title:
Surface Tension Effects on Surface Instabilities of Dielectric
  Elastomers

abstract:
  Dielectric elastomers have recently been proposed for various
biologically-relevant applications, in which they may operate in fluidic
environments where surface tension effects may have a significant effect on
their stability and reliability. Here, we present a theoretical analysis
coupled with computational modeling for a generalized electromechanical
analysis of surface stability in dielectric elastomers accounting for surface
tension effects. For mechanically deformed elastomers, significant increases in
critical strain and instability wavelength are observed for small
elastocapillary numbers. When the elastomers are deformed electrostatically,
both surface tension and the amount of pre-compression are found to
substantially increase the critical electric field while decreasing the
instability wavelength.


title: Orbifold Chern classes inequalities and applications

abstract:
  In this paper we prove that given a pair $(X,D)$ of a threefold $X$ and a
boundary divisor $D$ with mild singularities, if $(K_X+D)$ is movable, then the
orbifold second Chern class $c_2$ of $(X,D)$ is pseudo-effective. This
generalizes the classical result of Miyaoka on the pseudo-effectivity of $c_2$
for minimal models. As an application we give a simple solution to Kawamata's
effective non-vanishing conjecture in dimension $3$, where we prove that
$H^0(X, K_X+H)\neq 0$, whenever $K_X+H$ is nef and $H$ is an ample, effective,
reduced Cartier divisor. Furthermore, we study Lang-Vojta's conjecture for
codimension one subvarieties and prove that minimal varieties of general type
have only finitely many Fano, Calabi-Yau or Abelian subvarieties of codimension
one, mildly singular, whose classes belong to the movable cone.


title: Weakly Horospherically Convex Hypersurfaces in Hyperbolic Space

abstract:
  In [2], the authors develop a global correspondence between immersed weakly
horospherically convex hypersurfaces $\phi:M^n \to \mathbb{H}^{n+1}$ and a
class of conformal metrics on domains of the round sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$. Some
of the key aspects of the correspondence and its consequences have dimensional
restrictions $n\geq3$ due to the reliance on an analytic proposition from [5]
concerning the asymptotic behavior of conformal factors of conformal metrics on
domains of $\mathbb{S}^n$. In this paper, we prove a new lemma about the
asymptotic behavior of a functional combining the gradient of the conformal
factor and itself, which allows us to extend the global correspondence and
embeddedness theorems of [2] to all dimensions $n\geq2$ in a unified way. In
the case of a single point boundary $\partial_{\infty}\phi(M)=\{x\} \subset
\mathbb{S}^n$, we improve these results in one direction. As an immediate
consequence of this improvement and the work on elliptic problems in [2], we
have a new, stronger Bernstein type theorem. Moreover, we are able to extend
the Liouville and Delaunay type theorems from [2] to the case of surfaces in
$\mathbb{H}^{3}$.


title:
Emergence of $\eta$-pairing ground-state in population-imbalanced
  attractive Fermi-gases filling $p$ orbitals on 1-D optical lattice

abstract:
  We explore the ground states in population-imbalanced attractive 1-D
fermionic optical lattice filling $p$ orbitals over the lowest $s$ one by using
the density-matrix-renormalization-group (DMRG) method. The DMRG calculations
find the occurrence of spatially non-uniform off-diagonal long-range order. In
contrast to Fulde-Ferrel Larkin-Ovchinikov pair as observed in the single-band
Hubbard model. The spatial oscillation period of the pair correlation function
is widely fixed to be $\pi$ irrespective of the mismatch between spin-split
Fermi surfaces. The ground-state $\pi$ order corresponds to $\eta$-pair
condensate predicted by Yang [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{63}, 2144 (1989)].
Taking account of the effects of harmonic traps, we confirm that the
$\eta$-pair state distinctly emerges at the center of the trap potential
surrounded by perfectly-polarized states even in the trapped cases.


title:
Incorporating Pass-Phrase Dependent Background Models for Text-Dependent
  Speaker Verification

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose pass-phrase dependent background models (PBMs) for
text-dependent (TD) speaker verification (SV) to integrate the pass-phrase
identification process into the conventional TD-SV system, where a PBM is
derived from a text-independent background model through adaptation using the
utterances of a particular pass-phrase. During training, pass-phrase specific
target speaker models are derived from the particular PBM using the training
data for the respective target model. While testing, the best PBM is first
selected for the test utterance in the maximum likelihood (ML) sense and the
selected PBM is then used for the log likelihood ratio (LLR) calculation with
respect to the claimant model. The proposed method incorporates the pass-phrase
identification step in the LLR calculation, which is not considered in
conventional standalone TD-SV systems. The performance of the proposed method
is compared to conventional text-independent background model based TD-SV
systems using either Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-universal background model
(UBM) or Hidden Markov model (HMM)-UBM or i-vector paradigms. In addition, we
consider two approaches to build PBMs: speaker-independent and
speaker-dependent. We show that the proposed method significantly reduces the
error rates of text-dependent speaker verification for the non-target types:
target-wrong and imposter-wrong while it maintains comparable TD-SV performance
when imposters speak a correct utterance with respect to the conventional
system. Experiments are conducted on the RedDots challenge and the RSR2015
databases that consist of short utterances.


title:
The 3D Kasteleyn transition in dipolar spin ice: a numerical study with
  the Conserved Monopoles Algorithm

abstract:
  We study the three-dimensional Kasteleyn transition in both nearest
neighbours and dipolar spin ice models using an algorithm that conserves the
number of excitations. We first limit the interactions range to nearest
neighbours to test the method in the presence of a field applied along $[100]$,
and then focus on the dipolar spin ice model. The effect of dipolar
interactions, which is known to be greatly self screened at zero field, is
particularly strong near full polarization. It shifts the Kasteleyn transition
to lower temperatures, which decreases $\approx 0.4 K$ for the parameters
corresponding to the best known spin ice materials, $Dy_2Ti_2O_7$ and
$Ho_2Ti_2O_7$. This shift implies effective dipolar fields as big as $0.05$
tesla opposing the applied field, and thus favoring the creation of "strings"
of reversed spins. We compare the reduction in the transition temperature with
results in previous experiments, and study the phenomenon quantitatively using
a simple molecular field approach. Finally, we relate the presence of the
effective residual field to the appearance of string-ordered phases at low
fields and temperatures, and we check numerically that for fields applied along
$[100]$ there are only three different stable phases at zero temperature.


title:
Charge Carrier Dynamics of Methylammonium Lead-Iodide Perovskite Solar
  Cells

abstract:
  Transient opto-electrical measurements of methylammonium lead iodide (MALI)
perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are performed and analyzed in order to elucidate
the operating mechanisms. The current response to a light pulse or voltage
pulse shows an extraordinarily broad dynamic range covering 9 orders of
magnitude in time - from microseconds to minutes - until steady-state is
reached. Evidence of a slowly changing charge density at the perovskite layer
boundaries is found, which is most probably caused by mobile ions.
Current-voltage curves (IV curves) are measured with very fast scan-rate after
keeping the cell for several seconds at a constant voltage as proposed by Tress
et al. Numerical drift-diffusion simulations reproduce the measured IV curves
using different distributions of ions in the model. Analysing the band diagram
of the simulation result sheds light on the operating mechanism. To further
investigate the effects at short time scales (below milliseconds)
photo-generated charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage (photo-CELIV)
experiments are performed. We postulate that mobility imbalance in combination
with deep hole trapping leads to dynamic doping causing effects from
microseconds to milliseconds. Comprehensive transient drift-diffusion
simulations of the photo-CELIV experiments strengthen this hypothesis. This
advanced characterization approach combining dynamic response measurements and
numerical simulations represents a key step on the way to a comprehensive
understanding of device working mechanisms in emerging perovskite solar cells.


title: Conservative Contextual Linear Bandits

abstract:
  Safety is a desirable property that can immensely increase the applicability
of learning algorithms in real-world decision-making problems. It is much
easier for a company to deploy an algorithm that is safe, i.e., guaranteed to
perform at least as well as a baseline. In this paper, we study the issue of
safety in contextual linear bandits that have application in many different
fields including personalized ad recommendation in online marketing. We
formulate a notion of safety for this class of algorithms. We develop a safe
contextual linear bandit algorithm, called conservative linear UCB (CLUCB),
that simultaneously minimizes its regret and satisfies the safety constraint,
i.e., maintains its performance above a fixed percentage of the performance of
a baseline strategy, uniformly over time. We prove an upper-bound on the regret
of CLUCB and show that it can be decomposed into two terms: 1) an upper-bound
for the regret of the standard linear UCB algorithm that grows with the time
horizon and 2) a constant (does not grow with the time horizon) term that
accounts for the loss of being conservative in order to satisfy the safety
constraint. We empirically show that our algorithm is safe and validate our
theoretical analysis.


title: Rescaling Algorithms for Linear Conic Feasibility

abstract:
  We propose simple polynomial-time algorithms for two linear conic feasibility
problems. For a matrix $A\in \mathbb{R}^{m\times n}$, the kernel problem
requires a positive vector in the kernel of $A$, and the image problem requires
a positive vector in the image of $A^\top$. Both algorithms iterate between
simple first order steps and rescaling steps. These rescalings improve natural
geometric potentials. If Goffin's condition measure $\rho_A$ is negative, then
the kernel problem is feasible and the worst-case complexity of the kernel
algorithm is $O\left((m^3n+mn^2)\log{|\rho_A|^{-1}}\right)$; if $\rho_A>0$,
then the image problem is feasible and the image algorithm runs in time
$O\left(m^2n^2\log{\rho_A^{-1}}\right)$. We also extend the image algorithm to
the oracle setting.
  We address the degenerate case $\rho_A=0$ by extending our algorithms to find
maximum support nonnegative vectors in the kernel of $A$ and in the image of
$A^\top$. In this case the running time bounds are expressed in the bit-size
model of computation: for an input matrix $A$ with integer entries and total
encoding length $L$, the maximum support kernel algorithm runs in time
$O\left((m^3n+mn^2)L\right)$, while the maximum support image algorithm runs in
time $O\left(m^2n^2L\right)$. The standard linear programming feasibility
problem can be easily reduced to either maximum support problems, yielding
polynomial-time algorithms for Linear Programming.


title: Conjugacy growth series for finitary wreath products

abstract:
  We examine the conjugacy growth series of all wreath products of the finitary
permutation groups $\text{Sym}(X)$ and $\text{Alt}(X)$ for an infinite set $X$.
We determine their asymptotics, and we characterize the limiting behavior
between the $\text{Alt}(X)$ and $\text{Sym}(X)$ wreath products. In particular,
their ratios form a limit if and only if the dimension of the symmetric wreath
product is twice the dimension of the alternating wreath product.


