title: Gaussian Learning-Without-Recall in a Dynamic Social Network

abstract:
  We analyze the dynamics of the Learning-Without-Recall model with Gaussian
priors in a dynamic social network. Agents seeking to learn the state of the
world, the "truth", exchange signals about their current beliefs across a
changing network and update them accordingly. The agents are assumed memoryless
and rational, meaning that they Bayes-update their beliefs based on current
states and signals, with no other information from the past. The other
assumption is that each agent hears a noisy signal from the truth at a
frequency bounded away from zero. Under these conditions, we show that the
system reaches truthful consensus almost surely with a convergence rate that is
polynomial in expectation. Somewhat paradoxically, high outdegree can slow down
the learning process. The lower-bound assumption on the truth-hearing frequency
is necessary: even infinitely frequent access to the truth offers no guarantee
of truthful consensus in the limit.


title:
Interstellar Pickup Ion Production in the Global Heliosphere and
  Heliosheath

abstract:
  Interstellar Pickup ions (PUIs) play a significant part in mediating the
solar wind (SW) interaction with the interstellar medium. In this paper, we
examine the details of spatial variation of the PUI velocity distribution
function (VDF) in the SW by solving the PUI transport equation. We assume the
PUI distribution is isotropic resulting from strong pitch-angle scattering by
wave-particle interaction. A three-dimensional model combining the MHD
treatment of the background SW and neutrals with a kinetic treatment of PUIs
throughout the heliosphere and the surrounding local interstellar medium (LISM)
has been developed. The model generates PUI power law tails via second-order
Fermi process. We analyze how PUIs transform across the heliospheric
termination shock (TS) and obtain the PUI phase space distribution in the inner
heliosheath including continuing velocity diffusion. Our simulated PUI spectra
are compared with observations made by New Horizons, Ulysses, Voyager 1, 2 and
Cassini, and a satisfactory agreement is demonstrated. Some specific features
in the observations, for example, a cutoff of PUI VDF at $v = V_{SW}$ and a $f
\propto v^{-5}$ tail in the reference frame of the SW, are well represented by
the model.


title: Construction of Maximally Localized Wannier Functions

abstract:
  We present a general method of constructing maximally localized Wannier
functions. It consists of three steps: (1) picking a localized trial wave
function, (2) performing a full band projection, and (3) orthonormalizing with
the Lowdin method. Our method is capable of producing maximally localized
Wannier functions without further minimization, and it can be applied
straightforwardly to random potentials without using supercells. The
effectiveness of our method is demonstrated for both simple bands and composite
bands.


title:
Reducing Drift in Visual Odometry by Inferring Sun Direction Using a
  Bayesian Convolutional Neural Network

abstract:
  We present a method to incorporate global orientation information from the
sun into a visual odometry pipeline using only the existing image stream, where
the sun is typically not visible. We leverage recent advances in Bayesian
Convolutional Neural Networks to train and implement a sun detection model that
infers a three-dimensional sun direction vector from a single RGB image.
Crucially, our method also computes a principled uncertainty associated with
each prediction, using a Monte Carlo dropout scheme. We incorporate this
uncertainty into a sliding window stereo visual odometry pipeline where
accurate uncertainty estimates are critical for optimal data fusion. Our
Bayesian sun detection model achieves a median error of approximately 12
degrees on the KITTI odometry benchmark training set, and yields improvements
of up to 42% in translational ARMSE and 32% in rotational ARMSE compared to
standard VO. An open source implementation of our Bayesian CNN sun estimator
(Sun-BCNN) using Caffe is available at https://github.
com/utiasSTARS/sun-bcnn-vo


title:
Very Magnetized White Dwarfs with Axisymmetric Magnetic Field and the
  Importance of the Electron Capture and Pycnonuclear Fusion Reactions for
  their Stability

abstract:
  In this work, we study the properties of magnetized white dwarfs taking into
account possible instabilities due to electron capture and pycnonuclear fusion
reactions in the cores of such objects. The structure of white dwarfs is
obtained by solving the Einstein-Maxwell equations with a poloidal magnetic
field in a fully general relativistic approach. The stellar interior is
composed of a regular crystal lattice made of carbon ions immersed in a
degenerate relativistic electron gas. The onsets of electron capture reactions
and pycnonuclear reactions are determined with and without magnetic fields. We
find that magnetized white dwarfs violate the standard Chandrasekhar mass limit
significantly, even when electron capture and pycnonuclear fusion reactions are
present in the stellar interior. We obtain a maximum white dwarf mass of around
$2.14\,M_{\odot}$ for a central magnetic field of $\sim 3.85\times 10^{14}$~G,
which indicates that magnetized white dwarfs may play a role for the
interpretation of superluminous type Ia supernovae. Furthermore, we show that
the critical density for pycnonuclear fusion reactions limits the central white
dwarf density to $9.35\times 10^9$ g/cm$^3$. As a result, equatorial radii of
white dwarfs cannot be smaller than $\sim 1100$~km. Another interesting feature
concerns the relationship between the central stellar density and the strength
of the magnetic field at the core of a magnetized white dwarf. For high
magnetic fields, we find that the central density increases (stellar radius
decrease) with magnetic field strength, which makes ultramagnetized white
dwarfs more compact. The opposite is the case, however, if the central magnetic
field is less than $\sim 10^{13}$~G. In the latter case, the central density
decreases (stellar radius increases) with central magnetic field strengths.


title: Addressing Graph Products and Distance-Regular Graphs

abstract:
  Graham and Pollak showed that the vertices of any connected graph $G$ can be
assigned $t$-tuples with entries in $\{0, a, b\}$, called addresses, such that
the distance in $G$ between any two vertices equals the number of positions in
their addresses where one of the addresses equals $a$ and the other equals $b$.
In this paper, we are interested in determining the minimum value of such $t$
for various families of graphs. We develop two ways to obtain this value for
the Hamming graphs and present a lower bound for the triangular graphs.


title: The Pitchfork Bifurcation

abstract:
  We give development of a new theory of the Pitchfork bifurcation, which
removes the perspective of the third derivative and a requirement of symmetry.


title: Phosphorene Edge Reconstruction by Self-Rolling

abstract:
  Edge atomic configuration often plays an important role in dictating the
properties of finite-sized two-dimensional (2D) materials. By performing ab
initio calculations, we identify a highly stable zigzag edge of phosphorene,
which is the most stable one among all the considered edges. Surprisingly, this
highly stable edge exhibits a novel nanotube-like structure, which is
topologically distinctively different from any previously reported edge
reconstruction. We further show that this new edge type can form easily, with
an energy barrier of only 0.234 eV. It may be the dominant edge type at room
temperature in vacuum condition or even under low hydrogen gas pressure. The
calculated band structure reveals that the reconstructed edge possesses a
bandgap of 1.23 eV. It is expected that this newly found edge structure may
stimulate more studies in uncovering other novel edge types and further
exploring their practical applications.


title: Duality and Geodesics for Probabilistic Frames

abstract:
  Probabilistic frames are a generalization of finite frames into the
Wasserstein space of probability measures with finite second moment. We
introduce new probabilistic definitions of duality, analysis, and synthesis and
investigate their properties. In particular, we formulate a theory of transport
duals for probabilistic frames and prove certain properties of this class. We
also investigate paths of probabilistic frames, identifying conditions under
which geodesic paths between two such measures are themselves probabilistic
frames. In the discrete case, this is related to ranks of convex combinations
of matrices, while, in the continuous case, this is related to the continuity
of the optimal transport plan.


