title: On Radiative Fluids in Anisotropic Spacetimes

abstract:
  We apply the second-order Israel-Stewart theory of relativistic fluid- and
thermodynamics to a physically realistic model of a radiative fluid in a simple
anisotropic cosmological background. We investigate the asymptotic future of
the resulting cosmological model and review the role of the dissipative
phenomena in the early Universe. We demonstrate that the transport properties
of the fluid alone, if described appropriately, do not explain the presently
observed accelerated expansion of the Universe. Also, we show that, in
constrast to the mathematical fluid models widely used before, the radiative
fluid does approach local thermal equilibrium at late times, although very
slowly, due to the cosmological expansion.


title:
Frequency-Selective Vandermonde Decomposition of Toeplitz Matrices with
  Applications

abstract:
  The classical result of Vandermonde decomposition of positive semidefinite
Toeplitz matrices, which dates back to the early twentieth century, forms the
basis of modern subspace and recent atomic norm methods for frequency
estimation. In this paper, we study the Vandermonde decomposition in which the
frequencies are restricted to lie in a given interval, referred to as
frequency-selective Vandermonde decomposition. The existence and uniqueness of
the decomposition are studied under explicit conditions on the Toeplitz matrix.
The new result is connected by duality to the positive real lemma for
trigonometric polynomials nonnegative on the same frequency interval. Its
applications in the theory of moments and line spectral estimation are
illustrated. In particular, it provides a solution to the truncated
trigonometric $K$-moment problem. It is used to derive a primal semidefinite
program formulation of the frequency-selective atomic norm in which the
frequencies are known {\em a priori} to lie in certain frequency bands.
Numerical examples are also provided.


title: A broker-based framework for integrated SLA-aware SaaS Provisioning

abstract:
  In the service landscape, the issues of service selection, negotiation of
Service Level Agreements (SLA), and SLA-compliance monitoring have typically
been used in separate and disparate ways, which affect the quality of the
services that consumers obtain from their providers. In this work, we propose a
broker-based framework to deal with these concerns in an integrated manner for
Software as a Service (SaaS) provisioning. The SaaS Broker selects a suitable
SaaS provider on behalf of the service consumer by using a utility-driven
selection algorithm that ranks the QoS offerings of potential SaaS providers.
Then, it negotiates the SLA terms with that provider based on the quality
requirements of the service consumer. The monitoring infrastructure observes
SLA-compliance during service delivery by using measurements obtained from
third-party monitoring services. We also define a utility-based bargaining
decision model that allows the service consumer to express her sensitivity for
each of the negotiated quality attributes and to evaluate the SaaS provider
offer in each round of negotiation. A use-case with few quality attributes and
their respective utility functions illustrates the approach.


title:
Large scale dynamo action precedes turbulence in shearing box
  simulations of the magnetorotational instability

abstract:
  We study the dynamo generation (exponential growth) of large scale (planar
averaged) fields in unstratified shearing box simulations of the
magnetorotational instability (MRI). In contrast to previous studies restricted
to horizontal ($x$-$y$) averaging, we demonstrate the presence of large scale
fields when either horizontal or vertical ($y$-$z$) averaging is employed. By
computing planar averaged fields and power spectra, we find large scale dynamo
action in the early MRI growth phase---a previously unidentified feature. Fast
growing horizontal low modes and fiducial vertical modes over a narrow range of
wave numbers amplify these planar averaged fields in the MRI growth phase,
before turbulence sets in. The large scale field growth requires linear
fluctuations but not nonlinear turbulence (as defined by mode-mode coupling)
and grows as a direct global mode of the MRI. Only by vertical averaging, can
it be shown that the growth of horizontal low wavenumber MRI modes directly
feed-back to the initial vertical field providing a clue as to why the large
scale vertical field sustains against turbulent diffusion in the saturation
regime. We compute the terms in the planar averaged mean field equations to
identify the individual contributions to large scale field growth for both
vertical and horizontal averaging. The large scale fields obtained from such
vertical averaging are found to compare well with global cylindrical
simulations and quasilinear analytical analysis from a previous study by
Ebrahimi \& Blackman. We discuss the potential implications of these new
results for understanding large scale MRI dynamo saturation and turbulence.


title: Non-vanishing of automorphic L-functions of prime power level

abstract:
  Iwaniec and Sarnak showed that at the minimum 25% of L-values associated to
holomorphic newforms of fixed even integral weight and level $N \rightarrow
\infty$ do not vanish at the critical point when N is square-free and
$\phi(N)\sim N$. In this paper we extend the given result to the case of prime
power level $N=p^{\nu}$, $\nu\geq 2$.


title:
ZeroBlock: Timestamp-Free Prevention of Block-Withholding Attack in
  Bitcoin

abstract:
  Bitcoin was recently introduced as a peer-to-peer electronic currency in
order to facilitate transactions outside the traditional financial system. The
core of Bitcoin, the Blockchain, is the history of the transactions in the
system maintained by all miners as a distributed shared register. New blocks in
the Blockchain contain the last transactions in the system and are added by
miners after a block mining process that consists in solving a resource
consuming proof-of-work (cryptographic puzzle). The reward is a motivation for
mining process but also could be an incentive for attacks such as selfish
mining. In this paper we propose a solution for one of the major problems in
Bitcoin : selfish mining or block-withholding attack. This attack is conducted
by adversarial or selfish miners in order to either earn undue rewards or waste
the computational power of honest miners. Contrary to recent solutions, our
solution, ZeroBlock, prevents block-withholding using a technique free of
timestamp that can be forged. Moreover, we show that our solution is compliant
with nodes churn.


title:
Distribution of orbits of unipotent groups on S-arithmetic homogeneous
  spaces

abstract:
  We will prove an S-arithmetic version of a theorem of Dani-Margulis on the
convergence of ergodic averages of a given bounded continuous function, when
the initial point is outside certain compact subsets of the singular set
associated to the unipotent flow.


title:
Non-accretive Schr\"odinger operators and exponential decay of their
  eigenfunctions

abstract:
  We consider non-self-adjoint electromagnetic Schr\"odinger operators on
arbitrary open sets with complex scalar potentials whose real part is not
necessarily bounded from below. Under a suitable sufficient condition on the
electromagnetic potential, we introduce a Dirichlet realisation as a closed
densely defined operator with non-empty resolvent set and show that the
eigenfunctions corresponding to discrete eigenvalues satisfy an Agmon-type
exponential decay.


title:
Physical conditions and element abundances in SN and GRB host galaxies
  at different redshifts

abstract:
  We compare the physical parameters and the relative abundances calculated
throughout supernova (SN) and gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies by the
detailed modelling of the spectra. The results show that : 1) shock velocities
are lower in long period GRB (LGRB) than in SN host galaxies. 2) O/H relative
abundance in SN hosts are scattered within a range 8.0 <12+log(O/H)<8.85 but
they are close to solar in LGRB hosts. N/H are lower than solar for both SN and
LGRB. 3) The starburst temperatures within a few SN hosts reach Ts >10^5 K. Ts
in LGRB hosts are 3-8 10^4 K. 4) Ha increases with the ionization parameter U.
We suggest that SN-host symbiosis is stronger in terms of host galaxy activity
than GRB-host in the range of energies related to the near UV - optical - near
IR spectra.


title:
Light interacting with atomic ensembles: collective, cooperative and
  mesoscopic effects

abstract:
  Cooperative scattering has been the subject of intense research in the last
years. In this article, we discuss the concept of cooperative scattering from a
broad perspective. We briefly review the various collective effects that occur
when light interacts with an ensemble of atoms. We show that some effects that
have been recently discussed in the context of 'single-photon superradiance',
or cooperative scattering in the linear-optics regime, can also be explained by
'standard optics', i.e., using macroscopic quantities such as the
susceptibility or the diffusion coefficient. We explain why some collective
effects depend on the atomic density, and others on the optical depth. In
particular, we show that, for a large and dilute atomic sample driven by a
far-detuned laser, the decay of the fluorescence, which exhibits superradiant
and subradiant dynamics, depends only on the on-resonance optical depth. We
also discuss the link between concepts that are independently studied in the
quantum-optics community and in the mesoscopic-physics community. We show that
the coupled-dipole model predicts a departure from Ohm's law for the diffuse
light, that incoherent multiple scattering can induce a saturation of
fluorescence and we also show the similarity between the weak-localization
correction to the diffusion coefficient and the inaccuracy of Lorentz local
field correction to the susceptibility.


title: The first moment of twisted Hecke $L$-functions with unbounded shifts

abstract:
  We compute the first moment of twisted Hecke $L$-functions of prime power
level going to infinity, uniformly in the conductor of the twist and in the
vertical shift.


title: Zero-Error Capacity of $P$-ary Shift Channels and FIFO Queues

abstract:
  The objects of study of this paper are communication channels in which the
dominant type of noise are symbol shifts, the main motivating examples being
timing and bit-shift channels. Two channel models are introduced and their
zero-error capacities and zero-error-detection capacities determined by
explicit constructions of optimal codes. Model A can be informally described as
follows: 1) The information is stored in an $ n $-cell register, where each
cell is either empty or contains a particle of one of $ P $ possible types, and
2) due to the imperfections of the device each of the particles may be shifted
several cells away from its original position over time. Model B is an
abstraction of a single-server queue: 1) The transmitter sends packets from a $
P $-ary alphabet through a queuing system with an infinite buffer and a
First-In-First-Out (FIFO) service procedure, and 2) each packet is being
processed by the server for a random number of time slots. More general models
including additional types of noise that the particles/packets can experience
are also studied, as are the continuous-time versions of these problems.


title:
Machine Learning Techniques with Ontology for Subjective Answer
  Evaluation

abstract:
  Computerized Evaluation of English Essays is performed using Machine learning
techniques like Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), Generalized LSA, Bilingual
Evaluation Understudy and Maximum Entropy. Ontology, a concept map of domain
knowledge, can enhance the performance of these techniques. Use of Ontology
makes the evaluation process holistic as presence of keywords, synonyms, the
right word combination and coverage of concepts can be checked. In this paper,
the above mentioned techniques are implemented both with and without Ontology
and tested on common input data consisting of technical answers of Computer
Science. Domain Ontology of Computer Graphics is designed and developed. The
software used for implementation includes Java Programming Language and tools
such as MATLAB, Prot\'eg\'e, etc. Ten questions from Computer Graphics with
sixty answers for each question are used for testing. The results are analyzed
and it is concluded that the results are more accurate with use of Ontology.