title: Periodical Plasma Structures Controlled by Oblique Magnetic Field

abstract:
  The propulsion type plasma in oblique external magnetic field is studied in
2D3V PIC MCC simulations. A periodical structure with maxima of electron and
ion densities appears with an increase of an obliqueness of magnetic field.
These ridges of electron and ion densities are aligned with the magnetic field
vector and shifted relative each other. As a result the two-dimensional
double-layers structure forms in cylindrical plasma chamber. The ion and
electron currents on the side wall are essential modulated by the oblique
magnetic field.


title:
Semi-Supervised Learning with Context-Conditional Generative Adversarial
  Networks

abstract:
  We introduce a simple semi-supervised learning approach for images based on
in-painting using an adversarial loss. Images with random patches removed are
presented to a generator whose task is to fill in the hole, based on the
surrounding pixels. The in-painted images are then presented to a discriminator
network that judges if they are real (unaltered training images) or not. This
task acts as a regularizer for standard supervised training of the
discriminator. Using our approach we are able to directly train large VGG-style
networks in a semi-supervised fashion. We evaluate on STL-10 and PASCAL
datasets, where our approach obtains performance comparable or superior to
existing methods.


title: Improved a priori bounds for thermal fluid equations

abstract:
  We consider two hydrodynamic model problems (one incompressible and one
compressible) with three dimensional fluid flow on the torus and
temperature-dependent viscosity and conductivity. The ambient heat for the
fluid is transported by the flow and fed by the local energy dissipation,
modeling the transfer of kinetic energy into thermal energy through fluid
friction. Both the viscosity and conductivity grow with the local temperature.
We prove a strong a priori bound on the enstrophy of the velocity weighed
against the temperature for initial data of arbitrary size, requiring only that
the conductivity be proportionately larger than the viscosity (and, in the
incompressible case, a bound on the temperature as a Muckenhoupt weight).


title:
Estimation of the magnetic flux emergence rate in the quiet Sun from
  Sunrise data

abstract:
  Small-scale internetwork (IN) features are thought to be the major source of
fresh magnetic flux in the quiet Sun. During its first science flight in 2009,
the balloon-borne observatory Sunrise captured images of the magnetic fields in
the quiet Sun at a high spatial resolution. Using these data we measure the
rate at which the IN features bring magnetic flux to the solar surface. In a
previous paper it was found that the lowest magnetic flux in small-scale
features detected using the Sunrise observations is 9 x 10^14 Mx. This is
nearly an order of magnitude smaller than the smallest fluxes of features
detected in observations from the Hinode satellite. In this paper, we compute
the flux emergence rate (FER) by accounting for such small fluxes, which was
not possible before Sunrise. By tracking the features with fluxes in the range
10^15-10^18 Mx, we measure an FER of 1100 Mx cm^-2 day^-1. The smaller features
with fluxes less than or equal to 10^16 Mx are found to be the dominant
contributors to the solar magnetic flux. The FER found here is an order of
magnitude higher than the rate from Hinode, obtained with a similar feature
tracking technique. A wider comparison with the literature shows, however, that
the exact technique of determining the rate of the appearance of new flux can
lead to results that differ by up to two orders of magnitude, even when applied
to similar data. The causes of this discrepancy are discussed and first
qualitative explanations proposed.


title:
The Havriliak-Negami relaxation and its relatives: the response,
  relaxation and probability density functions

abstract:
  We study functions related to the experimentally observed Havriliak-Negami
dielectric relaxation pattern in the frequency domain
$\sim[1+(i\omega\tau_{0})^{\alpha}]^{-\beta}$ with $\tau_{0}$ being some
characteristic time. For $\alpha = l/k< 1$ ($l$ and $k$ positive integers) and
$\beta > 0$ we furnish exact and explicit expressions for response and
relaxation functions in the time domain and suitable probability densities in
their "dual" domain. All these functions are expressed as finite sums of
generalized hypergeometric functions, convenient to handle analytically and
numerically. Introducing a reparameterization $\beta = (2-q)/(q-1)$ and
$\tau_{0} = (q-1)^{1/\alpha}$ $(1 < q < 2)$ we show that for $0 < \alpha < 1$
the response functions $f_{\alpha, \beta}(t/\tau_{0})$ go to the one-sided
L\'{e}vy stable distributions when $q$ tends to one. Moreover, applying the
self-similarity property of the probability densities $g_{\alpha, \beta}(u)$,
we introduce two-variable densities and show that they satisfy the integral
form of the evolution equation.


title:
Linear-Quadratic Optimal Control Problems for Mean-Field Backward
  Stochastic Differential Equations with Jumps

abstract:
  This paper is concerned with a linear quadratic (LQ, for short) optimal
control problem for mean-field backward stochastic differential equations
(MF-BSDE, for short) driven by a Poisson random martingale measure and a
Brownian motion. Firstly, by the classic convex variation principle, the
existence and uniqueness of the optimal control is established. Secondly, the
optimal control is characterized by the stochastic Hamilton system which turns
out to be a linear fully coupled mean-field forward-backward stochastic
differential equation with jumps by the duality method. Thirdly, in terms of a
decoupling technique, the stochastic Hamilton system is decoupled by
introducing two Riccati equations and a MF-BSDE with jumps. Then an explicit
representation for the optimal control is obtained.


title: Shape of a slowly rotating star measured by asteroseismology

abstract:
  Stars are not perfectly spherically symmetric. They are deformed by rotation
and magnetic fields. Until now, the study of stellar shapes has only been
possible with optical interferometry for a few of the fastest-rotating nearby
stars. We report an asteroseismic measurement, with much better precision than
interferometry, of the asphericity of an A-type star with a rotation period of
100 days. Using the fact that different modes of oscillation probe different
stellar latitudes, we infer a tiny but significant flattening of the star's
shape of $\Delta R/R = (1.8 \pm 0.6) \times 10^{-6}$. For a stellar radius $R$
that is $2.24$ times the solar radius, the difference in radius between the
equator and the poles is $\Delta R = 3 \pm 1$ km. Because the observed $\Delta
R/R$ is only one-third of the expected rotational oblateness, we conjecture the
presence of a weak magnetic field on a star that does not have an extended
convective envelope. This calls to question the origin of the magnetic field.


title:
Geometrically exact beam elements and smooth contact schemes for the
  modeling of fiber-based materials and structures

abstract:
  Recently, the authors have proposed a novel all-angle beam contact (ABC)
formulation that combines the advantages of existing point and line contact
models in a variationally consistent manner. However, the ABC formulation has
so far only been applied in combination with a special torsion-free beam model,
which yields a very simple and efficient finite element formulation, but which
is restricted to initially straight beams with isotropic cross-sections. In
order to abstain from these restrictions, the current work combines the ABC
formulation with a geometrically exact Kirchhoff-Love beam element formulation
that is capable of treating even the most general cases of slender beam
problems in terms of initial geometry and external loads. While the neglect of
shear deformation that is inherent to this formulation has been shown to
provide considerable numerical advantages in the range of high beam slenderness
ratios, alternative shear-deformable beam models are required for examples with
thick beams. The current contribution additionally proposes a novel
geometrically exact beam element based on the Simo-Reissner theory. Similar to
the torsion-free and the Kirchhoff-Love beam elements, also this Simo-Reissner
element is based on a C1-continuous Hermite interpolation of the beam
centerline, which will allow for smooth contact kinematics. For this Hermitian
Simo-Reissner element, a consistent spatial convergence behavior as well as the
successful avoidance of membrane and shear locking will be demonstrated
numerically. All in all, the combination of the ABC formulation with these
different beam element variants (i.e.~the torsion-free element, the
Kirchhoff-Love element and the Simo-Reissner element) results in a very
flexible and modular simulation framework that allows to choose the optimal
element formulation for any given application in terms of accuracy, efficiency
and robustness.


title: Fast forward to the classical adiabatic invariant

abstract:
  We show how the classical action, an adiabatic invariant, can be preserved
under non-adiabatic conditions. Specifically, for a time-dependent Hamiltonian
$H = p^2/2m + U(q,t)$ in one degree of freedom, and for an arbitrary choice of
action $I_0$, we construct a "fast-forward" potential energy function $V_{\rm
FF}(q,t)$ that, when added to $H$, guides all trajectories with initial action
$I_0$ to end with the same value of action. We use this result to construct a
local dynamical invariant $J(q,p,t)$ whose value remains constant along these
trajectories. We illustrate our results with numerical simulations. Finally, we
sketch how our classical results may be used to design approximate quantum
shortcuts to adiabaticity.


title:
$\omega^\omega$-Dominated function spaces and $\omega^\omega$-bases in
  free objects of Topological Algebra

abstract:
  A topological space $X$ is defined to have an $\omega^\omega$-base if at each
point $x\in X$ the space $X$ has a neighborhood base
$(U_\alpha[x])_{\alpha\in\omega^\omega}$ such that $U_\beta[x]\subset
U_\alpha[x]$ for all $\alpha\le\beta$ in $\omega^\omega$. We characterize
topological and uniform spaces whose free (locally convex) topological vector
spaces or free (Abelian or Boolean) topological groups have
$\omega^\omega$-bases.


title:
A Survey of Credit Card Fraud Detection Techniques: Data and Technique
  Oriented Perspective

abstract:
  Credit card plays a very important rule in today's economy. It becomes an
unavoidable part of household, business and global activities. Although using
credit cards provides enormous benefits when used carefully and
responsibly,significant credit and financial damages may be caused by
fraudulent activities. Many techniques have been proposed to confront the
growth in credit card fraud. However, all of these techniques have the same
goal of avoiding the credit card fraud; each one has its own drawbacks,
advantages and characteristics. In this paper, after investigating difficulties
of credit card fraud detection, we seek to review the state of the art in
credit card fraud detection techniques, data sets and evaluation criteria.The
advantages and disadvantages of fraud detection methods are enumerated and
compared.Furthermore, a classification of mentioned techniques into two main
fraud detection approaches, namely, misuses (supervised) and anomaly detection
(unsupervised) is presented. Again, a classification of techniques is proposed
based on capability to process the numerical and categorical data sets.
Different data sets used in literature are then described and grouped into real
and synthesized data and the effective and common attributes are extracted for
further usage.Moreover, evaluation employed criterions in literature are
collected and discussed.Consequently, open issues for credit card fraud
detection are explained as guidelines for new researchers.