title: Eigenvalue Sums of Combinatorial Magnetic Laplacians on Finite Graphs

abstract:
  We give a construction of a class of magnetic Laplacian operators on finite
directed graphs. We study some general combinatorial and algebraic properties
of operators in this class before applying the Harrell-Stubbe Averaged
Variational Principle to derive several sharp bounds on sums of eigenvalues of
such operators. In particular, among other inequalities, we show that if $G$ is
a directed graph on $n$ vertices arising from orienting a connected subgraph of
$d$-regular loopless graph on $n$ vertices, then if $\Delta_\theta$ is any
magnetic Laplacian on $G$, of which the standard combinatorial Laplacian is a
special case, and $\lambda_0\leq \lambda_1\leq ...\leq\lambda_{n-1}$ are the
eigenvalues of $\Delta_{\theta},$ then for $k\leq \frac{n}{2},$ we have
\[\frac{1}{k}\sum_{j=0}^{k-1}\lambda_j \leq d-1.\]


title: Levelized Cost of Energy for PV and Grid Scale Energy Storage Systems

abstract:
  With the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources and energy
storage devices in the power system, it is important to evaluate the cost of
the system by using Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). In this paper a new
metric, Levelized Cost of Delivery (LCOD) is proposed to calculate the LCOE for
the energy storage. The recent definitions in LCOE for renewable energy system
has been reviewed. From fundamental principles, it is demonstrated that there
is a need to introduce a new method to evaluate LCOE of the system as the
conventional LCOE is not applicable for renewable energy storage systems. Three
years of solar irradiance data in Africa collected from Johannesburg and the
national load data from Kenya are obtained for case studies. The proposed cost
calculation methods are evaluated for two types of storage technologies
(Vanadium Redox Battery (VRB) and Lithium-ion) with real-life data. It shows
that the marginal LCOE and LCOD indices can be used to assist policymakers to
consider the discount rate and the type of storage technology for a cost
effective renewable storage energy system.


title: On Optimal Exact Simulation of Max-Stable and Related Random Fields

abstract:
  We consider the random field M(t)=\sup_{n\geq 1}\big\{-\log
A_{n}+X_{n}(t)\big\}\,,\qquad t\in T\, for a set $T\subset \mathbb{R}^{m}$,
where $(X_{n})$ is an iid sequence of centered Gaussian random fields on $T$
and $0<A_{1}<A_{2}<\cdots $ are the arrivals of a general renewal process on
$(0,\infty )$, independent of $(X_{n})$. In particular, a large class of
max-stable random fields with Gumbel marginals have such a representation.
Assume that one needs $c\left( d\right) =c(\{t_{1},\ldots,t_{d}\})$ function
evaluations to sample $X_{n}$ at $d$ locations $t_{1},\ldots ,t_{d}\in T$. We
provide an algorithm which, for any $\epsilon >0$, samples $M(t_{1}),\ldots
,M(t_{d})$ with complexity $o(c(d)\,d^{\epsilon })$. Moreover, if $X_{n}$ has
an a.s. converging series representation, then $M$ can be a.s. approximated
with error $\delta $ uniformly over $T$ and with complexity $O(1/(\delta \log
(1/\delta ))^{1/\alpha })$, where $\alpha $ relates to the H\"{o}lder
continuity exponent of the process $X_{n}$ (so, if $X_{n}$ is Brownian motion,
$\alpha =1/2$).


title:
On the local well-posedness and a Prodi-Serrin type regularity criterion
  of the three-dimensional MHD-Boussinesq system without thermal diffusion

abstract:
  We prove a Prodi-Serrin-type global regularity condition for the
three-dimensional Magnetohydrodynamic-Boussinesq system (3D MHD-Boussinesq)
without thermal diffusion, in terms of only two velocity and two magnetic
components. This is the first Prodi-Serrin-type criterion for a hydrodynamic
system which is not fully dissipative, and indicates that such an approach may
be successful on other systems. In addition, we provide a constructive proof of
the local well-posedness of solutions to the fully dissipative 3D
MHD-Boussinesq system, and also the fully inviscid, irresistive, non-diffusive
MHD-Boussinesq equations. We note that, as a special case, these results
include the 3D non-diffusive Boussinesq system and the 3D MHD equations.
Moreover, they can be extended without difficulty to include the case of a
Coriolis rotational term.


title: Mild mixing of certain interval exchange transformations

abstract:
  We prove that irreducible, linearly recurrent, type W interval exchange
transformations are always mild mixing. For every irreducible permutation the
set of linearly recurrent interval exchange transformations has full Hausdorff
dimension.


title: A Large-scale Analysis of the Marketplace Characteristics in Fiverr

abstract:
  Crowdsourcing platforms have become quite popular due to the increasing
demand of human computation-based tasks. Though the crowdsourcing systems are
primarily demand-driven like MTurk, supply-driven marketplaces are becoming
increasingly popular. Fiverr is a fast growing supply-driven marketplace where
the sellers post micro-tasks (gigs) and users purchase them for prices as low
as $5. In this paper, we study the Fiverr platform as a unique marketplace and
characterize the sellers, buyers and the interactions among them. We find that
sellers are more appeasing in their interactions and try to woo their buyers
into buying their gigs. There are many small tightly-knit communities existing
in the seller-seller network who support each other. We also study Fiverr as a
seller-driven marketplace in terms of sales, churn rates, competitiveness among
various sub-categories etc. and observe that while there are certain
similarities with common marketplaces there are also many differences.


title:
Universal friction law at granular solid-gas transition explains scaling
  of sediment transport load with excess fluid shear stress

abstract:
  A key interest in geomorphology is to predict how the shear stress $\tau$
exerted by a turbulent flow of air or liquid onto an erodible sediment bed
affects the transport load $M\tilde g$ (i.e., the submerged weight of
transported nonsuspended sediment per unit area) and its average velocity when
exceeding the sediment transport threshold $\tau_t$. Most transport rate
predictions in the literature are based on the scaling $M\tilde
g\propto\tau-\tau_t$, the physical origin of which, however, has remained
controversial. Here we test the universality and study the origin of this
scaling law using particle-scale simulations of nonsuspended sediment transport
driven by a large range of Newtonian fluids. We find that the scaling
coefficient is a universal approximate constant and can be understood as an
inverse granular friction coefficient (i.e., the ratio between granular shear
stress and normal-bed pressure) evaluated at the base of the transport layer
(i.e., the effective elevation of energetic particle-bed rebounds). Usually,
the granular flow at this base is gaslike and rapidly turns into the solidlike
granular bed underneath: a liquidlike regime does not necessarily exist, which
is accentuated by a nonlocal granular flow rheology in both the transport layer
and bed. Hence, this transition fundamentally differs from the solid-liquid
transition (i.e., yielding) in dense granular flows even though both
transitions are described by a friction law. Combining this result with recent
insights into the nature of $\tau_t$, we conclude that the transport load
scaling is a signature of a steady rebound state and unrelated to entrainment
of bed sediment.


title: Synchronization, Consensus of Complex Networks and their relationships

abstract:
  In this paper, we focus on the topic Synchronization and consensus of Complex
Networks and their relationships. It is revealed that two topics are closely
relating to each other and all results given in \cite{Li} can be obtained by
the results in \cite{Lu2006}.


title:
Evidence of asymmetries in the Aldebaran photosphere from
  multi-wavelength lunar occultations

abstract:
  We have recorded three lunar occultations of Aldebaran (AlfTau) at different
telescopes and using various band-passes, from the ultraviolet to the far red.
The data have been analyzed using both model-dependent and model-independent
methods. The derived uniform-disc angular diameter values have been converted
to limb-darkened values using model atmosphere relations, and are found in
broad agreement among themselves and with previous literature values. The
limb-darkened diameter is about 20.3 milliarcseconds on average . However, we
have found indications that the photospheric brightness profile of Aldebaran
may have not been symmetric, a finding already reported by other authors for
this and for similar late-type stars. At the sampling scale of our brightness
profile, between one and two milliarcsecond, the uniform and limb-darkened disc
models may not be a good description for Aldebaran. The asymmetries appear to
differ with wavelength and over the 137 days time span of our measurements.
Surface spots appear as a likely explanation for the differences between
observations and the models.


