursor-Rule was chosen for its
spontaneously emergent mobile and stable patterns, gliders and
eaters/reflectors, but glider-guns, originally absent, have recently been
discovered, as well as other complex structures from the Game-of-Life lexicon.
We demonstrate these newly discovered structures, and build the logical gates
required for universality in the logical sense.


title: On the Distinction of Functional and Quality Requirements in Practice

abstract:
  Requirements are often divided into functional requirements (FRs) and quality
requirements (QRs). However, we still have little knowledge about to which
extent this distinction makes sense from a practical perspective. In this
paper, we report on a survey we conducted with 103 practitioners to explore
whether and, if so, why they handle requirements labeled as FRs differently
from those labeled as QRs. We additionally asked for consequences of this
distinction w.r.t. the development process. Our results indicate that the
development process for requirements of the two classes strongly differs (e.g.,
in testing). We identified a number of reasons why practitioners do (or do not)
distinguish between QRs and FRs in their documentation and we analyzed both
problems and benefits that arise from that. We found, for instance, that many
reasons are based on expectations rather than on evidence. Those expectations
are, in fact, not reflected in specific negative or positive consequences per
se. It therefore seems more important that the decision whether to make an
explicit distinction or not should be made consciously such that people are
also aware of the risks that this distinction bears so that they may take
appropriate countermeasures.


title: Broadband excitation by method of double sweep

abstract:
  The paper describes the design of broadband excitation pulses in high
resolution NMR by method of double sweep. We first show the design of a pulse
sequence that produces broadband excitation to the equator of Bloch sphere with
phase linearly dispersed as frequency. We show how this linear dispersion can
then be refocused by nesting free evolution between two adiabatic inversions
(sweeps). We then show how this construction can be generalized to exciting
arbitrary large bandwidths without increasing the peak rf-amplitude and by
incorporating more adiabatic sweeps. Finally, we show how the basic design can
then be modified to give a broadband $x$ rotation over arbitrary large
bandwidth and with limited rf-amplitude. Experimental excitation profiles for
the residual HDO signal in a sample of $99.5\%$ D$_2$0 are displayed as a
function of resonance offset. Application of the excitation is shown for
$^{13}$C excitation in a labelled sample of Alanine.


title: Verifying Integer Programming Results

abstract:
  Software for mixed-integer linear programming can return incorrect results
for a number of reasons, one being the use of inexact floating-point
arithmetic. Even solvers that employ exact arithmetic may suffer from
programming or algorithmic errors, motivating the desire for a way to produce
independently verifiable certificates of claimed results. Due to the complex
nature of state-of-the-art MILP solution algorithms, the ideal form of such a
certificate is not entirely clear. This paper proposes such a certificate
format, illustrating its capabilities and structure through examples. The
certificate format is designed with simplicity in mind and is composed of a
list of statements that can be sequentially verified using a limited number of
simple yet powerful inference rules. We present a supplementary verification
tool for compressing and checking these certificates independently of how they
were created. We report computational results on a selection of mixed-integer
linear programming instances from the literature. To this end, we have extended
the exact rational version of the MIP solver SCIP to produce such certificates.


title:
Towards Guidelines for Preventing Critical Requirements Engineering
  Problems

abstract:
  Context] Problems in Requirements Engineering (RE) can lead to serious
consequences during the software development lifecycle. [Goal] The goal of this
paper is to propose empirically-based guidelines that can be used by different
types of organisations according to their size (small, medium or large) and
process model (agile or plan-driven) to help them in preventing such problems.
[Method] We analysed data from a survey on RE problems answered by 228
organisations in 10 different countries. [Results] We identified the most
critical RE problems, their causes and mitigation actions, organizing this
information by clusters of size and process model. Finally, we analysed the
causes and mitigation actions of the critical problems of each cluster to get
further insights into how to prevent them. [Conclusions] Based on our results,
we suggest preliminary guidelines for preventing critical RE problems in
response to context characteristics of the companies.