title: Pruning Convolutional Neural Networks for Resource Efficient Inference

abstract:
  We propose a new formulation for pruning convolutional kernels in neural
networks to enable efficient inference. We interleave greedy criteria-based
pruning with fine-tuning by backpropagation - a computationally efficient
procedure that maintains good generalization in the pruned network. We propose
a new criterion based on Taylor expansion that approximates the change in the
cost function induced by pruning network parameters. We focus on transfer
learning, where large pretrained networks are adapted to specialized tasks. The
proposed criterion demonstrates superior performance compared to other
criteria, e.g. the norm of kernel weights or feature map activation, for
pruning large CNNs after adaptation to fine-grained classification tasks
(Birds-200 and Flowers-102) relaying only on the first order gradient
information. We also show that pruning can lead to more than 10x theoretical
(5x practical) reduction in adapted 3D-convolutional filters with a small drop
in accuracy in a recurrent gesture classifier. Finally, we show results for the
large-scale ImageNet dataset to emphasize the flexibility of our approach.


title: The corank of a rectangular random integer matrix

abstract:
  We show that under reasonable conditions, a random $n\times (2+\epsilon) n$
integer matrix is surjective on $\mathbb{Z}^{n}$ with probability
$1-O(e^{-cn})$. We also conjecture that this should hold for $n\times
(1+\epsilon)n$, and provide a counterexample to show that our "reasonableness"
conditions are necessary.


title:
Holographic entanglement entropies for Schwarzschild and
  Reisner-Nordstr\"om black holes in asymptotically Minkowski spacetimes

abstract:
  The holographic entanglement entropies (HEE) associated with four dimensional
Schwarzschild and Reisner-Nordstr\"om black holes in asymptotically Minkowski
spacetimes are investigated. Unlike the cases of asymptotically AdS spacetimes
for which the boundaries are always taken at (timelike) conformal infinities,
we take the boundaries at either large but finite radial coordinate (far
boundary) or very close to the black hole event horizons (near horizon
boundary). The reason for such choices is that such boundaries are similar to
the conformal infinity of AdS spacetime in that they are all timelike, so that
there may be some hope to define dual systems with ordinary time evolution on
such boundaries. Our results indicate that, in the case of far boundaries, the
leading order contribution to the HEEs come from the background Minkowski
spacetime, however, the next to leading order contribution which arises from
the presence of the black holes is always proportional to the black hole mass,
which constitutes a version of the first law of the HEE for asymptotically flat
spacetimes, and the higher order contributions are always negligibly small. In
the case of near horizon boundaries, the leading order contribution to the HEE
is always proportional to the area of the black hole event horizon, and the
case of extremal RN black hole is distinguished from the cases of non-extremal
black holes in that the minimal surface defining the HEE is completely immersed
inside the boundary up to the second order in the perturbative expansion.


title: Spectrum Sharing Radar: Coexistence via Xampling

abstract:
  This paper presents a spectrum sharing technology enabling interference-free
operation of a surveillance radar and communication transmissions over a common
spectrum. A cognitive radio receiver senses the spectrum using low sampling and
processing rates. The radar is a cognitive system that employs a Xampling-based
receiver and transmits in several narrow bands. Our main contribution is the
alliance of two previous ideas, CRo and cognitive radar (CRr), and their
adaptation to solve the spectrum sharing problem.


title: Sandpile groups and the coeulerian property for random directed graphs

abstract:
  We consider random directed graphs, and calculate the distribution of the
cokernels of their laplacian, following the methods used by Wood. As a
corollary, we show that the probability that a random digraph is coeulerian is
asymptotically upper bounded by a constant around $0.43$.


title: Observation of Spatial Quantum Correlations in the Macroscopic Regime

abstract:
  Spatial quantum correlations in the transverse degree of freedom promise to
enhance optical resolution, image detection, and quantum communications through
parallel quantum information encoding. In particular, the ability to observe
these spatial quantum correlations in a single shot will enable such
enhancements in applications that require real time imaging, such as particle
tracking and in-situ imaging of atomic systems. Here, we report on measurements
in the far-field that show spatial quantum correlations in single images of
bright twin-beams with $10^8$ photons in a 1~$\mu$s pulse using an
electron-multiplying charge-coupled device camera. A four-wave mixing process
in hot rubidium atoms is used to generate narrowband-bright pulsed twin-beams
of light. Owing to momentum conservation in this process, the twin-beams are
momentum correlated, which leads to spatial quantum correlations in the far
field. We show around 2~dB of spatial quantum noise reduction with respect to
the shot noise limit. The spatial squeezing is present over a large range of
total number of photons in the pulsed twin-beams.


title: Internal Zonotopal Algebras and the Monomial Reflection Groups

abstract:
  The group $G(m,1,n)$ consists of $n$-by-$n$ monomial matrices whose entries
are $m$th roots of unity. It is generated by $n$ complex reflections acting on
$\mathbf{C}^n$. The reflecting hyperplanes give rise to a (hyperplane)
arrangement $\mathcal{G} \subset \mathbf{C}^n$. The internal zonotopal algebra
of an arrangement is a finite dimensional algebra first studied by Holtz and
Ron. Its dimension is the number of bases of the associated matroid with zero
internal activity. In this paper we study the structure of the internal
zonotopal algebra of the Gale dual of the reflection arrangement of $G(m,1,n)$,
as a representation of this group. Our main result is a formula for the top
degree component as an induced character from the cyclic group generated by a
Coxeter element. We also provide results on representation stability, a
connection to the Whitehouse representation in type~A, and an analog of
decreasing trees in type~B.


title: Constructive Simulation and Topological Design of Protocols

abstract:
  We give a topological simulation for tensor networks that we call the
two-string model. In this approach we give a new way to design protocols, and
we discover a new multipartite quantum communication protocol. We introduce the
notion of topologically-compressed transformations. Our new protocol can
implement multiple, non-local compressed transformations among multi-parties
using one multipartite resource state.


title:
PsyPhy: A Psychophysics Driven Evaluation Framework for Visual
  Recognition

abstract:
  By providing substantial amounts of data and standardized evaluation
protocols, datasets in computer vision have helped fuel advances across all
areas of visual recognition. But even in light of breakthrough results on
recent benchmarks, it is still fair to ask if our recognition algorithms are
doing as well as we think they are. The vision sciences at large make use of a
very different evaluation regime known as Visual Psychophysics to study visual
perception. Psychophysics is the quantitative examination of the relationships
between controlled stimuli and the behavioral responses they elicit in
experimental test subjects. Instead of using summary statistics to gauge
performance, psychophysics directs us to construct item-response curves made up
of individual stimulus responses to find perceptual thresholds, thus allowing
one to identify the exact point at which a subject can no longer reliably
recognize the stimulus class. In this article, we introduce a comprehensive
evaluation framework for visual recognition models that is underpinned by this
methodology. Over millions of procedurally rendered 3D scenes and 2D images, we
compare the performance of well-known convolutional neural networks. Our
results bring into question recent claims of human-like performance, and
provide a path forward for correcting newly surfaced algorithmic deficiencies.


title: Drinfeld realisations of quantum affine superalgebras

abstract:
  We construct Drinfeld realisations for the quantum affine superalgebras
associated with the osp(1|2n)^{(1)}, Sl(1|2n)^{(2)} and osp(2|2n)^{(2)} series
of affine Lie superalgebras.


title: Imprimitive Permutations in Primitive Groups

abstract:
  The goal of this paper is to study primitive groups that are contained in the
union of maximal (in the symmetric group) imprimitive groups. The study of
types of permutations that appear inside primitive groups goes back to the
origins of the theory of permutation groups. However, this is another instance
of a situation common in mathematics in which a very natural problem turns out
to be extremely difficult. Fortunately, the enormous progresses of the last few
decades seem to allow a new momentum on the attack to this problem. In this
paper we prove that there are infinite families of primitive groups contained
in the union of imprimitive groups and propose a new hierarchy for primitive
groups based on that fact. In addition to the previous results and hierarchy,
we introduce some algorithms to handle permutations, provide the corresponding
GAP implementation, solve some open problems, and propose a large list of open
problems.


title:
Constraints on the Progenitor of SN 2016gkg From Its Shock-Cooling Light
  Curve

abstract:
  SN 2016gkg is a nearby Type IIb supernova discovered shortly after explosion.
Like several other Type IIb events with early-time data, SN 2016gkg displays a
double-peaked light curve, with the first peak associated with the cooling of a
low-mass extended progenitor envelope. We present unprecedented
intranight-cadence multi-band photometric coverage of the first light-curve
peak of SN 2016gkg obtained from the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
network, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, the Swift satellite
and various amateur-operated telescopes. Fitting these data to analytical
shock-cooling models gives a progenitor radius of ~25-140 solar radii with
~2-30 x 10^-2 solar masses of material in the extended envelope (depending on
the model and the assumed host-galaxy extinction). Our radius estimates are
broadly consistent with values derived independently (in other works) from HST
imaging of the progenitor star. However, the shock-cooling model radii are on
the lower end of the values indicated by pre-explosion imaging. Hydrodynamical
simulations could refine the progenitor parameters deduced from the
shock-cooling emission and test the analytical models.


title: Model reduction for calibration of American options

abstract:
  American put options are among the most frequently traded single stock
options, and their calibration is computationally challenging since no
closed-form expression is available. Due to the higher flexibility in
comparison to European options, the mathematical model involves additional
constraints, and a variational inequality is obtained. We use the Heston
stochastic volatility model to describe the price of a single stock option. In
order to speed up the calibration process, we apply two model reduction
strategies. Firstly, a reduced basis method (RBM) is used to define a suitable
low-dimensional basis for the numerical approximation of the
parameter-dependent partial differential equation ($\mu$PDE) model. By doing so
the computational complexity for solving the $\mu$PDE is drastically reduced,
and applications of standard minimization algorithms for the calibration are
significantly faster than working with a high-dimensional finite element basis.
Secondly, so-called de-Americanization strategies are applied. Here, the main
idea is to reformulate the calibration problem for American options as a
problem for European options and to exploit closed-form solutions. Both
reduction techniques are systematically compared and tested for both synthetic
and market data sets.


