title: Switch-like surface binding of competing multivalent particles

abstract:
  Multivalent particles competing for binding on the same surface can exhibit
switch-like behaviour, depending on the concentration of receptors on the
surface. When the receptor concentration is low, energy dominates the free
energy of binding, and particles having a small number of strongly-binding
ligands preferentially bind to the surface. At higher receptor concentrations,
multivalent effects become significant, and entropy dominates the binding free
energy; particles having many weakly-binding ligands preferentially bind to the
surface. Between these two regimes there is a "switch-point", at which the
surface binds the two species of particles equally strongly. We demonstrate
that a simple theory can account for this switch-like behaviour and present
numerical calculations that support the theoretical predictions. We argue that
binding selectivity based on receptor density, rather than identity, may have
practical applications.


title: Conditions for electron-cyclotron maser emission in the solar corona

abstract:
  Context. The Sun is an active source of radio emission ranging from long
duration radio bursts associated with solar flares and coronal mass ejections
to more complex, short duration radio bursts such as solar S bursts, radio
spikes and fibre bursts. While plasma emission is thought to be the dominant
emission mechanism for most radio bursts, the electron-cyclotron maser (ECM)
mechanism may be responsible for more complex, short-duration bursts as well as
fine structures associated with long-duration bursts. Aims. We investigate the
conditions for ECM in the solar corona by considering the ratio of the electron
plasma frequency {\omega}p to the electron-cyclotron frequency {\Omega}e. The
ECM is theoretically possible when {\omega}p/{\Omega}e < 1. Methods.
Two-dimensional electron density, magnetic field, plasma frequency, and
electron cyclotron frequency maps of the off- limb corona were created using
observations from SDO/AIA and SOHO/LASCO, together with potential field
extrapolations of the magnetic field. These maps were then used to calculate
{\omega}p/{\Omega}e and Alfven velocity maps of the off-limb corona. Results.
We found that the condition for ECM emission ({\omega}p/{\Omega}e < 1) is
possible at heights < 1.07 R_sun in an active region near the limb; that is,
where magnetic field strengths are > 40 G and electron densities are greater
than 3x10^8 cm-3. In addition, we found comparatively high Alfv\'en velocities
(> 0.02 c or > 6000 km s-1) at heights < 1.07 R_sun within the active region.
Conclusions. This demonstrates that the condition for ECM emission is satisfied
within areas of the corona containing large magnetic fields, such as the core
of a large active region. Therefore, ECM could be a possible emission mechanism
for high-frequency radio and microwave bursts.


title:
A Hierarchical Genetic Optimization of a Fuzzy Logic System for Flow
  Control in Micro Grids

abstract:
  Bio-inspired algorithms like Genetic Algorithms and Fuzzy Inference Systems
(FIS) are nowadays widely adopted as hybrid techniques in commercial and
industrial environment. In this paper we present an interesting application of
the fuzzy-GA paradigm to Smart Grids. The main aim consists in performing
decision making for power flow management tasks in the proposed microgrid model
equipped by renewable sources and an energy storage system, taking into account
the economical profit in energy trading with the main-grid. In particular, this
study focuses on the application of a Hierarchical Genetic Algorithm (HGA) for
tuning the Rule Base (RB) of a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS), trying to discover
a minimal fuzzy rules set in a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) adopted to perform
decision making in the microgrid. The HGA rationale focuses on a particular
encoding scheme, based on control genes and parametric genes applied to the
optimization of the FIS parameters, allowing to perform a reduction in the
structural complexity of the RB. This approach will be referred in the
following as fuzzy-HGA. Results are compared with a simpler approach based on a
classic fuzzy-GA scheme, where both FIS parameters and rule weights are tuned,
while the number of fuzzy rules is fixed in advance. Experiments shows how the
fuzzy-HGA approach adopted for the synthesis of the proposed controller
outperforms the classic fuzzy-GA scheme, increasing the accounting profit by
67\% in the considered energy trading problem yielding at the same time a
simpler RB.


title: Topology and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class

abstract:
  We study the role of the topology of the background space on the
one-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. To do so, we
study the growth of balls on disordered 2D manifolds with random Riemannian
metrics, generated by introducing random perturbations to a base manifold. As
base manifolds we consider cones of different aperture angles $\theta$,
including the limiting cases of a cylinder ($\theta=0$, which corresponds to an
interface with periodic boundary conditions) and a plane ($\theta=\pi/2$, which
corresponds to an interface with circular geometry). We obtain that in the
former case the radial fluctuations of the ball boundaries follow the
Tracy-Widom (TW) distribution of the largest eigenvalue of random matrices in
the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (TW-GOE), while on cones with any aperture
angle $\theta\neq 0$ fluctuations correspond to the TW-GUE distribution related
with the Gaussian unitary ensemble. We provide a topological argument to
justify the relevance of TW-GUE statistics for cones, and state a conjecture
which relates the KPZ universality subclass with the background topology.


title: Why there is no crisis of the "spin crisis"

abstract:
  In a recent eprint [1] it is argued that the experimental determinations of
the spin-dependent structure function g1 have been done incorrectly and that a
reanalysis of those data suggests that the original motivation to argue fora
"spin crisis", namely the small contribution of quark spins to the nucleon
spin, is invalid. In a subsequent note [2] the theoretical understanding, as it
has evolved from almost 30 years of theoretical and experimental scrutiny, has
been shortly summarised. In this short note, arguments are presented that the
line of reasoning in Ref. [1] does not apply, at least not for the Compass
data.


title: Eilenberg theorems for many-sorted formations

abstract:
  A theorem of Eilenberg establishes that there exists a bijection between the
set of all varieties of regular languages and the set of all varieties of
finite monoids. In this article after defining, for a fixed set of sorts $S$
and a fixed $S$-sorted signature $\Sigma$, the concepts of formation of
congruences with respect to $\Sigma$ and of formation of $\Sigma$-algebras, we
prove that the algebraic lattices of all $\Sigma$-congruence formations and of
all $\Sigma$-algebra formations are isomorphic, which is an Eilenberg's type
theorem. Moreover, under a suitable condition on the free $\Sigma$-algebras and
after defining the concepts of formation of congruences of finite index with
respect to $\Sigma$, of formation of finite $\Sigma$-algebras, and of formation
of regular languages with respect to $\Sigma$, we prove that the algebraic
lattices of all $\Sigma$-finite index congruence formations, of all
$\Sigma$-finite algebra formations, and of all $\Sigma$-regular language
formations are isomorphic, which is also an Eilenberg's type theorem.


title: A double-indexed functional Hill process and applications

abstract:
  Let $X_{1,n} \leq .... \leq X_{n,n}$ be the order statistics associated with
a sample $X_{1}, ...., X_{n}$ whose pertaining distribution function (%
\textit{df}) is $F$. We are concerned with the functional asymptotic behaviour
of the sequence of stochastic processes \begin{equation}
T_{n}(f,s)=\sum_{j=1}^{j=k}f(j)\left(\log X_{n-j+1,n}-\log
X_{n-j,n}\right)^{s}, \label{fme} \end{equation} indexed by some classes
$\mathcal{F}$ of functions $f:\mathbb{N}% ^{\ast}\longmapsto \mathbb{R}_{+}$
and $s \in ]0,+\infty[$ and where $k=k(n)$ satisfies \begin{equation*} 1\leq
k\leq n,k/n\rightarrow 0\text{as}n\rightarrow \infty . \end{equation*}
  \noindent We show that this is a stochastic process whose margins generate
estimators of the extreme value index when $F$ is in the extreme domain of
attraction. We focus in this paper on its finite-dimension asymptotic law and
provide a class of new estimators of the extreme value index whose performances
are compared to analogous ones. The results are next particularized for one
explicit class $\mathcal{F}$.


title:
Guided acoustic and optical waves in silicon-on-insulator for Brillouin
  scattering and optomechanics

abstract:
  We numerically study silicon waveguides on silica showing that it is possible
to simultaneously guide optical and acoustic waves in the technologically
important silicon on insulator (SOI) material system. Thin waveguides, or fins,
exhibit geometrically softened mechanical modes at gigahertz frequencies with
phase velocities below the Rayleigh velocity in glass, eliminating acoustic
radiation losses. We propose slot waveguides on glass with telecom optical
frequencies and strong radiation pressure forces resulting in Brillouin gains
on the order of 500 and 50,000 1/(Wm) for backward and forward Brillouin
scattering, respectively.


title: KOGNAC: Efficient Encoding of Large Knowledge Graphs

abstract:
  Many Web applications require efficient querying of large Knowledge Graphs
(KGs). We propose KOGNAC, a dictionary-encoding algorithm designed to improve
SPARQL querying with a judicious combination of statistical and semantic
techniques. In KOGNAC, frequent terms are detected with a frequency
approximation algorithm and encoded to maximise compression. Infrequent terms
are semantically grouped into ontological classes and encoded to increase data
locality. We evaluated KOGNAC in combination with state-of-the-art RDF engines,
and observed that it significantly improves SPARQL querying on KGs with up to
1B edges.


title:
The space-clamped Hodgkin-Huxley system with random synaptic input:
  inhibition of spiking by weak noise and analysis with moment equations

abstract:
  We consider a classical space-clamped Hodgkin-Huxley model neuron stimulated
by synaptic excitation and inhibition with conductances represented by
Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Using numerical solutions of the stochastic model
system obtained by an Euler method, it is found that with excitation only there
is a critical value of the steady state excitatory conductance for repetitive
spiking without noise and for values of the conductance near the critical value
small noise has a powerfully inhibitory effect. For a given level of inhibition
there is also a critical value of the steady state excitatory conductance for
repetitive firing and it is demonstrated that noise either in the excitatory or
inhibitory processes or both can powerfully inhibit spiking. Furthermore, near
the critical value, inverse stochastic resonance was observed when noise was
present only in the inhibitory input process.
  The system of 27 coupled deterministic differential equations for the
approximate first and second order moments of the 6-dimensional model is
derived. The moment differential equations are solved using Runge-Kutta methods
and the solutions are compared with the results obtained by simulation for
various sets of parameters including some with conductances obtained by
experiment on pyramidal cells of rat prefrontal cortex. The mean and variance
obtained from simulation are in good agreement when there is spiking induced by
strong stimulation and relatively small noise or when the voltage is
fluctuating at subthreshold levels. In the occasional spike mode sometimes
exhibited by spinal motoneurons and cortical pyramidal cells the assunptions
underlying the moment equation approach are not satisfied.