title: Case Studies in Industry: What We Have Learnt

abstract:
  Case study research has become an important research methodology for
exploring phenomena in their natural contexts. Case studies have earned a
distinct role in the empirical analysis of software engineering phenomena which
are difficult to capture in isolation. Such phenomena often appear in the
context of methods and development processes for which it is difficult to run
large, controlled experiments as they usually have to reduce the scale in
several respects and, hence, are detached from the reality of industrial
software development. The other side of the medal is that the realistic
socio-economic environments where we conduct case studies -- with real-life
cases and realistic conditions -- also pose a plethora of practical challenges
to planning and conducting case studies. In this experience report, we discuss
such practical challenges and the lessons we learnt in conducting case studies
in industry. Our goal is to help especially inexperienced researchers facing
their first case studies in industry by increasing their awareness for typical
obstacles they might face and practical ways to deal with those obstacles.


title: On the global rigidity of sphere packings on 3-dimensional manifolds

abstract:
  In this paper, we prove the global rigidity of sphere packings on
3-dimensional manifolds. This is a 3-dimensional analogue of the rigidity
theorem of Andreev-Thurston and was conjectured by Cooper and Rivin. We also
prove a global rigidity result using a combinatorial scalar curvature
introduced by Ge and the author.


title: Iterating evolutes of spatial polygons and of spatial curves

abstract:
  The evolute of a smooth curve in an m-dimensional Euclidean space is the
locus of centers of its osculating spheres, and the evolute of a spatial
polygon is the polygon whose consecutive vertices are the centers of the
spheres through the consecutive (m+1)-tuples of vertices of the original
polygon. We study the iterations of these evolute transformations. This work
continues the recent study of similar problems in dimension two, see
arXiv:1510.07742. Here is a sampler of our results. The set of n-gons with
fixed directions of the sides, considered up to parallel translation, is an
(n-m)-dimensional vector space, and the second evolute transformation is a
linear map of this space. If n=m+2, then the second evolute is homothetic to
the original polygon, and if n=m+3, then the first and the third evolutes are
homothetic. In general, each eigenvalue of the second evolute map has double
multiplicity. We also study curves, with cusps, in 3-dimensional Euclidean
space and their evolutes. We provide continuous analogs of the results obtained
for polygons, and present a class of curves which are homothetic to their
second evolutes; these curves are spatial analogs of the classical
hypocycloids.


title: Conrad's Partial Order on p.q.-Baer *-Rings

abstract:
  We prove that p.q.-Baer *-ring forms a pseudo lattice with Conrads partial
order and also characterize p.q.-Baer *-rings which are lattices. The initial
segments of a p.q.-Baer *-ring with Conrads partial order are shown to be
orthomodular posets.


title:
Tau lepton production and decays: perspective of multi-dimensional
  distributions and Monte Carlo methods

abstract:
  Status of tau lepton decay Monte Carlo generator TAUOLA, its main
applications and recent developments are reviewed. It is underlined, that in
recent efforts on development of new hadronic currents, the multi-dimensional
nature of distributions of the experimental data must be taken with a great
care: lesson from comparison and fits to the BaBar and Belle data is recalled.
It was found, that as in the past at a time of comparisons with CLEO and ALEPH
data, proper fitting, to as detailed as possible representation of the
experimental data, is essential for appropriate developments of models of tau
decay dynamic.
  This multi-dimensional nature of distributions is also important for
observables where tau leptons are used to constrain experimental data. In later
part of the presentation,use of the TAUOLA program for phenomenology of W,Z,H
decays at LHC is addressed, in particular in the context of the Higgs boson
parity measurements. Some new results, relevant for QED lepton pair emission
are mentioned as well.