title: Fast Video Classification via Adaptive Cascading of Deep Models

abstract:
  Recent advances have enabled "oracle" classifiers that can classify across
many classes and input distributions with high accuracy without retraining.
However, these classifiers are relatively heavyweight, so that applying them to
classify video is costly. We show that day-to-day video exhibits highly skewed
class distributions over the short term, and that these distributions can be
classified by much simpler models. We formulate the problem of detecting the
short-term skews online and exploiting models based on it as a new sequential
decision making problem dubbed the Online Bandit Problem, and present a new
algorithm to solve it. When applied to recognizing faces in TV shows and
movies, we realize end-to-end classification speedups of 2.4-7.8x/2.6-11.2x (on
GPU/CPU) relative to a state-of-the-art convolutional neural network, at
competitive accuracy.


title: Degenerations of Zinbiel and nilpotent Leibniz algebras

abstract:
  We describe degenerations of four-dimensional Zinbiel and four-dimensional
nilpotent Leibniz algebras over C. In particular, we describe all irreducible
components in the corresponding varieties.


title:
Time Series Classification from Scratch with Deep Neural Networks: A
  Strong Baseline

abstract:
  We propose a simple but strong baseline for time series classification from
scratch with deep neural networks. Our proposed baseline models are pure
end-to-end without any heavy preprocessing on the raw data or feature crafting.
The proposed Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) achieves premium performance to
other state-of-the-art approaches and our exploration of the very deep neural
networks with the ResNet structure is also competitive. The global average
pooling in our convolutional model enables the exploitation of the Class
Activation Map (CAM) to find out the contributing region in the raw data for
the specific labels. Our models provides a simple choice for the real world
application and a good starting point for the future research. An overall
analysis is provided to discuss the generalization capability of our models,
learned features, network structures and the classification semantics.


title:
Crystal Nucleation in Liquids: Open Questions and Future Challenges in
  Molecular Dynamics Simulations

abstract:
  The nucleation of crystals in liquids is one of nature's most ubiquitous
phenomena, playing an important role in areas such as climate change and the
production of drugs. As the early stages of nucleation involve exceedingly
small time and length scales, atomistic computer simulations can provide unique
insight into the microscopic aspects of crystallization. In this review, we
take stock of the numerous molecular dynamics simulations that in the last few
decades have unraveled crucial aspects of crystal nucleation in liquids. We put
into context the theoretical framework of classical nucleation theory and the
state of the art computational methods, by reviewing simulations of e.g. ice
nucleation or crystallization of molecules in solutions. We shall see that
molecular dynamics simulations have provided key insight into diverse
nucleation scenarios, ranging from colloidal particles to natural gas hydrates,
and that in doing so the general applicability of classical nucleation theory
has been repeatedly called into question. We have attempted to identify the
most pressing open questions in the field. We believe that by improving (i.)
existing interatomic potentials; and (ii.) currently available enhanced
sampling methods, the community can move towards accurate investigations of
realistic systems of practical interest, thus bringing simulations a step
closer to experiments.


title: High Performance Atomically Thin Flat Lenses

abstract:
  We experimentally demonstrate ultrathin flat lenses with a thickness of 7
{\AA}, which corresponds to the fundamental physical limit of the thickness of
the material, is fabricated in a large area, monolayer, CVD-prepared tungsten
chalcogenides single crystals using the low-cost flexible laser writing method.
The lenses apply the ultra-high refractive index to introduce abrupt amplitude
modulation of the incident light to achieve three-dimensional (3D) focusing
diffraction-limited resolution (0.5{\lambda}) and a focusing efficiency as high
as 31%. An analytical physical model based diffraction theory is derived to
simulate the focusing process, which shows excellent agreement with the
experimental results.


title: A Class of Two-Weight and Three-Weight Linear Codes and Their Duals

abstract:
  The objective of this paper is to construct a class of linear codes with two
nonzero weights and three nonzero weights by using the general trace functions,
which weight distributions has been determined. These linear codes contain some
optimal codes, which meets certain bound on linear codes. The dual codes are
also studied and proved to be optimal or almost optimal. These codes may have
applications in authentication codes, secret sharing schemes and strongly
regular graphs.


title: Gendered Conversation in a Social Game-Streaming Platform

abstract:
  Online social media and games are increasingly replacing offline social
activities. Social media is now an indispensable mode of communication; online
gaming is not only a genuine social activity but also a popular spectator
sport. With support for anonymity and larger audiences, online interaction
shrinks social and geographical barriers. Despite such benefits, social
disparities such as gender inequality persist in online social media. In
particular, online gaming communities have been criticized for persistent
gender disparities and objectification. As gaming evolves into a social
platform, persistence of gender disparity is a pressing question. Yet, there
are few large-scale, systematic studies of gender inequality and
objectification in social gaming platforms. Here we analyze more than one
billion chat messages from Twitch, a social game-streaming platform, to study
how the gender of streamers is associated with the nature of conversation.
Using a combination of computational text analysis methods, we show that
gendered conversation and objectification is prevalent in chats. Female
streamers receive significantly more objectifying comments while male streamers
receive more game-related comments. This difference is more pronounced for
popular streamers. There also exists a large number of users who post only on
female or male streams. Employing a neural vector-space embedding (paragraph
vector) method, we analyze gendered chat messages and create prediction models
that (i) identify the gender of streamers based on messages posted in the
channel and (ii) identify the gender a viewer prefers to watch based on their
chat messages. Our findings suggest that disparities in social game-streaming
platforms is a nuanced phenomenon that involves the gender of streamers as well
as those who produce gendered and game-related conversation.


title: On fault tolerance of (n,k)-star networks

abstract:
  Fault tolerance of an $(n,k)$-star network is measured by its $h$-super
connectivity $\kappa_s^{(h)}$ or $h$-super edge-connectivity $\lambda_s^{(h)}$.
Li {\it et al.} [Appl. Math. Comput. 248 (2014), 525-530; Math. Sci. Lett. 1
(2012), 133-138] determined $\kappa_s^{(h)}$ and $\lambda_s^{(h)}$ for $0\leq
h\leq n-k$. This paper determines
$\kappa_s^{(h)}=\lambda_s^{(h)}=\frac{(h+1)!(n-h-1)}{(n-k)!}$ for $n-k\leq h
\leq n-2$.


title:
On the ongoing experiments looking for higher-order interference: What
  are they really testing?

abstract:
  The existence of higher than pairwise quantum interference in the set-up, in
which there are more than two slits, is currently under experimental
investigation. However, it is still unclear what the confirmation of existence
of such interference would mean for quantum theory -- whether that usual
quantum mechanics is merely a limiting case of some more general theory or
whether that some assumption of quantum theory taken as a fundamental one does
not actually hold true. The present paper tries to understand why quantum
theory is limited only to a certain kind of interference.


title:
Matrix Functions of Bounded Type: An Interplay Between Function Theory
  and Operator Theory

abstract:
  In this paper, we study matrix functions of bounded type from the viewpoint
of describing an interplay between function theory and operator theory. \ We
first establish a criterion on the coprime-ness of two singular inner functions
and obtain several properties of the Douglas-Shapiro-Shields factorizations of
matrix functions of bounded type. \ We propose a new notion of tensored-scalar
singularity, and then answer questions on Hankel operators with matrix-valued
bounded type symbols. \ We also examine an interpolation problem related to a
certain functional equation on matrix functions of bounded type; this can be
seen as an extension of the classical Hermite-Fej\' er Interpolation Problem
for matrix rational functions. \ We then extend the $H^\infty$-functional
calculus to an $\overline{H^\infty}+H^\infty$-functional calculus for the
compressions of the shift. \ Next, we consider the subnormality of Toeplitz
operators with matrix-valued bounded type symbols and, in particular, the
matrix-valued version of Halmos's Problem 5; we then establish a matrix-valued
version of Abrahamse's Theorem. \ We also solve a subnormal Toeplitz completion
problem of $2\times 2$ partial block Toeplitz matrices. \ Further, we establish
a characterization of hyponormal Toeplitz pairs with matrix-valued bounded type
symbols, and then derive rank formulae for the self-commutators of hyponormal
Toeplitz pairs.


title:
Migration of Planets Into and Out of Mean Motion Resonances in
  Protoplanetary Disks: Analytical Theory of Second-Order Resonances

abstract:
  Recent observations of Kepler multi-planet systems have revealed a number of
systems with planets very close to second-order mean motion resonances (MMRs,
with period ratio $1:3$, $3:5$, etc.) We present an analytic study of resonance
capture and its stability for planets migrating in gaseous disks. Resonance
capture requires slow convergent migration of the planets, with sufficiently
large eccentricity damping timescale $T_e$ and small pre-resonance
eccentricities. We quantify these requirements and find that they can be
satisfied for super-Earths under protoplanetary disk conditions. For planets
captured into resonance, an equilibrium state can be reached, in which
eccentricity excitation due to resonant planet-planet interaction balances
eccentricity damping due to planet-disk interaction. We show that this
"captured" equilibrium can be overstable, leading to partial or permanent
escape of the planets from the resonance. In general, the stability of the
captured state depends on the inner to outer planet mass ratio $q=m_1/m_2$ and
the ratio of the eccentricity damping times. The overstability growth time is
of order $T_e$, but can be much larger for systems close to the stability
threshold. For low-mass planets undergoing type I (non-gap opening) migration,
convergent migration requires $q \lesssim 1$, while the stability of the
capture requires $q\gtrsim 1$. These results suggest that planet pairs stably
captured into second-order MMRs have comparable masses. This is in contrast to
first-order MMRs, where a larger parameter space exists for stable resonance
capture. We confirm and extend our analytical results with $N$-body
simulations, and show that for overstable capture, the escape time from the MMR
can be comparable to the time the planets spend migrating between resonances.


title: Morphology-based query for galaxy image databases

abstract:
  Galaxies of rare morphology are of paramount scientific interest, as they
carry important information about the past, present, and future universe. Once
a rare galaxy is identified, studying it more effectively requires a set of
galaxies of similar morphology, allowing generalization and statistical
analysis that cannot be done when $N=1$. Databases generated by digital sky
surveys can contain a very large number of galaxy images, and therefore once a
rare galaxy of interest is identified it is possible that more instances of the
same morphology are also present in the database. However, when a researcher
identifies a certain galaxy of rare morphology in the database, it is virtually
impossible to mine the database manually in the search for galaxies of similar
morphology. Here we propose a computer method that can automatically search
databases of galaxy images and identify galaxies that are morphologically
similar to a certain user-defined query galaxy. That is, the researcher
provides an image of a galaxy of interest, and the pattern recognition system
automatically returns a list of galaxies that are visually similar to the
target galaxy. The algorithm uses a comprehensive set of descriptors, allowing
it to support different types of galaxies, and it is not limited to a finite
set of known morphology. While the list of returned galaxies is neither clean
nor complete, it contains a far higher frequency of galaxies of the morphology
of interest, providing a substantial reduction of the data. Such algorithms can
be integrated into data management systems of autonomous digital sky surveys
such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), where the number of
galaxies in the database is extremely large. The source code of the method is
available at http://vfacstaff.ltu.edu/lshamir/downloads/udat.