title:
An infinite family of strongly unextendible mutually unbiased bases in
  $\mathbb{C}^{2^{2h}}$

abstract:
  A set of $b$ mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) in $\mathbb{C}^d$ (for $d > 1$)
comprises $bd$ vectors in $\mathbb{C}^d$, partitioned into $b$ orthogonal bases
for $\mathbb{C}^d$ such that the pairwise angle between all vectors from
distinct bases is $\arccos(1/\sqrt{d})$. The largest number $\mu(d)$ of MUBs
that can exist in $\mathbb{C}^d$ is at most $d+1$, but constructions attaining
this bound are known only when $d$ is a prime power. A set of $b$ MUBs in
$\mathbb{C}^d$ that cannot be enlarged, even by the first vector of a potential
$(b+1)$-th MUB, is called strongly unextendible. Until now, only one infinite
family of dimensions $d$ containing $b(d)$ strongly unextendible MUBs in
$\mathbb{C}^d$ satisfying $b(d) < \mu(d)$ was known, this family, due to
Sz\'ant\'o, is asymptotically "large" in the sense that $b(d)/\mu(d) \to 1$ as
$d \to \infty$. However, the existence of $2^{m-1}+1$ strongly unextendible
MUBs in $\mathbb{C}^{2^m}$ for each integer $m > 1$ has been conjectured by
Mandayam et al. We prove their conjecture for all even values of $m$, using
only elementary linear algebra. The existence of this "small" new infinite
family suggests, contrary to widespread belief, that $\mu(d)$ for
non-prime-powers $d$ might be significantly larger than the size of particular
unextendible sets.


title: The Cauchy problem for a combustion model in porous media

abstract:
  We prove the existence of a global solution to the Cauchy problem for a
nonlinear reaction-diffusion system coupled with a system of ordinary
differential equations. The system models the propagation of a combustion front
in a porous medium with two layers, as derived by J. C. da Mota and S. Schecter
in Combustion fronts in a porous medium with two layers, Journal of Dynamics
and Differential Equations, 18(3) (2006). For the particular case, when the
fuel concentrations in both layers are known functions, the Cauchy problem was
solved by J. C. da Mota and M. M. Santos in An application of the monotone
iterative method to a combustion problem in porous media, Nonlinear Analysis:
Real World Application, 12 (2010). For the full system, in which the fuel
concentrations are also unknown functions, we construct an iterative scheme
that contains a sequence which converges to a solution of the system, locally
in time, under the conditions that the initial data are Holder continuous,
bounded and nonnegative functions. We also show the existence of a global
solution, if the initial date are additionally in the Lebesgue space $L^p$, for
some $p\in(1,\infty)$. Furthermore, for a broad class of reaction-diffusion
systems we show that the non negative quadrant is a positively invariant
region, and, as a consequence, that classical solutions of similar systems,
with the reactions functions being non decreasing in one unknown and
semi-lipscthitz continuous in the other, are bounded by lower and upper
solutions for any positive time if so they are at time zero.


title: Contextuality-by-Default 2.0: Systems with Binary Random Variables

abstract:
  The paper outlines a new development in the Contextuality-by-Default theory
as applied to finite systems of binary random variables. The logic and
principles of the original theory remain unchanged, but the definition of
contextuality of a system of random variables is now based on multimaximal
rather than maximal couplings of the variables that measure the same property
in different contexts: a system is considered noncontextual if these
multimaximal couplings are compatible with the distributions of the random
variables sharing contexts. A multimaximal coupling is one that is a maximal
coupling of any subset (equivalently, of any pair) of the random variables
being coupled. Arguments are presented for why this modified theory is a
superior generalization of the traditional understanding of contextuality in
quantum mechanics. The modified theory coincides with the previous version in
the important case of cyclic systems, which include the systems whose
contextuality was most intensively studied in quantum physics and behavioral
sciences.


title:
Exploration of Contextuality in a Psychophysical Double-Detection
  Experiment

abstract:
  The Contextuality-by-Default (CbD) theory allows one to separate
contextuality from context-dependent errors and violations of selective
influences (aka "no-signaling" or "no-disturbance" principles). This makes the
theory especially applicable to behavioral systems, where violations of
selective influences are ubiquitous. For cyclic systems with binary random
variables, CbD provides necessary and sufficient conditions for
noncontextuality, and these conditions are known to be breached in certain
quantum systems. We apply the theory of cyclic systems to a psychophysical
double-detection experiment, in which observers were asked to determine
presence or absence of a signal property in each of two simultaneously
presented stimuli. The results, as in all other behavioral and social systems
previous analyzed, indicate lack of contextuality. The role of context in
double-detection is confined to lack of selectiveness: the distribution of
responses to one of the stimuli is influenced by the state of the other
stimulus.


title: Testing Contextuality in Cyclic Psychophysical Systems of High Ranks


title: Supervised and Unsupervised Ensembling for Knowledge Base Population

abstract:
  We present results on combining supervised and unsupervised methods to
ensemble multiple systems for two popular Knowledge Base Population (KBP)
tasks, Cold Start Slot Filling (CSSF) and Tri-lingual Entity Discovery and
Linking (TEDL). We demonstrate that our combined system along with auxiliary
features outperforms the best performing system for both tasks in the 2015
competition, several ensembling baselines, as well as the state-of-the-art
stacking approach to ensembling KBP systems. The success of our technique on
two different and challenging problems demonstrates the power and generality of
our combined approach to ensembling.


title:
A frame-based representation of genomic sequences for removing errors
  and rare variant detection in NGS data

abstract:
  We propose a frame-based representation of k-mers for detecting sequencing
errors and rare variants in next generation sequencing data obtained from
populations of closely related genomes. Frames are sets of non-orthogonal basis
functions, traditionally used in signal processing for noise removal. We define
a frame for genomes and sequenced reads to consist of discrete spatial signals
of every k-mer of a given size. We show that each k-mer in the sequenced data
can be projected onto multiple frames and these projections are maximized for
spatial signals corresponding to the k-mer's substrings. Our proposed
classifier, MultiRes, is trained on the projections of k-mers as features used
for marking k-mers as erroneous or true variations in the genome. We evaluate
MultiRes on simulated and real viral population datasets and compare it to
other error correction methods known in the literature. MultiRes has 4 to 500
times less false positives k-mer predictions compared to other methods,
essential for accurate estimation of viral population diversity and their
de-novo assembly. It has high recall of the true k-mers, comparable to other
error correction methods. MultiRes also has greater than 95% recall for
detecting single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), fewer false positive SNPs,
while detecting higher number of rare variants compared to other variant
calling methods for viral populations. The software is freely available from
the GitHub link (https://github.com/raunaq-m/MultiRes).


title:
Cloud Instance Management and Resource Prediction For
  Computation-as-a-Service Platforms

abstract:
  Computation-as-a-Service (CaaS) offerings have gained traction in the last
few years due to their effectiveness in balancing between the scalability of
Software-as-a-Service and the customisation possibilities of
Infrastructure-as-a-Service platforms. To function effectively, a CaaS platform
must have three key properties: (i) reactive assignment of individual
processing tasks to available cloud instances (compute units) according to
availability and predetermined time-to-completion (TTC) constraints; (ii)
accurate resource prediction; (iii) efficient control of the number of cloud
instances servicing workloads, in order to optimize between completing
workloads in a timely fashion and reducing resource utilization costs. In this
paper, we propose three approaches that satisfy these properties
(respectively): (i) a service rate allocation mechanism based on proportional
fairness and TTC constraints; (ii) Kalman-filter estimates for resource
prediction; and (iii) the use of additive increase multiplicative decrease
(AIMD) algorithms (famous for being the resource management in the transport
control protocol) for the control of the number of compute units servicing
workloads. The integration of our three proposals\ into a single CaaS platform
is shown to provide for more than 27% reduction in Amazon EC2 spot instance
cost against methods based on reactive resource prediction and 38% to 60%
reduction of the billing cost against the current state-of-the-art in CaaS
platforms (Amazon Lambda and Autoscale).


title: Coherent Showers for the LHC

abstract:
  We present a full-fledged antenna shower for hadron collisions in the Vincia
framework and focus on initial state radiation. The current version of the
shower is limited to massless QCD partons and colourless resonances. As a
proof-of-concept for the applicability of tree-level matrix-element corrections
a la GKS we study $Z$ boson production at the LHC, corrected up to Born +
$\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^2)$, and show some first results with matrix-element
corrections.


title:
Maximum principles for a fully nonlinear fractional order equation and
  symmetry of solutions

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider equations involving fully nonlinear nonlocal
operators $$F_{\alpha}(u(x)) \equiv C_{n,\alpha} PV \int_{\mathbb{R}^n}
\frac{G(u(x)-u(z))}{|x-z|^{n+\alpha}} dz= f(x,u).$$ We prove a maximum
principle and obtain key ingredients for carrying on the method of moving
planes, such as narrow region principle and decay at infinity. Then we
establish radial symmetry and monotonicity for positive solutions to Dirichlet
problems associated to such fully nonlinear fractional order equations in a
unit ball and in the whole space, as well as non-existence of solutions on a
half space. We believe that the methods develop here can be applied to a
variety of problems involving fully nonlinear nonlocal operators.
  We also investigate the limit of this operator as $\alpha \rightarrow 2$ and
show that $$F_{\alpha}(u(x)) \rightarrow a(-\Delta u(x)) + b |\bigtriangledown
u(x)|^2 .$$


title:
Two integrable classes of Emden-Fowler equations with applications in
  astrophysics and cosmology

abstract:
  We show that some Emden-Fowler (EF) equations encountered in astrophysics and
cosmology belong to two EF integrable classes of the type d^2z/d{\chi}^2=A
\chi^{-\lambda-2}z^n for \lambda=(n-1)/2 (class one), and \lambda=n+1 (class
two). We find their corresponding invariants which reduce them to first order
nonlinear ordinary differential equations. Using particular solutions of such
EF equations, the two classes are set in the autonomous nonlinear oscillator
form d^2\nu/dt^2 +ad \nu/dt +b(\nu-\nu^n)=0, where the coefficients a,b depend
only on \lambda, n. For both classes, we write closed-form solutions in
parametric form. The illustrative examples from astrophysics and general
relativity correspond to two n=2 cases from class one and two, and one n=5 case
from class one, all of them yielding Weierstrass elliptic solutions. It is also
noticed that when n=2, EF equations can be studied using the Painlev\'e
reduction method, since they are a particular case of equations of the type
d^2z/d{\chi}^2=F(\chi)z^2, where F(\chi) is the Kustaanheimo-Qvist function


title:
Learning Models for Actions and Person-Object Interactions with Transfer
  to Question Answering

abstract:
  This paper proposes deep convolutional network models that utilize local and
global context to make human activity label predictions in still images,
achieving state-of-the-art performance on two recent datasets with hundreds of
labels each. We use multiple instance learning to handle the lack of
supervision on the level of individual person instances, and weighted loss to
handle unbalanced training data. Further, we show how specialized features
trained on these datasets can be used to improve accuracy on the Visual
Question Answering (VQA) task, in the form of multiple choice fill-in-the-blank
questions (Visual Madlibs). Specifically, we tackle two types of questions on
person activity and person-object relationship and show improvements over
generic features trained on the ImageNet classification task.