title: Ranking Research Institutions Based On Related Academic Conferences

abstract:
  The detection of influential nodes in a social network is an active research
area with many valuable applications including marketing and advertisement. As
a new application in academia, KDD Cup 2016 shed light on the lack of an
existing objective ranking for institutions within their respective research
areas and proposed a solution for it. In this problem, the academic fields are
defined as social networks whose nodes are the active institutions within the
field, with the most influential nodes representing the highest contributors.
The solution is able to provide a ranking of active institutions within their
specific domains. The problem statement provided an annual scoring mechanism
for institutions based on their publications and encouraged the use of any
publicly available dataset such as the Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG). The
contest was focused on research publications in selected conferences and asked
for a prediction of the ranking for active institutions within those
conferences in 2016. It should be noted that the results of the paper
submissions and therefore the ground truths for KDD Cup were unknown at the
time of the contest. Each team's final ranking list was evaluated by a metric
called NDCG@20 after the results were released. This metric was used to
indicate the distance between each team's proposed ranking and the actual one
once it was known. After computing the scores of institutions for each year
starting from 2011, we aggregated the rankings by summing the normalized scores
across the years and using the final score set to provide the final ranking.
Since the 2016 ground truths were unknown, we utilized the scores from
2011-2014 and used the 2015 publications as a test bed for evaluating our
aggregation method. Based on the testing, summing the normalized scores got us
closest to the actual 2015 rankings and using same heuristic for predicting the
2016 results.


title: The Hermitian null-range of a matrix over a finite field

abstract:
  Let $q$ be a prime power. For $u=(u_1,\dots ,u_n), v=(v_1,\dots ,v_n)\in
\mathbb {F}_{q^2}^n$ let $\langle u,v\rangle := \sum _{i=1}^{n} u_i^qv_i$ be
the Hermitian form of $\mathbb {F} _{q^2}^n$. Fix an $n\times n$ matrix $M$
over $\mathbb {F} _{q^2}$. We study the case $k=0$ of the set $\mathrm{Num}
_k(M):= \{\langle u,Mu\rangle \mid u\in \mathbb {F} _{q^2}, \langle u,u\rangle
=k\}$. When $M$ has coefficients in $\mathbb {F} _q$ we study the set
$\mathrm{Num} _0(M)_q:= \{\langle u,Mu\rangle \mid u\in \mathbb {F}
_q^n\}\subseteq \mathbb {F} _q$. The set $\mathrm{Num} _1(M)$ is the numerical
range of $M$, previously introduced in a paper by Coons, Jenkins, Knowles, Luke
and Rault (case $q$ a prime $p\equiv 3\pmod{4}$) and by myself (arbitrary $q$).
We study in details $\mathrm{Num} _0(M)$ and $\mathrm{Num} _0(M)_q$ when $n=2$.
If $q$ is even, $\mathrm{Num} _0(M)_q$ is easily described for arbitrary $n$.


title: Long-Term Image Boundary Prediction

abstract:
  Boundary estimation in images and videos has been a very active topic of
research, and organizing visual information into boundaries and segments is
believed to be a corner stone of visual perception. While prior work has
focused on estimating boundaries for observed frames, our work aims at
predicting boundaries of future unobserved frames. This requires our model to
learn about the fate of boundaries and corresponding motion patterns --
including a notion of "intuitive physics". We experiment on natural video
sequences along with synthetic sequences with deterministic physics-based and
agent-based motions. While not being our primary goal, we also show that fusion
of RGB and boundary prediction leads to improved RGB predictions.


title: The communication complexity of the inevitable intersection problem

abstract:
  Set disjointness is a central problem in communication complexity. Here Alice
and Bob each receive a subset of an n-element universe, and they need to decide
whether their inputs intersect or not. The communication complexity of this
problem is relatively well understood, and in most models, including $-$ most
famously $-$ interactive randomised communication with bounded error, the
problem requires much communication.
  In this work we were looking for a variation of the set disjointness problem,
as natural and simple as possible, for which the known lower bound methods
would fail, and thus a new approach would be required in order to understand
its complexity. The problem that we have found is a relational one: each player
receives a subset as input, and the goal is to find an element that belongs to
both players. We call it inevitable intersection.


title: The signatures of doubly charged leptons in future linear colliders

abstract:
  We discuss the production of the doubly charged leptons in future linear
electron positron colliders, such as the International Linear Collider and
Compact Linear Collider. Such states are introduced in extended weak-isospin
multiplets by composite models. We discuss the production cross section of
$e^-\gamma\rightarrow L^{--}W^{+}$ and carry out analyses for hadronic,
semi-leptonic and pure leptonic channels based on the full simulation
performance of the Silicon Detector. The 3- and 5-sigma statistical
significance exclusion curves are provided in the model parameter space. It is
found that the hadronic channel could offer the most possible detectable
signature.