title:
Photometric asymmetry between clockwise and counterclockwise spiral
  galaxies in SDSS

abstract:
  While galaxies with clockwise and counterclockwise handedness are visually
different, they are expected to be symmetric in all of their other
characteristics. Previous experiments using both manual analysis and machine
vision have shown that the handedness of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
galaxies can be predicted with accuracy significantly higher than mere chance
using its photometric data alone, showing that SDSS photometry pipeline is
sensitive to the handedness of the galaxy. However, some of these previous
experiments were based on manually classified galaxies, and the results may
therefore be subjected to bias originated from the human perception. This paper
describes an experiment based on a set of 162,514 celestial objects classified
as clockwise and counterclockwise spiral galaxies in a fully automatic process,
showing that the source of the asymmetry is more than the human perception
bias. The results are compared to two smaller datasets, and confirm the
observation that the handedness of SDSS galaxies can be predicted by their
photometric information, and show that the position angle of counterclockwise
galaxies computed by SDSS photometry pipeline is consistently higher than the
position angle computed for galaxies with clockwise patterns. The experiment
also shows statistically significant differences in the measured magnitude,
according which galaxies with clockwise patterns are brighter than galaxies
with counterclockwise patterns. The magnitude of that difference changes across
RA ranges, and exhibits a strong correlation with the cosine of the right
ascension.


title:
The Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS) I. Trigonometric parallax
  distances and depth of the Ophiuchus complex

abstract:
  We present the first results of the Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS),
a project aimed at measuring the proper motion and trigonometric parallax of a
large sample of young stars in nearby regions using multi-epoch Very Long
Baseline Array (VLBA) radio observations. Enough VLBA detections have now been
obtained for 16 stellar systems in Ophiuchus to derive their parallax and
proper motion. This leads to distance determinations for individual stars with
an accuracy of 0.3 to a few percent. In addition, the orbits of 6 multiple
systems were modelled by combining absolute positions with VLBA (and in some
cases, near infrared) angular separations. Twelve stellar systems are located
in the dark cloud Lynds 1688, the individual distances for this sample are
highly consistent with one another, and yield a mean parallax for Lynds 1688 of
$\varpi=7.28\pm0.06$ mas, corresponding to a distance $d=137.3\pm1.2$ pc. This
represents an accuracy better than 1%. Three systems for which astrometric
elements could be measured are located in the eastern streamer (Lynds 1689) and
yield an estimate of $\varpi=6.79\pm0.16$ mas, corresponding to a distance
$d=147.3\pm3.4$ pc. This suggests that the eastern streamer is located about 10
pc farther than the core, but this conclusion needs to be confirmed by
observations (currently being collected) of additional sources in the eastern
streamer. From the measured proper motions, we estimate the one-dimensional
velocity dispersion in Lynds 1688 to be 2.8$\pm$1.8 and 3.0$\pm$2.0 ${\rm
km~s}^{-1}$, in R.A. and DEC., respectively, these are larger than, but still
consistent within $1\sigma$, with those found in other studies.


title: On The Stability of Video Detection and Tracking

abstract:
  In this paper, we study an important yet less explored aspect in video
detection and tracking -- stability. Surprisingly, there is no prior work that
tried to study it. As a result, we start our work by proposing a novel
evaluation metric for video detection which considers both stability and
accuracy. For accuracy, we extend the existing accuracy metric mean Average
Precision (mAP). For stability, we decompose it into three terms: fragment
error, center position error, scale and ratio error. Each error represents one
aspect of stability. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the stability metric has
low correlation with accuracy metric. Thus, it indeed captures a different
perspective of quality. Lastly, based on this metric, we evaluate several
existing methods for video detection and show how they affect accuracy and
stability. We believe our work can provide guidance and solid baselines for
future researches in the related areas.


title:
Generating machine-executable plans from end-user's natural-language
  instructions

abstract:
  It is critical for advanced manufacturing machines to autonomously execute a
task by following an end-user's natural language (NL) instructions. However, NL
instructions are usually ambiguous and abstract so that the machines may
misunderstand and incorrectly execute the task. To address this NL-based
human-machine communication problem and enable the machines to appropriately
execute tasks by following the end-user's NL instructions, we developed a
Machine-Executable-Plan-Generation (exePlan) method. The exePlan method
conducts task-centered semantic analysis to extract task-related information
from ambiguous NL instructions. In addition, the method specifies machine
execution parameters to generate a machine-executable plan by interpreting
abstract NL instructions. To evaluate the exePlan method, an industrial robot
Baxter was instructed by NL to perform three types of industrial tasks {'drill
a hole', 'clean a spot', 'install a screw'}. The experiment results proved that
the exePlan method was effective in generating machine-executable plans from
the end-user's NL instructions. Such a method has the promise to endow a
machine with the ability of NL-instructed task execution.


title: The discretization problem for continuous frames

abstract:
  We characterize when a coherent state or continuous frame for a Hilbert space
may be sampled to obtain a frame, which solves the discretization problem for
continuous frames. In particular, we prove that every bounded continuous frame
for a Hilbert space may be sampled to obtain a frame.


title:
Bounded orbits of Diagonalizable Flows on finite volume quotients of
  products of $SL_2(\mathbb{R})$

abstract:
  We prove a number field analogue of W. M. Schmidt's conjecture on the
intersection of weighted badly approximable vectors and use this to prove an
instance of a conjecture of An, Guan and Kleinbock. Namely, let $G :=
SL_2(\mathbb{R}) \times \dots \times SL_2(\mathbb{R}) $ and $\Gamma$ be a
lattice in $G$. We show that the set of points on $G/\Gamma$ whose forward
orbits under a one parameter Ad-semisimple subsemigroup of $G$ are bounded,
form a hyperplane absolute winning set.


title: Relative Morse Categorification Theory

abstract:
  In this paper, we define a relative Morse complex for manifold with boundary
using the handlebody decomposition of the manifold. We prove that the homology
of the relative Morse complex is isomorphic to the relative singular homology.
Furthermore, we construct $A_\infty$-category structure on the relative Morse
complex by counting the trajectory trees among the critical points of different
Morse functions. Our result generalizes Fukaya's construction on closed
manifold and Manabu's construction of absolute homology on manifold with
boundary.


title: Real basis functions of polyhedral groups

abstract:
  The basis of the identity representation of a polyhedral group is able to
describe functions with symmetries of a platonic solid, i.e., 3-D objects which
geometrically obey the cubic symmetries. However, to describe the dynamic of
assembles of heterogeneous 3-D structures, a situation that each object lacks
the symmetries but obeys the symmetries on a level of statistics, the basis of
all representations of a group is required. While those 3-D objects are often
transformed to real functions on $L_2$ space, it is desirable to generate a
complete basis on real space. This paper deduces the existence of a basis on
real space for each polyhedral group, and introduces a novel approach to
explicitly compute these real basis functions, of which properties are further
explored.


title: LCNN: Lookup-based Convolutional Neural Network

abstract:
  Porting state of the art deep learning algorithms to resource constrained
compute platforms (e.g. VR, AR, wearables) is extremely challenging. We propose
a fast, compact, and accurate model for convolutional neural networks that
enables efficient learning and inference. We introduce LCNN, a lookup-based
convolutional neural network that encodes convolutions by few lookups to a
dictionary that is trained to cover the space of weights in CNNs. Training LCNN
involves jointly learning a dictionary and a small set of linear combinations.
The size of the dictionary naturally traces a spectrum of trade-offs between
efficiency and accuracy. Our experimental results on ImageNet challenge show
that LCNN can offer 3.2x speedup while achieving 55.1% top-1 accuracy using
AlexNet architecture. Our fastest LCNN offers 37.6x speed up over AlexNet while
maintaining 44.3% top-1 accuracy. LCNN not only offers dramatic speed ups at
inference, but it also enables efficient training. In this paper, we show the
benefits of LCNN in few-shot learning and few-iteration learning, two crucial
aspects of on-device training of deep learning models.


title:
Nazr-CNN: Fine-Grained Classification of UAV Imagery for Damage
  Assessment

abstract:
  We propose Nazr-CNN1, a deep learning pipeline for object detection and
fine-grained classification in images acquired from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
(UAVs) for damage assessment and monitoring. Nazr-CNN consists of two
components. The function of the first component is to localize objects (e.g.
houses or infrastructure) in an image by carrying out a pixel-level
classification. In the second component, a hidden layer of a Convolutional
Neural Network (CNN) is used to encode Fisher Vectors (FV) of the segments
generated from the first component in order to help discriminate between
different levels of damage. To showcase our approach we use data from UAVs that
were deployed to assess the level of damage in the aftermath of a devastating
cyclone that hit the island of Vanuatu in 2015. The collected images were
labeled by a crowdsourcing effort and the labeling categories consisted of
fine-grained levels of damage to built structures. Since our data set is
relatively small, a pre- trained network for pixel-level classification and FV
encoding was used. Nazr-CNN attains promising results both for object detection
and damage assessment suggesting that the integrated pipeline is robust in the
face of small data sets and labeling errors by annotators. While the focus of
Nazr-CNN is on assessment of UAV images in a post-disaster scenario, our
solution is general and can be applied in many diverse settings. We show one
such case of transfer learning to assess the level of damage in aerial images
collected after a typhoon in Philippines.


title: Dealing with Range Anxiety in Mean Estimation via Statistical Queries

abstract:
  We give algorithms for estimating the expectation of a given real-valued
function $\phi:X\to {\bf R}$ on a sample drawn randomly from some unknown
distribution $D$ over domain $X$, namely ${\bf E}_{{\bf x}\sim D}[\phi({\bf
x})]$. Our algorithms work in two well-studied models of restricted access to
data samples. The first one is the statistical query (SQ) model in which an
algorithm has access to an SQ oracle for the input distribution $D$ over $X$
instead of i.i.d. samples from $D$. Given a query function $\phi:X \to [0,1]$,
the oracle returns an estimate of ${\bf E}_{{\bf x}\sim D}[\phi({\bf x})]$
within some tolerance $\tau$. The second, is a model in which only a single bit
is communicated from each sample. In both of these models the error obtained
using a naive implementation would scale polynomially with the range of the
random variable $\phi({\bf x})$ (which might even be infinite). In contrast,
without restrictions on access to data the expected error scales with the
standard deviation of $\phi({\bf x})$. Here we give a simple algorithm whose
error scales linearly in standard deviation of $\phi({\bf x})$ and
logarithmically with an upper bound on the second moment of $\phi({\bf x})$.
  As corollaries, we obtain algorithms for high dimensional mean estimation and
stochastic convex optimization in these models that work in more general
settings than previously known solutions.