title: Efficient Local Search in Coordination Games on Graphs

abstract:
  We study strategic games on weighted directed graphs, where the payoff of a
player is defined as the sum of the weights on the edges from players who chose
the same strategy augmented by a fixed non-negative bonus for picking a given
strategy. These games capture the idea of coordination in the absence of
globally common strategies. Prior work shows that the problem of determining
the existence of a pure Nash equilibrium for these games is NP-complete already
for graphs with all weights equal to one and no bonuses. However, for several
classes of graphs (e.g. DAGs and cliques) pure Nash equilibria or even strong
equilibria always exist and can be found by simply following a particular
improvement or coalition-improvement path, respectively. In this paper we
identify several natural classes of graphs for which a finite improvement or
coalition-improvement path of polynomial length always exists, and, as a
consequence, a Nash equilibrium or strong equilibrium in them can be found in
polynomial time. We also argue that these results are optimal in the sense that
in natural generalisations of these classes of graphs, a pure Nash equilibrium
may not even exist.


title: Participation Cost Estimation: Private Versus Non-Private Study

abstract:
  In our study, we seek to learn the real-time crowd levels at popular points
of interests based on users continually sharing their location data. We
evaluate the benefits of users sharing their location data privately and
non-privately, and show that suitable privacy-preserving mechanisms provide
incentives for user participation in a private study as compared to a
non-private study.


title:
Using Text Similarity to Detect Social Interactions not Captured by
  Formal Reply Mechanisms

abstract:
  In modeling social interaction online, it is important to understand when
people are reacting to each other. Many systems have explicit indicators of
replies, such as threading in discussion forums or replies and retweets in
Twitter. However, it is likely these explicit indicators capture only part of
people's reactions to each other, thus, computational social science approaches
that use them to infer relationships or influence are likely to miss the mark.
This paper explores the problem of detecting non-explicit responses, presenting
a new approach that uses tf-idf similarity between a user's own tweets and
recent tweets by people they follow. Based on a month's worth of posting data
from 449 ego networks in Twitter, this method demonstrates that it is likely
that at least 11% of reactions are not captured by the explicit reply and
retweet mechanisms. Further, these uncaptured reactions are not evenly
distributed between users: some users, who create replies and retweets without
using the official interface mechanisms, are much more responsive to followees
than they appear. This suggests that detecting non-explicit responses is an
important consideration in mitigating biases and building more accurate models
when using these markers to study social interaction and information diffusion.


title: Structured Sparse Convolutional Autoencoder

abstract:
  This paper aims to improve the feature learning in Convolutional Networks
(Convnet) by capturing the structure of objects. A new sparsity function is
imposed on the extracted featuremap to capture the structure and shape of the
learned object, extracting interpretable features to improve the prediction
performance. The proposed algorithm is based on organizing the activation
within and across featuremap by constraining the node activities through
$\ell_{2}$ and $\ell_{1}$ normalization in a structured form.


title:
The Hermitian curvature flow on manifolds with non-negative Griffiths
  curvature

abstract:
  In this paper we study a particular version of the Hermitian curvature flow
(HCF) over a compact complex Hermitian manifold $(M,g,J)$. We prove that if the
initial metric has Griffiths positive (non-negative) Chern curvature $\Omega$,
then this property is preserved along the flow. On a manifold with Griffiths
non-negative Chern curvature the HCF has nice regularization properties, in
particular, for any $t>0$ the zero set of $\Omega(\xi,\bar\xi,\eta,\bar\eta)$
becomes invariant under certain torsion-twisted parallel transport.


title:
The influential effect of blending, bump, changing period and eclipsing
  Cepheids on the Leavitt law

abstract:
  The investigation of the non-linearity of the Leavitt law is a topic that
began more than seven decades ago, when some of the studies in this field found
that the Leavitt law has a break at about ten days. The goal of this work is to
investigate a possible statistical cause of this non-linearity. By applying
linear regressions to OGLE-II and OGLE-IV data, we find that, in order to
obtain the Leavitt law by using linear regression, robust techniques to deal
with influential points and/or outliers are needed instead of the ordinary
least-squares regression traditionally used. In particular, by using $M$- and
$MM$-regressions we establish firmly and without doubts the linearity of the
Leavitt law in the Large Magellanic Cloud, without rejecting or excluding
Cepheid data from the analysis. This implies that light curves of Cepheids
suggesting blending, bumps, eclipses or period changes, do not affect the
Leavitt law for this galaxy. For the SMC, including this kind of Cepheids, it
is not possible to find an adequate model, probably due to the geometry of the
galaxy. In that case, a possible influence of these stars could exist.


title: LightScan: Faster Scan Primitive on CUDA Compatible Manycore Processors

abstract:
  Scan (or prefix sum) is a fundamental and widely used primitive in parallel
computing. In this paper, we present LightScan, a faster parallel scan
primitive for CUDA-enabled GPUs, which investigates a hybrid model combining
intra-block computation and inter-block communication to perform a scan. Our
algorithm employs warp shuffle functions to implement fast intra-block
computation and takes advantage of globally coherent L2 cache and the
associated parallel thread execution (PTX) assembly instructions to realize
lightweight inter-block communication. Performance evaluation using a single
Tesla K40c GPU shows that LightScan outperforms existing GPU algorithms and
implementations, and yields a speedup of up to 2.1, 2.4, 1.5 and 1.2 over the
leading CUDPP, Thrust, ModernGPU and CUB implementations running on the same
GPU, respectively. Furthermore, LightScan runs up to 8.9 and 257.3 times faster
than Intel TBB running on 16 CPU cores and an Intel Xeon Phi 5110P coprocessor,
respectively. Source code of LightScan is available at
http://cupbb.sourceforge.net.


title:
Collective dynamics of identical phase oscillators with high-order
  coupling

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a framework to investigate the collective dynamics
in ensembles of globally coupled phase oscillators when higher-order modes
dominate the coupling. The spatiotemporal properties of the attractors in
various regions of parameter space are analyzed. Furthermore, a detailed linear
stability analysis proves that the stationary symmetric distribution is only
neutrally stable in the marginal regime which stems from the generalized
time-reversal symmetry. Moreover, the critical parameters of the transition
among various regimes are determined analytically by both the Ott-Antonsen
method and linear stability analysis, the transient dynamics are further
revealed in terms of the characteristic curves method. Finally, for the more
general initial condition the symmetric dynamics could be reduced to a rigorous
three-dimensional manifold which shows that the neutrally stable chaos could
also occur in this model for particular parameter. Our theoretical analysis and
numerical results are consistent with each other, which can help us understand
the dynamical properties in general system with higher-order harmonics
couplings.


title:
Modeling the Multi-Band Afterglow of GRB 130831A: Evidence for a
  Spinning-Down Magnetar Dominated by Gravitational Wave Losses?

abstract:
  The X-ray afterglow of GRB 130831A shows an "internal plateau" with a decay
slope of $\sim$ 0.8, followed by a steep drop at around $10^5$ s with a slope
of $\sim$ 6. After the drop, the X-ray afterglow continues with a much
shallower decay. The optical afterglow exhibits two segments of plateaus
separated by a luminous optical flare, followed by a normal decay with a slope
basically consistent with that of the late-time X-ray afterglow. The decay of
the internal X-ray plateau is much steeper than what we expect in the simplest
magnetar model. We propose a scenario in which the magnetar undergoes
gravitational-wave-driven r-mode instability, and the spin-down is dominated by
gravitational wave losses up to the end of the steep plateau, so that such a
relatively steep plateau can be interpreted as the internal emission of the
magnetar wind and the sharp drop can be produced when the magnetar collapses
into a black hole. This scenario also predicts an initial X-ray plateau lasting
for hundreds of seconds with an approximately constant flux which is compatible
with observation. Assuming that the magnetar wind has a negligible contribution
in the optical band, we interpret the optical afterglow as the forward shock
emission by invoking the energy injection from a continuously refreshed shock
following the prompt emission phase. It is shown that our model can basically
describe the temporal evolution of the multi-band afterglow of GRB 130831A.


title:
Secrecy Capacity in Large Cooperative Networks in Presence of
  Eavesdroppers with Unknown Locations

abstract:
  In this paper, an extended large wireless network under the secrecy
constraint is considered. In contrast to works which use idealized assumptions,
a more realistic network situation with unknown eavesdroppers locations is
investigated: the legitimate users only know their own Channel State
Information (CSI), not the eavesdroppers CSI. Also, the network is analyzed by
taking in to account the effects of both fading and path loss. Under these
assumptions, a power efficient cooperative scheme, named \emph{stochastic
virtual beamforming}, is proposed. Applying this scheme, an unbounded secure
rate with any desired outage level is achieved, provided that the density of
the legitimate users tends to infinity. In addition, by tending the legitimate
users density to the infinity, the tolerable density of eavesdroppers will
become unbounded too.


title: Small Mass Limit of a Langevin Equation on a Manifold

abstract:
  We study damped geodesic motion of a particle of mass $m$ on a Riemannian
manifold, in the presence of an external force and noise. Lifting the resulting
stochastic differential equation to the orthogonal frame bundle, we prove that,
as $m \to 0$, its solutions converge to solutions of a limiting equation which
includes a {\it noise-induced drift} term. A very special case of the main
result presents Brownian motion on the manifold as a limit of inertial systems.


