title: Large-scale filamentary structures around the Virgo cluster revisited

abstract:
  We revisit the filamentary structures of galaxies around the Virgo cluster,
exploiting a larger dataset based on the HyperLeda database than previous
studies. In particular, this includes a large number of low-luminosity
galaxies, resulting in better sampled individual structures. We confirm seven
known structures in the distance range 4~$h^{-1}$~Mpc~$<$ SGY~$<$ 16~$h^{-1}$
Mpc, now identified as filaments, where SGY is the axis of the supergalactic
coordinate system roughly along the line of sight. The Hubble diagram of the
filament galaxies suggests they are infalling toward the main-body of the Virgo
cluster. We propose that the collinear distribution of giant elliptical
galaxies along the fundamental axis of the Virgo cluster is smoothly connected
to two of these filaments (Leo~II~A and B). Behind the Virgo cluster
(16~$h^{-1}$~Mpc~$<$ SGY~$<$ 27~$h^{-1}$~Mpc), we also identify a new filament
elongated toward the NGC 5353/4 group ("NGC 5353/4 filament") and confirm a
sheet that includes galaxies from the W and M clouds of the Virgo cluster ("W-M
sheet"). In the Hubble diagram, the NGC 5353/4 filament galaxies show infall
toward the NGC 5353/4 group, whereas the W-M sheet galaxies do not show hints
of gravitational influence from the Virgo cluster. The filamentary structures
identified can now be used to better understand the generic role of filaments
in the build-up of galaxy clusters at z~$\approx$~0.


title: Properties of the Tur\'anian of modified Bessel functions

abstract:
  In this paper some new series and integral representations for the Tur\'anian
of modified Bessel functions of the first kind are given, which give new
asymptotic expansions and tight bounds for the Tur\'an determinant in the
question. It is shown that in the case of natural and real order the Tur\'anian
can be represented in a relatively compact form, which yields a uniform upper
bound for the Tur\'an determinant for modified Bessel functions of the first
kind. Our results complement and improve some of the results from the
literature.


title: A cautionary note about self-reference

abstract:
  If a semantically open language has no constraints on self-reference, one can
prove an absurdity. The argument utilizes co-referring names 'a0' and 'a1', and
the definition of a functional expression 'The reflection of x = y'. The
definition enables a type of self-reference without deploying any semantic
terminology--yet given that a0= a1, the definition implies the that 'a0' =
'a1', which is absurd. In truth, however, 'the reflection of x = y' expresses
an ill-defined function. And since there is a general ban on ill-defined
functions, there is no real cause for concern. Still, the moral would be that
the prohibition on ill-defined functions entails that self-reference cannot be
unconstrained, even in a semantically open language.


title:
And the Winner is ...: Bayesian Twitter-based Prediction on 2016 U.S.
  Presidential Election

abstract:
  This paper describes a Naive-Bayesian predictive model for 2016 U.S.
Presidential Election based on Twitter data. We use 33,708 tweets gathered
since December 16, 2015 until February 29, 2016. We introduce a simpler data
preprocessing method to label the data and train the model. The model achieves
95.8% accuracy on 10-fold cross validation and predicts Ted Cruz and Bernie
Sanders as Republican and Democratic nominee respectively. It achieves a
comparable result to those in its competitor methods.


title: Timelike twisted geometries

abstract:
  Within the twistorial parametrization of Loop Quantum Gravity we investigate
the consequences of choosing a spacelike normal vector in the linear simplicity
constraints. The amplitudes for the $SU(2)$ boundary states of Loop Quantum
Gravity, given by most of the current spinfoam models, are constructed in such
a way that even in the bulk only spacelike building blocks occur. Using a
spacelike normal vector in the linear simplicity constraints allows us to
distinguish spacelike from timelike 2-surfaces. We propose in this paper a
quantum theory that includes both spatial and temporal building blocks and
hence a more complete picture of quantum spacetime. At the classical level we
show how we can describe $T^{\ast}SU(1,1)$ as a symplectic quotient of
2-twistor space $\mathbb{T}^2$ by area matching and simplicity constraints.
This provides us with the underlying classical phase space for $SU(1,1)$ spin
networks describing timelike boundaries and their extension into the bulk.
Applying a Dirac quantization we show that the reduced Hilbert space is spanned
by $SU(1,1)$ spin networks and hence are able to give a quantum description of
both spacelike and timelike faces. We discuss in particular the spectrum of the
area operator and argue that for spacelike and timelike 2-surfaces it is
discrete.


title: Improved multivariate portmanteau test

abstract:
  A new portmanteau diagnostic test for vector autoregressive moving average
(VARMA) models that is based on the determinant of the standardized
multivariate residual autocorrelations is derived. The new test statistic may
be considered an extension of the univariate portmanteau test statistic
suggested by Pena and Rodriguez (2002, A Powerful Portmanteau Test of Lack of
Test for Time Series, Journal of American Statistical Association) The
asymptotic distribution of the test statistic is derived as well as a
chi-square approximation. However, the Monte-Carlo test is recommended unless
the series is very long. Extensive simulation experiments demonstrate the
usefulness of this test as well as its improved power performance compared to
widely used previous multivariate portmanteau diagnostic check. Two
illustrative applications are given.


title:
Two-structure thermodynamics for the TIP4P/2005 model of water covering
  supercooled and deeply stretched regions

abstract:
  One of the most promising frameworks for understanding the anomalies of cold
and supercooled water postulates the existence of two competing,
interconvertible local structures. If the non-ideality in the Gibbs energy of
mixing overcomes the ideal entropy of mixing of these two structures, a
liquid-liquid phase transition, terminated at a liquid-liquid critical point,
is predicted. Various versions of the "two-structure equation of state" (TSEOS)
based on this concept have shown remarkable agreement with both experimental
data for metastable, deeply supercooled water and simulations of molecular
water models. However, existing TSEOSs were not designed to describe the
negative pressure region and do not account for the stability limit of the
liquid state with respect to the vapor. While experimental data on supercooled
water at negative pressures may shed additional light on the source of the
anomalies of water, such data are very limited. To fill this gap, we have
analyzed simulation results for TIP4P/2005, one of the most accurate classical
water models available. We have used recently published simulation data, and
performed additional simulations, over a broad range of positive and negative
pressures, from ambient temperature to deeply supercooled conditions. We show
that, by explicitly incorporating the liquid-vapor spinodal into a TSEOS, we
are able to match the simulation data for TIP4P/2005 with remarkable accuracy.
In particular, this equation of state quantitatively reproduces the lines of
extrema in density, isothermal compressibility, and isobaric heat capacity.
Contrary to an explanation of the thermodynamic anomalies of water based on a
"retracing spinodal", the liquid-vapor spinodal in the present TSEOS continues
monotonically to lower pressures upon cooling, influencing but not giving rise
to density extrema and other thermodynamic anomalies.


title: On certain spectral features inherent to scalar type spectral operators

abstract:
  Important spectral features, such as the emptiness of the residual spectrum,
countability of the point spectrum, provided the space is separable, and a
characterization of spectral gap at $0$, known to hold for bounded scalar type
spectral operators, are shown to naturally transfer to the unbounded case.


title:
Discrete Fourier Transform Method for Discrimination of Digital
  Scintillation Pulses in Mixed Neutron-Gamma Fields

abstract:
  A Discrete Fourier Transform Method (DFTM) for discrimination between the
signal of neutrons and gamma rays in organic scintillation detectors is
presented. The method is based on the transformation of signals into the
frequency domain using the sine and cosine Fourier transforms in combination
with the discrete Fourier transform. The method is largely benefited from
considerable differences that usually is available between the zero-frequency
components of sine and cosine and the norm of the amplitude of the DFT for
neutrons and gamma-ray signals. Moreover, working in frequency domain naturally
results in considerable suppression of the unwanted effects of various noise
sources that is expected to be effective in time domain methods. The proposed
method could also be assumed as a generalized nonlinear weighting method that
could result in a new class of pulse shape discrimination methods, beyond
definition of the DFT. A comparison to the traditional Charge Integration
Method (CIM), as well as the Frequency Gradient Analysis Method (FGAM) and the
Wavelet Packet Transform Method (WPTM) has been presented to demonstrate the
applicability and efficiency of the method for real-world applications. The
method, in general, shows better discrimination Figure of Merits (FoMs) at both
the low-light outputs and in average over the studied energy domain. A noise
analysis has been performed for all of the abovementioned methods. It reveals
that the frequency domain methods (FGAM and DFTM) are less sensitive to the
noise effects.


title: One-loop $\mathbf{\beta}$ function of noncommutative scalar $QED_{4}$

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider the $\beta$ function at one-loop approximation for
noncommutative scalar QED. The renormalization of the full theory, including
the basic vertices, and the renormalization group equation are fully
established. Next, the complete set of the one-loop diagrams corresponding to
the first-order radiative corrections to the basic functions is considered:
gauge, charged scalar and ghost fields self-energies, and three- and four-point
vertex functions $\left<\phi^\dag \phi A\right>$ and $\left<\phi^\dag \phi A
A\right>$, respectively. We pay special attention to the noncommutative
contributions to the renormalization constants. To conclude, the one-loop
$\beta$ function of noncommutative scalar QED is then computed and comparison
to known results is presented.


title: Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics

abstract:
  The use of bots as virtual confederates in online field experiments holds
extreme promise as a new methodological tool in computational social science.
However, this potential tool comes with inherent ethical challenges. Informed
consent can be difficult to obtain in many cases, and the use of confederates
necessarily implies the use of deception. In this work we outline a design
space for bots as virtual confederates, and we propose a set of guidelines for
meeting the status quo for ethical experimentation. We draw upon examples from
prior work in the CSCW community and the broader social science literature for
illustration. While a handful of prior researchers have used bots in online
experimentation, our work is meant to inspire future work in this area and
raise awareness of the associated ethical issues.


title: Natural-Parameter Networks: A Class of Probabilistic Neural Networks

abstract:
  Neural networks (NN) have achieved state-of-the-art performance in various
applications. Unfortunately in applications where training data is
insufficient, they are often prone to overfitting. One effective way to
alleviate this problem is to exploit the Bayesian approach by using Bayesian
neural networks (BNN). Another shortcoming of NN is the lack of flexibility to
customize different distributions for the weights and neurons according to the
data, as is often done in probabilistic graphical models. To address these
problems, we propose a class of probabilistic neural networks, dubbed
natural-parameter networks (NPN), as a novel and lightweight Bayesian treatment
of NN. NPN allows the usage of arbitrary exponential-family distributions to
model the weights and neurons. Different from traditional NN and BNN, NPN takes
distributions as input and goes through layers of transformation before
producing distributions to match the target output distributions. As a Bayesian
treatment, efficient backpropagation (BP) is performed to learn the natural
parameters for the distributions over both the weights and neurons. The output
distributions of each layer, as byproducts, may be used as second-order
representations for the associated tasks such as link prediction. Experiments
on real-world datasets show that NPN can achieve state-of-the-art performance.