title: A Hunt for Massive Starless Cores

abstract:
  We carry out an ALMA $\rm N_2D^+$(3-2) and 1.3~mm continuum survey towards 32
high mass surface density regions in seven Infrared Dark Clouds with the aim of
finding massive starless cores, which may be the initial conditions for the
formation of massive stars. Cores showing strong $\rm N_2D^+$(3-2) emission are
expected to be highly deuterated and indicative of early, potentially
pre-stellar stages of star formation. We also present maps of these regions in
ancillary line tracers, including C$^{18}$O(2-1), DCN(3-2) and DCO$^+$(3-2).
Over 100 $\rm N_2D^+$ cores are identified with our newly developed
core-finding algorithm based on connected structures in position-velocity
space. The most massive core has $\sim70\:M_\odot$ (potentially
$\sim170\:M_\odot$) and so may be representative of the initial conditions for
massive star formation. The existence and dynamical properties of such cores
constrain massive star formation theories. We measure the line widths and thus
velocity dispersion of six of the cores with strongest $\rm N_2D^+$(3-2) line
emission, finding results that are generally consistent with virial equilibrium
of pressure confined cores.


title:
Competitive effects of nuclear deformation and density dependence of
  $\Lambda\!N$ interaction

abstract:
  Competitive effects of nuclear deformation and density dependence of
$\Lambda\!N$-interaction in $\Lambda$ binding energies $B_\Lambda$ of
hypernuclei are studied systematically on the basis of the baryon-baryon
interaction model ESC including many-body effects. By using the $\Lambda\!N$
G-matrix interaction derived from ESC, we perform microscopic calculations of
$B_\Lambda$ in $\Lambda$ hypernuclei within the framework of the
antisymmetrized molecular dynamics under the averaged-density approximation.
The calculated values of $B_\Lambda$ reproduce experimental data within a few
hundred keV in the wide mass regions from 9 to 51. It is found that competitive
effects of nuclear deformation and density dependence of
$\Lambda\!N$-interaction work decisively for fine tuning of $B_\Lambda$ values.


title: Planar Graphs have Independence Ratio at least 3/13

abstract:
  The 4 Color Theorem (4CT) implies that every $n$-vertex planar graph has an
independent set of size at least $\frac{n}4$; this is best possible, as shown
by the disjoint union of many copies of $K_4$. In 1968, Erd\H{o}s asked whether
this bound on independence number could be proved more easily than the full
4CT. In 1976 Albertson showed (independently of the 4CT) that every $n$-vertex
planar graph has an independent set of size at least $\frac{2n}9$. Until now,
this remained the best bound independent of the 4CT. Our main result improves
this bound to $\frac{3n}{13}$.


title: Autonomous Rotor Heat Engine

abstract:
  The triumph of heat engines is their ability to convert the disordered energy
of thermal sources into useful mechanical motion. In recent years, much effort
has been devoted to generalizing thermodynamic notions to the quantum regime,
partly motivated by the promise of surpassing classical heat engines. Here, we
instead adopt a bottom-up approach: we propose a realistic autonomous heat
engine that can serve as a testbed for quantum effects in the context of
thermodynamics. Our model draws inspiration from actual piston engines and is
built from closed-system Hamiltonians and weak bath coupling terms. We
analytically derive the performance of the engine in the classical regime via a
set of nonlinear Langevin equations. In the quantum case, we perform numerical
simulations of the master equation. Finally, we perform a dynamic and
thermodynamic analysis of the engine's behaviour for several parameter regimes
in both the classical and quantum case, and find that the latter exhibits a
consistently lower efficiency due to additional noise.


title:
A Novel Approach to Implement Message Level Security in RESTful Web
  Services

abstract:
  The world is rapidly adopting RESTful web services for most of its tasks. The
once popular SOAP-based web services are fast losing ground owing to this.
RESTful web services are light weight services without strict message formats.
RESTful web services, unlike SOAP, are capable of message transfer in any
format be it XML, JSON, plain text. However, in spite of these positives,
ensuring message level security in REST is a challenge. Security in RESTful web
services is still largely dependent upon transport layer security. There has
been some work recently towards message level security in such environments
wherein the transfer of message level security metadata is done through
utilising new HTTP headers. We feel, however, that any method that compromises
the generality of the HTTP protocol should be avoided. In this paper,
therefore, we propose two new ways of encryption that promise to ensure message
level security in RESTful web services without the need for special HTTP
headers. This approach works seamlessly on most famous content-types of RESTful
web services: XML, JSON, HTML, plain-text and various ASCII printable content
types. Further, the proposed approach removes the need for content negotiation
in cases where the content comprises XML, JSON, HTML, plain-text, and ASCII
printable content types and also removes the need for XML or JSON
canonicalization.


title: Multiphysics Analysis of the 2.5 MeV BNCT RFQ Accelerator

abstract:
  Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), is an advanced cancer therapy that
destroys the cancer tumors using the well-known Li(p,n)Be . Because of the
highly selectively reaction between a boron and a neutron, BNCT is effective
for rapidly spreading cancer, invasive carcinoma, such as head and neck cancer,
melanoma, malignant brain tumors and so on. The PKU RFQ group proposes an RFQ
based neutron source for BNCT application. The 162.5 MHz four-vane RFQ will
accelerate 20-mA H+ from 35.0 keV to 2.50 MeV in CW mode, and delivers a
neutron yield of 1.73*10^13 n/sec/cm^2. The thermal management will become the
most important issues. The detailed multiphysics analysis of the BNCT RFQ will
be studied, and the RFQ frequency shift during nominal operating condition is
also predicted. The multiphysics analysis is performed by using the CST
Multiphysics Model and verified with ANSYS Multiphysics.


title: The Lauricella Functions and Exact String Scattering Amplitudes

abstract:
  We discover that the 26D open bosonic string scattering amplitudes (SSA) of
three tachyons and one arbitrary string state can be expressed in terms of the
D-type Lauricella functions with associated SL(K+3,C) symmetry. As a result,
SSA and symmetries or relations among SSA of different string states at various
limits calculated previously can be rederived. These include the linear
relations first conjectured by Gross [1-3] and later corrected and proved in
[4-9] in the hard scattering limit, the recurrence relations in the Regge
scattering limit with associated SL(5,C) symmetry [19-21] and the extended
recurrence relations in the nonrelativistic scattering limit with associated
SL(4,C) symmetry [24] discovered recently. Finally, as an application, we
calculate a new recurrence relation of SSA which is valid for all energies.


title: Terahertz and Far-Infrared Windows Opened at Dome A, Antarctica

abstract:
  The terahertz and far-infrared (FIR) band, from approximately 0.3 THz to 15
THz (1 mm to 20 micron), is important for astrophysics as the thermal radiation
of much of the universe peaks at these wavelengths and many spectral lines that
trace the cycle of interstellar matter also lie within this band. However,
water vapor renders the terrestrial atmosphere opaque to this frequency band
over nearly all of the Earth's surface. Early radiometric measurements below 1
THz at Dome A, the highest point of the cold and dry Antarctic ice sheet,
suggest that it may offer the best possible access for ground-based
astronomical observations in the terahertz and FIR band. To address uncertainty
in radiative transfer modelling, we carried out measurements of atmospheric
radiation from Dome A spanning the entire water vapor pure rotation band from
20 micron to 350 micron wavelength by a Fourier transform spectrometer. Our
measurements expose atmospheric windows having significant transmission
throughout this band. Furthermore, by combining our broadband spectra with
auxiliary data on the atmospheric state over Dome A, we set new constraints on
the spectral absorption of water vapor at upper tropospheric temperatures
important for accurately modeling the terrestrial climate. In particular, we
find that current spectral models significantly underestimate the H2O continuum
absorption.


title: General Viscosity Implicit Midpoint Rule For Nonexpansive Mapping

abstract:
  In this work, we suggest a general viscosity implicit midpoint rule for
nonexpansive mapping in the framework of Hilbert space. Further, under the
certain conditions imposed on the sequence of parameters, strong convergence
theorem is proved by the sequence generated by the proposed iterative scheme,
which, in addition, is the unique solution of the variational inequality
problem. Furthermore, we provide some applications to variational inequalities,
Fredholm integral equations, and nonlinear evolution equations. The results
presented in this work may be treated as an improvement, extension and
refinement of some corresponding ones in the literature.