title:
The core dominance parameter and \emph{Fermi} detection of extragalactic
  radio sources

abstract:
  In this paper, by cross-correlating an archive sample of 542 extragalactic
radio sources with the \emph{Fermi}-LAT Third Source Catalog(3FGL), we have
compiled a sample of 80 $\gamma$-ray sources and 462 non-\emph{Fermi} sources
with available core dominance parameter($R_{CD}$), core and extended radio
luminosity; all the parameters are directly measured or derived from available
data in the literature. We found that $R_{CD}$ have significant correlations
with radio core luminosities, $\gamma$-ray luminosity and $\gamma$-ray flux
respectively; the \emph{Fermi} sources have on average higher $R_{CD}$ than
non-\emph{Fermi} sources. These results indicate that the \emph{Fermi} sources
should be more compact, and beaming effect should play a crucial role for the
detection of $\gamma$-ray emission. Moreover, our results also show
\emph{Fermi} sources have systematically larger radio flux than
non-\emph{Fermi} sources at fixed $R_{CD}$, indicating larger intrinsic radio
flux in \emph{Fermi} sources. These results show a strong connection between
radio and $\gamma$-ray flux for the present sample and indicate that the
non-\emph{Fermi} sources is likely due to low beaming effect, and/or the low
intrinsic $\gamma$-ray flux, support a scenario in the literature: a co-spatial
origin of the activity for the radio and $\gamma$-ray emission, suggesting that
the origin of the seed photons for the high-energy $\gamma$-ray emission is
within the jet.


title: Chemical compositions and kinematics of the Hercules stream

abstract:
  An abundance analysis is reported of 58 K giants identified by Famaey et al.
(2005) as highly probable members of the Hercules stream selected from stars
north of the celestial equator in the Hipparcos catalogue. The giants have
compositions spanning the interval [Fe/H] from $-$0.17 to $+$0.42 with a mean
value of $+$0.15 and relative elemental abundances [El/Fe] representative of
the Galactic thin disc. Selection effects may have biassed the selection from
the Hipparcos catalogue against the selection of metal-poor stars. Our
reconsideration of the recent extensive survey of FG dwarfs which included
metal-poor stars (Bensby et al. 2014) provides a [Fe/H] distribution for the
Hercules stream which is similar to that from the 58 giants. It appears that
the stream is dominated by metal-rich stars from the thin disc. Suggestions in
the literature that the stream includes metal-poor stars from the thick disc
are discussed.


title: Has a Higgs-flavon with a $750$ GeV mass been detected at the LHC13?

abstract:
  Higgs-flavon fields appear as a part of the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) mechanism,
which attempts to explain the hierarchy of Yukawa couplings. We explore the
possibility that the 750 GeV diphoton resonance recently reported at the LHC13,
could be identified with a low-scale Higgs-flavon field $H_F$ and find the
region of the parameter space consistent with CMS and ATLAS data. It is found
that the extra vector-like fermions of the ultraviolet completion of the FN
mechanism are necessary in order to reproduce the observed signal. We consider
a standard model (SM) extension that contains two Higgs doublets (a standard
one and an inert one) and one complex FN singlet. The inert doublet includes a
stable neutral boson, which provides a viable dark matter candidate, while the
mixing of the standard doublet and the FN singlet induces flavor violation in
the Higgs sector at the tree-level. Constraints on the parameters of the model
are derived from the LHC Higgs data, which include the search for the lepton
flavor violating decay of the SM Higgs boson $h\to \bar{\mu}\tau $. It is also
found that in some region of the parameter space the model may give rise to a
large branching ratio for the $H_F \to hh$ decay, of the order of 0.1, which
could be searched for at the LHC.


title: A Middleware for the Internet of Things

abstract:
  The Internet of Things (IoT) connects everyday objects including a vast array
of sensors, actuators, and smart devices, referred to as things to the
Internet, in an intelligent and pervasive fashion. This connectivity gives rise
to the possibility of using the tracking capabilities of things to impinge on
the location privacy of users. Most of the existing management and location
privacy protection solutions do not consider the low-cost and low-power
requirements of things, or, they do not account for the heterogeneity,
scalability, or autonomy of communications supported in the IoT. Moreover,
these traditional solutions do not consider the case where a user wishes to
control the granularity of the disclosed information based on the context of
their use (e.g. based on the time or the current location of the user). To fill
this gap, a middleware, referred to as the Internet of Things Management
Platform (IoT-MP) is proposed in this paper.


title:
The Internet of Things: New Interoperability, Management and Security
  Challenges

abstract:
  The Internet of Things (IoT) brings connectivity to about every objects found
in the physical space. It extends connectivity to everyday objects. From
connected fridges, cars and cities, the IoT creates opportunities in numerous
domains. However, this increase in connectivity creates many prominent
challenges. This paper provides a survey of some of the major issues
challenging the widespread adoption of the IoT. Particularly, it focuses on the
interoperability, management, security and privacy issues in the IoT. It is
concluded that there is a need to develop a multifaceted technology approach to
IoT security, management, and privacy.


title: Visual saliency detection: a Kalman filter based approach

abstract:
  In this paper we propose a Kalman filter aided saliency detection model which
is based on the conjecture that salient regions are considerably different from
our "visual expectation" or they are "visually surprising" in nature. In this
work, we have structured our model with an immediate objective to predict
saliency in static images. However, the proposed model can be easily extended
for space-time saliency prediction. Our approach was evaluated using two
publicly available benchmark data sets and results have been compared with
other existing saliency models. The results clearly illustrate the superior
performance of the proposed model over other approaches.


title: On the Non-existence of certain classes of generalized bent functions

abstract:
  We obtain new non-existence results of generalized bent functions from
\ZZ^n_q to \ZZ_q (called type [n,q]). The first case is a class of types where
q=2p_1^{r_1}p_2^{r_2}. The second case contains two types [1 <= n <= 3, 2 *
31^e]$ and [1 <= n <= 7,2 * 151^e].


title: h-Index Manipulation by Undoing Merges

abstract:
  The h-index is an important bibliographic measure used to assess the
performance of researchers. Dutiful researchers merge different versions of
their articles in their Google Scholar profile even though this can decrease
their h-index. In this article, we study the manipulation of the h-index by
undoing such merges. In contrast to manipulation by merging articles (van
Bevern et al. [Artif. Intel. 240:19-35, 2016]) such manipulation is harder to
detect. We present numerous results on computational complexity (from
linear-time algorithms to parameterized computational hardness results) and
empirically indicate that at least small improvements of the h-index by
splitting merged articles are unfortunately easily achievable.


title:
On minimal 3-folds of general type with maximal pluricanonical section
  index

abstract:
  Let $X$ be a minimal projective 3-fold of general type. The pluricanonical
section index $\delta(X)$ is defined to be the minimal integer $m$ so that
$P_{m}(X)\geq 2$. According to Chen-Chen, one has either $1\leq \delta(X)\leq
15$ or $\delta(X)=18$. This note aims to intensively study those with maximal
such index. A direct corollary is that the $57$th canonical map of every
minimal 3-fold of general type is stably birational.


title:
A heuristic approach for dividing graphs into bi-connected components
  with a size constraint

abstract:
  In this paper we propose a new problem of finding the maximal bi-connected
partitioning of a graph with a size constraint (MBCPG-SC). With the goal of
finding approximate solutions for the MBCPG-SC, a heuristic method is developed
based on the open ear decomposition of graphs. Its essential part is an
adaptation of the breadth first search which makes it possible to grow
bi-connected subgraphs. The proposed randomized algorithm consists of growing
several subgraphs in parallel. The quality of solutions generated in this way
is further improved using a local search which exploits neighboring relations
between the subgraphs. In order to evaluate the performance of the method, an
algorithm for generating pseudo-random unit disc graphs with known optimal
solutions is created. The conducted computational experiments show that the
proposed method frequently manages to find optimal solutions and has an average
error of only a few percent to known optimal solutions. Further, it manages to
find high quality approximate solutions for graphs having up to 10.000 nodes in
reasonable time.


title:
Nonperturbative RG analysis of five-dimensional O(N) models with cubic
  interactions

abstract:
  We reconsider critical properties of O(N) scalar models with cubic
interactions in $d>4$ dimensions using functional renormalization group
equations. Working at next-to-leading order in the derivative expansion, we
find non-trivial IR fixed points at small and intermediate N from beta
functions for relevant cubic terms. The putative fixed point at large N
suggested recently by higher spin holography and the epsilon-expansion is also
discussed, with an emphasis on stability of the effective potential.


title:
An adjoint based method for the inversion of the Juno and Cassini
  gravity measurements into wind fields

abstract:
  During 2016-17 the Juno and Cassini spacecraft will both perform close
eccentric orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, obtaining high-precision
gravity measurements for these planets. This data will be used to estimate the
depth of the observed surface flows on these planets. All models to date,
relating the winds to the gravity field, have been in the forward direction,
thus allowing only calculation of the gravity field from given wind models.
However, there is a need to do the inverse problem since the new observations
will be of the gravity field. Here, an inverse dynamical model, is developed to
relate the expected measurable gravity field, to perturbations of the density
and wind fields, and therefore to the observed cloud-level winds. In order to
invert the gravity field into the 3D circulation, an adjoint model is
constructed for the dynamical model, thus allowing backward integration. This
tool is used for examination of various scenarios, simulating cases in which
the depth of the wind depends on latitude. We show that it is possible to use
the gravity measurements to derive the depth of the winds, both on Jupiter and
Saturn, taking into account also measurement errors. Calculating the solution
uncertainties, we show that the wind depth can be determined more precisely in
the low-to-midlatitudes. In addition, the gravitational moments are found to be
particularly sensitive to flows at the equatorial intermediate depths,
therefore we expect that if deep winds exist on these planets they will have a
measurable signature by Juno and Cassini.


title: Black hole formation in Randall-Sundrum II braneworlds

abstract:
  We present the first numerical study of the full dynamics of a braneworld
scenario, working within the framework of the single brane model of Randall and
Sundrum (RSII). In particular, we study the process of gravitational collapse
driven by a massless scalar field which is confined to the brane. Imposing
spherical symmetry on the brane, we show that the evolutions of sufficiently
strong initial configurations of the scalar field result in black holes that
have finite extension into the bulk. Furthermore, we find preliminary evidence
that the black holes generated form a unique sequence, irrespective of the
details of the initial data. The black hole solutions we obtain from dynamical
evolutions are consistent with those previously computed from a static vacuum
ansatz.