title: Cargo Towing by Artificial Swimmers

abstract:
  An active swimmer can tow a passive cargo by binding it to form a
self-propelling dimer. The orientation of the cargo relative to the axis of the
active dimer's head is determined by the hydrodynamic interactions associated
with the propulsion mechanism of the latter. We show how the tower-cargo
angular configuration greatly influences the dimer's diffusivity and,
therefore, the efficiency of the active swimmer as a micro-towing motor.


title: Multiplayer Reach-Avoid Games via Pairwise Outcomes

abstract:
  A multiplayer reach-avoid game is a differential game between an attacking
team with NA attackers and a defending team with ND defenders playing on a
compact domain with obstacles. The attacking team aims to send M of the NA
attackers to some target location, while the defending team aims to prevent
that by capturing attackers or indefinitely delaying attackers from reaching
the target. Although the analysis of this game plays an important role in many
applications, the optimal solution to this game is computationally intractable
when NA>1 or ND>1. In this paper, we present two approaches for the NA=ND=1
case to determine pairwise outcomes, and a graph theoretic maximum matching
approach to merge these pairwise outcomes for an NA,ND>1 solution that provides
guarantees on the performance of the defending team. We will show that the
four-dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs approach allows for real-time updates
to the maximum matching, and that the two-dimensional "path defense" approach
is considerably more scalable with the number of players while maintaining
defender performance guarantees.


title:
Grain Boundary Driven Plateau-Rayleigh Instability in Multilayer
  Nanocrystalline Thin Film: A Phase-field Study

abstract:
  Thermal stability of nanocrystalline multilayer thin film is of paramount
importance as the applications often involve high temperature. Here we report
on the layer instability phenomenon in binary polycrystalline thin film
initiating from the grain boundary migrations at higher temperatures using
phase-field simulations. Effect of layer thickness, bilayer spacing and the
absence of grain boundary are also investigated along with the grain boundary
mobility of individual phases on the layer stability. Layer instability in the
polycrystalline film is shown to arise from the grain boundary grooving which
originates spontaneously from the presence of grain boundaries. Our results
show that the growth of the perturbation generated from the differential
curvature follows Plateau-Rayleigh instability criterion. Increase in layer
thickness, lower bilayer thickness as well as lower grain boundary mobility
improve layer stability. Phase-field simulations show similar microstructural
evolution as has been observed in our Zirconium (Zr)/Zirconium Nitride (ZrN)
system experimentally. Detail analysis performed in this work to understand the
mechanisms of layer instability leads us to predict measures which will improve
the thermal stability of multilayer nanocrystalline thin film.


title: Matter Equation of State in General Relativity

abstract:
  We study how a strong gravity affects the equation of state of matters. For
this purpose, we employ a canonical ensemble of classical monoatomic ideal gas
inside a box in a Rindler spacetime. The total energy decreases monotonically
with the increase of the external gravity representing its attractiveness. It
is however bounded below, which is different from that of the Newtonian gravity
case. As for the entropy, it decreases with the external gravity in the
Newtonian regime. However, in the presence of strong gravity or
ultra-relativistic high temperature, the entropy increases with the gravity.
This result can be a resolution of the negative entropy problem of the ideal
gas in the Newtonian gravity. In the presence of strong gravity, the bottom of
the box is very close to the event horizon of the Rindler spacetime mimicking a
blackhole and the gas behaves as if it is on an effective two dimensional
surface located at the bottom of the box. Investigating the equation of state
in the strong gravity regime, the temperature of the system is found to be not
a free parameter but to approach a fixed value proportional to the external
gravity, which is reminiscent of the Unruh temperature.


title:
Directional Training and Fast Sector-based Processing Schemes for mmWave
  Channels

abstract:
  We consider a single-cell scenario involving a single base station (BS) with
a massive array serving multi-antenna terminals in the downlink of a mmWave
channel. We present a class of multiuser user MIMO schemes, which rely on
uplink training from the user terminals, and on uplink/downlink channel
reciprocity. The BS employs virtual sector-based processing according to which,
user-channel estimation and data transmission are performed in parallel over
non-overlapping angular sectors. The uplink training schemes we consider are
non-orthogonal, that is, we allow multiple users to transmit pilots on the same
pilot dimension (thereby potentially interfering with one another). Elementary
processing allows each sector to determine the subset of user channels that can
be resolved on the sector (effectively pilot contamination free) and, thus, the
subset of users that can be served by the sector. This allows resolving
multiple users on the same pilot dimension at different sectors, thereby
increasing the overall multiplexing gains of the system. Our analysis and
simulations reveal that, by using appropriately designed directional training
beams at the user terminals, the sector-based transmission schemes we present
can yield substantial spatial multiplexing and ergodic user-rates improvements
with respect to their orthogonal-training counterparts.


title:
Collaborative Recurrent Autoencoder: Recommend while Learning to Fill in
  the Blanks

abstract:
  Hybrid methods that utilize both content and rating information are commonly
used in many recommender systems. However, most of them use either handcrafted
features or the bag-of-words representation as a surrogate for the content
information but they are neither effective nor natural enough. To address this
problem, we develop a collaborative recurrent autoencoder (CRAE) which is a
denoising recurrent autoencoder (DRAE) that models the generation of content
sequences in the collaborative filtering (CF) setting. The model generalizes
recent advances in recurrent deep learning from i.i.d. input to non-i.i.d.
(CF-based) input and provides a new denoising scheme along with a novel
learnable pooling scheme for the recurrent autoencoder. To do this, we first
develop a hierarchical Bayesian model for the DRAE and then generalize it to
the CF setting. The synergy between denoising and CF enables CRAE to make
accurate recommendations while learning to fill in the blanks in sequences.
Experiments on real-world datasets from different domains (CiteULike and
Netflix) show that, by jointly modeling the order-aware generation of sequences
for the content information and performing CF for the ratings, CRAE is able to
significantly outperform the state of the art on both the recommendation task
based on ratings and the sequence generation task based on content information.


title: On the Compositionality of Quantitative Information Flow

abstract:
  Information flow is the branch of security that studies the leakage of
information due to correlation between secrets and observables. Since in
general such correlation cannot be avoided completely, it is important to
quantify the leakage. The most followed approaches to defining appropriate
measures are those based on information theory. In particular, one of the most
successful approaches is the recently proposed $g$-leakage framework, which
encompasses most of the information-theoretic ones. A problem with $g$-leakage,
however, is that it is defined in terms of a minimization problem, which, in
the case of large systems, can be computationally rather heavy. In this paper
we study the case in which the channel associated to the system can be
decomposed into simpler channels, which typically happens when the observables
consist of multiple components. Our main contribution is the derivation of
bounds on the (multiplicative version of) $g$-leakage of the whole system in
terms of the $g$-leakages of its components. We also consider the particular
cases of min-entropy leakage and of parallel channels, generalizing and
systematizing results from the literature. We demonstrate the effectiveness of
our method and evaluate the precision of our bounds using examples.


title:
Measuring Asymmetric Opinions on Online Social Interrelationship with
  Language and Network Features

abstract:
  Instead of studying the properties of social relationship from an objective
view, in this paper, we focus on individuals' subjective and asymmetric
opinions on their interrelationships. Inspired by the theories from
sociolinguistics, we investigate two individuals' opinions on their
interrelationship with their interactive language features. Eliminating the
difference of personal language style, we clarify that the asymmetry of
interactive language feature values can indicate individuals' asymmetric
opinions on their interrelationship. We also discuss how the degree of
opinions' asymmetry is related to the individuals' personality traits.
Furthermore, to measure the individuals' asymmetric opinions on
interrelationship concretely, we develop a novel model synthetizing interactive
language and social network features. The experimental results with Enron email
dataset provide multiple evidences of the asymmetric opinions on
interrelationship, and also verify the effectiveness of the proposed model in
measuring the degree of opinions' asymmetry.


title:
Structure vs. Language: Investigating the Multi-factors of Asymmetric
  Opinions on Online Social Interrelationship with a Case Study

abstract:
  Though current researches often study the properties of online social
relationship from an objective view, we also need to understand individuals'
subjective opinions on their interrelationships in social computing studies.
Inspired by the theories from sociolinguistics, the latest work indicates that
interactive language can reveal individuals' asymmetric opinions on their
interrelationship. In this work, in order to explain the opinions' asymmetry on
interrelationship with more latent factors, we extend the investigation from
single relationship to the structural context in online social network. We
analyze the correlation between interactive language features and the
structural context of interrelationships. The structural context of vertex,
edges and triangles in social network are considered. With statistical analysis
on Enron email dataset, we find that individuals' opinions (measured by
interactive language features) on their interrelationship are related to some
of their important structural context in social network. This result can help
us to understand and measure the individuals' opinions on their
interrelationship with more intrinsic information.


title: The Non-homogeneous Poisson Process for Fast Radio Burst Rates

abstract:
  This paper presents the non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) for modeling
the rate of fast radio bursts (FRBs) and other infrequently observed
astronomical events. The NHPP, well-known in statistics, can model changes in
the rate as a function of both astronomical features and the details of an
observing campaign. This is particularly helpful for rare events like FRBs
because the NHPP can combine information across surveys, making the most of all
available information. The goal of the paper is two-fold. First, it is intended
to be a tutorial on the use of the NHPP. Second, we build an NHPP model that
incorporates beam patterns and a power law flux distribution for the rate of
FRBs. Using information from 12 surveys including 15 detections, we find an
all-sky FRB rate of 586.88 events per sky per day above a flux of 1 Jy (95\%
CI: 271.86, 923.72) and a flux power-law index of 0.91 (95\% CI: 0.57, 1.25).
Our rate is lower than other published rates, but consistent with the rate
given in Champion et al. 2016.