title: Orientation Resolution through Rotational Coherence Spectroscopy

abstract:
  The rich information content of measurements in the molecular frame rather
than the laboratory frame has motivated the development of several methods for
aligning gas phase molecules in space. Even so, for asymmetric tops the problem
of making molecular frame measurements remains challenging due to its
inherently multi-dimensional nature. In this Letter we present a method, based
on the analysis of observables measured from rotational wavepackets, that does
not require either 3D alignment or coincident momentum measurements to access
the molecular frame. As an application we describe the first
fully-orientation-resolved measurements of strong-field ionization and
dissociation of an asymmetric top (ethylene).


title:
Unconventional Surface Critical Behaviors Induced by Quantum Phase
  Transition from Two-Dimensional Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki Phase to N\'eel
  Order

abstract:
  A symmetry-protected topological phase has nontrivial surface states in the
presence of certain symmetries, which can either be gapless or be degenerate.
In this work, we study the physical consequence of such gapless surface states
at the bulk quantum phase transition (QPT) that spontaneously breaks these
symmetries. The two-dimensional Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki phase on a square
lattice and its QPTs to N\'eel ordered phases are realized with the spin-$1/2$
Heisenberg model on a decorated square lattice. With large-scale quantum Monte
Carlo simulations, we show that even though the bulk QPTs are governed by the
conventional Landau phase transition theory, the gapless surface state induces
unconventional universality classes of the surface critical behaviors.


title: Visualizing Linguistic Shift

abstract:
  Neural network based models are a very powerful tool for creating word
embeddings, the objective of these models is to group similar words together.
These embeddings have been used as features to improve results in various
applications such as document classification, named entity recognition, etc.
Neural language models are able to learn word representations which have been
used to capture semantic shifts across time and geography. The objective of
this paper is to first identify and then visualize how words change meaning in
different text corpus. We will train a neural language model on texts from a
diverse set of disciplines philosophy, religion, fiction etc. Each text will
alter the embeddings of the words to represent the meaning of the word inside
that text. We will present a computational technique to detect words that
exhibit significant linguistic shift in meaning and usage. We then use enhanced
scatterplots and storyline visualization to visualize the linguistic shift.


title: Emergence of an excitonic collective mode in the dilute electron gas

abstract:
  By comparing two expressions for the polarization function given in terms of
two different local-field factors, G_+(q,iw) and G_s(q,iw), we have derived the
kinetic-energy-fluctuation (or sixth-power) sum rule for the momentum
distribution function n(p) in the three-dimensional electron gas. With use of
this sum rule, together with the total-number (or second-power) and the
kinetic-energy (or fourth-power) sum rules, we have obtained n(p) in the
low-density electron gas at negative compressibility (namely, r_s>5.25 with r_s
being the conventional density parameter) up to r_s ~ 22 by improving on the
interpolation scheme due to Gori-Giorge and Ziesche proposed in 2002. The
obtained results for n(p) combined with the improved form for G_s(q,w+i0^+) are
employed to calculate the dynamical structure factor S(q,w) to reveal that a
giant peak, even bigger than the plasmon peak, originating from an excitonic
collective mode made of electron-hole pair excitations, emerges in the low-w
region at q near 2p_F (p_F: the Fermi wave number). Connected with this mode,
we have discovered a singular point in the retarded dielectric function at w=0
and q ~ 2p_F.


title: Uniform Benchmarking of Low Voltage Van Der Waals FETs

abstract:
  Monolayer MoS2, MoSe2, MoTe2, WS2, WSe2, and black phosphorous field effect
transistors (FETs) operating in the low-voltage (LV) regime (0.3V) with
geometries from the 2019 and 2028 nodes of the 2013 International Technology
Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) are benchmarked along with an ultra-thin-body
Si FET. Current can increase or decrease with scaling, and the trend is
strongly correlated with the effective mass. For LV operation at the 2028 node,
an effective mass of ~0.4 m0, corresponding to that of WSe2, gives the maximum
drive current. The short 6 nm gate length combined with LV operation is
forgiving in its requirements for material quality and contact resistances. In
this LV regime, device and circuit performance are competitive using currently
measured values for mobilities and contact resistances for the monolayer
two-dimensional materials.


title:
Implications from the upper limit of radio afterglow emission of FRB
  131104/Swift J0644.5-5111

abstract:
  A $\gamma$-ray transient, Swift J0644.5-5111, has been claimed to be
associated with FRB 131104. The $\gamma$-ray energy output is estimated as
$E_\gamma \approx 5\times 10^{51}$\,erg at the nominal $z\approx 0.55$ redshift
implied by the dispersion measure of FRB 131104. However, a long-term radio
imaging follow-up observations only place an upper limit on the radio afterglow
flux of Swift J0644.5-5111. Applying the external shock model, we make a
detailed constraint on the afterglow parameters for the FRB 131104/Swift
J0644.5-5111 system. We find that for the commonly used microphysics shock
parameters (e.g., $\epsilon_e=0.1$, $\epsilon_B=0.01$ and $p=2.3$), if the
redshift value inferred from the DM value is correct to order of magnitude
(i.e., $z>0.1$), the ambient medium number density should be $\leq
10^{-3}~\rm{cm^{-3}}$, which is the typical value for a compact binary merger
environment but disfavors a massive star origin. Assuming a typical ISM
density, one would require that the redshift of the FRB much smaller than the
value inferred from DM value ($z\ll0.1$), implying a non-cosmological origin of
DM. The constraints are much looser if one adopts smaller $\epsilon_B$ and
$\epsilon_e$ values, as observed in some GRB afterglows. The FRB 131104/Swift
J0644.5-5111 association remains plausible. We critically discuss possible
progenitor models for the system.


title:
The influence of Coulomb Correlations and Spin-Orbit Coupling in the
  electronic structure of double perovskites Sr$_2$XOsO$_6$ (X$=$Sc, Mg)

abstract:
  We investigate the antiferromagnetic insulating state of the recently
discovered double perovskites Sr$_2$XOsO$_6$ (X$=$Sc, Mg) by using ab-initio
calculations (based on Density Functional Theory and Dynamical Mean-Field
Theory) to elucidate the interplay between electronic correlations and
spin-orbit coupling. The structural details of Sr$_2$XOsO$_6$ (X$=$Sc, Mg)
induce band narrowing effects which enhance local electronic correlations. The
half-filled $5d^3$ orbitals of Os in Sr$_2$ScOsO$_6$ fall into a magnetically
ordered correlated regime, which is slightly affected and reduced by the
spin-orbit coupling. The electronic configuration $5d^2$ of Os in
Sr$_2$MgOsO$_6$ responses differently to electronic correlations promoting a
less localized state than Sr$_2$ScOsO$_6$ at the same strength of electronic
interactions. We find that the inclusion of spin-orbit coupling drives
Sr$_2$MgOsO$_6$ toward insulating behaviour and promotes a large tendency in
formation of orbital magnetization antiparallel to the spin moment. The
formation of the AFM state is linked to the evidence of correlated Hubbard
bands in the paramagnetic solution of Sr$_2$XOsO$_6$ (X$=$Sc, Mg).


title: An algebraic proof of determinant formulas of Grothendieck polynomials

abstract:
  We give an algebraic proof of the determinant formulas for factorial
Grothendieck polynomials obtained by Hudson--Ikeda--Matsumura--Naruse and by
Hudson--Matsumura.


title:
Impacts of photon bending on observational aspects of Two Component
  Advective Flow

abstract:
  Nature of photon trajectories in a curved spacetime around black holes are
studied without constraining their motion to any plane. Impacts of photon
bending are separately scrutinized for Keplerian and CENBOL components of Two
Component Advective Flow (TCAF) model. Parameters like Red shift, Bolometric
Flux, temperature profile and time of arrival of photons are also computed.


title:
Heterogeneity of Central Nodes Explains the Benefits of Time-Varying
  Control in Complex Dynamical Networks

abstract:
  Despite extensive research and remarkable advancements in the control of
complex dynamical networks, most studies and practical control methods limit
their focus to time-invariant control schedules (TICS). This is both due to
their simplicity and the fact that the benefits of time-varying control
schedules (TVCS) have remained largely uncharacterized. In this paper we study
networks with linear and discrete-time dynamics and analyze the role of network
structure in TVCS. First, we show that TVCS can significantly enhance network
controllability over TICS, especially when applied to large networks. Through
the analysis of a scale-dependent notion of nodal centrality, we then show that
optimal TVCS involves the actuation of the most central nodes at appropriate
spatial scales at all times. Consequently, it is the scale-heterogeneity of the
central-nodes in a network that determine whether, and to what extent, TVCS
outperforms conventional policies based on TICS. Here, scale-heterogeneity of a
network refers to how diverse the central nodes of the network are at different
spatial (local vs. global) scales. Several analytical results and case studies
support and illustrate this relationship.


title:
Modified Poisson-Nernst-Planck model with accurate Coulomb correlation
  in variable media

abstract:
  We derive a set of modified Poisson-Nernst-Planck (mPNP) equations for ion
transport from the variation of the free energy functional which includes the
many-body Coulomb correlation in media of variable dielectric coefficient. The
correlation effects are considered through the Debye charging process in which
the self energy of an ion is governed by the generalized Debye-H\"uckel
equation. We develop the asymptotic expansions of the self energy taking the
ion radius as the small parameter such that the multiscale model can be solved
efficiently by numerical methods. It is shown that the variations of the energy
functional give the self-energy-modified PNP equations which satisfy a proper
weak formulation. We present numerical results from different asymptotic
expansions with a semi-implicit conservative numerical method and investigate
the effect of the Coulomb correlation.


title: A Sequence Construction of Cyclic Codes over Finite Fields

abstract:
  Due to their efficient encoding and decoding algorithms, cyclic codes, a
subclass of linear codes, have applications in communication systems, consumer
electronics, and data storage systems. There are several approaches to
constructing all cyclic codes over finite fields, including the generator
matrix approach, the generator polynomial approach, and the generating
idempotent approach. Another one is a sequence approach, which has been
intensively investigated in the past decade. The objective of this paper is to
survey the progress in this direction in the past decade. Many open problems
are also presented in this paper.