title:
Subgroups of the Torelli group generated by two symmetric bounding pair
  maps

abstract:
  Let {a,b} and {c,d} be two pairs of bounding simple closed curves on an
oriented surface which intersect nontrivialy. We prove that if these pairs are
invariant under the action of an orientation reversing involution, then the
corresponding bounding pair maps generate a free group. This supports the
conjecture stated by C. Leininger and D. Margalit that any pair of elements of
the Torelli group either commute or generate a free group.


title:
Probabilistic Receiver Architecture Combining BP, MF, and EP for
  Multi-Signal Detection

abstract:
  Receiver algorithms which combine belief propagation (BP) with the mean field
(MF) approximation are well-suited for inference of both continuous and
discrete random variables. In wireless scenarios involving detection of
multiple signals, the standard construction of the combined BP-MF framework
includes the equalization or multi-user detection functions within the MF
subgraph. In this paper, we show that the MF approximation is not particularly
effective for multi-signal detection. We develop a new factor graph
construction for application of the BP-MF framework to problems involving the
detection of multiple signals. We then develop a low-complexity variant to the
proposed construction in which Gaussian BP is applied to the equalization
factors. In this case, the factor graph of the joint probability distribution
is divided into three subgraphs: (i) a MF subgraph comprised of the observation
factors and channel estimation, (ii) a Gaussian BP subgraph which is applied to
multi-signal detection, and (iii) a discrete BP subgraph which is applied to
demodulation and decoding. Expectation propagation is used to approximate
discrete distributions with a Gaussian distribution and links the discrete BP
and Gaussian BP subgraphs. The result is a probabilistic receiver architecture
with strong theoretical justification which can be applied to multi-signal
detection.


title:
SSP: Semantic Space Projection for Knowledge Graph Embedding with Text
  Descriptions

abstract:
  Knowledge representation is an important, long-history topic in AI, and there
have been a large amount of work for knowledge graph embedding which projects
symbolic entities and relations into low-dimensional, real-valued vector space.
However, most embedding methods merely concentrate on data fitting and ignore
the explicit semantic expression, leading to uninterpretable representations.
Thus, traditional embedding methods have limited potentials for many
applications such as question answering, and entity classification. To this
end, this paper proposes a semantic representation method for knowledge graph
\textbf{(KSR)}, which imposes a two-level hierarchical generative process that
globally extracts many aspects and then locally assigns a specific category in
each aspect for every triple. Since both aspects and categories are
semantics-relevant, the collection of categories in each aspect is treated as
the semantic representation of this triple. Extensive experiments justify our
model outperforms other state-of-the-art baselines substantially.


title:
Discontinuous phase transition in an annealed multi-state majority-vote
  model

abstract:
  In this paper, we generalize the original majority-vote (MV) model with noise
from two states to arbitrary $q$ states, where $q$ is an integer no less than
two. The main emphasis is paid to the comparison on the nature of phase
transitions between the two-state MV (MV2) model and the three-state MV (MV3)
model. By extensive Monte Carlo simulation and mean-field analysis, we find
that the MV3 model undergoes a discontinuous order-disorder phase transition,
in contrast to a continuous phase transition in the MV2 model. A central
feature of such a discontinuous transition is a strong hysteresis behavior as
noise intensity goes forward and backward. Within the hysteresis region, the
disordered phase and ordered phase are coexisting.


title:
Vector dark energy models with quadratic terms in the Maxwell tensor
  derivatives

abstract:
  We consider a vector-tensor gravitational model with terms quadratic in the
Maxwell tensor derivatives, called the Bopp-Podolsky term. The gravitational
field equations of the model and the equations describing the evolution of the
vector field are obtained and their Newtonian limit is investigated. The
cosmological implications of a Bopp-Podolsky type dark energy term are
investigated for a Bianchi type I homogeneous and anisotropic geometry for two
models, corresponding to the absence and presence of the self-interacting
potential of the field, respectively. The time evolutions of the Hubble
function, of the matter energy density, of the shear scalar, of the mean
anisotropy parameter, and of the deceleration parameter, respectively, as well
as the field potentials are obtained for both cases by numerically integrating
the cosmological evolution equations. In the presence of the vector type dark
energy with quadratic terms in the Maxwell tensor derivatives, depending on the
numerical values of the model parameters, the Bianchi type I Universe
experiences a complex dynamical evolution, with the dust Universes ending in an
isotropic phase. The presence of the self-interacting potential of the vector
field significantly shortens the time interval necessary for the full
isotropization of the Universe.


title:
Allowed region and optimal measurement for information versus
  disturbance in quantum measurements

abstract:
  We present graphs of information versus disturbance for general quantum
measurements of completely unknown states. Each piece of information and
disturbance is quantified by two measures: (i) the Shannon entropy and
estimation fidelity for the information and (ii) the operation fidelity and
physical reversibility for the disturbance. These measures are calculated for a
single outcome and are plotted on four types of information--disturbance planes
to show their allowed regions. In addition, we discuss the graphs of these
metrics averaged over all possible outcomes and the optimal measurements when
saturating the upper bounds on the information for a given disturbance. The
results considerably broaden the perspective of trade-offs between information
and disturbances in quantum measurements.


title:
Discovery of homogeneously dispersed pentacoordinated Al(V) species on
  the surface of amorphous silica-alumina

abstract:
  The dispersion and coordination of aluminium species on the surface of
silica-alumina based materials are essential for controlling their catalytic
activity and selectivity. Al(IV) and Al(VI) are two common coordinations of Al
species in the silica network and alumina phase, respectively. Al(V) is rare in
nature and was found hitherto only in the alumina phase or interfaces
containing alumina, a behavior which negatively affects the dispersion,
population, and accessibility of Al(V) species on the silica-alumina surface.
This constraint has limited the development of silica-alumina based catalysts,
particularly because Al(V) had been confirmed to act as a highly active center
for acid reactions and single-atom catalysts. Here, we report the direct
observation of high population of homogenously dispersed Al(V) species in
amorphous silica-alumina in the absence of any bulk alumina phase, by high
resolution TEM/EDX and high magnetic-field MAS NMR. Solid-state 27Al
multi-quantum MAS NMR experiments prove unambiguously that most of the Al(V)
species formed independently from the alumina phase and are accessible on the
surface for guest molecules. These species are mainly transferred to Al(VI)
species with partial formation of Al(IV) species after adsorption of water. The
NMR chemical shifts and their coordination transformation with and without
water adsorption are matching that obtained in DFT calculations of the
predicted clusters. The discovery presented in this study not only provides
fundamental knowledge of the nature of aluminum coordination, but also paves
the way for developing highly efficient catalysts.


title: A structure theorem for shape functions defined on submanifolds

abstract:
  In this paper, we study shape functions depending on closed submanifolds. We
prove a new structure theorem that establishes the general structure of the
shape derivative for this type of shape function. As a special case we obtain
the classical Hadamard-Zol\'esio structure theorem, but also the structure
theorem for cracked sets can be recast into our framework. As an application we
investigate several unconstrained shape functions arising from differential
geometry and fracture mechanics.


title:
On the Solution Existence of Nonconvex Quadratic Programming Problems in
  Hilbert Spaces

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider the quadratic programming problems under finitely
many convex quadratic constraints in Hilbert spaces. By using the Legendre
property of quadratic forms or the compactness of operators in the
presentations of quadratic forms, we establish some sufficient conditions for
the solution existence of the considered problems. As special cases, we obtain
some existence solution results for the quadratic programming problems under
linear constraints in Hilbert spaces.


title:
Subjects and Their Objects: Localizing Interactees for a Person-Centric
  View of Importance

abstract:
  Understanding images with people often entails understanding their
\emph{interactions} with other objects or people. As such, given a novel image,
a vision system ought to infer which other objects/people play an important
role in a given person's activity. However, existing methods are limited to
learning action-specific interactions (e.g., how the pose of a tennis player
relates to the position of his racquet when serving the ball) for improved
recognition, making them unequipped to reason about novel interactions with
actions or objects unobserved in the training data.
  We propose to predict the "interactee" in novel images---that is, to localize
the \emph{object} of a person's action. Given an arbitrary image with a
detected person, the goal is to produce a saliency map indicating the most
likely positions and scales where that person's interactee would be found. To
that end, we explore ways to learn the generic, action-independent connections
between (a) representations of a person's pose, gaze, and scene cues and (b)
the interactee object's position and scale. We provide results on a newly
collected UT Interactee dataset spanning more than 10,000 images from SUN,
PASCAL, and COCO. We show that the proposed interaction-informed saliency
metric has practical utility for four tasks: contextual object detection, image
retargeting, predicting object importance, and data-driven natural language
scene description. All four scenarios reveal the value in linking the subject
to its object in order to understand the story of an image.


title: Integrating MEMS and ICs

abstract:
  The majority of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices must be combined
with integrated circuits (ICs) for operation in larger electronic systems.
While MEMS transducers sense or control physical, optical or chemical
quantities, ICs typically provide functionalities related to the signals of
these transducers, such as analog-to-digital conversion, amplification,
filtering and information processing as well as communication between the MEMS
transducer and the outside world. Thus, the vast majority of commercial MEMS
products, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and micro-mirror arrays, are
integrated and packaged together with ICs. There are a variety of possible
methods of integrating and packaging MEMS and IC components, and the technology
of choice strongly depends on the device, the field of application and the
commercial requirements. In this review paper, traditional as well as
innovative and emerging approaches to MEMS and IC integration are reviewed.
These include approaches based on the hybrid integration of multiple chips
(multi-chip solutions) as well as system-on-chip solutions based on wafer-level
monolithic integration and heterogeneous integration techniques. These are
important technological building blocks for the More-Than-Moore paradigm
described in the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. In this
paper, the various approaches are categorized in a coherent manner, their
merits are discussed, and suitable application areas and implementations are
critically investigated. The implications of the different MEMS and IC
integration approaches for packaging, testing and final system costs are
reviewed.


title: Exact expression for the large deviations of mesoscopic currents

abstract:
  Large deviations quantify the occurrence of events that depart from the
average behavior of a system. In this note we derive an exact expression for
their moment generating function. This expression offers a new tool to
investigate the behavior of mesoscopic systems. To illustrate our result, we
derive the exact formulae for the current fluctuations in a disordered ring and
in a model of ion transport through a membrane.