title: Asynchronous Peak Detection for Demodulation in Molecular Communication

abstract:
  Molecular communication requires low-complexity symbol detection algorithms
to deal with the many sources of uncertainty that are inherent in these
channels. This paper proposes two variants of a high-performance asynchronous
peak detection algorithm for a receiver that makes independent observations.
The first variant has low complexity and measures the largest observation
within a sampling interval. The second variant adds decision feedback to
mitigate inter-symbol interference. Although the algorithm does not require
synchronization between the transmitter and receiver, results demonstrate that
the bit error performance of symbol-by-symbol detection using the first variant
is better than using a single sample whose sampling time is chosen a priori.
The second variant is shown to have performance comparable to that of an energy
detector. Both variants of the algorithm demonstrate better resilience to
timing offsets than that of existing detectors.


title:
Inferential Approaches for Network Analyses: AMEN for Latent Factor
  Models

abstract:
  We introduce a Bayesian approach to conduct inferential analyses on dyadic
data while accounting for interdependencies between observations through a set
of additive and multiplicative effects (AME). The AME model is built on a
generalized linear modeling framework and is thus flexible enough to be applied
to a variety of contexts. We contrast the AME model to two prominent approaches
in the literature: the latent space model (LSM) and the exponential random
graph model (ERGM). Relative to these approaches, we show that the AME approach
is a) to be easy to implement; b) interpretable in a general linear model
framework; c) computationally straightforward; d) not prone to degeneracy; e)
captures 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order network dependencies; and f) notably
outperforms ERGMs and LSMs on a variety of metrics and in an out-of-sample
context. In summary, AME offers a straightforward way to undertake nuanced,
principled inferential network analysis for a wide range of social science
questions.


title: Groups of order $p^4$ made less difficult

abstract:
  Using only undergraduate-level methods, we classify all groups of order
$p^4$, where $p$ is an odd prime.


title: Endpoint resolvent estimates for compact Riemannian manifolds

abstract:
  We prove $L^p\to L^{p'}$ bounds for the resolvent of the Laplace-Beltrami
operator on a compact Riemannian manifold of dimension $n$ in the endpoint case
$p=2(n+1)/(n+3)$. It has the same behavior with respect to the spectral
parameter $z$ as its Euclidean analogue, due to Kenig-Ruiz-Sogge, provided a
parabolic neighborhood of the positive half-line is removed. This is region is
optimal, for instance, in the case of a sphere.


title:
A Load-Balanced Parallel and Distributed Sorting Algorithm Implemented
  with PGX.D

abstract:
  Sorting has been one of the most challenging studied problems in different
scientific researches. Although many techniques and algorithms have been
proposed on the theory of having efficient parallel sorting implementation,
however achieving desired performance on different types of the architectures
with large number of processors is still a challenging issue. Maximizing
parallelism level in applications can be achieved by minimizing overheads due
to load imbalance and waiting time due to memory latencies. In this paper, we
present a distributed sorting algorithm implemented in PGX.D, a fast
distributed graph processing system, which outperforms the Spark's distributed
sorting implementation by around 2x-3x by hiding communication latencies and
minimizing unnecessary overheads. Furthermore, it shows that the proposed PGX.D
sorting method handles dataset containing many duplicated data entries
efficiently and always results in keeping balanced workloads for different
input data distribution types.


title: Pricing Bounds for VIX Derivatives via Least Squares Monte Carlo

abstract:
  Derivatives on the Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index (VIX) have
gained significant popularity over the last decade. The pricing of VIX
derivatives involves evaluating the square root of the expected realised
variance which cannot be computed by direct Monte Carlo methods. Least squares
Monte Carlo methods can be used but the sign of the error is difficult to
determine. In this paper, we propose new model independent upper and lower
pricing bounds for VIX derivatives. In particular, we first present a general
stochastic duality result on payoffs involving concave functions. This is then
applied to VIX derivatives along with minor adjustments to handle issues caused
by the square root function. The upper bound involves the evaluation of a
variance swap, while the lower bound involves estimating a martingale increment
corresponding to its hedging portfolio. Both can be achieved simultaneously
using a single linear least square regression. Numerical results show that the
method works very well for VIX futures, calls and puts under a wide range of
parameter choices.


title:
A small generating set for the twist subgroup of the mapping class group
  of a non-orientable surface by Dehn twists

abstract:
  We give a small generating set for the twist subgroup of the mapping class
group of a non-orientable surface by Dehn twists. The difference between the
number of the generators and a lower bound of numbers of generators for the
twist subgroup by Dehn twists is one. The lower bounds is obtained from an
argument of Hirose [5].


title:
Finite Size Scaling of the Higgs-Yukawa Model near the Gaussian Fixed
  Point

abstract:
  We study the scaling properties of Higgs-Yukawa models. Using the technique
of Finite-Size Scaling, we are able to derive scaling functions that describe
the observables of the model in the vicinity of a Gaussian fixed point. A
feasibility study of our strategy is performed for the pure scalar theory in
the weak-coupling regime. Choosing the on-shell renormalisation scheme gives us
an advantage to fit the scaling functions against lattice data with only a
small number of fit parameters. These formulae can be used to determine the
universality of the observed phase transitions, and thus play an essential role
in future investigations of Higgs-Yukawa models, in particular in the strong
Yukawa coupling region.


title: A Performance Survey on Stack-based and Register-based Virtual Machines

abstract:
  Virtual machines have been widely adapted for high-level programming language
implementations and for providing a degree of platform neutrality. As the
overall use and adaptation of virtual machines grow, the overall performance of
virtual machines has become a widely-discussed topic. In this paper, we present
a survey on the performance differences of the two most widely adapted types of
virtual machines - the stack-based virtual machine and the register-based
virtual machine - using various benchmark programs. Additionally, we adopted a
new approach of measuring performance by measuring the overall dispatch time,
amount of dispatches, fetch time, and execution time while running benchmarks
on custom-implemented, lightweight virtual machines. Finally, we present two
lightweight, custom-designed, Turing-equivalent virtual machines that are
specifically designed in benchmarking virtual machine performance - the
"Conceptum" stack-based virtual machine, and the "Inertia" register-based
virtual machine. Our result showed that while on average the register machine
spends 20.39% less time in executing benchmarks than the stack machine, the
stack-based virtual machine is still faster than the virtual machine regarding
the instruction fetch time.


title: CRF-CNN: Modeling Structured Information in Human Pose Estimation

abstract:
  Deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) have achieved great success. On the
other hand, modeling structural information has been proved critical in many
vision problems. It is of great interest to integrate them effectively. In a
classical neural network, there is no message passing between neurons in the
same layer. In this paper, we propose a CRF-CNN framework which can
simultaneously model structural information in both output and hidden feature
layers in a probabilistic way, and it is applied to human pose estimation. A
message passing scheme is proposed, so that in various layers each body joint
receives messages from all the others in an efficient way. Such message passing
can be implemented with convolution between features maps in the same layer,
and it is also integrated with feedforward propagation in neural networks.
Finally, a neural network implementation of end-to-end learning CRF-CNN is
provided. Its effectiveness is demonstrated through experiments on two
benchmark datasets.


title: Shedding Light on the Adoption of Let's Encrypt

abstract:
  Let's Encrypt is a new entrant in the Certificate Authority ecosystem that
offers free and automated certificate signing. It is visionary in its
commitment to Certificate Transparency. In this paper, we shed light on the
adoption patterns of Let's Encrypt "in the wild" and inform the future design
and deployment of this exciting development in the security landscape. We
analyze acquisition patterns of certificates as well as their usage and
deployment trends in the real world. To this end, we analyze data from
Certificate Transparency Logs containing records of more then 18 million
certificates. We also leverage other sources like Censys, Alexa's historic
records, Geolocation databases, and VirusTotal. We also perform active HTTPS
measurements on the domains owning Let's Encrypt certificates. Our analysis of
certificate acquisition shows that (1) the impact of Let's Encrypt is
particularly visible in Western Europe; (2) Let's Encrypt has the potential to
democratize HTTPS adoption in countries that are recent entrants to Internet
adoption; (3) there is anecdotal evidence of popular domains quitting their
previously untrustworthy or expensive CAs in order to transition to Let's
Encrypt; and (4) there is a "heavy tailed" behavior where a small number of
domains acquire a large number of certificates. With respect to usage, we find
that: (1) only 54% of domains actually use the Let's Encrypt certificates they
have procured; (2) there are many non-trivial incidents of server
misconfigurations; and (3) there is early evidence of use of Let's Encrypt
certificates for typosquatting and for malware-laden sites.


title: Some New Surfaces of General Type with Maximal Picard Number

abstract:
  We construct some complex surfaces of general type with maximal Picard
number. These examples arise as fibrations of genus two curves over
quaternionic Shimura curves.


title: Dual Attention Networks for Multimodal Reasoning and Matching

abstract:
  We propose Dual Attention Networks (DANs) which jointly leverage visual and
textual attention mechanisms to capture fine-grained interplay between vision
and language. DANs attend to specific regions in images and words in text
through multiple steps and gather essential information from both modalities.
Based on this framework, we introduce two types of DANs for multimodal
reasoning and matching, respectively. The reasoning model allows visual and
textual attentions to steer each other during collaborative inference, which is
useful for tasks such as Visual Question Answering (VQA). In addition, the
matching model exploits the two attention mechanisms to estimate the similarity
between images and sentences by focusing on their shared semantics. Our
extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of DANs in combining vision
and language, achieving the state-of-the-art performance on public benchmarks
for VQA and image-text matching.


title:
Towards Sub-Word Level Compositions for Sentiment Analysis of
  Hindi-English Code Mixed Text

abstract:
  Sentiment analysis (SA) using code-mixed data from social media has several
applications in opinion mining ranging from customer satisfaction to social
campaign analysis in multilingual societies. Advances in this area are impeded
by the lack of a suitable annotated dataset. We introduce a Hindi-English
(Hi-En) code-mixed dataset for sentiment analysis and perform empirical
analysis comparing the suitability and performance of various state-of-the-art
SA methods in social media.
  In this paper, we introduce learning sub-word level representations in LSTM
(Subword-LSTM) architecture instead of character-level or word-level
representations. This linguistic prior in our architecture enables us to learn
the information about sentiment value of important morphemes. This also seems
to work well in highly noisy text containing misspellings as shown in our
experiments which is demonstrated in morpheme-level feature maps learned by our
model. Also, we hypothesize that encoding this linguistic prior in the
Subword-LSTM architecture leads to the superior performance. Our system attains
accuracy 4-5% greater than traditional approaches on our dataset, and also
outperforms the available system for sentiment analysis in Hi-En code-mixed
text by 18%.