title:
New Alkali-Metal- and 2-Phenethylamine-Intercalated Superconductors
  $A_x$(C$_8$H$_{11}$N)$_y$Fe$_{1-z}$Se ($A$ = Li, Na) with the Largest
  Interlayer Spacings and $T_\mathrm{c}$ $\sim$ 40 K

abstract:
  New FeSe-based intercalation superconductors,
$A_x$(C$_8$H$_{11}$N)$_y$Fe$_{1-z}$Se ($A$ = Li, Na), with $T_\mathrm{c}$ =
39-44 K have been successfully synthesized via the intercalation of alkali
metals and 2-phenethylamine into FeSe. The interlayer spacings, namely, the
distances between neighboring Fe layers, $d$, of
$A_x$(C$_8$H$_{11}$N)$_y$Fe$_{1-z}$Se ($A$ = Li, Na) are 19.04(6) and 18.0(1)
{\AA}, respectively. These $d$ values are the largest among those of the
FeSe-based intercalation compounds and are understood to be due to the
intercalation of two molecules of 2-phenethylamine in series perpendicular to
the FeSe layers. It appears that the relationship between $T_\mathrm{c}$ and
$d$ in the FeSe-based intercalation superconductors is not domic but
$T_\mathrm{c}$ is saturated at ~ 45 K, which is comparable to the
$T_\mathrm{c}$ values of single-layer FeSe films, for $d$ $\geq$ 9 {\AA}.


title: Deep CTR Prediction in Display Advertising

abstract:
  Click through rate (CTR) prediction of image ads is the core task of online
display advertising systems, and logistic regression (LR) has been frequently
applied as the prediction model. However, LR model lacks the ability of
extracting complex and intrinsic nonlinear features from handcrafted
high-dimensional image features, which limits its effectiveness. To solve this
issue, in this paper, we introduce a novel deep neural network (DNN) based
model that directly predicts the CTR of an image ad based on raw image pixels
and other basic features in one step. The DNN model employs convolution layers
to automatically extract representative visual features from images, and
nonlinear CTR features are then learned from visual features and other
contextual features by using fully-connected layers. Empirical evaluations on a
real world dataset with over 50 million records demonstrate the effectiveness
and efficiency of this method.


title: Active Integrity Constraints for Multi-Context Systems

abstract:
  We introduce a formalism to couple integrity constraints over general-purpose
knowledge bases with actions that can be executed to restore consistency. This
formalism generalizes active integrity constraints over databases. In the more
general setting of multi-context systems, adding repair suggestions to
integrity constraints allows defining simple iterative algorithms to find all
possible grounded repairs - repairs for the global system that follow the
suggestions given by the actions in the individual rules. We apply our
methodology to ontologies, and show that it can express most relevant types of
integrity constraints in this domain.


title: Proposal of fault-tolerant tomographic image reconstruction

abstract:
  This paper deals with tomographic image reconstruction under the situation
where some of projection data bins are contaminated with abnormal data. Such
situations occur in various instances of tomography. We propose a new
reconstruction algorithm called the Fault-Tolerant reconstruction outlined as
follows. The least-squares (L2-norm) error function ||Ax-b||_2^2 used in
ordinary iterative reconstructions is sensitive to the existence of abnormal
data. The proposed algorithm utilizes the L1-norm error function ||Ax-b||_1^1
instead of the L2-norm, and we develop a row-action-type iterative algorithm
using the proximal splitting framework in convex optimization fields. We also
propose an improved version of the L1-norm reconstruction called the L1-TV
reconstruction, in which a weak Total Variation (TV) penalty is added to the
cost function. Simulation results demonstrate that reconstructed images with
the L2-norm were severely damaged by the effect of abnormal bins, whereas
images with the L1-norm and L1-TV reconstructions were robust to the existence
of abnormal bins.


title:
How to distinguish conformational selection and induced fit based on
  chemical relaxation rates

abstract:
  Protein binding often involves conformational changes. Important questions
are whether a conformational change occurs prior to a binding event
('conformational selection') or after a binding event ('induced fit'), and how
conformational transition rates can be obtained from experiments. In this
article, we present general results for the chemical relaxation rates of
conformational-selection and induced-fit binding processes that hold for all
concentrations of proteins and ligands and, thus, go beyond the standard
pseudo-first-order approximation of large ligand concentration. These results
allow to distinguish conformational-selection from induced-fit processes - also
in cases in which such a distinction is not possible under pseudo-first-order
conditions - and to extract conformational transition rates of proteins from
chemical relaxation data.


title: Spectral properties of the Cayley Graphs of split metacyclic groups

abstract:
  Let $\Gamma(G,S)$ denote the Cayley graph of a group $G$ with respect to a
set $S \subset G$. In this paper, we analyze the spectral properties of the
Cayley graphs $\mathcal{T}_{m,n,k} = \Gamma(\mathbb{Z}_m \ltimes_k
\mathbb{Z}_n, \{(\pm 1,0),(0,\pm 1)\})$, where $m,n \geq 3$ and $k^m \equiv 1
\pmod{n}$. We show that the adjacency matrix of $\mathcal{T}_{m,n,k}$, upto
relabeling, is a block circulant matrix, and we also obtain an explicit
description of these blocks. By extending a result due to Walker-Mieghem to
Hermitian matrices, we show that $\mathcal{T}_{m,n,k}$ is not Ramanujan, when
either $m > 8$, or $n \geq 400$.


title:
Asymptotics of Pattern Avoidance in the Permutation-Tuple and Klazar Set
  Partition Settings

abstract:
  We consider asymptotics of set partition pattern avoidance in the sense of
Klazar. One of the results of this paper extends work of Alweiss, and finds a
classification for set partitions $\pi$ such that the number of set partitions
of $[n]$ avoiding $\pi$ grows more slowly than $n^{cn}$ for all $c>0$. Several
conjectures are proposed, and the related question of asymptotics of parallel
($k$-tuple) permutation pattern avoidance is considered and solved completely
to within an exponential factor, generalizing Marcus and Tardos's 2004 proof of
the Stanley-Wilf Conjecture.


title:
Contextual Relationship-based Activity Segmentation on an Event Stream
  in the IoT Environment with Multi-user Activities

abstract:
  The human activity recognition in the IoT environment plays the central role
in the ambient assisted living, where the human activities can be represented
as a concatenated event stream generated from various smart objects. From the
concatenated event stream, each activity should be distinguished separately for
the human activity recognition to provide services that users may need. In this
regard, accurately segmenting the entire stream at the precise boundary of each
activity is indispensable high priority task to realize the activity
recognition. Multiple human activities in an IoT environment generate varying
event stream patterns, and the unpredictability of these patterns makes them
include redundant or missing events. In dealing with this complex segmentation
problem, we figured out that the dynamic and confusing patterns cause major
problems due to: inclusive event stream, redundant events, and shared events.
To address these problems, we exploited the contextual relationships associated
with the activity status about either ongoing or terminated/started. To
discover the intrinsic relationships between the events in a stream, we
utilized the LSTM model by rendering it for the activity segmentation. Then,
the inferred boundaries were revised by our validation algorithm for a bit
shifted boundaries. Our experiments show the surprising result of high accuracy
above 95%, on our own testbed with various smart objects. This is superior to
the prior works that even do not assume the environment with multi-user
activities, where their accuracies are slightly above 80% in their test
environment. It proves that our work is feasible enough to be applied in the
IoT environment.


title: On irreducible components of real exponential hypersurfaces

abstract:
  Fix any algebraic extension $\mathbb K$ of the field $\mathbb Q$ of
rationals. In this article we study exponential sets $V\subset \mathbb R^n$.
Such sets are described by the vanishing of so called exponential polynomials,
i.e., polynomials with coefficients from $\mathbb K$, in $n$ variables, and in
$n$ exponential functions. The complements of all exponential sets in $\mathbb
R^n$ form a Noethrian topology on $\mathbb R^n$, which we will call Zariski
topology. Let $P \in {\mathbb K}[X_1, \ldots ,X_n,U_1, \ldots ,U_n]$ be a
polynomial such that $$V=\{ \mathbf{x}=(x_1, \ldots , x_n) \in \mathbb R^n|
P(\mathbf{x}, e^{x_1}, \ldots ,e^{x_n})=0 \}.$$ The main result of this paper
states that, under Schanuel's conjecture over the reals, an exponential set $V$
of codimension 1, for which the real algebraic set $\rm Zer(P)$ is irreducible
over $\mathbb K$, either is irreducible (with respect to the Zariski topology)
or every of its irreducible components of codimension 1 is a rational
hyperplane through the origin. The family of all possible hyperplanes is
determined by monomials of $P$. In the case of a single exponential (i.e., when
$P$ is independent of $U_2, \ldots , U_n$) stronger statements are shown which
are independent of Schanuel's conjecture.