title:
Weighted estimates for solutions of the $\partial$ -equation for
  lineally convex domains of finite type and applications to weighted bergman
  projections

abstract:
  In this paper we obtain sharp weighted estimates for solutions of the
$\partial$-equation in a lineally convex domains of finite type. Precisely we
obtain estimates in spaces of the form L p ({\Omega},$\delta$ $\gamma$),
$\delta$ being the distance to the boundary, with gain on the index p and the
exponent $\gamma$. These estimates allow us to extend the L p
({\Omega},$\delta$ $\gamma$) and lipschitz regularity results for weighted
Bergman projection obtained in [CDM14b] for convex domains to more general
weights.


title: Lie theory for quasi-shuffle bialgebras

abstract:
  Many features of classical Lie theory generalize to the broader context of
algebras over Hopf operads. However, this idea remains largely to be developed
systematically. Quasi-shuffle algebras provide for example an interesting
illustration of these phenomena, but have not been investigated from this point
of view.The notion of quasi-shuffle algebras can be traced back to the
beginings of the theory of Rota--Baxter algebras, but was developed
systematically only recently, starting essentially with Hoffman's work, that
was motivated by multizeta values (MZVs) and featured their bialgebra
structure. Many partial results on the fine structure of quasi-shuffle
bialgebras have been obtained since then but, besides the fact that each of
these articles features a particular point of view, they fail to develop
systematically a complete theory.This article builds on these various results
and develops the analog theory, for quasi-shuffle algebras, of the theory of
descent algebras and their relations to free Lie algebras for classical
enveloping algebras.


title: Group decision makers making process - an analytic hierarchy approach

abstract:
  The paper deals with a step-wise analytic hierarchy process (AHP) applied by
a group of decision makers wherein nobody has a dominant position and it is
unlikely to come to terms with respect to either the weights of different
objectives or expected utilities of different alternatives. One of the AHP
outcomes, that is the consistency index is computed for each decision maker,
for all other decision makers but that one, and for the whole group. Doing so,
the group is able to assess to which extent each decision maker alters the
group consistency index and a better consistency index could be achieved if the
assessment procedure is being resumed by the most influential decision maker in
terms of consistency. The main contribution of the new approach is the
algorithm presented in as a flow chart where the condition to stop the process
might be either a threshold value for the consistency index, or a given number
of iterations for the group or decision maker, depending on the degree to which
the targeted goal has been decomposed into conflictual objectives.


title:
P-splines with derivative based penalties and tensor product smoothing
  of unevenly distributed data

abstract:
  The P-splines of Eilers and Marx (1996) combine a B-spline basis with a
discrete quadratic penalty on the basis coefficients, to produce a reduced rank
spline like smoother. P-splines have three properties that make them very
popular as reduced rank smoothers: i) the basis and the penalty are sparse,
enabling efficient computation, especially for Bayesian stochastic simulation;
ii) it is possible to flexibly `mix-and-match' the order of B-spline basis and
penalty, rather than the order of penalty controlling the order of the basis as
in spline smoothing; iii) it is very easy to set up the B-spline basis
functions and penalties. The discrete penalties are somewhat less interpretable
in terms of function shape than the traditional derivative based spline
penalties, but tend towards penalties proportional to traditional spline
penalties in the limit of large basis size. However part of the point of
P-splines is not to use a large basis size. In addition the spline basis
functions arise from solving functional optimization problems involving
derivative based penalties, so moving to discrete penalties for smoothing may
not always be desirable. The purpose of this note is to point out that the
three properties of basis-penalty sparsity, mix-and-match penalization and ease
of setup are readily obtainable with B-splines subject to derivative based
penalization. The penalty setup typically requires a few lines of code, rather
than the two lines typically required for P-splines, but this one off
disadvantage seems to be the only one associated with using derivative based
penalties. As an example application, it is shown how basis-penalty sparsity
enables efficient computation with tensor product smoothers of scattered data.


title:
Pointwise Characterizations of Curvature and Second Fundamental Form on
  Riemannian Manifolds

abstract:
  Let $M$ be a complete Riemannian manifold possibly with a boundary $\partial
M$. For any $C^1$-vector field $Z$, by using gradient/functional inequalities
of the (reflecting) diffusion process generated by $L:=\Delta+Z$, pointwise
characterizations are presented for the Bakry-Emery curvature of $L$ and the
second fundamental form of $\partial M$ if exists. These extend and strengthen
the recent results derived by A. Naber for the uniform norm
$\|{\mathbf{Ric}}_Z\|_\infty$ on manifolds without boundary. A key point of the
present study is to apply the asymptotic formulas for these two tensors found
by the first named author, such that the proofs are significantly simplified.


title: The deformations of symplectic structures by moment maps

abstract:
  We study deformations of symplectic structures on a smooth manifold $M$ via
the quasi-Poisson theory. By a fact, we can deform a given symplectic structure
$\omega $ to a new symplectic structure $\omega_t$ parametrized by some element
$t$ in $\Lambda^2\mathfrak{g}$, where $\mathfrak{g}$ is the Lie algebra of a
Lie group $G$. Moreover, we can get a lot of concrete examples for the
deformations of symplectic structures on the complex projective space and the
complex Grassmannian.


title:
New insights on frequency combinations and 'forbidden frequencies' in de
  Haas-van Alphen spectrum of \k{appa}-(ET) 2 Cu(SCN) 2

abstract:
  De Haas-van Alphen oscillations of the organic metal \k{appa}-(ET) 2 Cu(SCN)
2 have been measured up to 55 T at liquid helium temperatures. The Fermi
surface of this charge transfer salt is a textbook example of linear chain of
orbits coupled by magnetic breakdown. Accordingly, the oscillation spectrum is
composed of linear combinations of the frequencies linked to the $\alpha$ and
magnetic breakdown-induced $\beta$ orbits. The field and temperature dependence
of all the observed Fourier components, in particular the "forbidden frequency"
$\beta$ -- $\alpha$ which cannot correspond to a classical orbit, are
quantitatively accounted for by analytical calculations based on a second order
development of the free energy, i.e. beyond the first order Lifshitz-Kosevich
formula.


title:
PTF 13efv - An outburst 500 days prior to the SNHunt 275 explosion and
  its radiative efficiency

abstract:
  The progenitors of some supernovae (SNe) exhibit outbursts with
super-Eddington luminosities prior to their final explosions. This behavior is
common among Type IIn SNe, but the driving mechanisms of these precursors are
not yet well understood. SNHunt 275 was announced as a possible new SN during
May 2015. Here we report on pre-explosion observations of the location of this
event by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and report the detection of a
precursor about 500 days prior to the 2015 May activity (PTF 13efv). The
observed velocities in the 2015 transient and its 2013 precursor absorption
spectra are low (1000-2000 km/s), so it is not clear yet if the recent activity
indeed marks the final disruption of the progenitor. Regardless of the nature
of this event, we use the PTF photometric and spectral observations, as well as
Swift-UVOT observations, to constrain the efficiency of the radiated energy
relative to the total kinetic energy of the precursor. We find that, using an
order-of-magnitude estimate and under the assumption of spherical symmetry, the
ratio of the radiated energy to the kinetic energy is in the range of 0.04 to
3400.


title: A kinetic model for the transport of electrons in a graphene layer

abstract:
  In this article, we propose a new numerical model for computation of the
transport of electrons in a graphene device. The underlying quantum model for
graphene is a massless Dirac equation, whose eigenvalues display a conical
singularity responsible for non adiabatic transitions between the two modes. We
first derive a kinetic model which takes the form of two Boltzmann equations
coupled by a collision operator modeling the non-adiabatic transitions. This
collision term includes a Landau-Zener transfer term and a jump operator whose
presence is essential in order to ensure a good energy conservation during the
transitions. We propose an algorithmic realization of the semi-group solving
the kinetic model, by a particle method. We give analytic justification of the
model and propose a series of numerical experiments studying the influences of
the various sources of errors between the quantum and the kinetic models.


title: Positivity certificates in optimal control

abstract:
  We propose a tutorial on relaxations and weak formulations of optimal control
with their semidefinite approximations. We present this approach solely through
the prism of positivity certificates which we consider to be the most
accessible for a broad audience, in particular in the engineering and robotics
communities. This simple concept allows to express very concisely powerful
approximation certificates in control. The relevance of this technique is
illustrated on three applications: region of attraction approximation, direct
optimal control and inverse optimal control, for which it constitutes a common
denominator. In a first step, we highlight the core mechanisms underpinning the
application of positivity in control and how they appear in the different
control applications. This relies on simple mathematical concepts and gives a
unified treatment of the applications considered. This presentation is based on
the combination and simplification of published materials. In a second step, we
describe briefly relations with broader literature, in particular, occupation
measures and Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation which are important elements of
the global picture. We describe the Sum-Of-Squares (SOS) semidefinite hierarchy
in the semialgebraic case and briefly mention its convergence properties.
Numerical experiments on a classical example in robotics, namely the
nonholonomic vehicle, illustrate the concepts presented in the text for the
three applications considered.


title:
Fractional Separation of Polymers in Nanochannels: Combined Influence of
  Wettability and Structure

abstract:
  Trapping macromolecules in nanopits finds multifarious applications in
polymer separation, filtering biomolecules etc. However, tuning the locomotion
of polymers in channels of nanoscopic dimensions is greatly restricted by the
comparative advective and diffusive components of velocities. Using the polymer
affinity toward the solvent and the wall, and the polymer structure, a
mechanism is proposed to induce selective trapping of polymers. Similar to
fractional distillation of hydrocarbons based on molecular weight, a technique
of fractional segregation, depending on the channel wettability of polymeric
chains at different depths in a pit that is located perpendicular to the flow
is suggested. Depending on the properties of the polymeric chains and the
surface chemistry, the segregation of the polymer at a particular level in the
pit can be predicted. This behaviour stems from the difference in polymer
structure leading to a competition between wettability based trapping and
entropic trapping. The results of this study suggest a novel way of separating
biopolymers based on their structure without relying on the channel geometry.


title: Development of compact cold-atom sensors for inertial navigation

abstract:
  Inertial sensors based on cold atom interferometry exhibit many interesting
features for applications related to inertial navigation, particularly in terms
of sensitivity and long-term stability. However, at present the typical atom
interferometer is still very much an experiment---consisting of a bulky, static
apparatus with a limited dynamic range and high sensitivity to environmental
effects. To be compliant with mobile applications further development is
needed. In this work, we present a compact and mobile experiment, which we
recently used to achieve the first inertial measurements with an atomic
accelerometer onboard an aircraft. By integrating classical inertial sensors
into our apparatus, we are able to operate the atomic sensor well beyond its
standard operating range, corresponding to half of an interference fringe. We
report atom-based acceleration measurements along both the horizontal and
vertical axes of the aircraft with one-shot sensitivities of $2.3 \times
10^{-4}\,g$ over a range of $\sim 0.1\,g$. The same technology can be used to
develop cold-atom gyroscopes, which could surpass the best optical gyroscopes
in terms of long-term sensitivity. Our apparatus was also designed to study
multi-axis atom interferometry with the goal of realizing a full inertial
measurement unit comprised of the three axes of acceleration and rotation.
Finally, we present a compact and tunable laser system, which constitutes an
essential part of any cold-atom-based sensor. The architecture of the laser is
based on phase modulating a single fiber-optic laser diode, and can be tuned
over a range of 1 GHz in less than 200 $\mu$s.