title: Numerical evaluation of the tensor bispectrum in two field inflation

abstract:
  We evaluate the dimensionless non-Gaussianity parameter $h_{_{\rm NL}}$, that
characterizes the amplitude of the tensor bispectrum, numerically for a class
of two field inflationary models such as double inflation, hybrid inflation and
aligned natural inflation. We compare the numerical results with the slow roll
results which can be obtained analytically. In the context of double inflation,
we also investigate the effects on $h_{_{\rm NL}}$ due to curved trajectories
in the field space. We explicitly examine the validity of the consistency
relation governing the tensor bispectrum in the squeezed limit. Lastly, we
discuss the contribution to $h_{_{\rm NL}}$ due to the epoch of preheating in
two field models.


title:
Estimate on Spin Asymmetry for Drell-Yan Process at Fermilab with
  Tensor-Polarized Deuteron

abstract:
  There are four new structure functions for the spin-1 deuteron in comparison
with the ones for the spin-1/2 proton, and they are called $b_1$, $b_2$, $b_3$,
and $b_4$. The twist-2 structure functions $b_1$ and $b_2$ are expressed by
tensor-polarized parton distribution functions in the deuteron. HERMES
measurements of $b_1$ are much different from the prediction of the standard
deuteron model with D-state admixture. It indicates that the structure
functions $b_1$ and $b_2$ probe an interesting new aspect in the deuteron.
There is an approved experiment at JLab to measure $b_1$ and it is expected to
start in 2019. On the other hand, the measurement of tensor-polarized
distributions is under consideration at Fermilab by the Drell-Yan process with
the unpolarized proton beam and tensor-polarized deuteron target. It is
expected to provide crucial information on tensor-polarized antiquark
distributions. Since the distributions are small quantities, it is important to
estimate the tensor-polarized spin asymmetry theoretically to find experimental
feasibility for an actual proposal at Fermilab.


title:
New in the optical spectrum and kinematic state of the atmosphere of the
  variable V1027\,Cyg (= IRAS 20004+2955)

abstract:
  Based on high-resolution spectroscopy performed with the NES echelle
spectrograph of the 6-m telescope, we have studied the peculiarities of the
spectrum and the velocity field in the atmosphere and envelope of the cool
supergiant V1027 Cyg, the optical counterpart of the infrared source IRAS
20004+2955. For the first time, a splitting of the cores of strong absorptions
of metals and their ions (SiII, NiI, TiI, TiII, ScII, CrI, FeI, FeII, BaII) has
been detected in the stellar spectrum. The broad profile of these lines
contains a stable weak emission in the core whose position may be considered as
the systematic velocity Vsys=5.5 km/s. Small radial velocity variations with an
amplitude of 5-6 km/s due to pulsations have been revealed by symmetric low-
and moderate-intensity absorptions. A long-wavelength shift of the H$\alpha$
profile due to line core distortion is observed in the stellar spectrum.
Numerous weak CN molecular lines and the KI 7696 \AA\ line with a P Cyg profile
have been identified in the red spectral region. The coincidence of the radial
velocities measured from symmetric metal absorptions and CN lines suggests that
the CN spectrum is formed in the stellar atmosphere. We have also identified
numerous diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) whose positions in the spectrum,
Vr(DIBs)=$-12.0$ km/s, correspond to the velocity of the interstellar medium in
the Local arm of the Galaxy.


title:
Classification of Roberts actions of strongly amenable C^* tensor
  categories on the injective factor of type III_1

abstract:
  In this paper, we generalize Izumi's result on uniqueness of realization of
finite C$^*$-tensor categories in the endomorphism category of the injective
factor of type II_1 for finitely generated strongly amenable C$^*$-tensor
categories by applying Popa's classification theorem of strongly amenable
subfactors of type III_1.


title: Phantom ideals and cotorsion pairs in extriangulated categories

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce and study relative phantom morphisms in
extriangulated categories defined by Nakaoka and Palu. Then using their
properties, we show that if $(\C,\E,\s)$ is an extriangulated category with
enough injective objects and projective objects, then there exists a bijective
correspondence between any two of the following classes: (1) special
precovering ideals of $\C$; (2) special preenveloping ideals of $\C$; (3)
additive subfunctors of $\E$ having enough special injective morphisms; and (4)
additive subfunctors of $\E$ having enough special projective morphisms.
Moreover, we show that if $(\C,\E,\s)$ is an extriangulated category with
enough injective objects and projective morphisms, then there exists a
bijective correspondence between the following two classes: (1) all
object-special precovering ideals of $\C$; (2) all additive subfunctors of $\E$
having enough special injective objects.


title:
Nature of low dimensional structural modulations and relative phase
  stability in MoS2/WS2-ReS2 transition metal dichalcogenide alloys

abstract:
  We report on the various types of Peierls like two dimensional structural
modulations and relative phase stability of 2H and 1T poly-types in MoS2-ReS2
and WS2-ReS2 alloy system. Theoretical calculation predicts a polytype phase
transition cross over at ~50 at.% of Mo and W in ReS2 in both monolayer and
bulk form, respectively. Experimentally, two different types of structural
modulations at 50% and a modulation corresponding to trimerization at 75% alloy
composition is observed for MoS2-ReS2 and only one type of modulation is
observed at 50% WS2-ReS2 alloy system. The 50% alloy system is found to be a
suitable monolithic candidate for metal semiconductor transition with minute
external perturbation. ReS2 is known to be in 2D Peierls distorted 1Td
structure and forms a chain like superstructure. Incorporation of Mo and W
atoms in the ReS2 lattice modifies the metal-metal hybridization between the
cations and influences the structural modulation and electronic property of the
system. The results offer yet another effective way to tune the electronic
structure and poly-type phases of this class of materials other than
intercalation, strain, and vertical stacking arrangement.


title: Can local dynamics enhance entangling power?

abstract:
  It is demonstrated here that local dynamics have the ability to strongly
modify the entangling power of unitary quantum gates acting on a composite
system. The scenario is common to numerous physical systems, in which the time
evolution involves local operators and nonlocal interactions. To distinguish
between distinct classes of gates with zero entangling power we introduce a
complementary quantity called gate-typicality and study its properties.
Analyzing multiple applications of any entangling operator interlaced with
random local gates, we prove that both investigated quantities approach their
asymptotic values in a simple exponential form. This rapid convergence to
equilibrium, valid for subsystems of arbitrary size, is illustrated by studying
multiple actions of diagonal unitary gates and controlled unitary gates.


title:
The growth of the central region by acquisition of counter-rotating gas
  in star-forming galaxies

abstract:
  Galaxies grow through both internal and external processes. In about 10% of
nearby red galaxies with little star formation, gas and stars are
counter-rotating, demonstrating the importance of external gas acquisition in
these galaxies. However, systematic studies of such phenomena in blue,
star-forming galaxies are rare, leaving uncertain the role of external gas
acquisition in driving evolution of blue galaxies. Based on new measurements
with integral field spectroscopy of a large representative galaxy sample, we
find an appreciable fraction of counter-rotators among blue galaxies (9 out of
489 galaxies). The central regions of blue counter-rotators show younger
stellar populations and more intense, ongoing star formation than their outer
parts, indicating ongoing growth of the central regions. The result offers
observational evidence that the acquisition of external gas in blue galaxies is
possible; the interaction with pre-existing gas funnels the gas into nuclear
regions (< 1 kpc) to form new stars.


title: Online Multi-view Clustering with Incomplete Views

abstract:
  In the era of big data, it is common to have data with multiple modalities or
coming from multiple sources, known as "multi-view data". Multi-view clustering
provides a natural way to generate clusters from such data. Since different
views share some consistency and complementary information, previous works on
multi-view clustering mainly focus on how to combine various numbers of views
to improve clustering performance. However, in reality, each view may be
incomplete, i.e., instances missing in the view. Furthermore, the size of data
could be extremely huge. It is unrealistic to apply multi-view clustering in
large real-world applications without considering the incompleteness of views
and the memory requirement. None of previous works have addressed all these
challenges simultaneously. In this paper, we propose an online multi-view
clustering algorithm, OMVC, which deals with large-scale incomplete views. We
model the multi-view clustering problem as a joint weighted nonnegative matrix
factorization problem and process the multi-view data chunk by chunk to reduce
the memory requirement. OMVC learns the latent feature matrices for all the
views and pushes them towards a consensus. We further increase the robustness
of the learned latent feature matrices in OMVC via lasso regularization. To
minimize the influence of incompleteness, dynamic weight setting is introduced
to give lower weights to the incoming missing instances in different views.
More importantly, to reduce the computational time, we incorporate a faster
projected gradient descent by utilizing the Hessian matrices in OMVC. Extensive
experiments conducted on four real data demonstrate the effectiveness of the
proposed OMVC method.


title:
Bayesian inference of non-positive spectral functions in quantum field
  theory

abstract:
  We present the generalization to non positive definite spectral functions of
a recently proposed Bayesian deconvolution approach (BR method). The novel
prior used here retains many of the beneficial analytic properties of the
original method, in particular it allows us to integrate out the hyperparameter
$\alpha$ directly. To preserve the underlying axiom of scale invariance, we
introduce a second default-model related function, whose role is discussed. Our
reconstruction prescription is contrasted with existing direct methods, as well
as with an approach where shift functions are introduced to compensate for
negative spectral features. A mock spectrum analysis inspired by the study of
gluon spectral functions in QCD illustrates the capabilities of this new
approach.


title: Detecting Context Dependent Messages in a Conversational Environment

abstract:
  While automatic response generation for building chatbot systems has drawn a
lot of attention recently, there is limited understanding on when we need to
consider the linguistic context of an input text in the generation process. The
task is challenging, as messages in a conversational environment are short and
informal, and evidence that can indicate a message is context dependent is
scarce. After a study of social conversation data crawled from the web, we
observed that some characteristics estimated from the responses of messages are
discriminative for identifying context dependent messages. With the
characteristics as weak supervision, we propose using a Long Short Term Memory
(LSTM) network to learn a classifier. Our method carries out text
representation and classifier learning in a unified framework. Experimental
results show that the proposed method can significantly outperform baseline
methods on accuracy of classification.