title: An Approach for Self-Training Audio Event Detectors Using Web Data

abstract:
  Audio Event Detection (AED) aims to recognize sounds within audio and video
recordings. AED employs machine learning algorithms commonly trained and tested
on annotated datasets. However, available datasets are limited in number of
samples and hence it is difficult to model acoustic diversity. Therefore, we
propose combining labeled audio from a dataset and unlabeled audio from the web
to improve the sound models. The audio event detectors are trained on the
labeled audio and ran on the unlabeled audio downloaded from YouTube. Whenever
the detectors recognized any of the known sounds with high confidence, the
unlabeled audio was use to re-train the detectors. The performance of the
re-trained detectors is compared to the one from the original detectors using
the annotated test set. Results showed an improvement of the AED, and uncovered
challenges of using web audio from videos.


title: Power-Delay Tradeoff in Multi-User Mobile-Edge Computing Systems

abstract:
  Mobile-edge computing (MEC) has recently emerged as a promising paradigm to
liberate mobile devices from increasingly intensive computation workloads, as
well as to improve the quality of computation experience. In this paper, we
investigate the tradeoff between two critical but conflicting objectives in
multi-user MEC systems, namely, the power consumption of mobile devices and the
execution delay of computation tasks. A power consumption minimization problem
with task buffer stability constraints is formulated to investigate the
tradeoff, and an online algorithm that decides the local execution and
computation offloading policy is developed based on Lyapunov optimization.
Specifically, at each time slot, the optimal frequencies of the local CPUs are
obtained in closed forms, while the optimal transmit power and bandwidth
allocation for computation offloading are determined with the Gauss-Seidel
method. Performance analysis is conducted for the proposed algorithm, which
indicates that the power consumption and execution delay obeys an [O (1/V); O
(V)] tradeoff with V as a control parameter. Simulation results are provided to
validate the theoretical analysis and demonstrate the impacts of various
parameters to the system performance.


title:
Quantifying the mesoscopic quantum coherence of approximate NOON states
  and spin-squeezed two-mode Bose-Einstein condensates

abstract:
  We examine how to signify and quantify the mesoscopic quantum coherence of
approximate two-mode NOON states and spin-squeezed two-mode Bose-Einstein
condensates (BEC). We identify two criteria that verify a nonzero quantum
coherence between states with quantum number different by $n$. These criteria
negate certain mixtures of quantum states, thereby signifying a generalised
$n$-scopic Schrodinger cat-type paradox. The first criterion is the correlation
$\langle\hat{a}^{\dagger n}\hat{b}^{n}\rangle\neq0$ (here $\hat{a}$ and
$\hat{b}$ are the boson operators for each mode). The correlation manifests as
interference fringes in $n$-particle detection probabilities and is also
measurable via quadrature phase amplitude and spin squeezing measurements.
Measurement of $\langle\hat{a}^{\dagger n}\hat{b}^{n}\rangle$ enables a
quantification of the overall $n$-th order quantum coherence, thus providing an
avenue for high efficiency verification of a high-fidelity photonic NOON
states. The second criterion is based on a quantification of the measurable
spin-squeezing parameter $\xi_{N}$. We apply the criteria to theoretical models
of NOON states in lossy interferometers and double-well trapped BECs. By
analysing existing BEC experiments, we demonstrate generalised atomic "kitten"
states and atomic quantum coherence with $n\gtrapprox10$ atoms.


title: Sieve Bootstrap for Functional Time Series

abstract:
  A bootstrap procedure for functional time series is proposed which exploits a
general vector autoregressive representation of the time series of Fourier
coefficients appearing in the Karhunen-Lo\`eve expansion of the functional
process. A double sieve-type bootstrap method is developed which avoids the
estimation of process operators and generates functional pseudo-time series
that appropriately mimic the dependence structure of the functional time series
at hand. The method uses a finite set of functional principal components to
capture the essential driving parts of the infinite dimensional process and a
finite order vector autoregressive process to imitate the temporal dependence
structure of the corresponding vector time series of Fourier coefficients. By
allowing the number of functional principal components as well as the
autoregressive order used to increase to infinity (at some appropriate rate) as
the sample size increases, a basic bootstrap central limit theorem is
established which shows validity of the bootstrap procedure proposed for
functional finite Fourier transforms. Some numerical examples illustrate the
good finite sample performance of the new bootstrap method proposed.


title:
Generation of Anisotropic Massless Dirac Fermions and Asymmetric Klein
  Tunneling in Few-Layer Black Phosphorus Superlattices

abstract:
  Artificial lattices have been employed in many two-dimensional systems,
including those of electrons, atoms and photons, in a quest for massless Dirac
particles with flexibility and controllability. Periodically patterned molecule
assembly and electrostatic gating as well as moir\'e pattern induced by
substrate, have produced electronic states with linear dispersions from
isotropic two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Here we demonstrate that
massless Dirac fermions with tunable anisotropic characteristics can, in
general, be generated in highly anisotropic 2DEG under slowly varying external
periodic potentials. For patterned few-layer black phosphorus superlattices,
the new chiral quasiparticles exist exclusively in an isolated energy window
and inherit the strong anisotropic properties of pristine black phosphorus.
These states exhibit asymmetric Klein tunneling with the direction of incidence
for wave packet with perfect transmission deviating from normal incidence by
more than 50{\deg} under an appropriate barrier orientation.


title:
Bayesian Variable Selection for Ultrahigh-dimensional Sparse Linear
  Models

abstract:
  We propose a Bayesian variable selection procedure for ultrahigh-dimensional
linear regression models. The number of regressors involved in regression,
$p_n$, is allowed to grow exponentially with $n$. Assuming the true model to be
sparse, in the sense that only a small number of regressors contribute to this
model, we propose a set of priors suitable for this regime. The model selection
procedure based on the proposed set of priors is shown to be variable selection
consistent when all the $2^{p_n}$ models are considered. In the
ultrahigh-dimensional setting, selection of the true model among all the
$2^{p_n}$ possible ones involves prohibitive computation. To cope with this, we
present a two-step model selection algorithm based on screening and Gibbs
sampling. The first step of screening discards a large set of unimportant
covariates, and retains a smaller set containing all the active covariates with
probability tending to one. In the next step, we search for the best model
among the covariates obtained in the screening step. This procedure is
computationally quite fast, simple and intuitive. We demonstrate competitive
performance of the proposed algorithm for a variety of simulated and real data
sets when compared with several frequentist, as well as Bayesian methods.


title:
Reflection and Transmission Coefficients of the symmetric barrier-type
  shifted Deng-Fan potential

abstract:
  By applying continuity and boundary conditions, the reflection and
transmission coefficients of one-dimensional time-independent Schr\"odinger
equation with a symmetric barrier-type shifted Deng-Fan potential are obtained
and discussed. The numerical and graphical results are very accurate and
consistent with the quantum transmission-reflection principle.


title: Mappings of preserving $n$-distance one in $n$-normed spaces

abstract:
  We give a positive answer to the Aleksandrov problem in $n$-normed spaces
under the surjectivity assumption. Namely, we show that every surjective
mapping preserving $n$-distance one is affine, and thus is an $n$-isometry.
This is the first time to solve the Aleksandrov problem in $n$-normed spaces
with only surjective assumption even in the usual case $n=2$. Finally, when the
target space is $n$-strictly convex, we prove that every mapping preserving two
$n$-distances with an integer ratio is an affine $n$-isometry.