title: 2.4GHZ Class AB power Amplifier For Healthcare Application

abstract:
  The objective of this research was to design a 2.4 GHz class AB Power
Amplifier, with 0.18 um SMIC CMOS technology by using Cadence software, for
health care applications. The ultimate goal for such application is to minimize
the trade-offs between performance and cost, and between performance and low
power consumption design. The performance of the power amplifier meets the
specification requirements of the desired.


title: On the structure of finitely generated shift-invariant subspaces

abstract:
  A characterization of finitely generated shift-invariant subspaces is given
when generators are g-minimal. An algorithm is given for the determination of
the coefficients in the well known representation of the Fourier transform of
an element of the finitely generated shift-invariant subspace as a linear
combination of Fourier transformations of generators. An estimate for the norms
of those coefficients is derived. For the proof a sort of orthogonalization
procedure for generators is used which reminds the well known Gram-Schmidt
orthogonalization process.


title: The Controlled Natural Language of Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer

abstract:
  It is rare that texts or entire books written in a Controlled Natural
Language (CNL) become very popular, but exactly this has happened with a book
that has been published last year. Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer uses only
the 1'000 most often used words of the English language together with drawn
pictures to explain complicated things such as nuclear reactors, jet engines,
the solar system, and dishwashers. This restricted language is a very
interesting new case for the CNL community. I describe here its place in the
context of existing approaches on Controlled Natural Languages, and I provide a
first analysis from a scientific perspective, covering the word production
rules and word distributions.


title: Broadcasting Quantum Coherence via Cloning

abstract:
  Quantum coherence (QCh) is considered to be a key ingredient in quantum
resource theories and also plays a pivotal role in the design and
implementation of various information processing tasks. Consequently, it
becomes important for us to create more number coherent quantum states between
two labs from a given coherent state shared initially. We call this process as
\textbf{Broadcasting of Quantum Coherence (QCh)}. In this work we extensively
study the problem of broadcasting of QCh. In order to have a holistic view of
broadcasting, we start with a most general representation two qubit mixed state
in terms of Bloch vectors. As a cloning transformation we have used universal
symmetric optimal Buzek-Hillery (BH) cloner locally as well as non locally.
Remarkably, we find that in either of the case it is impossible to do optimal
broadcasting of QCh. Further we show in case of non optimal broadcasting it is
impossible to increase QCh of the state by both local and non local cloning
operations. In non optimal case, apart from general result we consider examples
like, a) Werner like states (WLS) and b) Bell diagonal states (BDS) and obtain
ranges for broadcasting in terms of input state parameters.


title:
The role of phase dynamics in a stochastic model of a passively advected
  scalar

abstract:
  Collective synchronous motion of the phases is introduced in a model for the
stochastic passive advection-diffusion of a scalar with external forcing. The
model for the phase coupling dynamics follows the well known Kuramoto model
paradigm of limit-cycle oscillators. The natural frequencies in the Kuramoto
model are assumed to obey a given scale dependence through a dispersion
relation of the drift-wave form $-\beta\frac{k}{1+k^2}$, where $\beta$ is a
constant representing the typical strength of the gradient. The present aim is
to study the importance of collective phase dynamics on the characteristic time
evolution of the fluctuation energy and the formation of coherent structures.
Our results show that the assumption of a fully stochastic phase state of
turbulence is more relevant for high values of $\beta$, where we find that the
energy spectrum follows a $k^{-7/2}$ scaling. Whereas for lower $\beta$ there
is a significant difference between a-synchronised and synchronised phase
states, and one could expect the formation of coherent modulations in the
latter case.


title:
Fuzzy Clustering Based Segmentation Of Vertebrae in T1-Weighted Spinal
  MR Images

abstract:
  Image segmentation in the medical domain is a challenging field owing to poor
resolution and limited contrast. The predominantly used conventional
segmentation techniques and the thresholding methods suffer from limitations
because of heavy dependence on user interactions. Uncertainties prevalent in an
image cannot be captured by these techniques. The performance further
deteriorates when the images are corrupted by noise, outliers and other
artifacts. The objective of this paper is to develop an effective robust fuzzy
C- means clustering for segmenting vertebral body from magnetic resonance image
owing to its unsupervised form of learning. The motivation for this work is
detection of spine geometry and proper localisation and labelling will enhance
the diagnostic output of a physician. The method is compared with Otsu
thresholding and K-means clustering to illustrate the robustness.The reference
standard for validation was the annotated images from the radiologist, and the
Dice coefficient and Hausdorff distance measures were used to evaluate the
segmentation.


title: Inflationary cosmology in unimodular $F(T)$ gravity

abstract:
  We investigate the inflationary realization in the context of unimodular
$F(T)$ gravity, which is based on the $F(T)$ modification of teleparallel
gravity, in which one imposes the unimodular condition through the use of
Lagrange multipliers. We develop the general reconstruction procedure of the
$F(T)$ form that can give rise to a given scale-factor evolution, and then we
apply it in the inflationary regime. We extract the Hubble slow-roll parameters
that allow us to calculate various inflation-related observables, such as the
scalar spectral index and its running, the tensor-to-scalar ratio, and the
tensor spectral index. Then, we examine the particular cases of de Sitter and
power-law inflation, of Starobinsky inflation, as well as inflation in a
specific model of unimodular $F(T)$ gravity. As we show, in all cases the
predictions of our scenarios are in a very good agreement with Planck
observational data. Finally, inflation in unimodular $F(T)$ gravity has the
additional advantage that it always allows for a graceful exit for specific
regions of the model parameters.


title:
Interplay between strain, defect charge state and functionality in
  complex oxides

abstract:
  We use first-principles calculations to investigate the interplay between
strain and the charge state of point defect impurities in complex oxides. Our
work is motivated by recent interest in using defects as active elements to
provide novel functionality in coherent epitaxial films. Using oxygen vacancies
as model point defects, and CaMnO$_3$ and MnO as model materials, we calculate
the changes in internal strain caused by changing the charge state of the
vacancies, and conversely the effect of strain on charge-state stability. Our
results show that the charge state is a degree of freedom that can be used to
control the interaction of defects with strain and hence the concentration and
location of defects in epitaxial films. We propose the use of field-effect
gating to reversibly change the charge state of defects and hence the internal
strain and corresponding strain-induced functionalities.


title:
Development of a computer-aided diagnostic system for Alzheimer's
  disease using magnetic resonance imaging

abstract:
  Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia accompanied with
brain atrophy. Structural measurements of brain atrophy in specific brain
structures such as hippocampus using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been
reported to detect the development of dementia early in the course of the
disease. The purpose of this study was to develop a computer-aided diagnostic
system for AD using MRI, which is based on the automatic volumetry of segmented
brain images and generation of three-dimensional cortical thickness images
using the Eulerian partial differential equation (PDE) approach. We
investigated the effect of the inhomogeneity of magnetic field strength and
statistical noise on the accuracy of our automatic volumetry and the PDE
approach using the simulated MR images generated from BrainWeb. Our automatic
volumetry and PDE approach were robust against inhomogeneous magnetic field
strength. Although the accuracy of our automatic volumetry decreased with
increasing statistical noise, it was maintained when the statistical noise was
less than 7-8%. The cortical thickness obtained by the PDE method tended to
decrease with increasing statistical noise. When we applied our method to
clinical data, the cortical thinning due to brain atrophy was clearly
demonstrated in patients with brain atrophy. These results suggest that our
system appears to be useful for the diagnosis of AD, because it allows us to
automatically evaluate the extent of brain atrophy and cortical thinning in a
three-dimensional manner.


title: Orientation Driven Bag of Appearances for Person Re-identification

abstract:
  Person re-identification (re-id) consists of associating individual across
camera network, which is valuable for intelligent video surveillance and has
drawn wide attention. Although person re-identification research is making
progress, it still faces some challenges such as varying poses, illumination
and viewpoints. For feature representation in re-identification, existing works
usually use low-level descriptors which do not take full advantage of body
structure information, resulting in low representation ability.
%discrimination. To solve this problem, this paper proposes the mid-level
body-structure based feature representation (BSFR) which introduces body
structure pyramid for codebook learning and feature pooling in the vertical
direction of human body. Besides, varying viewpoints in the horizontal
direction of human body usually causes the data missing problem, $i.e.$, the
appearances obtained in different orientations of the identical person could
vary significantly. To address this problem, the orientation driven bag of
appearances (ODBoA) is proposed to utilize person orientation information
extracted by orientation estimation technic. To properly evaluate the proposed
approach, we introduce a new re-identification dataset (Market-1203) based on
the Market-1501 dataset and propose a new re-identification dataset (PKU-Reid).
Both datasets contain multiple images captured in different body orientations
for each person. Experimental results on three public datasets and two proposed
datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach, indicating the
effectiveness of body structure and orientation information for improving
re-identification performance.


title:
Benchmark of a new multi-ion-species collision operator for $\delta f$
  Monte Carlo neoclassical simulation

abstract:
  A numerical method to implement a linearized Coulomb collision operator in
the two-weight $\delta f$ Monte Carlo method for multi-ion-species neoclassical
transport simulation is developed. The conservation properties and the
adjointness property of the operator in the collisions between two particle
species with different temperatures are verified. The linearized operator in a
$\delta f$ Monte Carlo code is benchmarked with other two kinetic simulations,
a $\delta f$ continuum gyrokinetic code with the same linearized collision
operator and a full-f PIC code with Nanbu collision operator. The benchmark
simulations of the equilibration process of plasma flow and temperature
fluctuation among several particle species show very good agreement between
$\delta f$ Monte Carlo code and the other two codes. An error in the H-theorem
in the two-weight $\delta f$ Monte Carlo method is found, which is caused by
the weight spreading phenomenon inherent in the two-weight $\delta f$ method.
It is demonstrated that the weight averaging method serves to restoring the
H-theorem without causing side effect.


title: Long-range scattering for discrete Schr\"odinger operators

abstract:
  In this paper, we define time-independent modifiers to construct a long-range
scattering theory for discrete schr\"odinger operators on the square lattice
$\mathbb{Z}^N$. We prove the existence and completeness of modified wave
operators in terms of the above mentioned time-independent modifiers.