title:
Homotopy perturbation transform method for solving fractional partial
  differential equations with proportional delay

abstract:
  This paper deals the implementation of \emph{homotopy perturbation transform
method} (HPTM) for numerical computation of initial valued autonomous system of
time-fractional partial differential equations (TFPDEs) with proportional
delay, including generalized Burgers equations with proportional delay. The
HPTM is a hybrid of Laplace transform and homotopy perturbation method. To
confirm the efficiency and validity of the method, the computation of three
test problems of TFPDEs with proportional delay presented. The proposed
solutions are obtained in series form, converges very fast. The scheme seems
very reliable, effective and efficient powerful technique for solving various
type of physical models arising in sciences and engineering.


title: Orthogonal vertical velocity dispersion distributions produced by bars

abstract:
  In barred galaxies, the contours of stellar velocity dispersions ($\sigma$)
are generally expected to be oval and aligned with the orientation of bars.
However, many double-barred (S2B) galaxies exhibit distinct $\sigma$ peaks on
the minor axis of inner bars, which we termed "$\sigma$-humps," while two local
$\sigma$ minima are present close to the ends of inner bars, i.e.,
"$\sigma$-hollows." Analysis of numerical simulations shows that
$\sigma_z$-humps or hollows should play an important role in generating the
observed $\sigma$-humps+hollows in low-inclination galaxies. In order to
systematically investigate the properties of $\sigma_z$ in barred galaxies, we
apply the vertical Jeans equation to a group of well-designed three-dimensional
bar+disk(+bulge) models. A vertically thin bar can lower $\sigma_z$ along the
bar and enhance it perpendicular to the bar, thus generating
$\sigma_z$-humps+hollows. Such a result suggests that $\sigma_z$-humps+hollows
can be generated by the purely dynamical response of stars in the presence of
a, sufficiently massive, vertically thin bar, even without an outer bar. Using
self-consistent $N$-body simulations, we verify the existence of vertically
thin bars in the nuclear-barred and S2B models which generate prominent
$\sigma$-humps+hollows. Thus the ubiquitous presence of $\sigma$-humps+hollows
in S2Bs implies that inner bars are vertically thin. The addition of a bulge
makes the $\sigma_z$-humps more ambiguous and thus tends to somewhat hide the
$\sigma_z$-humps+hollows. We show that $\sigma_z$ may be used as a kinematic
diagnostic of stellar components that have different thickness, providing a
direct perspective on the morphology and thickness of nearly face-on bars and
bulges with integral field unit spectroscopy.


title: Computational modeling of magnetic hysteresis with thermal effects

abstract:
  We study computational behavior of a mesoscopic model describing
temperature/external magnetic field-driven evolution of magnetization.
  Due to nonconvex anisotropy energy describing magnetic properties of a body,
magnetization can develop fast spatial oscillations creating complicated
microstructures. These microstructures are encoded in Young measures, their
first moments then identify macroscopic magnetization. Our model assumes that
changes of magnetization can contribute to dissipation and, consequently, to
variations of the body temperature affecting the length of magnetization
vectors. In the ferromagnetic state, minima of the anisotropic energy density
depend on temperature and they tend to zero as we approach the so-called Curie
temperature. This brings the specimen to a paramagnetic state. Such a
thermo-magnetic model is fully discretized and tested on two-dimensional
examples. Computational results qualitatively agree with experimental
observations. The own MATLAB code used in our simulations is available for
download.


title: Mod p Base Change transfer for GL(2)

abstract:
  We discuss Base Change functoriality for mod p eigenforms for GL(2) over
number fields. We carry out systematic computer experiments and collect data
supporting its existence in cases of field extensions K/F where F is imaginary
quadratic and K is CM quartic.


title: Recurrent Memory Addressing for describing videos

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce Key-Value Memory Networks to a multimodal setting
and a novel key-addressing mechanism to deal with sequence-to-sequence models.
The proposed model naturally decomposes the problem of video captioning into
vision and language segments, dealing with them as key-value pairs. More
specifically, we learn a semantic embedding (v) corresponding to each frame (k)
in the video, thereby creating (k, v) memory slots. We propose to find the next
step attention weights conditioned on the previous attention distributions for
the key-value memory slots in the memory addressing schema. Exploiting this
flexibility of the framework, we additionally capture spatial dependencies
while mapping from the visual to semantic embedding. Experiments done on the
Youtube2Text dataset demonstrate usefulness of recurrent key-addressing, while
achieving competitive scores on BLEU@4, METEOR metrics against state-of-the-art
models.


title:
Stochastic coagulation-fragmentation processes with a finite number of
  particles and applications

abstract:
  Coagulation-fragmentation processes describe the stochastic association and
dissociation of particles in clusters. Cluster dynamics with cluster-cluster
interactions for a finite number of particles has recently attracted attention
especially in stochastic analysis and statistical physics of cellular biology,
as novel experimental data is now available, but their interpretation remains
challenging.} We derive here probability distribution functions for clusters
that can either aggregate upon binding to form clusters of arbitrary sizes or a
single cluster can dissociate into two sub-clusters. Using combinatorics
properties and Markov chain representation, we compute steady-state
distributions and moments for the number of particles per cluster in the case
where the coagulation and fragmentation rates follow a detailed balance
condition. We obtain explicit and asymptotic formulas for the cluster size and
the number of clusters in terms of hypergeometric functions. To further
characterize clustering, we introduce and discuss two mean times: one is time
two particles spend together before they separate and other is the time they
spend separated before they meet again for the first time. Finally we discuss
applications of the present stochastic coagulation-fragmentation framework in
cell biology.


title: Casimir effect in Extended Theories of Gravity

abstract:
  We study the Casimir vacuum energy density and the Casimir pressure for a
massless scalar field confined between two nearby parallel plates in a slightly
curved, static spacetime background, employing the weak field approximation in
the framework of Extended Theories of Gravity (ETG). Following a perturbative
approach upto second order, we find the gravity correction in the ETG to
Casimir vacuum energy density and pressure. The corrections to the vacuum
energy density in presence of curved spacetime in the framework of General
Relativity (GR) are small and today they are still undetected with the current
technology. However, future sensitivity improvement in gravitational
interferometer experiments will give an useful tool to detect such effect
induced by gravity. For these reason we retain interesting from a theoretical
point of view generalize the outcomes of GR in the context of ETG. Finally, we
find the general relation to constraining the free parameters of the ETG.


title:
Learning Fully Convolutional Networks for Iterative Non-blind
  Deconvolution

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a fully convolutional networks for iterative
non-blind deconvolution We decompose the non-blind deconvolution problem into
image denoising and image deconvolution. We train a FCNN to remove noises in
the gradient domain and use the learned gradients to guide the image
deconvolution step. In contrast to the existing deep neural network based
methods, we iteratively deconvolve the blurred images in a multi-stage
framework. The proposed method is able to learn an adaptive image prior, which
keeps both local (details) and global (structures) information. Both
quantitative and qualitative evaluations on benchmark datasets demonstrate that
the proposed method performs favorably against state-of-the-art algorithms in
terms of quality and speed.


title:
Harmonicity of the Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer and Eells-Salamon almost
  complex structures

abstract:
  In this paper we describe the oriented Riemannian four-manifolds $M$ for
which the Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer or Eells-Salamon almost complex structure on
the twistor space ${\mathcal Z}$ of $M$ determines a harmonic map from
${\mathcal Z}$ into its twistor space.


title:
A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Power Control and Rate Adaptation
  in Cellular Networks

abstract:
  Optimizing radio transmission power and user data rates in wireless systems
via power control requires an accurate and instantaneous knowledge of the
system model. While this problem has been extensively studied in the
literature, an efficient solution approaching optimality with the limited
information available in practical systems is still lacking. This paper
presents a reinforcement learning framework for power control and rate
adaptation in the downlink of a radio access network that closes this gap. We
present a comprehensive design of the learning framework that includes the
characterization of the system state, the design of a general reward function,
and the method to learn the control policy. System level simulations show that
our design can quickly learn a power control policy that brings significant
energy savings and fairness across users in the system.


title: Highly Excited Strings I: Generating Function

abstract:
  This is the first of a series of detailed papers on string amplitudes with
highly excited strings (HES). In the present paper we construct a generating
function for string amplitudes with generic HES vertex operators using a
fixed-loop momentum formalism. We generalise the proof of the chiral splitting
theorem of D'Hoker and Phong to string amplitudes with arbitrary HES vertex
operators (with generic KK and winding charges, polarisation tensors and
oscillators) in general toroidal compactifications
$\mathcal{E}=\mathbb{R}^{D-1,1}\times \mathbb{T}^{D_{\rm cr}-D}$ (with generic
constant K\"ahler and complex structure target space moduli, background
Kaluza-Klein (KK) gauge fields and torsion). We adopt a novel approach that
does not rely on a "reverse engineering" method to make explicit the loop
momenta, thus avoiding a certain ambiguity pointed out in a recent paper by
Sen, while also keeping the genus of the worldsheet generic. This approach will
also be useful in discussions of quantum gravity and in particular in relation
to black holes in string theory, non-locality and breakdown of local effective
field theory, as well as in discussions of cosmic superstrings and their
phenomenological relevance. We also discuss the manifestation of wave/particle
(or rather wave/string) duality in string theory.


title: Dynamical bottomonium-suppression in a realistic AA background

abstract:
  We refine our dynamical Schroedinger-Langevin scheme designed for dealing
with the suppression of quarkonium states in URHIC in order to allow for
feed-downs from higher states and present updated results for the $R_{AA}$ as a
function of the centrality.


title: Incremental Exact Min-Cut in Poly-logarithmic Amortized Update Time

abstract:
  We present a deterministic incremental algorithm for \textit{exactly}
maintaining the size of a minimum cut with $\widetilde{O}(1)$ amortized time
per edge insertion and $O(1)$ query time. This result partially answers an open
question posed by Thorup [Combinatorica 2007]. It also stays in sharp contrast
to a polynomial conditional lower-bound for the fully-dynamic weighted minimum
cut problem. Our algorithm is obtained by combining a recent sparsification
technique of Kawarabayashi and Thorup [STOC 2015] and an exact incremental
algorithm of Henzinger [J. of Algorithm 1997]. We also study space-efficient
incremental algorithms for the minimum cut problem. Concretely, we show that
there exists an ${O}(n\log n/\varepsilon^2)$ space Monte-Carlo algorithm that
can process a stream of edge insertions starting from an empty graph, and with
high probability, the algorithm maintains a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximation to
the minimum cut. The algorithm has $\widetilde{O}(1)$ amortized update-time and
constant query-time.