title: Propagation in Polymer Parameterised Field Theory

abstract:
  The Hamiltonian constraint operator in Loop Quantum Gravity acts
ultralocally. Smolin has argued that this ultralocality seems incompatible with
the existence of a quantum dynamics which propagates perturbations between
macroscopically seperated regions of quantum geometry. We present evidence to
the contrary within an LQG type `polymer' quantization of two dimensional
Parameterised Field Theory (PFT). PFT is a generally covariant reformulation of
free field propagation on flat spacetime. We show explicitly that while, as in
LQG, the Hamiltonian constraint operator in PFT acts ultralocally, states in
the joint kernel of the Hamiltonian and diffeomorphism constraints of PFT
necessarily describe propagation effects. The particular structure of the
finite triangulation Hamiltonian constraint operator plays a crucial role, as
does the necessity of imposing (the continuum limit of) its kinematic adjoint
as a constraint. Propagation is seen as a property encoded by physical states
in the kernel of the constraints rather than that of repeated actions of the
finite triangulation Hamiltonian constraint on kinematic states. The analysis
yields robust structural lessons for putative constructions of the Hamiltonian
constraint in LQG for which ultralocal action co-exists with a description of
propagation effects by physical states.


title:
AdaPT: An interactive procedure for multiple testing with side
  information

abstract:
  We consider the problem of multiple hypothesis testing with generic side
information: for each hypothesis $H_i$ we observe both a p-value $p_i$ and some
predictor $x_i$ encoding contextual information about the hypothesis. For
large-scale problems, adaptively focusing power on the more promising
hypotheses (those more likely to yield discoveries) can lead to much more
powerful multiple testing procedures. We propose a general iterative framework
for this problem, called the Adaptive p-value Thresholding (AdaPT) procedure,
which adaptively estimates a Bayes-optimal p-value rejection threshold and
controls the false discovery rate (FDR) in finite samples. At each iteration of
the procedure, the analyst proposes a rejection threshold and observes
partially censored p-values, estimates the false discovery proportion (FDP)
below the threshold, and either stops to reject or proposes another threshold,
until the estimated FDP is below $\alpha$. Our procedure is adaptive in an
unusually strong sense, permitting the analyst to use any statistical or
machine learning method she chooses to estimate the optimal threshold, and to
switch between different models at each iteration as information accrues. We
demonstrate the favorable performance of AdaPT by comparing it to
state-of-the-art methods in five real applications and two simulation studies.


title:
Newton-Okounkov Bodies over Discrete Valuation Rings and Linear Systems
  on Graphs

abstract:
  The theory of Newton-Okounkov bodies attaches a convex body to a line bundle
on a variety equipped with flag of subvarieties. This convex body encodes the
asymptotic properties of sections of powers of the line bundle. In this paper,
we study Newton-Okounkov bodies for schemes defined over discrete valuation
rings. We give the basic properties and then focus on the case of toric schemes
and semistable curves. We provide a description of the Newton-Okounkov bodies
for semistable curves in terms of the Baker--Norine theory of linear systems on
graphs, finding a connection with tropical geometry. We do this by introducing
an intermediate object, the Newton-Okounkov linear system of a divisor on a
curve. We prove that it is equal to the set of effective elements of the real
Baker-Norine linear system of the specialization of that divisor on the dual
graph of the curve. As a bonus, we obtain an asymptotic algebraic geometric
description of the Baker-Norine linear system.


title: Systematic Theoretical Study on the Interstellar Carbon Chain Molecules

abstract:
  In an effort to further our interest in understanding basic chemistry of
interstellar molecules, we carry out here an extensive investigation of the
stabilities of interstellar carbon chains; Cn, H2Cn, HCnN and CnX (X=N, O, Si,
S, H, P, H-, N-). These sets of molecules accounts for about 20% of all the
known interstellar and circumstellar molecules, their high abundances therefore
demand a serious attention. High level ab initio quantum chemical calculations
are employed to accurately estimate enthalpy of formation, chemical reactivity
indices; global hardness and softness; and other chemical parameters of these
molecules. Chemical modeling of the abundances of these molecular species has
also been performed. Of the 89 molecules considered from these groups, 47 have
been astronomically observed, these observed molecules are found to be more
stable with respect to other members of the group. Of the 47 observed
molecules, 60% are odd number carbon chains. Interstellar chemistry is not
actually driven by the thermodynamics, it is primarily dependent on various
kinetic parameters. However, we found that the detectability of the odd
numbered carbon chains could be correlated due to the fact that they are more
stable than the corresponding even numbered carbon chains. Based on this
aspect, the next possible carbon chain molecule for astronomical observation in
each group is proposed. The effect of kinetics in the formation of some of
these carbon chain molecules is also discussed.


title: Enhanced LSTM for Natural Language Inference

abstract:
  Reasoning and inference are central to human and artificial intelligence.
Modeling inference in human language is very challenging. With the availability
of large annotated data (Bowman et al., 2015), it has recently become feasible
to train neural network based inference models, which have shown to be very
effective. In this paper, we present a new state-of-the-art result, achieving
the accuracy of 88.6% on the Stanford Natural Language Inference Dataset.
Unlike the previous top models that use very complicated network architectures,
we first demonstrate that carefully designing sequential inference models based
on chain LSTMs can outperform all previous models. Based on this, we further
show that by explicitly considering recursive architectures in both local
inference modeling and inference composition, we achieve additional
improvement. Particularly, incorporating syntactic parsing information
contributes to our best result---it further improves the performance even when
added to the already very strong model.


title:
Efficiency of nonspinning templates in gravitational wave searches for
  aligned-spin binary black holes

abstract:
  We study the efficiency of nonspinning waveform templates in gravitational
wave searches for aligned-spin binary black holes (BBHs). We use PhenomD, which
is the most recent phenomenological waveform model designed to generate the
full inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms emitted from BBHs with the spins
aligned with the orbital angular momentum. Here, we treat the effect of
aligned-spins with a single spin parameter $\chi$. We consider the BBH signals
with moderately small spins in the range of $-0.4\leq \chi \leq 0.4$. Using
nonspinning templates, we calculate fitting factors of the aligned-spin signals
in a wide mass range up to $\sim 100 M_{\odot}$. We find that the signals with
negative spins can have higher fitting factors than those with positive spins.
If $\chi = 0.3$, only the highly asymmetric-mass signals can have the fitting
factors exceeding the threshold of 0.965, while the fitting factors for all of
the signals can be larger than the threshold if $\chi = -0.3$. We demonstrate
that the discrepancy between the regions of a positive and a negative spins is
due to the physical boundary ($\eta \leq 0.25$) of the template parameter
space. We also show that the recovered mass parameters can be significantly
biased from the true parameters. We examine the impact of the systematic bias
on the parameter estimation by comparing the bias with the statistical error.


title:
Vertically localised equilibrium solutions in large-eddy simulations of
  homogeneous shear flow

abstract:
  Unstable equilibrium solutions in a homogeneous shear flow with sinuous
symmetry are numerically found in large-eddy simulations (LES) with no kinetic
viscosity. The small-scale properties are determined by the mixing length scale
$l_S$ used to define eddy viscosity, and the large-scale motion is induced by
the mean shear at the integral scale, which is limited by the spanwise box
dimension $L_z$. The fraction $ R_S= L_z/l_S$, which plays the role of a
Reynolds number, is used as a numerical continuation parameter. It is shown
that equilibrium solutions appear by a saddle-node bifurcation as $R_S$
increases, and that they resemble those in plane Couette flow with the same
symmetry. The vortical structures of both lower- and upper-branch solutions
become spontaneously localised in the vertical direction. The lower-branch
solution is an edge state at low $R_S$, and takes the form of a thin critical
layer as $R_S$ increases, as in the asymptotic theory of generic shear flow at
high-Reynolds numbers. On the other hand, the upper-branch solutions are
characterised by a tall velocity streak with multi-scale multiple vortical
structures. At the higher end of $R_S$, an incipient multiscale structure is
found. The LES turbulence occasionally visits vertically localised states whose
vortical structure resembles the present vertically localised LES equilibria.