title:
The nature of the torus in the heavily obscured AGN Markarian 3: an
  X-ray study

abstract:
  In this paper we report the results of an X-ray monitoring campaign on the
heavily obscured Seyfert galaxy Markarian 3 carried out between the fall of
2014 and the spring of 2015 with NuSTAR, Suzaku and XMM-Newton. The hard X-ray
spectrum of Markarian 3 is variable on all the time scales probed by our
campaign, down to a few days. The observed continuum variability is due to an
intrinsically variable primary continuum seen in transmission through a large,
but still Compton-thin column density (N_H~0.8-1.1$\times$10$^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$).
If arranged in a spherical-toroidal geometry, the Compton scattering matter has
an opening angle ~66 degrees and is seen at a grazing angle through its upper
rim (inclination angle ~70 degrees). We report a possible occultation event
during the 2014 campaign. If the torus is constituted by a system of clouds
sharing the same column density, this event allows us to constrain their number
(17$\pm$5) and individual column density, [~(4.9$\pm$1.5)$\times$10$^{22}$
cm$^{-2}$]. The comparison of IR and X-ray spectroscopic results with
state-of-the art "torus" models suggests that at least two thirds of the X-ray
obscuring gas volume might be located within the dust sublimation radius. We
report also the discovery of an ionized absorber, characterised by variable
resonant absorption lines due to He- and H-like iron. This discovery lends
support to the idea that moderate column density absorbers could be due to
clouds evaporated at the outer surface of the torus, possibly accelerated by
the radiation pressure due to the central AGN emission leaking through the
patchy absorber.


title:
Frequency-time coherence for all-optical sampling without optical pulse
  source

abstract:
  Sampling is the first step to convert an analogue optical signal into a
digital electrical signal. The latter can be further processed and analysed by
well-known electrical signal processing methods. Optical pulse sources like
mode-locked lasers are commonly incorporated for all-optical sampling, but have
several drawbacks. A novel approach for a simple all-optical sampling is to
utilise the frequency-time coherence of each signal. The method is based on
only using two coupled modulators driven with an electrical sine wave, allowing
simple integration in appropriate platforms, such as Silicon Photonics. The
presented method grants all-optical sampling with electrically tunable
bandwidth, repetition rate and time shift.


title: Upper bounds on the size of transitive subtournaments in digraphs

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider upper bounds on the size of transitive
subtournaments in a digraph. In particular, we give an analogy of Hoffman's
bound for the size of cocliques in a regular graph. Furthermore, we partially
improve the Hoffman type bound for doubly regular tournaments by using the
technique of Greaves and Soicher for strongly regular graphs [4], which gives a
new application of block intersection polynomials.


title: Randomized Kaczmarz for Rank Aggregation from Pairwise Comparisons

abstract:
  We revisit the problem of inferring the overall ranking among entities in the
framework of Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model, based on available empirical data
on pairwise preferences. By a simple transformation, we can cast the problem as
that of solving a noisy linear system, for which a ready algorithm is available
in the form of the randomized Kaczmarz method. This scheme is provably
convergent, has excellent empirical performance, and is amenable to on-line,
distributed and asynchronous variants. Convergence, convergence rate, and error
analysis of the proposed algorithm are presented and several numerical
experiments are conducted whose results validate our theoretical findings.


title:
Conservative dissipation: How important is the Jacobi identity in the
  dynamics?

abstract:
  Hamiltonian dynamics are characterized by a function, called the Hamiltonian,
and a Poisson bracket. The Hamiltonian is a conserved quantity due to the
anti-symmetry of the Poisson bracket. The Poisson bracket satisfies the Jacobi
identity which is usually more intricate and more complex to comprehend than
the conservation of the Hamiltonian. Here we investigate the importance of the
Jacobi identity in the dynamics by considering three different types of
conservative flows in R3 : Hamiltonian, almost-Poisson and metriplectic. The
comparison of their dynamics reveals the importance of the Jacobi identity in
structuring the resulting phase space.


title: Generalized semi-Markovian dividend discount model: risk and return

abstract:
  The article presents a general discrete time dividend valuation model when
the dividend growth rate is a general continuous variable. The main assumption
is that the dividend growth rate follows a discrete time semi-Markov chain with
measurable space. The paper furnishes sufficient conditions that assure
finiteness of fundamental prices and risks and new equations that describe the
first and second order price-dividend ratios. Approximation methods to solve
equations are provided and some new results for semi-Markov reward processes
with Borel state space are established. The paper generalizes previous
contributions dealing with pricing firms on the basis of fundamentals.


title:
Orbital clustering of distant Kuiper Belt Objects by hypothetical Planet
  9. Secular or resonant ?

abstract:
  Statistical analysis of the orbits of distant Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) have
led to suggest that an additional planet should reside in the Solar System.
According to recent models, the secular action of this body should cause
orbital alignment of the KBOs. It was recently claimed that the KBOs concerned
by this dynamics are presumably trapped in mean motion resonances with the
suspected planet. I reinvestigate here the secular model underlying this idea.
The original analysis was done expanding and truncating the secular
Hamiltonian. I show that this is inappropriate here, as the series expansion is
not convergent. I present a study based on numerical computation of the
Hamiltonian with no expansion. I show in phase-space diagrams the existence of
apsidally anti-aligned, high eccentricity libration islands that were not
present in the original modelling, but that match numerical simulations. These
island were claimed to correspond to bodies trapped in mean-motion resonances
with the hypothetical planet, and match the characteristics of the distant KBOs
observed. My main result is that regular secular dynamics can account for the
anti-aligned particles itself as well as mean-motion resonances. I also perform
a semi-analytical study of resonant motion and show that some resonance are
actually capable of producing the same libration islands. I discuss then the
relative importance of both mechanisms.


title: Data Dissemination in Unified Dynamic Wireless Networks

abstract:
  We give efficient algorithms for the fundamental problems of Broadcast and
Local Broadcast in dynamic wireless networks. We propose a general model of
communication which captures and includes both fading models (like SINR) and
graph-based models (such as quasi unit disc graphs, bounded-independence
graphs, and protocol model). The only requirement is that the nodes can be
embedded in a bounded growth quasi-metric, which is the weakest condition known
to ensure distributed operability. Both the nodes and the links of the network
are dynamic: nodes can come and go, while the signal strength on links can go
up or down.
  The results improve some of the known bounds even in the static setting,
including an optimal algorithm for local broadcasting in the SINR model, which
is additionally uniform (independent of network size). An essential component
is a procedure for balancing contention, which has potentially wide
applicability. The results illustrate the importance of carrier sensing, a
stock feature of wireless nodes today, which we encapsulate in primitives to
better explore its uses and usefulness.


title:
Uniformly accurate numerical schemes for the nonlinear Dirac equation in
  the nonrelativistic limit regime

abstract:
  We apply the two-scale formulation approach to propose uniformly accurate
(UA) schemes for solving the nonlinear Dirac equation in the nonrelativistic
limit regime. The nonlinear Dirac equation involves two small scales
$\varepsilon$ and $\varepsilon^2$ with $\varepsilon\to0$ in the nonrelativistic
limit regime. The small parameter causes high oscillations in time which brings
severe numerical burden for classical numerical methods. We transform our
original problem as a two-scale formulation and present a general strategy to
tackle a class of highly oscillatory problems involving the two small scales
$\varepsilon$ and $\varepsilon^2$. Suitable initial data for the two-scale
formulation is derived to bound the time derivatives of the augmented solution.
Numerical schemes with uniform (with respect to $\varepsilon\in (0,1]$)
spectral accuracy in space and uniform first order or second order accuracy in
time are proposed. Numerical experiments are done to confirm the UA property.


title: Entropy Production and Effective Viscosity in Heavy-Ion Collisions

abstract:
  Entropy production and an effective viscosity in central Au+Au collisions are
estimated in a wide range of incident energies 3.3 GeV $\le \sqrt{s_{NN}}\le$
39 GeV. The simulations are performed within a three-fluid model employing
three different equations of state with and without deconfinement transition,
which are equally good in reproduction of the momentum-integrated elliptic flow
of charged particles in the considered energy range. It is found that more that
80\% entropy is prodused during a short early collision stage which lasts
$\sim$1 fm/c at highest considered energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}\ge$ 20 GeV. The
estimated values of the viscosity-to-entropy ratio ($\eta/s$) are approximately
the same in all considered scenarios. At final stages of the system expansion
they range from $\sim$0.05 at highest considered energies to $\sim$0.5 lowest
ones. It is found that the $\eta/s$ ratio decreases with the temperature ($T$)
rise approximately as $\sim 1/T^4$ and exhibits a rather weak dependence on the
net-baryon density.


title: Entanglement entropies and fermion signs of critical metals

abstract:
  The fermion sign problem is often viewed as a sheer inconvenience that
plagues numerical studies of strongly interacting electron systems. Only
recently, it has been suggested that fermion signs are fundamental for the
universal behavior of critical metallic systems and crucially enhance their
degree of quantum entanglement. In this work we explore potential connections
between emergent scale invariance of fermion sign structures and scaling
properties of bipartite entanglement entropies. Our analysis is based on a
wavefunction ansatz that incorporates collective, long-range backflow
correlations into fermionic Slater determinants. Such wavefunctions mimic the
collapse of a Fermi liquid at a quantum critical point. Their nodal surfaces --
a representation of the fermion sign structure in many-particle configurations
space -- show fractal behavior up to a length scale $\xi$ that diverges at a
critical backflow strength. We show that the Hausdorff dimension of the fractal
nodal surface depends on $\xi$, the number of fermions and the exponent of the
backflow. For the same wavefunctions we numerically calculate the second
R\'enyi entanglement entropy $S_2$. Our results show a cross-over from volume
scaling, $S_2\sim \ell^\theta$ ($\theta=2$ in $d=2$ dimensions), to the
characteristic Fermi-liquid behavior $S_2\sim \ell\ln \ell$ on scales larger
than $\xi$. We find that volume scaling of the entanglement entropy is a robust
feature of critical backflow fermions, independent of the backflow exponent and
hence the fractal dimension of the scale invariant sign structure.


title:
Square-full polynomials in short intervals and in arithmetic
  progressions

abstract:
  We study the variance of sums of the indicator function of square-full
polynomials in both arithmetic progressions and short intervals. Our work is in
the context of the ring $F_{q}[T]$ of polynomials over a finite field $F_{q}$
of $q$ elements, in the limit $q\rightarrow\infty$. We use a recent
equidistribution result due to N. Katz to express these variances in terms of
triple matrix integrals over the unitary group, and evaluate them.