title:
A stochastic coordinate descent inertial primal-dual algorithm for
  large-scale composite optimization

abstract:
  We consider an inertial primal-dual algorithm to compute the minimizations of
the sum of two convex functions and the composition of another convex function
with a continuous linear operator. With the idea of coordinate descent, we
design a stochastic coordinate descent inertial primal-dual splitting
algorithm. Moreover, in order to prove the convergence of the proposed inertial
algorithm, we formulate first the inertial version of the randomized
Krasnosel'skii-Mann iterations algorithm for approximating the set of fixed
points of a nonexpansive operator and investigate its convergence properties.
Then the convergence of stochastic coordinate descent inertial primal-dual
splitting algorithm is derived by applying the inertial version of the
randomized Krasnosel'skii-Mann iterations to the composition of the proximity
operator.


title:
An efficient Multiple Scattering method based on partitioning of
  scattering matrix by angular momentum and approximations of matrix elements

abstract:
  We present a numerically efficient and accurate Multiple Scattering
formalism, which is a generalization of the Multiple Scattering method with a
truncated basis set [X. -G. Zhang and W. H. Butler, Phys. Rev. B 46,7433
(1992)]. Compared to the latter method, we keep the phase shifts of high
angular momenta but apply approximations in the elements of the scattering
matrix which is the subtraction of the unit matrix and the product of
transition operator matrix and structure constant matrix. The detailed
behaviour of our formalism for different types of calculations, where not full
information of Green's function is needed, are discussed. We apply our
formalism to study density of states of fcc Cu and silicon and C K-edge X-ray
absorption spectra of graphene, in order to check the efficiency and accuracy
of our formalism. We find that compared to Zhang's method, the accuracy is
greatly improved by our method.


title:
Modelling the Multi-band Afterglow of GRB 091127: Evidence of a Hard
  Electron Energy Spectrum with an Injection Break

abstract:
  The afterglow of GRBs is believed to originate from the synchrotron emission
of shock-accelerated electrons produced by the interaction between the outflow
and the external medium. The accelerated electrons are usually assumed to
follow a power law energy distribution with an index of $p$. Observationally,
although most GRB afterglows have a $p$ larger than 2, there are still a few
GRBs suggestive of a hard ($p<2$) electron spectrum. GRB 091127, with
well-sampled broad-band afterglow data, shows evidence of a hard electron
spectrum and strong spectral evolution, with a spectral break moving from high
to lower energies. The spectral break evolves very fast and cannot be explained
by the cooling break in the standard afterglow model, unless evolving
microphysical parameters are assumed. Besides, the multi-band afterglow light
curves show an achromatic break at around 33 ks. Based on the model of a hard
electron spectrum with an injection break, we interpret the observed spectral
break as the synchrotron frequency corresponding to the injection break, and
the achromatic break as a jet break caused by the jet-edge effect. It is shown
that the spectral evolution and the multi-band afterglow light curves of GRB
091127 can be well reproduced by this model.


title: Epipolar Geometry Based On Line Similarity

abstract:
  It is known that epipolar geometry can be computed from three epipolar line
correspondences but this computation is rarely used in practice since there are
no simple methods to find corresponding lines. Instead, methods for finding
corresponding points are widely used. This paper proposes a similarity measure
between lines that indicates whether two lines are corresponding epipolar lines
and enables finding epipolar line correspondences as needed for the computation
of epipolar geometry.
  A similarity measure between two lines, suitable for video sequences of a
dynamic scene, has been previously described. This paper suggests a stereo
matching similarity measure suitable for images. It is based on the quality of
stereo matching between the two lines, as corresponding epipolar lines yield a
good stereo correspondence.
  Instead of an exhaustive search over all possible pairs of lines, the search
space is substantially reduced when two corresponding point pairs are given.
  We validate the proposed method using real-world images and compare it to
state-of-the-art methods. We found this method to be more accurate by a factor
of five compared to the standard method using seven corresponding points and
comparable to the 8-points algorithm.


title: The work of Lucio Russo on percolation

abstract:
  The contributions of Lucio Russo to the mathematics of percolation and
disordered systems are outlined. The context of his work is explained, and its
ongoing impact on current work is described and amplified.


title: Lecture notes on the Skyrme model

abstract:
  This lecture provides a pedagogical instruction to the basic concepts of the
Skyrme model and its some applications. As the preliminary for understanding
the Skyrme model, we first briefly explain the large $N_c$ expansion, chiral
symmetry and its breaking. Next we give a brief review of nonlinear sigma model
including the power counting scheme of the chiral perturbation theory, starting
from the linear sigma model. We then give an exhaust explanation of the Skyrme
model and its applications. After the presentation of the Skyrme model for
baryons in free space, we introduce how to study the baryonic matter and medium
modified hadron properties by using the Skyrme model. Finally we discuss a way
to incorporate the lowest-lying vector mesons into the Skyrme model based on
the hidden local symmetry. Some possible further developments are also covered.


title:
Biogeography-Based Combinatorial Strategy for Efficient AUV Motion
  Planning and Task-Time Management

abstract:
  Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are capable of spending long periods of
time for carrying out various underwater missions and marine tasks. In this
paper, a novel conflict-free motion planning framework is introduced to enhance
underwater vehicle's mission performance by completing maximum number of
highest priority tasks in a limited time through a large scale waypoint
cluttered operating field, and ensuring safe deployment during the mission. The
proposed combinatorial route-path planner model takes the advantages of the
biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm toward satisfying objectives of
both higher-lower level motion planners and guarantees maximization of the
mission productivity for a single vehicle operation. The performance of the
model is investigated under different scenarios including the particular cost
constraints in time-varying operating fields. To show the reliability of the
proposed model, performance of each motion planner assessed separately and then
statistical analysis is undertaken to evaluate the total performance of the
entire model. The simulation results indicate the stability of the contributed
model and its feasible application for real experiments.


title:
Efficient primal-dual fixed point algorithm with dynamic stepsize for
  convex problems with applications to imaging restoration

abstract:
  We consider the problem of finding the minimization of the sum of a convex
function and the composition of another convex function with a continuous
linear operator from the view of fixed point algorithms based on proximity
operators. We design a primal-dual fixed point algorithm with dynamic stepsize
based on the proximity operator and obtain a scheme with a closed form solution
for each iteration. Based on Modified Mann iteration and the firmly
nonexpansive properties of the proximity operator, we achieve the convergence
of the proposed algorithm.


title:
Higher dimensional Robinson-Trautman spacetimes sourced by p-forms:
  static and radiating black holes

abstract:
  We summarize results about Robinson-Trautman spacetimes in the presence of an
aligned $p$-form Maxwell field and an arbitrary cosmological constant in $n\ge
4$ dimensions. While in odd dimensions the solutions reduce to static black
holes dressed with an electric and a magnetic field (with an Einstein space
horizon), in even dimensions $2p=n$ they may also describe black holes gaining
(or losing) mass by receiving (or emitting) electromagnetic radiation. The Weyl
type of the spacetimes is also briefly discussed in all the possible cases.


title:
Toward Efficient Task Assignment and Motion Planning for Large Scale
  Underwater Mission

abstract:
  An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) needs to acquire a certain degree of
autonomy for any particular underwater mission to fulfill the mission
objectives successfully and ensure its safety in all stages of the mission in a
large scale operating filed. In this paper, a novel combinatorial
conflict-free-task assignment strategy consisting an interactive engagement of
a local path planner and an adaptive global route planner, is introduced. The
method is established upon the heuristic search potency of the Particle Swarm
Optimisation (PSO) algorithm to address the discrete nature of routing-task
assignment approach and the complexity of NP-hard path planning problem. The
proposed hybrid method is highly efficient for having a reactive guidance
framework that guarantees successful completion of missions specifically in
cluttered environments. To examine the performance of the method in a context
of mission productivity, mission time management and vehicle safety, a series
of simulation studies are undertaken. The results of simulations declare that
the proposed method is reliable and robust, particularly in dealing with
uncertainties, and it can significantly enhance the level of vehicle's autonomy
by relying on its reactive nature and capability of providing fast feasible
solutions.


title: Fault tolerant supergraphs with automorphisms

abstract:
  Given a graph $Y$ on $n$ vertices and a desired level of fault-tolerance $k$,
an objective in fault-tolerant system design is to construct a supergraph $X$
on $n + k$ vertices such that the removal of any $k$ nodes from $X$ leaves a
graph containing $Y$. In order to reconfigure around faults when they occur, it
is also required that any two subsets of $k$ nodes of $X$ are in the same orbit
of the action of its automorphism group. In this paper, we prove that such a
supergraph must be the complete graph. This implies that it is very expensive
to have an interconnection network which is $k$-fault-tolerant and which also
supports automorphic reconfiguration. Our work resolves an open problem in the
literature. The proof uses a result due to Cameron on $k$-homogeneous groups.


title: Quantum parameter estimation with optimal control

abstract:
  A pivotal task in quantum metrology, and quantum parameter estimation in
general, is to de- sign schemes that achieve the highest precision with given
resources. Standard models of quantum metrology usually assume the dynamics is
fixed, the highest precision is achieved by preparing the optimal probe states
and performing optimal measurements. However, in many practical experimental
settings, additional controls are usually available to alter the dynamics. Here
we propose to use optimal control methods for further improvement on the
precision limit of quantum parameter estimation. We show that by exploring the
additional degree of freedom offered by the controls higher precision limit can
be achieved. In particular we show that the precision limit under the
controlled schemes can go beyond the constraints put by the coherent time,
which is in contrast to the standard scheme where the precision limit is always
bounded by the coherent time.


title:
Characterization of Quantum Phase Transition using Holographic
  Entanglement Entropy

abstract:
  The entanglement exhibits extremal or singular behavior near quantum critical
points (QCPs) in many condensed matter models. These intriguing phenomena,
however, still call for a widely accepted understanding. In this letter we
study this issue in holographic framework. We investigate the connection
between the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE) and the quantum phase
transition (QPT) in a lattice-deformed Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton theory. Novel
backgrounds exhibiting metal-insulator transitions (MIT) have been constructed
in which both metallic phase and insulating phase have vanishing entropy
density in zero temperature limit. We find that the first order derivative of
HEE with respect to lattice parameters exhibits extremal behavior near QCPs. We
propose that it would be a universal feature that HEE or its derivatives with
respect to system parameters can characterize QPT in a generic holographic
system. Our work opens a window for understanding the relation between
entanglement and the QPT from holographic perspective.