title:
A very fast iterative algorithm for TV-regularized image reconstruction
  with applications to low-dose and few-view CT

abstract:
  This paper concerns iterative reconstruction for low-dose and few-view CT by
minimizing a data-fidelity term regularized with the Total Variation (TV)
penalty. We propose a very fast iterative algorithm to solve this problem. The
algorithm derivation is outlined as follows. First, the original minimization
problem is reformulated into the saddle point (primal-dual) problem by using
the Lagrangian duality, to which we apply the first-order primal-dual iterative
methods. Second, we precondition the iteration formula using the ramp flter of
Filtered Backprojection (FBP) reconstruction algorithm in such a way that the
problem solution is not altered. The resulting algorithm resembles the
structure of so-called iterative FBP algorithm, and it converges to the exact
minimizer of cost function very fast.


title: Quarkonium Production in an Improved Color Evaporation Model

abstract:
  We propose an improved version of the color evaporation model to describe
heavy quarkonium production. In contrast to the traditional color evaporation
model, we impose the constraint that the invariant mass of the intermediate
heavy quark-antiquark pair to be larger than the mass of produced quarkonium.
We also introduce a momentum shift between heavy quark-antiquark pair and the
quarkonium. Numerical calculations show that our model can describe the
charmonium yields as well as ratio of $\psi^\prime$ over $J/\psi$ better than
the traditional color evaporation model.


title:
Development of a low-energy radioactive ion beam facility for the MARA
  separator

abstract:
  A low-energy radioactive ion beam facility for the production and study of
nuclei produced close to the proton drip line is under development at the
Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyv\"askyl\"a, Finland. The
facility will take advantage of the mass selectivity of the recently
commissioned MARA vacuum-mode mass separator. The ions selected by MARA will be
stopped and thermalised in a small-volume gas cell prior to extraction and
further mass separation. The gas cell design allows for resonance laser
ionisation/spectroscopy both in-gas-cell and in-gas-jet. The facility will
include experimental setups allowing ion counting, mass measurement and decay
spectroscopy.


title:
Stabilized nonconforming finite element methods for data assimilation in
  incompressible flows

abstract:
  We consider a stabilized nonconforming finite element method for data
assimilation in incompressible flow subject to the Stokes' equations. The
method uses a primal dual structure that allows for the inclusion of
nonstandard data. Error estimates are obtained that are optimal compared to the
conditional stability of the ill-posed data assimilation problem.


title:
The interaction-strength interpolation method for main-group chemistry:
  benchmarking, limitations, and perspectives

abstract:
  We have tested the original interaction-strength-interpolation (ISI)
exchange-correlation functional for main group chemistry. The ISI functional is
based on an interpolation between the weak and strong coupling limits and
includes exact-exchange as well as the G\"orling-Levy second-order energy. We
have analyzed in detail the basis-set dependence of the ISI functional, its
dependence on the ground-state orbitals, and the influence of the
size-consistency problem. We show and explain some of the expected limitations
of the ISI functional (i.e. for atomization energies), but also unexpected
results, such as the good performance for the interaction energy of
dispersion-bonded complexes when the ISI correlation is used as a correction to
Hartree-Fock.


title:
Confined Contextuality in Neutron Interferometry: Observing the Quantum
  Pigeonhole Effect

abstract:
  Previous experimental tests of quantum contextuality based on the
Bell-Kochen-Specker (BKS) theorem have demonstrated that not all observables
among a given set can be assigned noncontextual eigenvalue predictions, but
have never identified which specific observables must fail such assignment. We
now remedy this shortcoming by showing that BKS contextuality can be confined
to particular observables by pre- and postselection, resulting in anomalous
weak values that we measure using modern neutron interferometry. We construct a
confined contextuality witness from weak values, which we measure
experimentally to obtain a $5\sigma$ average violation of the noncontextual
bound, with one contributing term violating an independent bound by more than
$99\sigma$. This weakly measured confined BKS contextuality also confirms the
quantum pigeonhole effect, wherein eigenvalue assignments to contextual
observables apparently violate the classical pigeonhole principle.


title: Power corrections and renormalons in Transverse Momentum Distributions

abstract:
  We study the power corrections to Transverse Momentum Distributions (TMDs) by
analyzing renormalon divergences of the perturbative series. The renomalon
divergences arise independently in two constituents of TMDs: the rapidity
evolution kernel and the small-b matching coefficient. The renormalon
contributions have a non-trivial dependence on the Bjorken variable and the
transverse distance. We discuss the consistency requirements for power
corrections for TMDs and suggest inputs for the TMD phenomenology in accordance
with this study. Both unpolarized quark TMD parton distribution function and
fragmentation function are considered.


title: Primordial Nucleosynthesis

abstract:
  Primordial or big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is now a parameter free theory
whose predictions are in good overall agreement with observations. However, the
7Li calculated abundance is significantly higher than the one deduced from
spectroscopic observations. Most solutions to this lithium problem involve a
source of extra neutrons that inevitably leads to an increase of the deuterium
abundance. This seems now to be excluded by recent deuterium observations that
have drastically reduced the uncertainty on D/H and also calls for improved
precision on thermonuclear reaction rates.


title:
Automatic Quality Assessment for Speech Translation Using Joint ASR and
  MT Features

abstract:
  This paper addresses automatic quality assessment of spoken language
translation (SLT). This relatively new task is defined and formalized as a
sequence labeling problem where each word in the SLT hypothesis is tagged as
good or bad according to a large feature set. We propose several word
confidence estimators (WCE) based on our automatic evaluation of transcription
(ASR) quality, translation (MT) quality, or both (combined ASR+MT). This
research work is possible because we built a specific corpus which contains
6.7k utterances for which a quintuplet containing: ASR output, verbatim
transcript, text translation, speech translation and post-edition of
translation is built. The conclusion of our multiple experiments using joint
ASR and MT features for WCE is that MT features remain the most influent while
ASR feature can bring interesting complementary information. Our robust quality
estimators for SLT can be used for re-scoring speech translation graphs or for
providing feedback to the user in interactive speech translation or
computer-assisted speech-to-text scenarios.


title:
Neutral and non-neutral collisionless plasma equilibria for twisted flux
  tubes: The Gold-Hoyle model in a background field

abstract:
  We calculate exact one-dimensional collisionless plasma equilibria for a
continuum of flux tube models, for which the total magnetic field is made up of
the `force-free' Gold-Hoyle magnetic flux tube embedded in a uniform and
anti-parallel background magnetic field. For a sufficiently weak background
magnetic field, the axial component of the total magnetic field reverses at
some finite radius. The presence of the background magnetic field means that
the total system is not exactly force-free, but by reducing its magnitude the
departure from force-free can be made as small as desired. The distribution
function for each species is a function of the three constants of motion;
namely the Hamiltonian and the canonical momenta in the axial and azimuthal
directions. Poisson's Equation and Amp\`{e}re's Law are solved exactly, and the
solution allows either electrically neutral or non-neutral configurations,
depending on the values of the bulk ion and electron flows. These equilibria
have possible applications in various solar, space and astrophysical contexts,
as well as in the laboratory.


title:
Aligned copper nanorod arrays for highly efficient generation of intense
  ultra-broadband THz pulses

abstract:
  We demonstrate an intense broadband terahertz (THz) source based on the
interaction of relativistic-intensity femtosecond lasers with aligned copper
nanorod array targets. For copper nanorod targets with length 5 \mu m, a
maximum 13.8 times enhancement in the THz pulse energy (in $\leq$ 20 THz
spectral range) is measured as compared to that with a thick plane copper
target under the same laser conditions. A further increase in the nanorod
length leads to a decrease in the THz pulse energy at medium frequencies
($\leq$ 20THz) and increase of the electromagnetic pulse energy in the
high-frequency range (from 20 - 200 THz). For the latter, we measure a maximum
energy enhancement of 28 times for the nanorod targets of length 60 \mu m .
Particle-in-cell simulations reveal that THz pulses are mostly generated by
coherent transition radiation of laser produced hot electrons, which are
efficiently enhanced with the use of nanorod targets. Good agreement is found
between the simulation and experimental results.