title:
Approximation and parameterized algorithms for geometric independent set
  with shrinking

abstract:
  Consider the Maximum Weight Independent Set problem for rectangles: given a
family of weighted axis-parallel rectangles in the plane, find a maximum-weight
subset of non-overlapping rectangles. The problem is notoriously hard both in
the approximation and in the parameterized setting. The best known
polynomial-time approximation algorithms achieve super-constant approximation
ratios [Chalermsook and Chuzhoy, SODA 2009; Chan and Har-Peled, Discrete &
Comp. Geometry 2012], even though there is a $(1+\epsilon)$-approximation
running in quasi-polynomial time [Adamaszek and Wiese, FOCS 2013; Chuzhoy and
Ene, FOCS 2016]. When parameterized by the target size of the solution, the
problem is $\mathsf{W}[1]$-hard even in the unweighted setting [Marx, FOCS
2007].
  To achieve tractability, we study the following shrinking model: one is
allowed to shrink each input rectangle by a multiplicative factor $1-\delta$
for some fixed $\delta>0$, but the performance is still compared against the
optimal solution for the original, non-shrunk instance. We prove that in this
regime, the problem admits an EPTAS with running time $f(\epsilon,\delta)\cdot
n^{\mathcal{O}(1)}$, and an FPT algorithm with running time $f(k,\delta)\cdot
n^{\mathcal{O}(1)}$, in the setting where a maximum-weight solution of size at
most $k$ is to be computed. This improves and significantly simplifies a PTAS
given earlier for this problem [Adamaszek et al., APPROX 2015], and provides
the first parameterized results for the shrinking model. Furthermore, we
explore kernelization in the shrinking model, by giving efficient kernelization
procedures for several variants of the problem when the input rectangles are
squares.


title:
On a q-Identity Arising from the Dimension of a Representation of GL(n)
  over a Finite Field

abstract:
  The present paper proves a $q$-identity, which arises from a representation
$\pi_{N,\psi}$ of $\text{GL}_n(\mathbb{F}_q)$. This identity gives a
significant simplification for the dimension of $\pi_{N,\psi}$, which allowed
the second author to obtain a description of the representation.


title: Quantum size phenomena in single-crystalline bismuth nanostructures

abstract:
  Size-dependent quantization of energy spectrum of conducting electrons in
solids leads to oscillating dependence of electronic properties on
corresponding dimension(s). In conventional metals with typical energy Fermi
EF~1 eV and the charge carrier's effective masses m* of the order of free
electron mass m0, the quantum size phenomena provide noticeable impact only at
nanometer scales. Here we experimentally demonstrate that in single-crystalline
semimetal bismuth nanostructures the electronic conductivity non-monotonously
decreases with reduction of the effective diameter. In samples grown along the
particular crystallographic orientation the electronic conductivity abruptly
increases at scales of about 50 nm due to metal-to-insulator transition
mediated by the quantum confinement effect. The experimental findings are in
reasonable agreement with theory predictions. The quantum-size phenomena should
be taken into consideration to optimize operation of the next generation of
ultra-small quantum nanoelectronic circuits.


title:
String cone and Superpotential combinatorics for flag and Schubert
  varieties in type A

abstract:
  We study the combinatorics of pseudoline arrangements and their relation to
the geometry of flag and Schubert varieties. We associate to each pseudoline
arrangement two polyhedral cones, defined in a dual manner. We prove that one
of them is the weighted string cone by Littelmann and Berenstein-Zelevinsky.
For the other we show how it arises in the framework of cluster varieties and
mirror symmetry by Gross-Hacking-Keel-Kontsevich: for the flag variety the cone
is the tropicalization of their superpotential while for Schubert varieties a
restriction of the superpotential is necessary.
  We prove that the two cones are unimodularly equivalent. As a corollary of
our combinatorial result we realize Caldero's toric degenerations of Schubert
varieties as GHKK-degeneration using cluster theory.


title:
Decision-Based Transcription of Jazz Guitar Solos Using a Harmonic
  Bident Analysis Filter Bank and Spectral Distribution Weighting

abstract:
  Jazz guitar solos are improvised melody lines played on one instrument on top
of a chordal accompaniment (comping). As the improvisation happens
spontaneously, a reference score is non-existent, only a lead sheet. There are
situations, however, when one would like to have the original melody lines in
the form of notated music, see the Real Book. The motivation is either for the
purpose of practice and imitation or for musical analysis. In this work, an
automatic transcriber for jazz guitar solos is developed. It resorts to a very
intuitive representation of tonal music signals: the pitchgram. No
instrument-specific modeling is involved, so the transcriber should be
applicable to other pitched instruments as well. Neither is there the need to
learn any note profiles prior to or during the transcription. Essentially, the
proposed transcriber is a decision tree, thus a classifier, with a depth of 3.
It has a (very) low computational complexity and can be run on-line. The
decision rules can be refined or extended with no or little musical education.
The transcriber's performance is evaluated on a set of ten jazz solo excerpts
and compared with a state-of-the-art transcription system for the guitar plus
PYIN. We achieve an improvement of 34% w.r.t. the reference system and 19%
w.r.t. PYIN in terms of the F-measure. Another measure of accuracy, the error
score, attests that the number of erroneous pitch detections is reduced by more
than 50% w.r.t. the reference system and by 45% w.r.t. PYIN.


title: Integrality structures in topological strings I: framed unknot

abstract:
  We study the open string integrality invariants (LMOV invariants) for toric
Calabi-Yau 3-folds with Aganagic-Vafa brane (AV-brane). In this paper, we focus
on the case of the resolved conifold with one out AV-brane in any integer
framing $\tau$, which is the large $N$ duality of the Chern-Simons theory for a
framed unknot with integer framing $\tau$ in $S^3$. We compute the explicit
formulas for the LMOV invariants in genus $g=0$ with any number of holes, and
prove their integrality. For the higher genus LMOV invariants with one hole,
they are reformulated into a generating function $g_{m}(q,a)$, and we prove
that $g_{m}(q,a)\in
(q^{1/2}-q^{-1/2})^{-2}\mathbb{Z}[(q^{1/2}-q^{-1/2})^2,a^{\pm 1/2}]$ for any
integer $m\geq 1$. As a by product, we compute the reduced open string
partition function of $\mathbb{C}^3$ with one AV-brane in framing $\tau$. We
find that, for $\tau\leq -1$, this open string partition function is equivalent
to the Hilbert-Poincar\'e series of the Cohomological Hall algebra of the
$|\tau|$-loop quiver. It gives an open string GW/DT correspondence.


title:
Measurements of the associated production of a Z boson and b jets in pp
  collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

abstract:
  Measurements of the associated production of a Z boson with at least one jet
originating from a b quark in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV are
presented. Differential cross sections are measured with data collected by the
CMS experiment corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.8 inverse
femtobarns. Z bosons are reconstructed through their decays to electrons and
muons. Cross sections are measured as a function of observables characterizing
the kinematics of the b jet and the Z boson. Ratios of differential cross
sections for the associated production with at least one b jet to the
associated production with any jet are also presented. The production of a Z
boson with two b jets is investigated, and differential cross sections are
measured for the dijet system. Results are compared to theoretical predictions,
testing two different flavour schemes for the choice of initial-state partons.


title:
The VMC Survey XXII. Hierarchical Star Formation in the 30
  Doradus-N158-N159-N160 Star-Forming Complex

abstract:
  We study the hierarchical stellar structures in a $\sim$1.5 deg$^2$ area
covering the 30 Doradus-N158-N159-N160 star-forming complex with the VISTA
Survey of the Magellanic Clouds. Based on the young upper main-sequence stars,
we find that the surface densities cover a wide range of values, from
log($\Sigma\cdot$pc$^2$) $\lesssim$ $-$2.0 to log($\Sigma\cdot$pc$^2$)
$\gtrsim$ 0.0. Their distributions are highly non-uniform, showing groups that
frequently have sub-groups inside. The sizes of the stellar groups do not
exhibit characteristic values, and range continuously from several parsecs to
more than 100 pc; the cumulative size distribution can be well described by a
single power law, with the power-law index indicating a projected fractal
dimension $D_2$ = 1.6 $\pm$ 0.3. We suggest that the phenomena revealed here
support a scenario of hierarchical star formation. Comparisons with other
star-forming regions and galaxies are also discussed.


title:
Acceleration of convergence to equilibrium in Markov chains by breaking
  detailed balance

abstract:
  We analyse and interpret the effects of breaking detailed balance on the
convergence to equilibrium of conservative interacting particle systems and
their hydrodynamic scaling limits. For finite systems of interacting particles,
we review existing results showing that irreversible processes converge faster
to their steady state than reversible ones. We show how this behaviour appears
in the hydrodynamic limit of such processes, as described by macroscopic
fluctuation theory, and we provide a quantitative expression for the
acceleration of convergence in this setting. We give a geometrical
interpretation of this acceleration, in terms of currents that are
\emph{antisymmetric} under time-reversal and orthogonal to the free energy
gradient, which act to drive the system away from states where (reversible)
gradient-descent dynamics result in slow convergence to equilibrium.


title:
Weak Values of Momentum of the Electromagnetic Field: Average Momentum
  Flow Lines, Not Photon Trajectories

abstract:
  In a recent paper Mahler {\em et al.} have argued that the experiments of
Kocsis {\em et al.} provide experimental evidence for Bohmian mechanics.
Unfortunately these experiments used relativistic, zero rest mass photons
whereas Bohmian mechanics is based on non-relativistic Schr\"{o}dinger
particles having non-zero rest mass. The experimental results can be accounted
for in terms of a different approach based on the electromagnetic field that
was already outlined by Bohm in an appendix of the second of his 1952 papers. A
subsequent development of this approach by Bohm, Hiley, Holland, Kaloyerou, Lam
and Dewdney, shows in detail how this theory accounts for experimental quantum
phenomena in general. Using this theory, we are led to the conclusion that the
experiments have constructed mean momentum flow lines by measuring the real
part of what we term the weak Poynting vector. These results support and
clarify the analysis of Bliokh {\em et al}. The experimental flow lines can be
constructed independently of the number of photons in the beam leading to the
conclusion that flow lines cannot be interpreted as `photon trajectories'. We
discuss exactly how the notion of a photon arises in the field approach in the
light of weak values.