title: Factorizations of Characteristic Functions

abstract:
  Let $A = (A_1, \ldots, A_n)$ and $B = (B_1, \ldots, B_n)$ be row contractions
on $\mathcal{H}_1$ and $\mathcal{H}_2$, respectively, and $X$ be a row operator
from $\oplus_{i=1}^n \mathcal{H}_2$ to $\mathcal{H}_1$. Let $D_{A^*} = (I - A
A^*)^{\frac{1}{2}}$ and $D_{B} = (I - B^* B)^{\frac{1}{2}}$ and $\Theta_T$ be
the characteristic function of $T = \begin{bmatrix} A& D_{A^*}L D_B\\ 0 & B
\end{bmatrix}$. Then $\Theta_T$ coincides with the product of the
characteristic function $\Theta_A$ of $A$, the Julia-Halmos matrix
corresponding to $L$ and the characteristic function $\Theta_B$ of $B$. More
precisely, $\Theta_T$ coincides with \[ \begin{bmatrix} \Theta_B & 0 \\ 0 & I
\end{bmatrix} (I_\Gamma \otimes \begin{bmatrix} L^* & (I - L^* L)^{\frac{1}{2}}
\\ (I - L L^*)^{\frac{1}{2}} & - L \end{bmatrix}) \begin{bmatrix} \Theta_A &
0\\ 0& I\end{bmatrix}, \] where $\Gamma$ is the full Fock space. Similar
results hold for constrained row contractions.


title: Online Truthful Mechanisms for Multi-sided Markets

abstract:
  The study of mechanisms for multi-sided markets has received an increasingly
growing attention from the research community, and is motivated by the numerous
examples of such markets on the web and in electronic commerce. Many of these
examples represent dynamic and uncertain environments, and thus, require, in
fact, online mechanisms. Unfortunately, as far as we know, no previously
published online mechanism for a multi-sided market (or even for a double-sided
market) has managed to (approximately) maximize the gain from trade, while
guaranteeing desirable economic properties such as incentivizing truthfulness,
voluntary participation and avoiding budget deficit. In this work we present
the first online mechanism for a multi-sided market which has the above
properties. Our mechanism is designed for a market setting suggested by
[Feldman and Gonen (2016)]; which is motivated by the foreseeable future form
of online advertising.
  The online nature of our setting motivated us to define a stronger notion of
individual rationality, called "continuous individual rationality", capturing
the natural requirement that a player should never lose either by participating
in the mechanism or by not leaving prematurely. Satisfying the requirements of
continuous individual rationality, together with the other economic properties
our mechanism guarantees, requires the mechanism to use a novel pricing scheme
where users may be paid ongoing increments during the mechanism's execution up
to a pre-known maximum value. As users rarely ever get paid in reality, this
pricing scheme is new to mechanism design. Nevertheless, the principle it is
based on can be observed in many common real life scenarios such as executive
compensation payments and company acquisition deals. We believe both our new
dynamic pricing scheme concept and our strengthened notion of individual
rationality are of independent interest.


title:
Optimal Energy Management for Energy Harvesting Transmitter and Receiver
  with Helper

abstract:
  We study energy harvesting (EH) transmitter and receiver, where the receiver
decodes data using the harvested energy from the nature and from an independent
EH node, named helper. Helper cooperates with the receiver by transferring its
harvested energy to the receiver over an orthogonal fading channel. We study an
offline optimal power management policy to maximize the reliable information
rate. The harvested energy in all three nodes are assumed to be known. We
consider four different scenarios; First, for the case that both transmitter
and the receiver have batteries, we show that the optimal policy is
transferring the helper harvested energy to the receiver, immediately. Next,
for the case of non-battery receiver and full power transmitter, we model a
virtual EH receiver with minimum energy constraint to achieve an optimal
policy. Then, we consider a non-battery EH receiver and EH transmitter with
battery. Finally, we derive optimal power management wherein neither the
transmitter nor the receiver have batteries. We propose three iterative
algorithms to compute optimal energy management policies. Numerical results are
presented to corroborate the advantage of employing the helper.


title: Pseudo-bundles of exterior algebras as diffeological Clifford modules

abstract:
  We consider the diffeological pseudo-bundles of exterior algebras, and the
Clifford action of the corresponding Clifford algebras, associated to a given
finite-dimensional and locally trivial diffeological vector pseudo-bundle, as
well as the behavior of the former three constructions (exterior algebra,
Clifford action, Clifford algebra) under the diffeological gluing of
pseudo-bundles. Despite these being our main object of interest, we dedicate
significant attention to the issues of compatibility of pseudo-metrics, and the
gluing-dual commutativity condition, that is, the condition ensuring that the
dual of the result of gluing together two pseudo-bundles can equivalently be
obtained by gluing together their duals (this is not automatic in the
diffeological context). We show that, assuming that the dual of the gluing map,
which itself does not have to be a diffeomorphism, on the total space is one,
the commutativity condition is satisfied, via a very natural map, which in
addition turns out to be an isometry for the natural pseudo-metrics on the
pseudo-bundles involved.


title:
$L^2$ curvature pinching theorems and vanishing theorems on complete
  Riemannian manifolds

abstract:
  In this paper, by using monotonicity formulas for vector bundle-valued
$p$-forms satisfying the conservation law, we first obtain general $L^2$ global
rigidity theorems for locally conformally flat (LCF) manifolds with constant
scalar curvature, under curvature pinching conditions. Secondly, we prove
vanishing results for $L^2$ and some non-$L^2$ harmonic $p$-forms on LCF
manifolds, by assuming that the underlying manifolds satisfy pointwise or
integral curvature conditions. Moreover, by a Theorem of Li-Tam for harmonic
functions, we show that the underlying manifold must have only one end.
Finally, we obtain Liouville theorems for $p$-harmonic functions on LCF
manifolds under pointwise Ricci curvature conditions.


title:
A numerical study of two-phase flow with dynamic capillary pressure
  using an adaptive moving mesh method

abstract:
  Motivated by observations of saturation overshoot, this paper investigates
numerical modeling of two-phase flow incorporating dynamic capillary pressure.
The effects of the dynamic capillary coefficient, the infiltrating flux rate
and the initial and boundary values are systematically studied using a
travelling wave ansatz and efficient numerical methods. The travelling wave
solutions may exhibit monotonic, non-monotonic or plateau-shaped behaviour.
Special attention is paid to the non-monotonic profiles. The travelling wave
results are confirmed by numerically solving the partial differential equation
using an accurate adaptive moving mesh solver. Comparisons between the computed
solutions using the Brooks-Corey model and the laboratory measurements of
saturation overshoot verify the effectiveness of our approach.


title: Calculation of Ar photoelectron satellites in hard X-ray region

abstract:
  The intensities of photoelectron satellite lines, corresponding to double
core hole (DCH) states of Ar 1s ionization by hard X-rays are calculated using
the many-body-perturbation theory. Calculations support the interpretation of
the most intense lines as the shake-up excitations 2p 4p. It is demonstrated
that the intensities of the spectrum lines corresponding to 4s (and 3d) excited
states in DCH field can be explained only taking into account the direct
knock-up process 2p 3d along with shake-up process 1s 4s that accompanies 2p
photoionization.


title: Thermal conductivity of MoS2 polycrystalline nanosheets

abstract:
  We report a technique for transferring large areas of the CVD-grown,
few-layer MoS2 from the original substrate to another arbitrary substrate and
onto holey substrates, in order to obtain free-standing structures. The method
consists of a polymer- and residue-free, surface-tension-assisted wet transfer,
in which we take advantage of the hydrophobic properties of the MoS2. The
methods yields better quality transferred layers, with fewer cracks and
defects, and less contamination than the widely used PMMA-mediated transfer and
allows fabrication of few-layer, fee-standing structures with diameters up to
100 micro-m. We report thermal conductivity measurements by means of
contactless Raman thermometry on the so-fabricated samples. The measurements
revealed a strong reduction in the in-plane thermal conductivity down to 0.5
W/mK. The results are explained using finite elements method simulations for a
polycrystalline film.


title: On the spectrum of rings of functions

abstract:
  Let $D$ be a domain and $M$ a maximal ideal of $D$. The ring of
integer-valued polynomials on a subset $E$ of $D$, as well as more general
rings of functions from $E$ to $D$, can be viewed as subrings of the product
$D^E=\prod_{e\in E}D$. We investigate which maximal ideals of $Int(E,D)$ (or
any other subring of $D^E$) come from ultrapowers of the residue class ring
$D/M$.


title: Modeling KIC10684673 and KIC12216817 as Single Pulsating Variables

abstract:
  The raw light curves of both KIC 10684673 and KIC 12216817 show variability.
Both are listed in the Kepler Eclipsing Binary Catalog (hereafter KEBC),
however both are flagged as uncertain in nature. In the present study we show
their light curves can be modeled by considering each target as a single,
multi-modal delta Scuti pulsator. While this does not exclude the possibility
of eclipsing systems, we argue, while spectroscopy on the systems is still
lacking, the delta Scuti model is a simpler explanation and therefore more
probable.


title: Santa Barbara Cluster Comparison Test with DISPH

abstract:
  The Santa Barbara cluster comparison project (Frenk et al. Frenk+1999)
revealed that there is a systematic difference between entropy profiles of
clusters of galaxies obtained by Eulerian mesh and Lagrangian smoothed particle
hydrodynamics (SPH) codes: Mesh codes gave a core with a constant entropy
whereas SPH codes did not. One possible reason for this difference is that mesh
codes are not Galilean invariant. Another possible reason is the problem of the
SPH method, which might give too much "protection" to cold clumps because of
the unphysical surface tension induced at contact discontinuities. In this
paper, we apply the density independent formulation of SPH (DISPH), which can
handle contact discontinuities accurately, to simulations of a cluster of
galaxies, and compare the results with those with the standard SPH. We obtained
the entropy core when we adopt DISPH. The size of the core is, however,
significantly smaller than those obtained with mesh simulations, and is
comparable to those obtained with quasi-Lagrangian schemes such as "moving
mesh" and "mesh free" schemes. We conclude that both the standard SPH without
artificial conductivity and Eulerian mesh codes have serious problems even such
an idealized simulation, while DISPH, SPH with artificial conductivity, and
quasi-Lagrangian schemes have sufficient capability to deal with it.