title:
On the Comparability of Chemical Structure and Roughness of Nanochannels
  in Altering Fluid Slippage

abstract:
  Interfacial hydrodynamic slippage of water depends on both on surface
chemistry and roughness. This study tries to connect the effect of chemical
property and the physical structure of the surface on the interfacial slippage
of water. By performing molecular dynamics simulations (MDS) of Couette flow of
water molecules over a reduced Lennard-Jones (LJ) surface, the velocity profile
is obtained and extrapolated to get the slip lengths. The slip lengths are
measured for various surface-fluid interactions. These interactions are varied
by changing the wettability of the surface (characterized by the static contact
angle) and its roughness. The slip length variation with the static contact
angle as $(1+cos\theta)^{-2}$ is observed. However, it is also observed that
the presence of surface roughness always reduces the slip length and it is
proposed that the slip length varies with non-dimensionalized average surface
roughness as $(1+\alpha^*)^{-2}$ . Thus a relation between the chemical
wettability and the physical roughness is established and their coupled
interactions modifying slip length is probed.


title: On improvement of Young inequality using the Kontrovich constant

abstract:
  Some improvements of Young inequality and its reverse for positive numbers
with Kontrovich constant are given. Using these inequalities some operator
versions and Hilbert-Schmidt norm versions for matrices are proved.


title: Fluid/gravity correspondence for massive gravity

abstract:
  In this paper, we investigate the fluid/gravity correspondence in the
framework of massive Einstein gravity. Treating the gravitational mass terms as
an effective energy-momentum tensor and utilizing the Petrov-like boundary
condition on a timelike hypersurface, we find that the perturbation effects of
massive gravity in bulk can be completely governed by the incompressible
Navier-Stokes equation living on the cutoff surface under the near horizon and
nonrelativistic limits. Furthermore, we have concisely computed the ratio of
dynamical viscosity to entropy density for two massive Einstein gravity
theories, and found that they still saturate the Kovtun-Son-Starinets (KSS)
bound.


title:
Orbital-dependent Fermi Surface shrinking as a fingerprint of nematicity
  in FeSe

abstract:
  The large anisotropy in the electronic properties across a structural
transition in several correlated systems has been identified as the key
manifestation of electronic nematic order, breaking rotational symmetry. In
this context, FeSe is attracting tremendous interest, since electronic
nematicity develops over a wide range of temperatures, allowing accurate
experimental investigation. Here we combine angle-resolved photoemission
spectroscopy and theoretical calculations based on a realistic multi-orbital
model to unveil the microscopic mechanism responsible for the evolution of the
electronic structure of FeSe across the nematic transition. We show that the
self-energy corrections due to the exchange of spin fluctuations between hole
and electron pockets are responsible for an orbital-dependent shrinking of the
Fermi Surface that affects mainly the $xz/yz$ parts of the Fermi surface. This
result is consistent with our experimental observation of the Fermi Surface in
the high-temperature tetragonal phase, that includes the $xy$ electron sheet
that was not clearly resolved before. In the low-temperature nematic phase, we
experimentally confirm the appearance of a large ($\sim$ 50meV) $xz/yz$
splittings. It can be well reproduced in our model by assuming a moderate
splitting between spin fluctuations along the $x$ and $y$ crystallographic
directions. Our mechanism shows how the full entanglement between orbital and
spin degrees of freedom can make a spin-driven nematic transition equivalent to
an effective orbital order.


title: New Model-independent Method to Test the Curvature of the Universe

abstract:
  We propose a new model-independent method to test the cosmic curvature by
comparing the proper distance and transverse comoving distance. Using the
measurements of Hubble parameter $H(z)$ and angular diameter distance $d_A$,
the cosmic curvature parameter $\Omega_K$ is constrained to be $-0.09\pm0.19$,
which is consistent with a flat universe. We also use Monte Carlo simulation to
test the validity and efficiency, and find that our method can give a reliable
and efficient constraint on cosmic curvature. Compared with other
model-independent methods testing the cosmic curvature, our method can avoid
some drawbacks and give a better constraint.


title: On refined operator version of Young inequality and its reverse

abstract:
  In this note, some refinements of Young inequality and its reverse for
positive numbers are proved and using these inequalities some operator versions
and Hilbert-Schmidt norm versions for matrices of these inequalities are
obtained.


title: On the local boundedness of maximal H--monotone operators

abstract:
  In this paper we prove that maximal H-monotone operators
$T:H^n\rightrightarrows V_1$ whose domain is all the Heisenberg group $H^n$ are
locally bounded. This implies that they are upper semicontinuous. As a
consequence, maximal H-monotonicity of an operator on $H^n$ can be
characterized by a suitable version of Minty's type theorem.


title: Efficiency Evaluation of Character-level RNN Training Schedules

abstract:
  We present four training and prediction schedules from the same
character-level recurrent neural network. The efficiency of these schedules is
tested in terms of model effectiveness as a function of training time and
amount of training data seen. We show that the choice of training and
prediction schedule potentially has a considerable impact on the prediction
effectiveness for a given training budget.


title:
Inclusive single gauge boson production in $\sqrt{s} = 7, 8$ and $13$
  TeV proton-proton collisions

abstract:
  We report LHC measurements of single $W$ and $Z$ boson production at
different centre-of-mass energies. Together, the ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb detectors
cover an absolute rapidity range from 0 to 4.5, enabling precision tests and
studies of Standard Model physics across different kinematic regions. We report
total, fiducial and differential cross-section measurements and their ratios.
These results allow tests of the performance of different parton distribution
functions (PDFs), and can be used to further constrain the PDFs. In addition,
the results are compared to theoretical predictions which use different
approaches to model effects within quantum chromodynamics. We also report
measurements of the forward-backward asymmetry in $Z$ boson decays, and
measurements of angular coefficients, which provide sensitivity to the
electroweak mixing angle.


title:
Contribution of excited states to stellar weak-interaction rates in
  odd-A nuclei

abstract:
  Weak-interaction rates, including beta-decay and electron capture, are
studied in several odd-A nuclei in the pf-shell region at various densities and
temperatures of astrophysical interest. Special attention is paid to the
relative contribution to these rates of thermally populated excited states in
the decaying nucleus. The nuclear structure involved in the weak processes is
studied within a quasiparticle random-phase approximation with residual
interactions in both particle-hole and particle-particle channels on top of a
deformed Skyrme Hartree-Fock mean field with pairing correlations. In the range
of densities and temperatures considered, it is found that the total rates do
not differ much from the rates of the ground state fully populated. In any
case, the changes are not larger than the uncertainties due to the nuclear
model dependence of the rates.


title: Multi-Issue Social Learning

abstract:
  We consider social learning where agents can only observe part of the
population (modeled as neighbors on an undirected graph), face many decision
problems, and arrival order of the agents is unknown. The central question we
pose is whether there is a natural observability graph that prevents the
information cascade phenomenon. We introduce the `celebrities graph' and prove
that indeed it allows for proper information aggregation in large populations
even when the order at which agents decide is random and even when different
issues are decided in different orders.


title:
Asymptotic distribution of values of isotropic quadratic forms at
  $S$-integral points

abstract:
  We prove an analogue of a theorem of Eskin-Margulis-Mozes: suppose we are
given a finite set of places $S$ over $\mathbb{Q}$ containing the archimedean
place and excluding the prime $2$, an irrational isotropic form ${{\mathbf q}}$
of rank $n\geq 4$ on $\mathbb{Q}_S$, a product of $p$-adic intervals $I_p$, and
a product $\Omega$ of star-shaped sets.
  We show that unless $n=4$ and ${{\mathbf q}}$ is split in at least one place,
the number of $S$-integral vectors ${\mathbf v} \in {\mathsf{T}} \Omega$
satisfying simultaneously ${\mathbf q}( {\mathbf v} ) \in I_p$ for $p \in S$ is
asymptotically given by $$
  \lambda({\mathbf q}, \Omega) | I| \cdot \prod_{p\in S_f} T_p^{n-2},$$ as
${\mathsf{T}}$ goes to infinity, where $| I |$ is the product of Haar measures
of the $p$-adic intervals $I_p$.
  The proof uses dynamics of unipotent flows on $S$-arithmetic homogeneous
spaces; in particular, it relies on an equidistribution result for certain
translates of orbits applied to test functions with a controlled growth at
infinity, specified by an $S$-arithmetic variant of the $ \alpha$-function
introduced in the work of Eskin, Margulis, Mozes, and an $S$-arithemtic version
of a theorem of Dani-Margulis.


title: iPTF15dtg: a double-peaked Type Ic Supernova from a massive progenitor

abstract:
  Type Ic supernovae (SNe Ic) arise from the core-collapse of H (and He) poor
stars, which could be either single WR stars or lower-mass stars stripped of
their envelope by a companion. Their light curves are radioactively powered and
usually show a fast rise to peak ($\sim$10-15 d), without any early (first few
days) emission bumps (with the exception of broad-lined SNe Ic) as sometimes
seen for other types of stripped-envelope SNe (e.g., Type IIb SN 1993J and Type
Ib SN 2008D). We have studied iPTF15dtg, a spectroscopically normal SN Ic with
an early excess in the optical light curves followed by a long ($\sim$30 d)
rise to the main peak. It is the first spectroscopically-normal double-peaked
SN Ic observed. We aim to determine the properties of this explosion and of its
progenitor star. Optical photometry and spectroscopy of iPTF15dtg was obtained
with multiple telescopes. The resulting light curves and spectral sequence are
analyzed and modelled with hydrodynamical and analytical models, with
particular focus on the early emission. Results. iPTF15dtg is a slow rising SN
Ic, similar to SN 2011bm. Hydrodynamical modelling of the bolometric properties
reveals a large ejecta mass ($\sim$10 $M_{\odot}$) and strong $^{56}$Ni mixing.
The luminous early emission can be reproduced if we account for the presence of
an extended ($\sim$500 R$_{\odot}$), low-mass ($\sim$0.045 M$_{\odot}$)
envelope around the progenitor star. Alternative scenarios for the early peak,
such as the interaction with a companion, a shock-breakout (SBO) cooling tail
from the progenitor surface, or a magnetar-driven SBO are not favored. The
large ejecta mass and the presence of H and He free extended material around
the star suggest that the progenitor of iPTF15dtg was a massive ($\gtrsim$ 35
M$_{\odot}$) WR star suffering strong mass loss.