title:
RECOME: a New Density-Based Clustering Algorithm Using Relative KNN
  Kernel Density

abstract:
  Discovering clusters from a dataset with different shapes, densities, and
scales is a known challenging problem in data clustering. In this paper, we
propose the RElative COre MErge (RECOME) clustering algorithm. The core of
RECOME is a novel density measure, i.e., Relative $K$ nearest Neighbor Kernel
Density (RNKD). RECOME identifies core objects with unit RNKD, and {partitions}
non-core objects into atom clusters by successively following higher-density
neighbor relations toward core objects. Core objects and their corresponding
atom clusters are then merged through $\alpha$-reachable paths on a KNN graph.
We discover that the number of clusters computed by RECOME is a step function
of the $\alpha$ parameter with jump discontinuity on a small collection of
values. A fast jump discontinuity discovery (FJDD) method is proposed based on
graph theory. RECOME is evaluated on both synthetic datasets and real datasets.
Experimental results indicate that RECOME is able to discover clusters with
different shapes, densities, and scales. It outperforms six baseline methods on
both synthetic datasets and real datasets. Moreover, FJDD is shown to be
effective to extract the jump discontinuity set of parameter $\alpha$ for all
tested datasets, which can ease the task of data exploration and parameter
tuning.


title: $S$-parts of terms of integer linear recurrence sequences

abstract:
  Let $S = \{q_1, \ldots , q_s\}$ be a finite, non-empty set of distinct prime
numbers. For a non-zero integer $m$, write $m = q_1^{r_1} \ldots q_s^{r_s} M$,
where $r_1, \ldots , r_s$ are non-negative integers and $M$ is an integer
relatively prime to $q_1 \ldots q_s$. We define the $S$-part $[m]_S$ of $m$ by
$[m]_S := q_1^{r_1} \ldots q_s^{r_s}$. Let $(u_n)_{n \ge 0}$ be a linear
recurrence sequence of integers. Under certain necessary conditions, we
establish that for every $\varepsilon > 0$, there exists an integer $n_0$ such
that $[u_n]_S\leq |u_n|^{\varepsilon}$ holds for $n > n_0$. Our proof is
ineffective in the sense that it does not give an explicit value for $n_0$.
Under various assumptions on $(u_n)_{n \ge 0}$, we also give effective, but
weaker, upper bounds for $[u_n]_S$ of the form $|u_n|^{1 -c}$, where $c$ is
positive and depends only on $(u_n)_{n \ge 0}$ and $S$.


title: The Nuclear Activities of Nearby S0 Galaxies

abstract:
  We present a study of nuclear activities in nearby S0 galaxies. After
cross-matching the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7) with the
Third Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies (RC3) and visually checking the SDSS
images, we derive a sample of 583 S0 galaxies with the central
spectrophotometric information. In order to separate nebular emission lines
from the underlying stellar contribution, we fit the stellar population model
to the SDSS spectra of these S0 galaxies. According to the BPT diagram, we find
that $8\%$ of S0 galaxies show central star-forming activity, while the
fractions of Seyfert, Composite and LINERs are 2\%, 8\%, and 21.4\%,
respectively. We also find that star-forming S0s have the lowest stellar
masses, over one magnitude lower than the others, and that the active S0s
locate mainly in the sparse environment, while the normal S0s in the dense
environment, which might suggest that the environment plays an important role
in quenching star formation and/or AGN activity in S0 galaxies. By performing
bulge-disk decomposition of 45 star-forming S0s in {\em g}- and {\em r}-bands
with the 2D fitting software \textsc{Galfit}, as well as exploiting the catalog
of 2D photometric decompositions of \citet{Meert2015}, we find that the bulges
of $\sim$ 1/3 star-forming S0 galaxies (16/45) are bluer than their disks,
while for other types of S0s, the bulge and disk components show similar color
distributions. Besides, the S\'{e}rsic index of most star-forming S0s bulges is
less than 2, while for normal S0s, it is between 2 and 6.


title: The Capacity of Wedge Sum of Spheres of Different Dimensions

abstract:
  K. Borsuk in 1979, in the Topological Conference in Moscow, introduced the
concept of the capacity of a compactum and raised some interesting questions
about it. In this paper, during computing the capacity of wedge sum of finitely
many spheres of different dimensions and the complex projective plane, we give
a negative answer to a question of Borsuk whether the capacity of a compactum
determined by its homology properties.


title:
Automatic Detection of Omega Signals Captured by the Poynting Flux
  Analyzer (PFX) on Board the Akebono Satellite

abstract:
  The Akebono satellite was launched in 1989 to observe the Earth's
magnetosphere and plasmasphere. Omega was a navigation system with 8 ground
stations transmitter and had transmission pattern that repeats every 10 s. From
1989 to 1997, the PFX on board the Akebono satellite received signals at 10.2
kHz from these stations. Huge amounts of PFX data became valuable for studying
the propagation characteristics of VLF waves in the ionosphere and
plasmasphere. In this study, we introduce a method for automatic detection of
Omega signals from the PFX data in a systematic way, it involves identifying a
transmission station, calculating the delay time, and estimating the signal
intensity. We show the reliability of the automatic detection system where we
able to detect the omega signal and confirmed its propagation to the opposite
hemisphere along the Earth's magnetic field lines. For more than three years
(39 months), we detected 43,734 and 111,049 signals in the magnetic and
electric field, respectively, and demonstrated that the proposed method is
powerful enough for the statistical analyses.


title:
Benchmark of the Local Drift-kinetic Models for Neoclassical Transport
  Simulation in Helical Plasmas

abstract:
  The benchmarks of the neoclassical transport codes based on the several local
drift-kinetic models are reported here. Here, the drift-kinetic models are ZOW,
ZMD, DKES-like, and global, as classified in [Matsuoka et al., Physics of
Plasmas 22, 072511 (2015)]. The magnetic geometries of HSX, LHD, and W7-X are
employed in the benchmarks. It is found that the assumption of $\boldsymbol E
\times \boldsymbol B$ incompressibility causes discrepancy of neoclassical
radial flux and parallel flow among the models, when $\boldsymbol E \times
\boldsymbol B$ is sufficiently large compared to the magnetic drift velocities.
On the other hand, when $\boldsymbol E \times \boldsymbol B$ and the magnetic
drift velocities are comparable, the tangential magnetic drift, which is
included in both the global and ZOW models, fills the role of suppressing
unphysical peaking of neoclassical radial-fluxes found in the other local
models at $E_r \simeq 0$. In low collisionality plasmas, in particular, the
tangential drift effect works well to suppress such unphysical behavior of the
radial transport caused in the simulations. It is demonstrated that the ZOW
model has the advantage of mitigating the unphysical behavior in the several
magnetic geometries, and that it also implements evaluation of bootstrap
current in LHD with the low computation cost compared to the global model.


title:
Low Carrier Density Metal Realized in Candidate Line-Node Dirac
  Semimetals CaAgP and CaAgAs

abstract:
  We study polycrystalline samples of the hexagonal pnictides, CaAgP and
CaAgAs, both of which are ideal candidates for line-node Dirac semimetals. The
polycrystalline samples of CaAgP and CaAgAs obtained in this study are
low-carrier metals, where hole carriers are dominant. By combining the hole
carrier densities estimated from Hall coefficients and the electronic
structures calculated by first principles calculations, both samples are found
to have a ring-torus Fermi surface, derived from a ring-shaped Dirac line node.
In the phosphide sample, the Fermi energy EF is located at around the end of
the linear dispersion region of the electronic bands, while the EF in the
arsenide sample exists in the middle of this region, suggesting that the
arsenide is a more promising system for uncovering the physics of line-node
Dirac semimetals.


title:
A High Throughput Pilot Allocation for M2M Communication in Crowded
  Massive MIMO Systems

abstract:
  A new scheme to resolve the intra-cell pilot collision for M2M communication
in crowded massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is proposed.
The proposed scheme permits those failed user equipments (UEs), judged by a
strongest-user collision resolution (SUCR) protocol, to contend for the idle
pilots, i.e., the pilots that are not selected by any UE in the initial step.
This scheme is called as SUCR combined idle pilots access (SUCR-IPA). To
analyze the performance of the SUCR-IPA scheme, we develop a simple method to
compute the access success probability of the UEs in each random access slot
(RAST). The simulation results coincide well with the analysis. It is also
shown that, compared to the SUCR protocol, the proposed SUCR-IPA scheme
increases the throughput of the system significantly, and thus decreases the
number of access attempts dramatically.


title: Plabic graphs and zonotopal tilings

abstract:
  We say that two sets $S,T\subset\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ are chord separated if there
does not exist a cyclically ordered quadruple $a,b,c,d$ of integers satisfying
$a,c\in S-T$ and $b,d\in T-S$. This is a weaker version of Leclerc and
Zelevinsky's weak separation. We show that every maximal by inclusion
collection of pairwise chord separated sets is also maximal by size. Moreover,
we prove that such collections are precisely vertex label collections of fine
zonotopal tilings of the three-dimensional cyclic zonotope. In our
construction, plabic graphs and square moves appear naturally as horizontal
sections of zonotopal tilings and their mutations respectively.


title:
First-passage times for random walks with non-identically distributed
  increments

abstract:
  We consider random walks with independent but not necessarily identical
distributed increments. Assuming that the increments satisfy the well-known
Lindeberg condition, we investigate the asymptotic behaviour of first-passage
times over moving boundaries. Furthermore, we prove that a properly rescaled
random walk conditioned to stay above the boundary up to time $n$ converges, as
$n\to\infty$, towards the Brownian meander.


title: The singular bivariate quartic tracial moment problem

abstract:
  The (classical) truncated moment problem, extensively studied by Curto and
Fialkow, asks to characterize when a finite sequence of real numbers indexes by
words in commuting variables can be represented with moments of a positive
Borel measure $\mu$ on $\mathbb R^n$. In \cite{BK12} Burgdorf and Klep
introduced its tracial analog, the truncated tracial moment problem, which
replaces commuting variables with non-commuting ones and moments of $\mu$ with
tracial moments of matrices. In the bivariate quartic case, where indices run
over words in two variables of degree at most four, every sequence with a
positive definite $7\times 7$ moment matrix $\mathcal M_2$ can be represented
with tracial moments \cite{BK10,BK12}. In this article the case of singular
$\mathcal M_2$ is studied. For $\mathcal M_2$ of rank at most 5 the problem is
solved completely; namely, concrete measures are obtained whenever they exist
and the uniqueness question of the minimal measures is answered. For $\mathcal
M_2$ of rank 6 the problem splits into four cases, in two of which it is
equivalent to the feasibility problem of certain linear matrix inequalities.
Finally, the question of a flat extension of the moment matrix $\mathcal M_2$
is addressed. While this is the most powerful tool for solving the classical
case, it is shown here by examples that, while sufficient, flat extensions are
mostly not a necessary condition for the existence of a measure in the tracial
case.