title: A neuro-mathematical model for geometrical optical illusions

abstract:
  Geometrical optical illusions have been object of many studies due to the
possibility they offer to understand the behaviour of low-level visual
processing. They consist in situations in which the perceived geometrical
properties of an object differ from those of the object in the visual stimulus.
Starting from the geometrical model introduced by Citti and Sarti in [3], we
provide a mathematical model and a computational algorithm which allows to
interpret these phenomena and to qualitatively reproduce the perceived
misperception.


title: Anomalous dynamics of interstitial dopants in soft crystals

abstract:
  The dynamics of interstitial dopants governs the properties of a wide variety
of doped crystalline materials. To describe the hopping dynamics of such
interstitial impurities, classical approaches often assume that dopant
particles do not interact and travel through a static potential energy
landscape. Here we show, using computer simulations, how these assumptions and
the resulting predictions from classical Eyring-type theories break down in
entropically-stabilised BCC crystals due to the thermal excitations of the
crystalline matrix. Deviations are particularly severe close to melting where
the lattice becomes weak and dopant dynamics exhibit strongly localised and
heterogeneous dynamics. We attribute these anomalies to the failure of both
assumptions underlying the classical description: i) the instantaneous
potential field experienced by dopants becomes largely disordered due to
thermal fluctuations and ii) elastic interactions cause strong dopant-dopant
interactions even at low doping fractions. These results illustrate how
describing non-classical dopant dynamics requires taking the effective
disordered potential energy landscape of strongly excited crystals and
dopant-dopant interactions into account.


title: Buchberger-Weispfenning Theory for Effective Associative Rings

abstract:
  We present here a new approach for computing Gr\"obner bases for bilateral
modules over an effective ring. Our method is based on Weispfenning notion of
restricted Gr\"obner bases and related multiplication.


title: Rapid quality assurance with Requirements Smells

abstract:
  Bad requirements quality can cause expensive consequences during the software
development lifecycle, especially if iterations are long and feedback comes
late. %-- the faster a problem is found, the cheaper it is to fix. This makes
explicit the need of a lightweight detection mechanism of requirements quality
violations. We aim at a light-weight static requirements analysis approach that
allows for rapid checks immediately when requirements are written down. We
transfer the concept of code smells to Requirements Engineering as Requirements
Smells. To evaluate the benefits and limitations, we define Requirements
Smells, realize our concepts for a smell detection in a prototype called Smella
and apply Smella in a series of cases provided by three industrial and a
university context. The automatic detection yields an average precision of 59%
at an average recall of 82% with high variation. The evaluation in practical
environments indicates benefits such as an increase of the awareness of quality
defects. Yet, some smells were not clearly distinguishable. Lightweight smell
detection can uncover many practically relevant requirements defects in a
reasonably precise way. Although some smells need to be defined more clearly,
smell detection provides a helpful means to support quality assurance in
Requirements Engineering, for instance, as a supplement to reviews.


title: Predicting drug recalls from Internet search engine queries

abstract:
  Batches of pharmaceutical are sometimes recalled from the market when a
safety issue or a defect is detected in specific production runs of a drug.
Such problems are usually detected when patients or healthcare providers report
abnormalities to medical authorities. Here we test the hypothesis that
defective production lots can be detected earlier by monitoring queries to
Internet search engines.
  We extracted queries from the USA to the Bing search engine which mentioned
one of 5,195 pharmaceutical drugs during 2015 and all recall notifications
issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during that year. By using
attributes that quantify the change in query volume at the state level, we
attempted to predict if a recall of a specific drug will be ordered by FDA in a
time horizon ranging from one to 40 days in future.
  Our results show that future drug recalls can indeed be identified with an
AUC of 0.791 and a lift at 5% of approximately 6 when predicting a recall will
occur one day ahead. This performance degrades as prediction is made for longer
periods ahead. The most indicative attributes for prediction are sudden spikes
in query volume about a specific medicine in each state. Recalls of
prescription drugs and those estimated to be of medium-risk are more likely to
be identified using search query data.
  These findings suggest that aggregated Internet search engine data can be
used to facilitate in early warning of faulty batches of medicines.