title: Phase diagram of dipolar hard-core bosons on honeycomb lattice

abstract:
  In this paper, we study phase diagrams of dipolar hard-core boson gases on
the honeycomb lattice. The system is described by the Haldane-Bose-Hubbard
model with complex hopping amplitudes and the nearest neighbor repulsion. By
using the slave-particle representation of the hard-core bosons and also the
path-integral quantum Monte-Carlo simulations, we investigate the system and to
show that the systems have a rich phase diagram. There are Mott, superfluid,
chiral superfluid, and sublattice chiral superfluid phases as well as the
density-wave phase. We also found that there exists a coexisting phase of
superfluid and chiral superfluid. Critical behaviors of the phase transitions
are also clarified.


title:
Rigidity phenomena in manifolds with boundary under a lower weighted
  Ricci curvature bound

abstract:
  We study Riemannian manifolds with boundary under a lower $N$-weighted Ricci
curvature bound for $N$ at most $1$, and under a lower weighted mean curvature
bound for the boundary. We examine rigidity phenomena in such manifolds with
boundary. We conclude a volume growth rigidity theorem for the metric
neighborhoods of the boundaries, and various splitting theorems. We also obtain
rigidity theorems for the smallest Dirichlet eigenvalues for the weighted
$p$-Laplacians.


title:
The complexity of cylindrical algebraic decomposition with respect to
  polynomial degree

abstract:
  Cylindrical algebraic decomposition (CAD) is an important tool for working
with polynomial systems, particularly quantifier elimination. However, it has
complexity doubly exponential in the number of variables. The base algorithm
can be improved by adapting to take advantage of any equational constraints
(ECs): equations logically implied by the input. Intuitively, we expect the
double exponent in the complexity to decrease by one for each EC. In ISSAC 2015
the present authors proved this for the factor in the complexity bound
dependent on the number of polynomials in the input. However, the other term,
that dependent on the degree of the input polynomials, remained unchanged.
  In the present paper the authors investigate how CAD in the presence of ECs
could be further refined using the technology of Groebner Bases to move towards
the intuitive bound for polynomial degree.


title:
Capacity and Degree-of-Freedom of OFDM Channels with Amplitude
  Constraint

abstract:
  In this paper, we study the capacity and degree-of-freedom (DoF) scaling for
the continuous-time amplitude limited AWGN channels in radio frequency (RF) and
intensity modulated optical communication (OC) channels. More precisely, we
study how the capacity varies in terms of the OFDM block transmission time $T$,
bandwidth $W$, amplitude $A$, and the noise spectral density $N_0$. We first
find suitable discrete encoding spaces for both cases, and prove that they are
convex sets that have a semi-definite programming (SDP) representation. Using
tools from convex geometry, we find lower and upper bounds on the volume of
these encoding sets, which we exploit to drive pretty sharp lower and upper
bounds on the capacity. We also study a practical Tone-Reservation (TR)
encoding algorithm and prove that its performance can be characterized by the
statistical width of an appropriate convex set. Recently, it has been observed
that in high-dimensional estimation problems under constraints such as those
arisen in Compressed Sensing (CS) statistical width plays a crucial role. We
discuss some of the implications of the resulting statistical width on the
performance of the TR. We also provide numerical simulations to validate these
observations.


title:
Application of the QCD light cone sum rule to tetraquarks: the strong
  vertices $X_bX_b\rho$ and $X_cX_c\rho$

abstract:
  The full version of QCD light-cone sum rule method is applied to tetraquarks
containing a single heavy $b$ or $c$ quark. To this end, investigations of the
strong vertices $X_{b}X_{b}\rho$ and $X_{c}X_{c}\rho$ are performed, where
$X_b=[su][\bar b\bar d]$ and $X_c=[su][\bar c\bar d]$ are the exotic states
built of four quarks of different flavors. The strong coupling constants
$G_{X_{b}X_{b}\rho}$ and $G_{X_{c}X_{c}\rho}$ corresponding to these vertices
are found using the $\rho$-meson leading and higher-twist distribution
amplitudes. In the calculations $X_{b}$ and $X_{c}$ are treated as scalar bound
states of a diquark and antidiquark.


title: Right-right-left extension of the standard model

abstract:
  A right-right-left extension of the standard model is proposed. In this
model, the standard model gauge group $SU(2)_L \otimes U(1)_Y $ is extended to
$SU(2)_L \otimes SU(2)_R \otimes SU(2)^{\prime}_R \otimes SU(2)^{\prime}_L
\otimes U(1)_{Y}$. The gauge symmetries $SU(2)^{\prime}_R$, $SU(2)^{\prime}_L$
are the mirror counter-parts of the $SU(2)_L$ and $SU(2)_R$ respectively.
Parity is spontaneously broken when the scalar Higgs fields acquire
vacuum-expectation values in a certain pattern. Parity is restored at the scale
of $SU(2)^{\prime}_L$. The gauge sector has a unique pattern. The scalar sector
of the model is optimum, elegant and unique.


title:
Electroweak production of light scalar-pseudoscalar pairs from extended
  Higgs sectors

abstract:
  In models with extended Higgs sectors, it is possible that the Higgs boson
discovered at the LHC is not the lightest one. We show that in a realistic
model (the Type I 2-Higgs Doublet Model), when the sum of the masses of a light
scalar and a pseudoscalar ($h$ and $A$) is smaller than the $Z$ boson mass, the
Electroweak (EW) production of an $hA$ pair can dominate over QCD production by
orders of magnitude, a fact not previously highlighted. This is because in the
$gg$-initiated process, $hA$ production via a resonant $Z$ in the $s$-channel
is prohibited according to the Landau-Yang theorem, which is not the case for
the $q\bar{q}$-initiated process. We explore the parameter space of the model
to highlight regions giving such $hA$ solutions while being consistent with all
constraints from collider searches, $b$-physics and EW precision data. We also
single out a few benchmark points to discuss their salient features, including
the $hA$ search channels that can be exploited at Run II of the LHC.


title: Geometric Dominating Set and Set Cover via Local Search

abstract:
  In this paper, we study two classic optimization problems: minimum geometric
dominating set and set cover. In the dominating-set problem, for a given set of
objects in {the} plane as input, the objective is to choose a minimum number of
input objects such that every input object is dominated by the chosen set of
objects. Here, one object is dominated by {another} if both of them have {a}
nonempty intersection region. For the second problem, for a given set of points
and objects {in a plane}, the objective is to choose {a} minimum number of
objects to cover all the points. This is a special version of the set-cover
problem.
  For both problems obtaining a PTAS remains open for a large class of objects.
  For the dominating-set problem, we prove that {a} popular local-search
algorithm leads to an $(1+\varepsilon)$ approximation for object sets
consisting of homothetic set of convex objects (which includes arbitrary
squares, $k$-regular polygons, translated and scaled copies of a convex set,
etc.) in $n^{O(1/\varepsilon^2)}$ time. On the other hand, the same technique
leads to a PTAS for geometric covering problem when the objects are convex
pseudodisks (which includes disks, unit height rectangles, homothetic convex
objects, etc.). As a consequence, we obtain an easy to implement approximation
algorithm for both problems for a large class of objects, significantly
improving the best known approximation guarantees.


title: Positive subharmonic solutions to nonlinear ODEs with indefinite weight

abstract:
  We prove that the superlinear indefinite equation \begin{equation*} u" +
a(t)u^{p} = 0, \end{equation*} where $p > 1$ and $a(t)$ is a $T$-periodic
sign-changing function satisfying the (sharp) mean value condition
$\int_{0}^{T} a(t)~\!dt < 0$, has positive subharmonic solutions of order $k$
for any large integer $k$, thus providing a further contribution to a problem
raised by G. J. Butler in its pioneering paper (JDE, 1976). The proof, which
applies to a larger class of indefinite equations, combines coincidence degree
theory (yielding a positive harmonic solution) with the Poincar\'e-Birkhoff
fixed point theorem (giving subharmonic solutions oscillating around it).


title: Bounds on the topology and index of minimal surfaces

abstract:
  We prove that for every nonnegative integer $g$, there exists a bound on the
number of ends of a complete, embedded minimal surface $M$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of
genus $g$ and finite topology. This bound on the finite number of ends when $M$
has at least two ends implies that $M$ has finite stability index which is
bounded by a constant that only depends on its genus.


title: Atomic quantum simulation of a three-dimensional U(1) gauge-Higgs model

abstract:
  In this paper, we study theoretically atomic quantum simulations of a U(1)
gauge-Higgs model on a three-dimensional (3D) spatial lattice by using an
extended Bose-Hubbard model with intersite repulsions on a 3D optical lattice.
Here, the phase and density fluctuations of the boson variable on each site of
the optical lattice describe the vector potential and the electric field on
each link of the gauge-model lattice, respectively. The target gauge model is
different from the standard Wilson-type U(1) gauge-Higgs model because it has
plaquette and Higgs interactions with asymmetric couplings in the space-time
directions. Nevertheless, the corresponding quantum simulation is still
important as it provides us with a platform to study unexplored time-dependent
phenomena characteristic of each phase in the general gauge-Higgs models. To
determine the phase diagram of the gauge-Higgs model at zero temperature, we
perform Monte-Carlo simulations of the corresponding 3+1-dimensional U(1)
gauge-Higgs model, and obtain the confinement and Higgs phases. To investigate
the dynamical properties of the gauge-Higgs model, we apply the
Gross-Pitaevskii equations to the extended Bose-Hubbard model. We simulate the
time-evolution of an electric flux that initially is put on a straight line
connecting two external point charges. We also calculate the potential energy
between this pair of charges and obtain the string tension in the confinement
phase. Finally, we propose a feasible experimental setup for the atomic
simulations of this quantum gauge-Higgs model on the 3D optical lattice. These
results may serve as theoretical guides for future experiments.


title:
Magnetic phase diagram of TbMn$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$O$_3$ $(0 \leq x \leq 1)$
  substitutional solid solution

abstract:
  We present the magnetic phase diagram of TbMn1-xFexO3 substitutional solid
solution in the whole concentration range 0 <= x <= 1 as determined from
magnetization and specific heat measurements. We have found that the dominant
magnetic ion in the concentration range 0 <= x < 0.3 is manganese, while iron
ions do not create independent magnetic structure, but strongly affect magnetic
properties of the parent compound by reducing transition to magnetically
ordered state and transition into a cycloidal phase. The magnetism in the
concentration range 0.3 < x <= 1 is driven by the Fe sublattice. The manganese
ions again do not order in long range magnetic ordered state, but stabilize
four different magnetic structures of Fe sublattice above 2 K. The magnetic
ordering of Tb sublattice was observed only on parent compounds TbMnO3 and
TbFeO3 and for doping level below 0.1, or over 0.9.