title:
Probing lepton flavour (universality) violation at NA62 and future kaon
  experiments

abstract:
  Recent results from the LHC's first run have revealed intriguing departures
from lepton flavour universality in the semi-leptonic decays of $B$-mesons. We
discuss the complementary role that rare kaon decays can provide in testing new
physics explanations of these flavour anomalies. In the framework of minimal
flavour violation, we relate the chiral low-energy constants involved in
$K\to\pi\ell\ell'$ and $K\to\ell\ell'$ ($\ell = \mu \mbox{ or } e$) with the
new physics Wilson coefficients of the $b\to s$ effective Hamiltonian. We
comment on the determination of these low-energy constants at NA62 and future
kaon experiments, as well as the required improvements in sensitivity necessary
to test the $B$-physics anomalies in the kaon sector.


title: Genericity of dimension drop on self-affine sets

abstract:
  We prove that generically, for a self-affine set in $\mathbb{R}^d$, removing
one of the affine maps which defines the set results in a strict reduction of
the Hausdorff dimension. This gives a partial positive answer to a folklore
open question.


title: The one loop gluon emission light cone wave function

abstract:
  Light cone perturbation theory has become an essential tool to calculate
cross sections for various small-$x$ dilute-dense processes such as deep
inelastic scattering and forward proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions.
Here we set out to do one loop calculations in an explicit helicity basis in
the four dimensional helicity scheme. As a first process we calculate light
cone wave function for one gluon emission to one-loop order in Hamiltonian
perturbation theory on the light front. We regulate ultraviolet divergences
with transverse dimensional regularization and soft divergences with using a
cut-off on longitudinal momentum. We show that when all the renormalization
constants are combined, the ultraviolet divergences can be absorbed into the
standard QCD running coupling constant, and give an explicit expression for the
remaining finite part.


title:
A coupled KPZ equation, its two types of approximations and existence of
  global solutions

abstract:
  This paper concerns the multi-component coupled Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ)
equation and its two types of approximations. One approximation is obtained as
a simple replacement of the noise term by a smeared noise with a proper
renormalization, while the other one introduced in [6] is suitable for studying
the invariant measures. By applying the paracontrolled calculus introduced by
Gubinelli et al. [8, 9], we show that two approximations have the common limit
under the properly adjusted choice of renormalization factors for each of these
approximations. In particular, if the coupling constants of the nonlinear term
of the coupled KPZ equation satisfy the so-called "trilinear" condition, the
renormalization factors can be taken the same in two approximations and the
difference of the limits of two approximations are explicitly computed.
Moreover, under the trilinear condition, the Wiener measure twisted by the
diffusion matrix becomes stationary for the limit and we show that the solution
of the limit equation exists globally in time when the initial value is sampled
from the stationary measure. This is shown for the associated tilt process.
Combined with the strong Feller property shown by Hairer and Mattingly [12],
this result can be extended for all initial values.


title: Twisted group ring isomorphism problem

abstract:
  We propose and study a variation of the classical isomorphism problem for
group rings in the context of projective representations. We formulate several
weaker conditions following from our notion and give all logical connections
between these condition by studying concrete examples. We introduce methods to
study the problem and provide results for various classes of groups, including
abelian groups, groups of central type, $p$-groups of order $p^4$ and groups of
order $p^2q^2$, where $p$ and $q$ denote different primes.


title:
Heavy-Quark Diffusion Dynamics in Quark-Gluon Plasma under Strong
  Magnetic Fields

abstract:
  We discuss heavy-quark dynamics in the quark-gluon plasma under a strong
magnetic field induced by colliding nuclei. By the use of the diagrammatic
resummation techniques for Hard Thermal Loop and the external magnetic field,
we show analytic results of heavy-quark diffusion coefficient and drag force
which become anisotropic due to the preferred spatial orientation in the
magnetic field. We argue that the anisotropic diffusion coefficient gives rise
to an enhancement/suppression of the heavy-quark elliptic flow depending on the
transverse momentum.


title:
Strong Disorder Renewal Approach to DNA denaturation and wetting :
  typical and large deviation properties of the free energy

abstract:
  For the DNA denaturation transition in the presence of random contact
energies, or equivalently the disordered wetting transition, we introduce a
Strong Disorder Renewal Approach to construct the optimal contacts in each
disordered sample of size $L$. The transition is found to be of infinite order,
with a correlation length diverging with the essential singularity $\ln \xi(T)
\propto |T-T_c |^{-1}$. In the critical region, we analyze the statistics over
samples of the free-energy density $f_L$ and of the contact density, which is
the order parameter of the transition. At the critical point, both decay as a
power-law of the length $L$ but remain distributed, in agreement with the
general phenomenon of lack of self-averaging at random critical points. We also
obtain that for any real $q>0$, the moment $\overline{Z_L^q} $ of order $q$ of
the partition function at the critical point is dominated by some exponentially
rare samples displaying a finite free-energy density, i.e. by the large
deviation sector of the probability distribution of the free-energy density.


title: Directed Lov\'asz Local Lemma and Shearer's Lemma

abstract:
  Moser and Tardos (2010) gave an algorithmic proof of the lopsided Lov\'asz
local lemma (LLL) in the variable framework, where each of the undesirable
events is assumed to depend on a subset of a collection of independent random
variables. For the proof, they define a notion of a lopsided dependency between
the events suitable for this framework. In this work, we strengthen this
notion, defining a novel directed notion of dependency and prove LLL for the
corresponding graph. We show that this graph can be strictly sparser (thus the
sufficient condition for LLL weaker) compared with graphs that correspond to
other extant lopsided versions of dependency. Thus, in a sense, we address the
problem "find other simple local conditions for the constraints (in the
variable framework) that advantageously translate to some abstract lopsided
condition" posed by Szegedy (2013). We also give an example where our notion of
dependency graph gives better results than the classical Shearer lemma.
Finally, we prove Shearer's lemma for the dependency graph we define. For the
proofs, we perform a direct probabilistic analysis that yields an exponentially
small upper bound for the probability of the algorithm that searches for the
desired assignment to the variables not to return a correct answer within $n$
steps. In contrast, the method of proof that became known as the entropic
method, gives an estimate of only the expectation of the number of steps until
the algorithm returns a correct answer, unless the probabilities are tinkered
with.


title: Status report on $\varepsilon_K$ with lattice QCD inputs

abstract:
  We report the current status of $\varepsilon_K$, the indirect CP violation
parameter in the neutral kaon system, evaluated using the lattice QCD inputs.
We use lattice QCD to fix $\hat{B}_K$, $\xi_0$, $\xi_2$, $|V_{us}|$,
$m_c(m_c)$, and $|V_{cb}|$. Since Lattice 2015, FLAG updated $\hat{B}_K$,
exclusive $V_{cb}$ has been updated with new lattice data in the $\bar{B}\to
D\ell\nu$ decay channel, and RBC-UKQCD has updated $\xi_0$ and $\xi_2$. Our
preliminary results show that the standard model evaluation of $\varepsilon_K$
with exclusive $|V_{cb}|$ (lattice QCD inputs) has $3.2\sigma$ tension with the
experimental value, while that of $\varepsilon_K$ with inclusive $|V_{cb}|$
(heavy quark expansion) shows no tension.


title:
Degrees of cohomological classes of multisinguliarities in Hurwitz
  spaces of rational functions

abstract:
  The main goal of the present paper are new formulae for degrees of strata in
Hurwitz spaces of rational functions having two degenerate critical values with
preimages of prescribed multiplicities. We consider the case where the
multiplicities of the preimages of one critical value are arbitrary, while the
second critical value has degeneracy of codimension~$1$. Our formulae are based
on the universal cohomological expressions for codimension~$1$ strata in terms
of certain basic cohomology classes in general Hurwitz spaces of rational
functions obtained by M.~Kazarian and S.~Lando. We prove new relations valid in
cohomology of Hurwitz spaces that were conjectured by M.~Kazarian on the base
of computer experiments. As a corollary, we obtain new, previously unknown,
explicit formulae for certain families of double Hurwitz numbers in genus~$0$.
One may hope that the methods developed in the present paper are applicable to
proving more general relations in cohomology rings of Hurwitz spaces and
deducing more general formulae for double Hurwitz numbers.


title:
Numerical evidence of drift term in two-dimensional point vortex system
  at negative absolute temperature

abstract:
  The drift term appearing in an anaylitically obtained kinetic equation for a
point vortex system is evidenced numerically. It is revealed that the local
temperature in a region where the vortices are frequently transported by the
diffusion and the drift terms characterizes system temperature and its sign is
definitely negative. Simulation results clearly show a ransport process of the
vortices by the diffusion term (outside the clumps) and the drift term (inside
the clumps), which gives a key mechanism of the self-organization, i.e.,
condensation of the same-sign vortices.


title: Broadband solid cloak for underwater acoustics

abstract:
  Application of transformation theory to underwater acoustics has been a
challenging task because highly anisotropic density is unachievable in water. A
possible strategy is to exploit anisotropic modulus rather than density, while
has not been experimentally demonstrated. We present an annular underwater
acoustic cloak designed from particular graded solid microstructures. The
geometry tailored microstructures mimics meta-fluid with highly anisotropic
modulus through substantially suppressed shear wave. Transient wave experiments
are conducted with the cloak in a designed 2D underwater waveguide system and
proved excellent cloaking performance for enclosed target over broadband
frequency 9-15 kHz. This finding paves the way for controlling underwater
acoustics using the structured anisotropic modulus meta-fluid.


title:
Worst Case Competitive Analysis of Online Algorithms for Conic
  Optimization

abstract:
  Online optimization covers problems such as online resource allocation,
online bipartite matching, adwords (a central problem in e-commerce and
advertising), and adwords with separable concave returns. We analyze the worst
case competitive ratio of two primal-dual algorithms for a class of online
convex (conic) optimization problems that contains the previous examples as
special cases defined on the positive orthant. We derive a sufficient condition
on the objective function that guarantees a constant worst case competitive
ratio (greater than or equal to $\frac{1}{2}$) for monotone objective
functions. We provide new examples of online problems on the positive orthant
and the positive semidefinite cone that satisfy the sufficient condition. We
show how smoothing can improve the competitive ratio of these algorithms, and
in particular for separable functions, we show that the optimal smoothing can
be derived by solving a convex optimization problem. This result allows us to
directly optimize the competitive ratio bound over a class of smoothing
functions, and hence design effective smoothing customized for a given cost
function.