title:
"Smart Girls" versus "Sleeping Beauties" in the Sciences: The
  Identification of Instant and Delayed Recognition by Using the Citation Angle

abstract:
  In recent years, a number of studies have introduced methods for identifying
papers with delayed recognition (so called "sleeping beauties", SBs) or have
presented single publications as cases of SBs. Most recently, Ke et al. (2015)
proposed the so called "beauty coefficient" (denoted as B) to quantify how much
a given paper can be considered as a paper with delayed recognition. In this
study, the new term "smart girl" (SG) is suggested to differentiate instant
credit or "flashes in the pan" from SBs. While SG and SB are qualitatively
defined, the dynamic citation angle \b{eta} is introduced in this study as a
simple way for identifying SGs and SBs quantitatively - complementing the
beauty coefficient B. The citation angles for all articles from 1980 (n=166870)
in natural sciences are calculated for identifying SGs and SBs and their
extent. We reveal that about 3% of the articles are typical SGs and about 0.1%
typical SBs. The potential advantages of the citation angle approach are
explained.


title: Every 4-regular 4-uniform hypergraph has a 2-coloring with a free vertex

abstract:
  In this paper, we continue the study of $2$-colorings in hypergraphs. A
hypergraph is $2$-colorable if there is a $2$-coloring of the vertices with no
monochromatic hyperedge. It is known (see Thomassen [J. Amer. Math. Soc. 5
(1992), 217--229]) that every $4$-uniform $4$-regular hypergraph is
$2$-colorable. Our main result in this paper is a strengthening of this result.
For this purpose, we define a vertex in a hypergraph $H$ to be a free vertex in
$H$ if we can $2$-color $V(H) \setminus \{v\}$ such that every hyperedge in $H$
contains vertices of both colors (where $v$ has no color). We prove that every
$4$-uniform $4$-regular hypergraph has a free vertex. This proves a known
conjecture. Our proofs use a new result on not-all-equal $3$-SAT which is also
proved in this paper and is of interest in its own right.


title:
Nondestructive method of thin film dielectric constant measurements by
  two-wire capacitor

abstract:
  We suggest the nondestructive method for determination of the dielectric
constant of substrate-deposited thin films by capacitance measurement with two
parallel wires placed on top of the film. The exact analytical formula for the
capacitance of such system is derived. The functional dependence of the
capacitance on dielectric constants of the film, substrate, and environment
media and on the distance between the wires permits to measure the dielectric
constant of thin films for the vast set of parameters where previously proposed
approximate methods are less efficient.


title: A characterization of elementary abelian 2-groups

abstract:
  In this note we give a characterization of elementary abelian 2-groups in
terms of their maximal sum-free subsets.


title: A Low Complexity Detection Algorithm for SCMA

abstract:
  Sparse code multiple access (SCMA) is a new multiple access technique which
supports massive connectivity. Compared with the current Long Term Evolution
(LTE) system, it enables the overloading of active users on limited orthogonal
resources and thus meets the requirement of the fifth generation (5G) wireless
networks. However, the computation complexity of existing detection algorithms
increases exponentially with $d_f$ (the degree of the resource nodes). Although
the codebooks are designed to have low density, the detection still takes
considerable time. The parameter $d_f$ must be designed to be very small, which
largely limits the choice of codebooks. In this paper, a new detection
algorithm is proposed by discretizing the probability distribution functions
(PDFs) in the layer nodes (variable nodes). Given $M$ as the size of one
codebook, the detection complexity of each resource node (function node) is
reduced from $O(d_f M^{d_f})$ to $O(d_f^3 \ln (d_f))$. Its detection accuracy
can quickly approach that of the previous detection algorithms with the
decrease of sampling interval in discretization.


title: Equivariant bundles and connections

abstract:
  Let $X$ be a connected complex manifold equipped with a holomorphic action of
a complex Lie group $G$. We investigate conditions under which a principal
bundle on $X$ admits a $G$--equivariance structure.


title:
Multiple stellar populations and their evolution in globular clusters: A
  nucleosynthesis perspective

abstract:
  This paper presents a review of the characteristics of the multiple stellar
populations observed in globular clusters, and of their possible origin. The
current theoretical issues and the many open questions are discussed.