title:
Positivity for fourth-order semilinear problems related to the
  Kirchhoff-Love functional

abstract:
  We study the ground states of the following generalization of the
Kirchhoff-Love functional, $$J_\sigma(u)=\int_\Omega\dfrac{(\Delta u)^2}{2} -
(1-\sigma)\int_\Omega det(\nabla^2u)-\int_\Omega F(x,u),$$ where $\Omega$ is a
bounded convex domain in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with $C^{1,1}$ boundary and the
nonlinearities involved are of sublinear type or superlinear with power growth.
These critical points correspond to least-energy weak solutions to a
fourth-order semilinear boundary value problem with Steklov boundary conditions
depending on $\sigma$. Positivity of ground states is proved with different
techniques according to the range of the parameter $\sigma\in\mathbb{R}$ and we
also provide a convergence analysis for the ground states with respect to
$\sigma$. Further results concerning positive radial solutions are established
when the domain is a ball.


title: A non-volatile memory based on nonlinear magnetoelectric effects

abstract:
  The magnetoelectric effects in multiferroics have a great potential in
creating next-generation memory devices. We conceive a new concept of
non-volatile memories based on a type of nonlinear magnetoelectric effects
showing a butterfly-shaped hysteresis loop. The principle is to utilize the
states of the magnetoelectric coefficient, instead of magnetization, electric
polarization or resistance, to store binary information. Our experiments in a
device made of the PMN-PT/Terfenol-D multiferroic heterostructure clearly
demonstrate that the sign of the magnetoelectric coefficient can be repeatedly
switched between positive and negative by applying electric fields, confirming
the feasibility of this principle. This kind of non-volatile memory has
outstanding practical virtues such as simple structure, easy operations in
writing and reading, low power, fast speed, and diverse materials available.


title:
Excited-state hydroxyl maser catalogue from the methanol multibeam
  survey -- I. Positions and Variability

abstract:
  We present the results of the first complete unbaised survey of the Galactic
Plane for 6035-MHz excited-state hydroxyl masers undertaken as part of the
Methanol Multibeam Survey. These observations cover the Galactic longitude
ranges $186^{\circ}< l < 60^{\circ}$ including the Galactic Centre. We report
the detection of 127 excited-state hydroxyl masers within the survey region, 47
being new sources. The positions of new detections were determined from
interferometric observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. We
discuss the association of 6035-MHz masers in our survey with the 6668-MHz
masers from the MMB Survey, finding 37 likely methanol-excited-state hydroxyl
masers maser pairs with physical separations of <=0.03pc and 55 pairings
separated by <=0.1pc. Using these we calculate for the first time an
excited-state hydroxyl maser life time of between 3.3x10^3 and 8.3x10^3 years.
We also discuss the variability of the 6035-MHz masers and detection rates of
counterpart 6030-MHz excited-state hydroxyl masers (28% of our sample having
detection at both frequencies).


title:
On the ultraviolet anomalies of the WASP-12 and HD 189733 systems:
  Trojan satellites as a plasma source

abstract:
  We suggest an additional possible plasma source to explain part of the
phenomena observed for the transiting hot Jupiters WASP-12b and HD 189733b in
their ultraviolet (UV) light curves. In the proposed scenario, material
outgasses from the molten surface of Trojan satellites on tadpole orbits near
the Lagrange points L$_4$ and L$_5$. We show that the temperature at the
orbital location of WASP-12b is high enough to melt the surface of rocky bodies
and to form shallow lava oceans on them. In case of WASP-12b, this leads to the
release of elements such as Mg and Ca, which are expected to surround the
system. The predicted Mg and Ca outgassing rates from two Io-sized WASP-12b
Trojans are $\approx 2.2 \times 10^{27}$ s$^{-1}$ and $\approx 2.2 \times
10^{26}$ s$^{-1}$, respectively. Trojan outgassing can lead to the apparent
lack of emission in Mg{\sc ii}\,h\&k and Ca{\sc ii}\,H\&K line cores of
WASP-12. For HD 189733b, the mechanism is only marginally possible due to the
lower temperature. This may be one of the reasons that couldn't explain the
early ingress of HD 189733b observed in the far-UV (FUV) C{\sc ii} doublet due
to absence of carbon within elements outgassed by molten lava. We investigate
the long-term stability region of WASP-12b and HD 189733b in case of planar and
inclined motion of these satellites and show that unlike the classical exomoons
orbiting the planet, Io-sized Trojans can be stable for the whole systems life
time.


title: On the $L_2$ Markov Inequality with Laguerre Weight

abstract:
  Let $w_{\alpha}(t)=t^{\alpha}\,e^{-t}$, $\alpha>-1$, be the Laguerre weight
function, and $|\cdot|_{w_\alpha}$ denote the associated $L_2$-norm, i.e., $$ |
f|_{w_\alpha}:=\Big(\int_{0}^{\infty}w_{\alpha}(t)| f(t)|^2\,dt\Big)^{1/2}. $$
Denote by ${\cal P}_n$ the set of algebraic polynomials of degree not exceeding
$n$. We study the best constant $c_n(\alpha)$ in the Markov inequality in this
norm, $$ | p^{\prime}|_{w_\alpha}\leq c_n(\alpha)\,| p|_{w_\alpha}\,,\quad p\in
{\cal P}_n\,, $$ namely the constant $$ c_{n}(\alpha)=\sup_{\mathop{}^{p\in
{\cal P}_n}_{p\ne 0}}\frac{| p^{\prime}|_{w_\alpha}}{| p|_{w_\alpha}}\,, $$ and
we are also interested in its asymptotic value $$
c(\alpha)=\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{c_{n}(\alpha)}{n}\,. $$ In this paper
we obtain lower and upper bounds for both $c_{n}(\alpha)$ and $c(\alpha)$. %
Note that according to a result of P. D\"{o}rfler from 2002,
$c(\alpha)=[j_{(\alpha-1)/2,1}]^{-1}$, with $j_{\nu,1}$ being the first
positive zero of the Bessel function $J_{\nu}(z)$, hence our bounds for
$c(\alpha)$ imply bounds for $j_{(\alpha-1)/2,1}$ as well.


title:
On the asymptotic behavior of Jacobi polynomials with first varying
  parameter

abstract:
  We investigate the large $n$ behavior of Jacobi polynomials with varying
parameters $P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\,bn+\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2})$ for $a,b >-1$ and
$\lambda\in(0,\,1)$. This is a well-studied topic in the literature but some of
the published results appear to be discordant. To address this issue we provide
an in-depth investigation of the case $b = 0$, which is most relevant for our
applications. Our approach is based on a new and surprisingly simple
representation of $P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\,\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2}),\:a>-1$ in terms
of two integrals. The integrals' asymptotic behavior is studied using standard
tools of asymptotic analysis: one is a Laplace integral and the other is
treated via the method of stationary phase. As a consequence we prove that if
$a\in(\frac{2\lambda}{1-\lambda},\infty)$ then
$\lambda^{an}P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2})$ shows exponential decay
and we derive simple exponential upper bounds in this region. If
$a\in(\frac{-2\lambda}{1+\lambda},\,\frac{2\lambda}{1-\lambda})$ then the decay
of $\lambda^{an}P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2})$ is
$\mathcal{O}(n^{-1/2})$ and if
$a\in\{\frac{-2\lambda}{1+\lambda},\,\frac{2\lambda}{1-\lambda}\}$ then
$\lambda^{an}P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2})$ decays as
$\mathcal{O}(n^{-1/3})$. A new phenomenon occurs in the parameter range
$a\in(-1,\frac{-2\lambda}{1+\lambda})$, where we find that the behavior depends
on whether or not $an+\alpha$ is an integer: If
$a\in(-1,\frac{-2\lambda}{1+\lambda})$ and $an+\alpha$ is an integer then
$\lambda^{an}P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2})$ decays exponentially.
If $a\in(-1,\frac{-2\lambda}{1+\lambda})$ and $an+\alpha$ is not an integer
then $\lambda^{an}P_{n}^{(an+\alpha,\beta)}(1-2\lambda^{2})$ may increase
exponentially depending on the proximity of the sequence $(an + \alpha)_n$ to
integers.


title: Asymptotically optimal definite quadrature formulae of $4$-th order

abstract:
  We construct several sequences of asymptotically optimal definite quadrature
formulae of fourth order and evaluate their error constants. Besides the
asymptotical optimality, an advantage of our quadrature formulae is the
explicit form of their weights and nodes. For the remainders of our quadrature
formulae monotonicity properties are established when the integrand is a
4-convex function, and a-posteriori error estimates are proven.


title:
A near infrared line list for \NH: Analysis of a Kitt Peak spectrum
  after 35 years

abstract:
  A Fourier Transform (FT) absorption spectrum of room temperature NH3 in the
region 7400 - 8600 cm-1 is analysed using a variational line list and ground
state energies determined using the MARVEL procedure. The spectrum was measured
by Dr Catherine de Bergh in 1980 and is available from the Kitt Peak data
center. The centers and intensities of 8468 ammonia lines were retrieved using
a multiline fitting procedure. 2474 lines are assigned to 21 bands providing
1692 experimental energies in the range 7000 - 9000 cm-1. The spectrum was
assigned by the joint use of the BYTe variational line list and combination
differences. The assignments and experimental energies presented in this work
are the first for ammonia in the region 7400 - 8600 cm-1, considerably
extending the range of known vibrational-excited states


title: Constant mean curvature surfaces

abstract:
  In this article we survey recent developments in the theory of constant mean
curvature surfaces in homogeneous 3-manifolds, as well as some related aspects
on existence and descriptive results for $H$-laminations and CMC foliations of
Riemannian $n$-manifolds.


title: Epitaxial rhenium microwave resonators

abstract:
  We have fabricated rhenium microwave resonators from epitaxial films. We have
used thin films of different structural quality depending on their growth
conditions. The resonators were coupled to a microwave transmission line which
allows the measurement of their resonance frequencies and internal quality
factors. From the resonance frequency at low temperature , the effective
penetration depth and the London penetration depth of the rhenium film are
extracted.


title: Process Information Model for Sheet Metal Operations

abstract:
  The paper extracts the process parameters from a sheet metal part model
(B-Rep). These process parameters can be used in sheet metal manufacturing to
control the manufacturing operations. By extracting these process parameters
required for manufacturing, CAM program can be generated automatically using
the part model and resource information. A Product model is generated in
modeling software and converted into STEP file which is used for extracting
B-Rep which interned is used to classify and extract feature by using sheet
metal feature recognition module. The feature edges are classified as CEEs,
IEEs, CIEs and IIEs based on topological properties. Database is created for
material properties of the sheet metal and machine tools required to
manufacture features in a part model. The extracted feature, feature's edge
information and resource information are then used to compute process
parameters and values required to control manufacturing operations. The
extracted feature, feature's edge information, resource information and process
parameters are the integral components of the proposed process information
model for sheet metal operations.