title:
On the co--existence of maximal and whiskered tori for the planetary
  three--body problem

abstract:
  In this paper we discuss about the possibility of {\it coexistence} of stable
and unstable quasi--periodic {\sc kam} tori in a region of phase space of the
three-body problem. The {argument of proof} goes along {{\sc kam} theory and,
especially,} the production of two non smoothly related systems of canonical
coordinates in the same region of the phase space, the possibility of which is
foreseen, for `properly--degenerate' systems, by a theorem of Nekhorossev and
Mi{\v{s}}{\v{c}}enko and Fomenko. The two coordinate systems are alternative to
the classical reduction of the nodes by Jacobi, described, e.g.,
in~[V.I.~Arnold, Small denominators and problems of stability of motion in
classical and celestial mechanics, 18, 85 (1963); p. 141].


title: Multiscale modeling via split-step methods in neural firing

abstract:
  Neuronal models based on the Hodgkin-Huxley equation form a fundamental
framework in the field of computational neuroscience. While the neuronal state
is often modeled deterministically, experimental recordings show stochastic
fluctuations, presumably driven by molecular noise from the underlying
microphysical conditions. In turn, the firing of individual neurons gives rise
to an electric field n extracellular space, also thought to affect the firing
pattern of nearby neurons.
  We develop a multiscale model which combines a stochastic ion channel gating
process taking place on the neuronal membrane, together with the propagation of
an action potential along the neuronal structure. We also devise a numerical
method relying on a split-step strategy which effectively couples these two
processes and we experimentally test the feasibility of this approach. We
finally also explain how the approach can be extended with Maxwell's equations
to allow the potential to be propagated in extracellular space.


title:
Ancilla-driven instantaneous quantum polynomial time circuit for quantum
  supremacy

abstract:
  Instantaneous quantum polynomial time (IQP) is a model of (probably)
non-universal quantum computation. Since it has been proven that IQP circuits
are unlikely to be simulated classically up to a multiplicative error and an
error in the $l_1$ norm, IQP is considered as one of the promising classes that
demonstrates quantum supremacy. Although IQP circuits can be realized more
easily than a universal quantum computer, demonstrating quantum supremacy is
still difficult. It is therefore desired to find subclasses of IQP that are
easy to implement. In this paper, by imposing some restrictions on IQP, we
propose ancilla-driven IQP (ADIQP) as the subclass of commuting quantum
computation suitable for many experimental settings. We show that even though
ADIQP circuits are strictly weaker than IQP circuits in a sense, they are also
hard to simulate classically up to a multiplicative error and an error in the
$l_1$ norm. Moreover, the properties of ADIQP make it easy to investigate the
verifiability of ADIQP circuits and the difficulties in realizing ADIQP
circuits.


title:
Probing the magnetosphere of the M8.5 dwarf TVLM513-46546 by modelling
  its auroral radio emission. Hint of star exoplanet interaction?

abstract:
  In this paper we simulate the cyclic circularly-polarised pulses of the
ultra-cool dwarf TVLM513-46546, observed with the VLA at 4.88 and 8.44 GHz on
May 2006, by using a 3D model of the auroral radio emission from the stellar
magnetosphere. During this epoch, the radio light curves are characterised by
two pulses left-hand polarised at 4.88 GHz, and one doubly-peaked (of opposite
polarisations) pulse at 8.44 GHz. To take into account the possible deviation
from the dipolar symmetry of the stellar magnetic field topology, the model
described in this paper is also able to simulate the auroral radio emission
from a magnetosphere shaped like an offset-dipole. To reproduce the timing and
pattern of the observed pulses, we explored the space of parameters controlling
the auroral beaming pattern and the geometry of the magnetosphere. Through the
analysis of the TVLM513-46546 auroral radio emission, we derive some
indications on the magnetospheric field topology that is able to simultaneously
reproduce the timing and patterns of the auroral pulses measured at 4.88 and
8.44 GHz. Each set of model solutions simulates two auroral pulses (singly or
doubly peaked) per period. To explain the presence of only one 8.44 GHz pulse
per period, we analyse the case of auroral radio emission limited only to a
magnetospheric sector activated by an external body, like the case of the
interaction of Jupiter with its moons.


title:
Revisiting the extremely fast disc wind in a gravitationally lensed
  quasar APM 08279+5255

abstract:
  The gravitationally lensed quasar APM 08279+5255 has the fastest claimed wind
from any AGN, with velocities of 0.6-0.7c, requiring magnetic acceleration as
special relativisitic effects limit all radiatively driven winds to v<0.3-0.5c.
However, this extreme velocity derives from interpreting both the narrow and
broad absorption features in the X-ray spectrum as iron absorption lines. The
classic ultrafast outflow source PDS 456 also shows similar absorption systems,
but here the higher energy, broader feature is generally interpreted as an
absorption edge. We reanalyse all the spectra from APM 08279+5255 using a full
3-dimensional Monte Carlo radiative transfer disc wind model for the ionised
wind at 0.1-0.2c, together with complex absorption from lower ionisation
material, and find that this is a better description of the data. Thus there is
no strong requirement for outflow velocities beyond 0.2c, which can be powered
by radiation driving. We show that UV line driving is especially likely given
the spectral energy distribution of this source which is intrinsically UV
bright and X-ray weak. While the peak of this emission is unobservable, it must
be luminous enough to power the observed hot dust, favouring at least moderate
black hole spin.


title:
Radiative shock waves and their role in solving puzzles of Superluminous
  Supernovae

abstract:
  A brief pedagogical review for students on basic physics of Superluminous
Supernovae. Almost no references to literature are given, but important
formulas are derived in some detail.


title: The Intelligent Voice 2016 Speaker Recognition System

abstract:
  This paper presents the Intelligent Voice (IV) system submitted to the NIST
2016 Speaker Recognition Evaluation (SRE). The primary emphasis of SRE this
year was on developing speaker recognition technology which is robust for novel
languages that are much more heterogeneous than those used in the current
state-of-the-art, using significantly less training data, that does not contain
meta-data from those languages. The system is based on the state-of-the-art
i-vector/PLDA which is developed on the fixed training condition, and the
results are reported on the protocol defined on the development set of the
challenge.


title:
A Central Limit Theorem for Fleming-Viot Particle Systems with Soft
  Killing

abstract:
  The distribution of a Markov process with killing, conditioned to be still
alive at a given time, can be approximated by a Fleming-Viot type particle
system. In such a system, each particle is simulated independently according to
the law of the underlying Markov process, and branches onto another particle at
each killing time. The consistency of this method in the large population limit
was the subject of several recent articles. In the present paper, we go one
step forward and prove a central limit theorem for the law of the Fleming-Viot
particle system at a given time under two conditions: a "soft killing"
assumption and a boundedness condition involving the "carr\'e du champ"
operator of the underlying Markov process.


title: On the volume of locally conformally flat 4 dimensional hypersphere

abstract:
  Let $M$ be a 5 dimensional Riemannian manifold with $Sec_M\in[0,1]$, $\Sigma$
be a locally conformally flat hypersphere in $M$ with mean curvature $H$. We
prove that, there exists $\varepsilon_0>0$, such that $\int_\Sigma (1+H^2)^2
\ge 8\pi^2/3$, provided $H \le \varepsilon_0$. In particular, if $\Sigma$ is a
locally conformally flat minimal hypersphere in $M$, then $Vol(\Sigma) \ge
8\pi^2/3$, which partially answer a question proposed by Mazet and Rosenberg
\cite{Ma&Rosen}. For an $(n+1)-$ dimensional rotationally symmetric Riemannian
manifold $M$, we show that an immersed hypersurface $\Sigma$ is locally
conformally flat if and only if ($n-1$) of the principal curvatures of $\Sigma$
are the same, which is a generalization of Cartan's result \cite{Cartan}. As an
application, we prove that if $M$ is (some special but large class)
rotationally symmetric 5-manifold with $Sec_M\in [0,1]$, and $\Sigma$ is a
locally conformally flat hypersphere with mean curvature $H$, the inequality
$\int_\Sigma (1+H^2)^2 \ge 8\pi^2/3$ holds for all $H$.


title: Dissipative phases across the superconductor-to-insulator transition

abstract:
  Competing phenomena in low dimensional systems can generate exotic electronic
phases, either through symmetry breaking or a non-trivial topology. In
two-dimensional (2D) systems, the interplay between superfluidity, disorder and
repulsive interactions is especially fruitful in this respect although both the
exact nature of the phases and the microscopic processes at play are still open
questions. In particular, in 2D, once superconductivity is destroyed by
disorder, an insulating ground state is expected to emerge, as a result of a
direct superconductor-to-insulator quantum phase transition. In such systems,
no metallic state is theoretically expected to survive to the slightest
disorder. Here we map out the phase diagram of amorphous NbSi thin films as
functions of disorder and film thickness, with two metallic phases in between
the superconducting and insulating ones. These two dissipative states, defined
by a resistance which extrapolates to a finite value in the zero temperature
limit, each bear a specific dependence on disorder. We argue that they
originate from an inhomogeneous destruction of superconductivity, even if the
system is morphologically homogeneous. Our results suggest that superconducting
fluctuations can favor metallic states that would not otherwise exist.


title:
A Dynamic Multi Agent based scheduling for flexible flow line
  manufacturing system accompanied by dynamic customer demand

abstract:
  Dynamic rescheduling decision-making problem is an important issue in modern
manufacturing system with the feature of combinational computation complexity.
This paper introduces a multi-agent based approach using the detailed process,
provided by Prometheus methodology, which used for the design of a simultaneous
dynamic rescheduling decision making for flexible flow line manufacturing
system that working under dynamic customer demand. The application has been
completely modeled with the Prometheus Design Tool (PDT), which offers full
support to Prometheus Methodology. The proposed dynamic scheduling decision
making system is developed for Automated UPVC door and Windows Company and can
be support both static and dynamic scheduling.