title: Gauge Fixing Invariance and Anti-BRST Symmetry

abstract:
  It is shown that anti-BRST invariance in quantum gauge theories can be
considered as the quantized version of the symmetry of classical gauge theories
with respect to different gauge fixing mechanisms.


title: Assouad type spectra for some fractal families

abstract:
  In a previous paper we introduced a new `dimension spectrum', motivated by
the Assouad dimension, designed to give precise information about the scaling
structure and homogeneity of a metric space. In this paper we compute the
spectrum explicitly for a range of well-studied fractal sets, including: the
self-affine carpets of Bedford and McMullen, self-similar and self-conformal
sets with overlaps, Mandelbrot percolation, and Moran constructions. We find
that the spectrum behaves differently for each of these models and can take on
a rich variety of forms. We also consider some applications, including the
provision of new bi-Lipschitz invariants and bounds on a family of `tail
densities' defined for subsets of the integers.


title: Quantum vacuum effects on the final fate of a collapsing ball of dust

abstract:
  We consider the quantum vacuum effects of the massless scalar fields that are
non-minimally coupled to the background geometry of a collapsing homogeneous
ball of dust. It is shown that for a definite range of coupling constants,
there are repulsive quantum vacuum effects, capable of stopping the collapse
process inside the black hole and precluding the formation of singularity. The
final fate of the collapse will be a black hole with no singularity, inside
which the matter stays balanced. The density of the final static matter will be
close to the Planck density. We show that the largest possible radius of the
stable static ball inside a black hole with Schwarzschild mass $M$ is given by
${{\left( \frac{1}{90\pi }\frac{M}{{{m}_{p}}} \right)}^{\frac{1}{3}}}{{\ell
}_{p}}$. If the black hole undergoes Hawking radiation, the final state will be
an extremal quantum-corrected black hole, with zero temperature, with a remnant
of matter inside. We show that the resolution of singularity is not disrupted
under Hawking radiation.


title: Correlations and diagonal entropy after quantum quenches in XXZ chains

abstract:
  We study quantum quenches in the XXZ spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg chain from
families of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic initial states. Using Bethe
ansatz techniques, we compute short-range correlators in the complete
generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE), which takes into account all local and
quasi-local conservation laws. We compare our results to exact diagonalization
and numerical linked cluster expansion calculations for the diagonal ensemble
finding excellent agreement and thus providing a very accurate test for the
validity of the complete GGE. Furthermore, we compute the diagonal entropy in
the post-quench steady state. By careful finite-size scaling analyses of the
exact diagonalization results, we show that the diagonal entropy is equal to
one half the Yang-Yang entropy corresponding to the complete GGE. Finally, the
complete GGE is quantitatively contrasted with the GGE built using only the
local conserved charges (local GGE). The predictions of the two ensembles are
found to differ significantly in the case of ferromagnetic initial states. Such
initial states are better suited than others considered in the literature to
experimentally test the validity of the complete GGE and contrast it to the
failure of the local GGE.


title:
It's Written All Over Your Face: Full-Face Appearance-Based Gaze
  Estimation

abstract:
  Eye gaze is an important non-verbal cue for human affect analysis. Recent
gaze estimation work indicated that information from the full face region can
benefit performance. Pushing this idea further, we propose an appearance-based
method that, in contrast to a long-standing line of work in computer vision,
only takes the full face image as input. Our method encodes the face image
using a convolutional neural network with spatial weights applied on the
feature maps to flexibly suppress or enhance information in different facial
regions. Through extensive evaluation, we show that our full-face method
significantly outperforms the state of the art for both 2D and 3D gaze
estimation, achieving improvements of up to 14.3% on MPIIGaze and 27.7% on
EYEDIAP for person-independent 3D gaze estimation. We further show that this
improvement is consistent across different illumination conditions and gaze
directions and particularly pronounced for the most challenging extreme head
poses.