title: Coherent Cavitation in the Liquid of Light

abstract:
  We study the cubic- (focusing-)quintic (defocusing) nonlinear Schr\"odinger
equation in two transverse dimensions. We discuss a family of stationary
traveling waves, including rarefaction pulses and vortexantivortex pairs, in a
background of critical amplitude. We show that these rarefaction pulses can be
generated inside a flattop soliton when a smaller bright soliton collides with
it. The fate of the evolution strongly depends on the relative phase of the
solitons. Among several possibilities, we find that the dark pulse can reemerge
as a bright soliton.


title:
Enhanced high-order harmonic generation from periodic potentials in
  inhomogeneous laser fields

abstract:
  We theoretically study high-order harmonic generation (HHG) from solid-phase
systems in spatially inhomogeneous strong laser fields originated by resonant
plasmons within a metallic nanostructure. The intensity of the second plateau
in HHG may be enhanced by two-three orders and be comparable with the intensity
of the first plateau. This is due to bigger transition probabilities to higher
conduction bands. It provides us a practical way to increase the yields of HHG
with laser intensity below the damage threshold. It presents a promising way to
triple the range of HHG spectra in experimental measurements. It also allows to
generate intense isolated attosecond pulse from solids driven by few-cycle
laser fields.


title:
A Study of deuteron electromagnetic form factors with light-front
  approach

abstract:
  The electromagnetic form factors and low-energy observables of deuteron are
studied with the help of the light-front approach, where the deuteron is
regarded as a weekly bound state of a proton and a neutron. Both the $S-$ and
$D-$wave interacting vertexes among deuteron, proton, and neutron are taken
into account. Moreover, the regularization functions are also introduced. In
our calculations, the vertex and the regularization functions are employed to
simulate the momentum distribution inside the deuteron. Our numerical results
show that the light-front approach can roughly reproduce the deuteron
electromagnetic form factors, like charge $G_0$, magnetic $G_1$, and quadrupole
$G_2$, in the low $Q^2$ region. The important role of the $D-$wave vertex on
$G_2$ is also addressed.


title:
Critical Point Computations on Smooth Varieties: Degree and Complexity
  bounds

abstract:
  Let V $\subset$ C n be an equidimensional algebraic set and g be an n-variate
polynomial with rational coefficients. Computing the critical points of the map
that evaluates g at the points of V is a cornerstone of several algorithms in
real algebraic geometry and optimization. Under the assumption that the
critical locus is finite and that the projective closure of V is smooth, we
provide sharp upper bounds on the degree of the critical locus which depend
only on deg(g) and the degrees of the generic polar varieties associated to V.
Hence, in some special cases where the degrees of the generic polar varieties
do not reach the worst-case bounds, this implies that the number of critical
points of the evaluation map of g is less than the currently known degree
bounds. We show that, given a lifting fiber of V , a slight variant of an
algorithm due to Bank, Giusti, Heintz, Lecerf, Matera and Solern{\'o} computes
these critical points in time which is quadratic in this bound up to
logarithmic factors, linear in the complexity of evaluating the input system
and polynomial in the number of variables and the maximum degree of the input
polynomials.


title:
Supercoset construction of Yang-Baxter deformed AdS$_5\times$S$^5$
  backgrounds

abstract:
  We proceed to study Yang-Baxter deformations of the AdS$_5\times$S$^5$
superstring with the classical Yang-Baxter equation. We make a general argument
on the supercoset construction and present the master formula to describe the
dilaton in terms of classical $r$-matrices. The supercoset construction is
explicitly performed for some classical $r$-matrices and the full backgrounds
including the Ramond-Ramond (R-R) sector and dilaton are derived. Within the
class of abelian $r$-matrices, the perfect agreement is shown for well-known
examples including gravity duals of non-commutative gauge theories,
$\gamma$-deformations of S$^5$ and Schr\"odinger spacetimes. It would be
remarkable that the supercoset construction works well, even if the resulting
backgrounds are not maximally supersymmetric. In particular, three-parameter
$\gamma$-deformations of S$^5$ and Schr\"odinger spacetimes do not preserve any
supersymmetries. As for non-abelian $r$-matrices, we will focus upon a specific
example. The resulting background does not satisfy the equation of motion of
the Neveu-Schwarz-Neveu-Schwarz (NS-NS) two-form because the R-R three-form is
not closed.


abstract:
  We prove $L^{p}$-Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg type inequalities on homogeneous
groups, which is one of most general subclasses of nilpotent Lie groups, all
with sharp constants. We also discuss some of their consequences. Already in
the abelian case of $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ our results provide new insights in view
of the arbitrariness of the choice of the not necessarily Euclidean quasi-norm.


title: Modeling the microstructural evolution during constrained sintering

abstract:
  A numerical model able to simulate solid-state constrained sintering is
presented. The model couples an existing kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) model for
free sintering with a finite element model (FEM) for calculating stresses on a
microstructural level. The microstructural response to the local stress as well
as the FEM calculation of the stress field from the microstructural evolution
is discussed. The sintering behavior of a sample constrained by a rigid
substrate is simulated. The constrained sintering results in a larger number of
pores near the substrate, as well as anisotropic sintering shrinkage, with
significantly enhanced strain in the central upper part of the sample surface,
and minimal strain at the edges near the substrate. All these features have
also previously been observed experimentally.


title:
Irreversible Work and Internal Friction in a Quantum Otto Cycle of a
  Single Arbitrary Spin

abstract:
  We propose an arbitrary driven spin as the working fluid of a quantum Otto
cycle in the presence of internal friction. The role of total allocated time to
the adiabatic branches of the cycle, generated by different control field
profiles, on the extractable work and the thermal efficiency are analyzed in
detail. The internal friction is characterized by the excess entropy production
and quantitatively determined by studying the closeness of an actual unitary
process to an infinitely long one via quantum relative entropy. It is found
that the non-ideal, finite-time adiabatic transformations negatively effect the
work output and the thermal efficiency of the quantum heat engine. The
non-monotone dependence of the work output, thermal efficiency, entropy
production and the internal friction on the total adiabatic time are
elucidated. It is also found that almost frictionless adiabatic transformations
with small entropy production can be obtained in a short adiabatic time.


title:
Orbital stability via the energy-momentum method: the case of higher
  dimensional symmetry groups

abstract:
  We consider the orbital stability of relative equilibria of Hamiltonian
dynamical systems on Banach spaces, in the presence of a multi-dimensional
invariance group for the dynamics. We prove a persistence result for such
relative equilibria, present a generalization of the Vakhitov-Kolokolov slope
condition to this higher dimensional setting, and show how it allows to prove
the local coercivity of the Lyapunov function, which in turn implies orbital
stability. The method is applied to study the orbital stability of relative
equilibria of nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger and Manakov equations. We provide a
comparison of our approach to the one by Grillakis-Shatah-Strauss.


title: The lifetime cost of a magnetic refrigerator

abstract:
  The total cost of a 25 W average load magnetic refrigerator using commercial
grade Gd is calculated using a numerical model. The price of magnetocaloric
material, magnet material and cost of operation are considered, and all
influence the total cost. The lowest combined total cost with a device lifetime
of 15 years is found to be in the range \$150-\$400 depending on the price of
the magnetocaloric and magnet material. The cost of the magnet is largest,
followed closely by the cost of operation, while the cost of the magnetocaloric
material is almost negligible. For the lowest cost device, the optimal magnetic
field is about 1.4 T, the particle size is 0.23 mm, the length of the
regenerator is 40-50 mm and the utilization is about 0.2, for all device
lifetimes and material and magnet prices, while the operating frequency vary as
function of device lifetime. The considered performance characteristics are
based on the performance of a conventional A$^{+++}$ refrigeration unit. In a
rough life time cost comparison between the magnetic refrigeration device and
such a unit we find similar costs, the former being slightly cheaper, assuming
the cost of the magnet can be recuperated at end of life.


title:
A thermoelectric power generating heat exchanger: Part I - Experimental
  realization

abstract:
  An experimental realization of a heat exchanger with commercial
thermoelectric generators (TEGs) is presented. The power producing capabilities
as a function of flow rate and temperature span are characterized for two
different commercial heat transfer fluids and for three different thermal
interface materials. The device is shown to produce 2 W per TEG or 0.22 W
cm$^{-2}$ at a fluid temperature difference of 175 $^\circ$C and a flow rate
per fluid channel of 5 L min$^{-1}$. One experimentally realized design
produced 200 W in total from 100 TEGs. For the design considered here, the
power production is shown to depend more critically on the fluid temperature
span than on the fluid flow rate. Finally, the temperature span across the TEG
is shown to be 55% to 75% of the temperature span between the hot and cold
fluids.


title:
Absolute hydrogen depth profiling using the resonant
  $^{1}$H($^{15}$N,$\alpha\gamma$)$^{12}$C nuclear reaction

abstract:
  Resonant nuclear reactions are a powerful tool for the determination of the
amount and profile of hydrogen in thin layers of material. Usually, this tool
requires the use of a standard of well-known composition. The present work, by
contrast, deals with standard-less hydrogen depth profiling. This approach
requires precise nuclear data, e.g. on the widely used
$^{1}$H($^{15}$N,$\alpha\gamma$)$^{12}$C reaction, resonant at 6.4\,MeV
$^{15}$N beam energy. Here, the strongly anisotropic angular distribution of
the emitted $\gamma$-rays from this resonance has been re-measured, resolving a
previous discrepancy. Coefficients of (0.38$\pm$0.04) and (0.80$\pm$0.04) have
been deduced for the second and fourth order Legendre polynomials,
respectively. In addition, the resonance strength has been re-evaluated to
(25.0$\pm$1.5)\,eV, 10\% higher than previously reported. A simple working
formula for the hydrogen concentration is given for cases with known
$\gamma$-ray detection efficiency. Finally, the absolute approach is
illustrated using two examples.


title: Fast Quantum Communication in Linear Networks

abstract:
  Here we consider the speed at which quantum information can be transferred
between the nodes of a linear network. Because such nodes are linear
oscillators, this speed is also important in the cooling and state preparation
of mechanical oscillators, as well as frequency conversion. We show that if
there is no restriction on the size of the linear coupling between two
oscillators, then there exist control protocols that will swap their respective
states with high fidelity within a time much less than a single oscillation
period. Standard gradient search methods fail to find these fast protocols. We
were able to do so by augmenting standard search methods with a path-tracing
technique, demonstrating that this technique has remarkable power to solve
time-optimal control problems, as well as confirming the highly challenging
nature of these problems. As a further demonstration of the power of
path-tracing, first introduced by Moore-Tibbets et al. [Phys. Rev. A 86, 062309
(2012)], we apply it to the generation of entanglement in a linear network.