title:
Interface electronic structure at the topological insulator -
  ferrimagnetic insulator junction

abstract:
  An interface electron state at the junction between a three-dimensional
topological insulator (TI) film of Bi2Se3 and a ferrimagnetic insulator film of
Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) was investigated by measurements of angle-resolved photoelectron
spectroscopy and X-ray absorption magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The
surface state of the Bi2Se3 film was directly observed and localized 3d spin
states of the Fe3+ state in the YIG film were confirmed. The proximity effect
is likely described in terms of the exchange interaction between the localized
Fe 3d electrons in the YIG film and delocalized electrons of the surface and
bulk states in the Bi2Se3 film. The Curie temperature (TC) may be increased by
reducing the amount of the interface Fe2+ ions with opposite spin direction
observable as a pre-edge in the XMCD spectra.


title: On rational sliceness of Miyazaki's fibered, $-$amphicheiral knots

abstract:
  We prove that certain fibered, $-$amphicheiral knots are rationally slice.
Moreover, we show that the concordance invariants $\nu^+$ and $\Upsilon(t)$
from Heegaard Floer homology vanish for a class of knots that includes
rationally slice knots.


title:
Using Private and Public Assessments in Security Information Sharing
  Agreements

abstract:
  Information sharing among organizations has been gaining attention as a
method for improving cybersecurity. However, the associated disclosure costs
act as deterrents for firms' voluntary cooperation. In this work, we take a
game-theoretic approach to understanding firms' incentives in these agreements.
We propose the design of inter-temporal incentives (i.e. conditioning future
cooperation on past interactions). Specifically, we show that incentives for
full cooperation can be designed if firms share their private assessments of
other firms' disclosure decisions through a common communication platform. We
further show that similar incentives can be designed based on outcomes of a
public rating/assessment system.


title:
Solving the Equity Risk Premium Puzzle and Inching Towards a Theory of
  Everything

abstract:
  The equity risk premium puzzle is that the return on equities has far
exceeded the average return on short-term risk-free debt and cannot be
explained by conventional representative-agent consumption based equilibrium
models. We review a few attempts done over the years to explain this anomaly:
1. Inclusion of highly unlikely events with low probability (Ugly state along
with Good and Bad), or market crashes / Black Swans. 2. Slow moving habit, or
time-varying subsistence level, added to the basic power utility function. 3. A
separation of the inter-temporal elasticity of substitution and risk aversion,
combined with long run risks which captures time varying economic uncertainty.
We explore whether a fusion of the above approaches supplemented with better
methods to handle the below reservations would provide a more realistic and yet
tractable framework to tackle the various conundrums in the social sciences: 1.
Unlimited ability of individuals to invest as compared to their ability to
consume. 2. Lack of an objective measuring stick of value 3. Unintended
consequences due to the dynamic nature of social systems 4. Relaxation of the
transversality condition to avoid the formation of asset price bubbles 5. How
durable is durable? Accounting for durable goods since nothing lasts forever
The world we live in produces fascinating phenomenon despite (or perhaps, due
to) being a hotchpotch of varying doses of the above elements. The rationale
for a unified theory is that beauty can emerge from chaos since the best test
for a stew is its taste. Many long standing puzzles seem to have been resolved
using different techniques. The various explanations need to stand the test of
time before acceptance; but then unexpected outcomes set in and new puzzles
emerge. As real analysis and limits tell us: We are getting Closer and Closer;
Yet it seems we are still Far Far Away...


title: From Incremental Meaning to Semantic Unit (phrase by phrase)

abstract:
  This paper describes an experimental approach to Detection of Minimal
Semantic Units and their Meaning (DiMSUM), explored within the framework of
SemEval 2016 Task 10. The approach is primarily based on a combination of word
embeddings and parserbased features, and employs unidirectional incremental
computation of compositional embeddings for multiword expressions.


title:
A Skorokhod Map on Measure-Valued Paths with Applications to Priority
  Queues

abstract:
  The Skorokhod map on the half-line has proved to be a useful tool for
studying processes with non-negativity constraints. In this work we introduce a
measure-valued analog of this map that transforms each element $\zeta$ of a
certain class of c\`{a}dl\`{a}g paths that take values in the space of signed
measures on the half-line to a c\`{a}dl\`{a}g path that takes values in the
space of non-negative measures on $[0,\infty)$ in such a way that for each $x >
0$, the path $t \mapsto \zeta_t[0,x]$ is transformed via a Skorokhod map on the
half-line, and the regulating functions for different $x > 0$ are coupled. We
establish regularity properties of this map and show that the map provides a
convenient tool for studying queueing systems in which tasks are prioritized
according to a continuous parameter. Three such well known models are the
earliest-deadline-first, the shortest-job-first and the
shortest-remaining-processing-time scheduling policies. For these applications,
we show how the map provides a unified framework within which to form fluid
model equations, prove uniqueness of solutions to these equations and establish
convergence of scaled state processes to the fluid model. In particular, for
these models, we obtain new convergence results in time-inhomogeneous settings,
which appear to fall outside the purview of existing approaches.


title:
Ab Initio Potential Energy Surfaces and Quantum Dynamics of Rotational
  Inelastic Processes in the H+ Collision with CS

abstract:
  Rate coefficient for state-to-state rotational transitions in H+ collision
with CS has been obtained using accurate quantum dynamical close-coupling
calculations to interpret microwave astronomical observations. Accurate three
dimensional ab initio potential energy surfaces have been computed for the
ground state and low-lying excited states of H+ - CS system using internally
contracted MRCI method and aug-cc-pVQZ basis sets. Rotational excitation and
deexcitation integral cross sections are computed at low and ultra low
collision energies, respectively. Resonances have been observed at very low
energies typically below 50 cm-1. Among all the transitions, Deltaj=+1 and
Deltaj=-1 are found to be predominant for excitation and deexcitation,
respectively. Deexcitation cross section in the ultracold region is found to
obey Wigner's threshold law. The magnitude of state-to-state excitation rate
obtained is maximum for j'=1 in the temperature range 2-240 K while minimum for
deexcitation in ultracold region. The rotational excitation cross-section
obtained using vibrationally averaged potential show rotational rainbow maximum
for j'=2 state. From simple unimolecular kinetics, the mean lifetime of
rotationally excited CS trap is estimated to be 550 ns due to the H+ collision
at microkelvin temperature enabling precise spectroscopic measurement and
studying molecular properties near quantum degeneracy.


title: (Almost) Efficient Mechanisms for Bilateral Trading

abstract:
  We study the bilateral trade problem: one seller, one buyer and a single,
indivisible item for sale. It is well known that there is no fully-efficient
and incentive compatible mechanism for this problem that maintains a balanced
budget. We design simple and robust mechanisms that obtain approximate
efficiency with these properties. We show that even minimal use of statistical
data can yield good approximation results. Finally, we demonstrate how a
mechanism for this simple bilateral-trade problem can be used as a "black-box"
for constructing mechanisms in more general environments.


title:
On the minimal number of singular fibers in Lefschetz fibrations over
  the torus

abstract:
  We show that the minimal number of singular fibers $N(g,1)$ in a genus-$g$
Lefschetz fibration over the torus is at least $3$. As an application, we show
that $N(g, 1) \in \{ 3, 4\}$ for $g\ge 5$, $N(g, 1) \in \{3, 4,5 \}$ for $g= 3,
4$ and $N(2,1) = 7$.


title:
High-extinction VIPA-based Brillouin spectroscopy of turbid biological
  media

abstract:
  Brillouin microscopy has recently emerged as powerful technique to
characterize the mechanical properties of biological tissue, cell and
biomaterials. However, the potential of Brillouin microscopy is currently
limited to transparent samples, because Brillouin spectrometers do not have
sufficient spectral extinction to reject the predominant non-Brillouin
scattered light of turbid media. To overcome this issue, we developed a
spectrometer composed of a two VIPA stages and a multi-pass Fabry-Perot
interferometer. The Fabry-Perot etalon acts as an ultra-narrow band-pass filter
for Brillouin light with high spectral extinction and low loss. We report
background-free Brillouin spectra from Intralipid solutions and up to 100
microns deep within chicken muscle tissue.


title:
Mahalanobis Distance Metric Learning Algorithm for Instance-based Data
  Stream Classification

abstract:
  With the massive data challenges nowadays and the rapid growing of
technology, stream mining has recently received considerable attention. To
address the large number of scenarios in which this phenomenon manifests itself
suitable tools are required in various research fields. Instance-based data
stream algorithms generally employ the Euclidean distance for the
classification task underlying this problem. A novel way to look into this
issue is to take advantage of a more flexible metric due to the increased
requirements imposed by the data stream scenario. In this paper we present a
new algorithm that learns a Mahalanobis metric using similarity and
dissimilarity constraints in an online manner. This approach hybridizes a
Mahalanobis distance metric learning algorithm and a k-NN data stream
classification algorithm with concept drift detection. First, some basic
aspects of Mahalanobis distance metric learning are described taking into
account key properties as well as online distance metric learning algorithms.
Second, we implement specific evaluation methodologies and comparative metrics
such as Q statistic for data stream classification algorithms. Finally, our
algorithm is evaluated on different datasets by comparing its results with one
of the best instance-based data stream classification algorithm of the state of
the art. The results demonstrate that our proposal is better


title: Real and complex behavior for networks of coupled logistic maps

abstract:
  Many natural systems are organized as networks, in which the nodes interact
in a time-dependent fashion. The object of our study is to relate connectivity
to the temporal behavior of a network in which the nodes are (real or complex)
logistic maps, coupled according to a connectivity scheme that obeys certain
constrains, but also incorporates random aspects. We investigate in particular
the relationship between the system architecture and possible dynamics. In the
current paper we focus on establishing the framework, terminology and pertinent
questions for low-dimensional networks. A subsequent paper will further address
the relationship between hardwiring and dynamics in high-dimensional networks.
  For networks of both complex and real node-maps, we define extensions of the
Julia and Mandelbrot sets traditionally defined in the context of single map
iterations. For three different model networks, we use a combination of
analytical and numerical tools to illustrate how the system behavior (measured
via topological properties of the Julia sets) changes when perturbing the
underlying adjacency graph. We differentiate between the effects on dynamics of
different perturbations that directly modulate network connectivity:
increasing/decreasing edge weights, and altering edge configuration by adding,
deleting or moving edges. We discuss the implications of considering a rigorous
extension of Fatou-Julia theory known to apply for iterations of single maps,
to iterations of ensembles of maps coupled as nodes in a network.