title: A spectral gap precludes low-dimensional embeddings

abstract:
  We prove that there is a universal constant $C>0$ with the following
property. Suppose that $n\in \mathbb{N}$ and that $\mathsf{A}=(a_{ij})\in
M_n(\mathbb{R})$ is a symmetric stochastic matrix. Denote the second-largest
eigenvalue of $\mathsf{A}$ by $\lambda_2(\mathsf{A})$. Then for $\mathrm{\it
any}$ finite-dimensional normed space $(X,\|\cdot\|)$ we have $$ \forall\,
x_1,\ldots,x_n\in X,\qquad \mathrm{dim}(X)\ge \frac12
\exp\left(C\frac{1-\lambda_2(\mathsf{A})}{\sqrt{n}}\bigg(\frac{\sum_{i=1}^n\sum_{j=1}^n\|x_i-x_j\|^2}{\sum_{i=1}^n\sum_{j=1}^na_{ij}\|x_i-x_j\|^2}\bigg)^{\frac12}\right).
$$ This implies that if an $n$-vertex $O(1)$-expander embeds with average
distortion $D\ge 1$ into $X$, then necessarily $\mathrm{dim}(X)\gtrsim n^{c/D}$
for some universal constant $c>0$, thus improving over the previously
best-known estimate $\mathrm{dim}(X)\gtrsim (\log n)^2/D^2$ of Linial, London
and Rabinovich, strengthening a theorem of Matou\v{s}ek, and answering a
question of Andoni, Nikolov, Razenshteyn and Waingarten.


title:
The Likelihood Ratio Test and Full Bayesian Significance Test under
  small sample sizes for contingency tables

abstract:
  Hypothesis testing in contingency tables is usually based on asymptotic
results, thereby restricting its proper use to large samples. To study these
tests in small samples, we consider the likelihood ratio test and define an
accurate index, the P-value, for the celebrated hypotheses of homogeneity,
independence, and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The aim is to understand the use
of the asymptotic results of the frequentist Likelihood Ratio Test and the
Bayesian FBST -- Full Bayesian Significance Test -- under small-sample
scenarios. The proposed exact P-value is used as a benchmark to understand the
other indices. We perform analysis in different scenarios, considering
different sample sizes and different table dimensions. The exact Fisher test
for $2 \times 2$ tables that drastically reduces the sample space is also
discussed. The main message of this paper is that all indices have very similar
behavior, so the tests based on asymptotic results are very good to be used in
any circumstance, even with small sample sizes.


title: p-Adic Analogue of the Porous Medium Equation

abstract:
  We consider a nonlinear evolution equation for complex-valued functions of a
real positive time variable and a p-adic spatial variable. This equation is a
non-Archimedean counterpart of the fractional porous medium equation.
Developing, as a tool, an $L^1$-theory of Vladimirov's p-adic fractional
differentiation operator, we prove m-accretivity of the appropriate nonlinear
operator, thus obtaining the existence and uniqueness of a mild solution. We
give also an example of an explicit solution of the p-adic porous medium
equation.


title:
An Efficient Max-Min Resource Allocator and Task Scheduling Algorithm in
  Cloud Computing Environment

abstract:
  Cloud computing is a new archetype that provides dynamic computing services
to cloud users through the support of datacenters that employs the services of
datacenter brokers which discover resources and assign them Virtually. The
focus of this research is to efficiently optimize resource allocation in the
cloud by exploiting the Max-Min scheduling algorithm and enhancing it to
increase efficiency in terms of completion time (makespan). This is key to
enhancing the performance of cloud scheduling and narrowing the performance gap
between cloud service providers and cloud resources consumers/users. The
current Max-Min algorithm selects tasks with maximum execution time on a faster
available machine or resource that is capable of giving minimum completion
time. The concern of this algorithm is to give priority to tasks with maximum
execution time first before assigning those with the minimum execution time for
the purpose of minimizing makespan. The drawback of this algorithm is that, the
execution of tasks with maximum execution time first may increase the makespan,
and leads to a delay in executing tasks with minimum execution time if the
number of tasks with maximum execution time exceeds that of tasks with minimum
execution time, hence the need to improve it to mitigate the delay in executing
tasks with minimum execution time. CloudSim is used to compare the
effectiveness of the improved Max-Min algorithm with the traditional one. The
experimented results show that the improved algorithm is efficient and can
produce better makespan than Max-Min and DataAware.