title: On the Convergence of the EM Algorithm: A Data-Adaptive Analysis

abstract:
  The Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is an iterative method to
maximize the log-likelihood function for parameter estimation. Previous works
on the convergence analysis of the EM algorithm have established results on the
asymptotic (population level) convergence rate of the algorithm. In this paper,
we give a data-adaptive analysis of the sample level local convergence rate of
the EM algorithm. In particular, we show that the local convergence rate of the
EM algorithm is a random variable $\overline{K}_{n}$ derived from the data
generating distribution, which adaptively yields the convergence rate of the EM
algorithm on each finite sample data set from the same population distribution.
We then give a non-asymptotic concentration bound of $\overline{K}_{n}$ on the
population level optimal convergence rate $\overline{\kappa}$ of the EM
algorithm, which implies that $\overline{K}_{n}\to\overline{\kappa}$ in
probability as the sample size $n\to\infty$. Our theory identifies the effect
of sample size on the convergence behavior of sample EM sequence, and explains
a surprising phenomenon in applications of the EM algorithm, i.e. the finite
sample version of the algorithm sometimes converges faster even than the
population version. We apply our theory to the EM algorithm on three canonical
models and obtain specific forms of the adaptive convergence theorem for each
model.


title: Bending stiff charged polymers: the electrostatic persistence length

abstract:
  Many charged polymers, including nucleic acids, are locally stiff. Their
bending rigidity -- quantified by the persistence length --, depends crucially
on Coulombic features, such as the ionic strength of the solution which offers
a convenient experimental route for tuning the rigidity. While the classic
Odijk-Skolnick-Fixman treatment fails for realistic parameter values, we derive
a simple analytical formula for the electrostatic persistence length. It is
shown to be in remarkable agreement with numerically obtained Poisson-Boltzmann
theory results, thereby fully accounting for non-linearities, among which
counter-ion condensation effects. Specified to double-stranded DNA, our work
reveals that the widely used bare persistence length of 500\,\AA\ is
overestimated by some 20%


title:
Normative properties of multi-criteria choice procedures and their
  superposition: II

abstract:
  Two-stage superposition choice procedures, which sequentially apply two
choice procedures so that the result of the first choice procedure is the input
for the second choice procedure, are studied. We define which of them satisfy
given normative conditions, showing how a final choice is changed due to the
changes of preferences or a set of feasible alternatives. A theorem is proved
showing which normative conditions are satisfied for two-stage choice
procedures based on different scoring rules, rules, using majority relation,
value function and tournament matrix. A complexity of two-stage choice
procedures as well as its runtime on real data are evaluated.


title: Optimized Thermal-Aware Job Scheduling and Control of Data Centers

abstract:
  Analyzing data centers with thermal-aware optimization techniques is a viable
approach to reduce energy consumption of data centers. By taking into account
thermal consequences of job placements among the servers of a data center, it
is possible to reduce the amount of cooling necessary to keep the servers below
a given safe temperature threshold. We set up an optimization problem to
analyze and characterize the optimal setpoints for the workload distribution
and the supply temperature of the cooling equipment. Furthermore under mild
assumptions we design and analyze controllers that drive the data center to the
optimal state without knowledge of the current total workload to be handled by
the data center. The response of our controller is validated by simulations and
convergence to the optimal setpoints is achieved under varying workload
conditions.


title:
Atomic displacements and lattice distortion in the
  magnetic-field-induced charge ordered state of SmRu$_{4}$P$_{12}$

abstract:
  Structural properties of SmRu$_4$P$_{12}$ in the anomalous magnetic ordered
phase between $T^*\sim 14 $ K and $T_{\text{N}}=16.5$ K in magnetic fields has
been studied by x-ray diffraction. Atomic displacements of Ru and P, reflecting
the field-induced charge order of the $p$ electrons, have been deduced by
analyzing the intensities of the forbidden Bragg peaks, assuming a cubic space
group $Pm\bar{3}$. Also, by utilizing high-resolution x-ray diffraction
experiment, we observed a splitting of fundamental Bragg peaks, clarifying that
the unit cell in the magnetic ordered phase is rhombohedral elongated along the
$[1\, 1\, 1]$ axis. Responses of the rhombohedral domains to the magnetic
field, which reflects the direction of the magnetic moment, is studied in
detail.


title:
Normative properties of multi-criteria choice procedures and their
  superpositions: I

abstract:
  We consider different choice procedures such as scoring rules, rules, using
majority relation, value function and tournament matrix, which are used in
social and multi-criteria choice problems. We focus on the study of the
properties that show how the final choice is changed due to changes of
preferences or a set of feasible alternatives. As a result a theorem is
provided showing which normative properties (rationality, monotonicity,
non-compensability) are satisfied for the given choice procedures.


title:
Rings over which every matrix is the sum of two idempotents and a
  nilpotent

abstract:
  A ring $R$ is (strongly) 2-nil-clean if every element in $R$ is the sum of
two idempotents and a nilpotent (that commute). Fundamental properties of such
rings are discussed. Let $R$ be a 2-primal ring. If $R$ is strongly
2-nil-clean, we show that $M_n(R)$ is 2-nil-clean for all $n\in {\Bbb N}$. We
also prove that the matrix ring is 2-nil-clean for a strongly 2-nil-clean ring
of bounded index. These provide many classes of rings over which every matrix
is the sum of two idempotents and a nilpotent.


title: Circumbinary planets II - when transits come and go

abstract:
  Circumbinary planets are generally more likely to transit than equivalent
single-star planets, but practically the geometry and orbital dynamics of
circumbinary planets make the chance of observing a transit inherently
time-dependent. In this follow-up paper to Martin & Triaud (2015), the
time-dependence is probed deeper by analytically calculating when and for how
long the binary and planet orbits overlap, allowing for transits to occur. The
derived equations are applied to the known transiting circumbinary planets
found by Kepler to predict when future transits will occur, and whether they
will be observable by upcoming space telescopes TESS, CHEOPS and PLATO. The
majority of these planets spend less than 50% of their time in a transiting
configuration, some less than 20%. From this it is calculated that the known
Kepler eclipsing binaries likely host an additional ~ 17 - 30 circumbinary
planets that are similar to the ten published discoveries, and they will
ultimately transit some day, potentially during the TESS and PLATO surveys.


title:
On the role of speed adaptation and spacing indifference in traffic
  instability: evidence from car-following experiments and its stochastic
  modeling

abstract:
  Understanding the mechanisms responsible for the emergence and evolution of
oscillations in traffic flow has been subject to intensive research by the
traffic flow theory community. In our previous work, we proposed a new
mechanism to explain the generation of traffic oscillations: traffic
instability caused by the competition between speed adaptation and the
cumulative effect of stochastic factors. In this paper, by conducting a closer
examination of car following data obtained in a 25-car platoon experiment, we
discovered that the speed difference plays a more important role on
car-following dynamics than the spacing, and when its amplitude is small, the
growth of oscillations is mainly determined by the stochastic factors that
follow the mean reversion process; when its amplitude increases, the growth of
the oscillations is determined by the competition between the stochastic
factors and the speed difference. An explanation is then provided, based on the
above findings, to why the speed variance in the oscillatory traffic grows in a
concave way along the platoon. Finally, we proposed a mode-switching stochastic
car-following model that incorporates the speed adaptation and spacing
indifference behaviors of drivers, which captures the observed characteristics
of oscillation and discharge rate. Sensitivity analysis shows that reaction
delay only has slight effect but indifference region boundary has significant
on oscillation growth rate and discharge rate.


title:
SDSS-IV MaNGA: Properties of galaxies with kinematically decoupled
  stellar and gaseous components

abstract:
  We study the properties of 66 galaxies with kinematically misaligned gas and
stars from MaNGA survey. The fraction of kinematically misaligned galaxies
varies with galaxy physical parameters, i.e. M*, SFR and sSFR. According to
their sSFR, we further classify these 66 galaxies into three categories, 10
star-forming, 26 "Green Valley" and 30 quiescent ones. The properties of
different types of kinematically misaligned galaxies are different in that the
star-forming ones have positive gradient in D4000 and higher gas-phase
metallicity, while the green valley/quiescent ones have negative D4000
gradients and lower gas-phase metallicity on average. There is evidence that
all types of the kinematically misaligned galaxies tend to live in more
isolated environment. Based on all these observational results, we propose a
scenario for the formation of star forming galaxies with kinematically
misaligned gas and stars - the progenitor accretes misaligned gas from a
gas-rich dwarf or cosmic web, the cancellation of angular momentum from gas-gas
collisions between the pre-existing gas and the accreted gas largely
accelerates gas inflow, leading to fast centrally-concentrated star-formation.
The higher metallicity is due to enrichment from this star formation. For the
kinematically misaligned green valley and quiescent galaxies, they might be
formed through gas-poor progenitors accreting kinematically misaligned gas from
satellites which are smaller in mass.


title: Packing Sets

abstract:
  For a given subset $A\subseteq \mathbb F_q^*$, we study the problem of
finding a large packing set $B$ of $A$, that is, a set $B \subseteq \mathbb
F_q^*$ such that $|AB|=|A||B|$. We prove the existence of such a $B$ of size
$|B|\ge (q-1)/|A/A|$ and show that this bound is in general optimal.
  The case that $q=p$ is a prime and $A=\{1,2,\ldots,\lambda\}$ for some
positive integer $\lambda$ is particularly interesting in view of the
construction of limited-magnitude error correcting codes. Here we construct a
packing set $B$ of size $|B|\gg p (\lambda \log p)^{-1}$ for any $\lambda \le c
p^{1/2}$ for some explicitly calcuable constant $c$. This result is optimal up
to the logarithmic factor.


title:
Exact solutions of a two-dimensional Duffin-Petiau-Kemmer oscillator
  subject to a coulomb potential in the gravitational field of cosmic string

abstract:
  In this paper, the problem of a two-dimensional Duffin-Petiau-Kemmer (DKP)
oscillator in the presence of a coulomb potential in the cosmic string
background is solved. The eigensolutions of the problem in question have been
found, and the influence of the cosmic string space-time on the eigenvalues has
been analyzed.


title: Modal Analysis of Masonry Structures

abstract:
  This paper presents a new numerical procedure for evaluating the vibration
frequencies and mode shapes of masonry buildings in the presence of cracks. The
algorithm has been implemented within the NOSA-ITACA code, which models masonry
as a nonlinear elastic material with zero tensile strength. Some case studies
are reported, and the differences between linear and nonlinear behavior
highlighted.


title:
An asymptotically optimal, online algorithm for weighted random sampling
  with replacement

abstract:
  This paper presents a novel algorithm solving the classic problem of
generating a random sample of size s from population of size n with non-uniform
probabilities. The sampling is done with replacement. The algorithm requires
constant additional memory, and works in O(n) time (even when s >> n, in which
case the algorithm produces a list containing, for every population member, the
number of times it has been selected for sample). The algorithm works online,
and as such is well-suited to processing streams. In addition, a novel method
of mass-sampling from any discrete distribution using the algorithm is
presented.