title:
Choosing the observational likelihood in state-space stock assessment
  models

abstract:
  Data used in stock assessment models result from combinations of biological,
ecological, fishery, and sampling processes. Since different types of errors
propagate through these processes it can be difficult to identify a particular
family of distributions for modelling errors on observations a priori. By
implementing several observational likelihoods, modelling both numbers- and
proportions-at-age, in an age based state-space stock assessment model, we
compare the model fit for each choice of likelihood along with the implications
for spawning stock biomass and average fishing mortality. We propose using AIC
intervals based on fitting the full observational model for comparing different
observational likelihoods. Using data from four stocks, we show that the model
fit is improved by modelling the correlation of observations within years.
However, the best choice of observational likelihood differs for different
stocks, and the choice is important for the short-term conclusions drawn from
the assessment model; in particular, the choice can influence total allowable
catch advise based on reference points.


title: Tunnelling splitting in the phosphine molecule

abstract:
  Splitting due to tunnelling via the potential energy barrier has played a
significant role in the study of molecular spectra since the early days of
spectroscopy. The observation of the ammonia doublet led to attempts to find a
phosphine analogous, but these have so far failed due to its considerably
higher barrier. Full dimensional, variational nuclear motion calculations are
used to predict splittings as a function of excitation energy. Simulated
spectra suggest that such splittings should be observable in the near infrared
via overtones of the $\nu_2$ bending mode starting with $4\nu_2$.


title:
The stellar mass - size relation for cluster galaxies at z=1 with high
  angular resolution from the Gemini/GeMS multi-conjugate adaptive optics
  system

abstract:
  We present the stellar mass - size relation for 49 galaxies within the $z$ =
1.067 cluster SPT-CL J0546$-$5345, with FWHM $\sim$80-120 mas $K_{\mathrm
s}$-band data from the Gemini multi-conjugate adaptive optics system
(GeMS/GSAOI). This is the first such measurement in a cluster environment,
performed at sub-kpc resolution at rest-frame wavelengths dominated by the
light of the underlying old stellar populations. The observed stellar mass -
size relation is offset from the local relation by 0.21 dex, corresponding to a
size evolution proportional to $(1+z)^{-1.25}$, consistent with the literature.
The slope of the stellar mass - size relation $\beta$ = 0.74 $\pm$ 0.06,
consistent with the local relation. The absence of slope evolution indicates
that the amount of size growth is constant with stellar mass. This suggests
that galaxies in massive clusters such as SPT-CL J0546$-$5345 grow via
processes that increase the size without significant morphological
interference, such as minor mergers and/or adiabatic expansion. The slope of
the cluster stellar mass - size relation is significantly shallower if measured
in $HST$/ACS imaging at wavelengths blueward of the Balmer break, similar to
rest-frame UV relations at $z$ = 1 in the literature. The stellar mass - size
relation must be measured at redder wavelengths, which are more sensitive to
the old stellar population that dominates the stellar mass of the galaxies. The
slope is unchanged when GeMS $K_s$-band imaging is degraded to the resolution
of $K$-band HST/NICMOS resolution but dramatically affected when degraded to
$K_s$-band Magellan/FourStar resolution. Such measurements must be made with AO
in order to accurately characterise the sizes of compact, $z$ = 1 galaxies.


title: Relation between Gene Content and Taxonomy in Chloroplasts

abstract:
  The aim of this study is to investigate the relation that can be found
between the phylogeny of a large set of complete chloroplast genomes, and the
evolution of gene content inside these sequences. Core and pan genomes have
been computed on \textit{de novo} annotation of these 845 genomes, the former
being used for producing well-supported phylogenetic tree while the latter
provides information regarding the evolution of gene contents over time. It
details too the specificity of some branches of the tree, when specificity is
obtained on accessory genes. After having detailed the material and methods, we
emphasize some remarkable relation between well-known events of the chloroplast
history, like endosymbiosis, and the evolution of gene contents over the
phylogenetic tree.


title:
On the formation of planetary systems in photoevaporating transition
  discs

abstract:
  In protoplanetary discs, planetary cores must be at least 0.1 earth mass at 1
au for migration to be significant; this mass rises to 1 earth mass at 5 au.
Planet formation models indicate that these cores form on million year
timescales. We report here a study of the evolution of 0.1 earth mass and 1
earth mass cores, migrating from about 2 and 5 au respectively, in million year
old photoevaporating discs. In such a disc, a gap opens up at around 2 au after
a few million years. The inner region subsequently accrete onto the star on a
smaller timescale. We find that, typically, the smallest cores form systems of
non-resonant planets beyond 0.5 au with masses up to about 1.5 earth mass. In
low mass discs, the same cores may evolve in situ. More massive cores form
systems of a few earth masses planets. They migrate within the inner edge of
the disc gap only in the most massive discs. Delivery of material to the inner
parts of the disc ceases with opening of the gap. Interestingly, when the heavy
cores do not migrate significantly, the type of systems that are produced
resembles our solar system. This study suggests that low mm flux transition
discs may not form systems of planets on short orbits but may instead harbour
earth mass planets in the habitable zone.


title: Abelian Ramsey Length and Asymptotic Lower Bounds

abstract:
  This technical note aims at evaluating an asymptotic lower bound on abelian
Ramsey lengths.


title:
Hilbert-Mumford stability on algebraic stacks and applications to
  $\mathcal{G}$-bundles on curves

abstract:
  In these notes we reformulate the classical Hilbert-Mumford criterion for GIT
stability in terms of algebraic stacks, this was independently done by
Halpern-Leinster. We also give a geometric condition that guarantees the
existence of separated coarse moduli spaces for the substack of stable objects.
This is then applied to construct coarse moduli spaces for torsors under
parahoric group schemes over curves.


title: Low-temperature chemistry using the R-matrix method

abstract:
  Techniques for producing cold and ultracold molecules are enabling the study
of chemical reactions and scattering at the quantum scattering limit, with only
a few partial waves contributing to the incident channel, leading to the
observation and even full control of state-to-state collisions in this regime.
A new R-matrix formalism is presented for tackling problems involving low- and
ultra-low energy collisions. This general formalism is particularly appropriate
for slow collisions occurring on potential energy surfaces with deep wells. The
many resonance states make such systems hard to treat theoretically but offer
the best prospects for novel physics: resonances are already being widely used
to control diatomic systems and should provide the route to steering ultracold
reactions. Our R-matrix-based formalism builds on the progress made in
variational calculations of molecular spectra by using these methods to provide
wavefunctions for the whole system at short internuclear distances, (a regime
known as the inner region). These wavefunctions are used to construct collision
energy-dependent R-matrices which can then be propagated to give cross sections
at each collision energy. The method is formulated for ultracold collision
systems with differing numbers of atoms.


title:
Topological property of the holonomy displacement on the principal
  $U(n)$-bundle over $D_{n,m},$ related to complex surfaces

abstract:
  Consider $D_{n,m} = U(n,m)/\left(U(n) \times U(m)\right)$, the dual of the
the Grassmannian manifold and the principal $U(n)$ bundle over $D_{n,m},$
$U(n)\rightarrow U(n,m)/U(m) \stackrel{\pi} \rightarrow D_{n,m}$. Given a
nontrivial $X \in M_{m \times n}(\mathbb{C}),$ consider a two dimensional
subspace $\mathfrak{m}' \subset \mathfrak{m} \subset \mathfrak{u}(n,m), $
induced by $X, iX \in M_{m \times n}(\mathbb{C}),$ and a complete oriented
surface $S,$ related to $(X,g) \in M_{m \times n}(\mathbb{C}) \times U(n,m), $
in the base space $D_{n,m}$ with a complex structure from $\mathfrak{m}'.$ Let
$c$ be a smooth, simple, closed, orientation-preserving curve on $S$
parametrized by $0\leq t\leq 1$, and $\hat{c}$ its horizontal lift on the
bundle $U(n) \ra U(n,m)/U(m) \stackrel{\pi}\ra D_{n,m} $. Then the holonomy
displacement is given by the right action of $e^\Psi$ for some $
  \Psi \in \text{Span}_{\bbr}\{i(X^*X)^k\}_{k=1}^{q} \subset \mathfrak{u}(n),
  \: q=\text{rk}X, $ such that $$ \hat{c}(1) = \hat{c}(0) \cdot e^\Psi
\text{24pt and 12pt } \text{Tr}(\Psi)= 2i \, \text{Area}(c), $$ where
$\text{Area}(c)$ is the area of the region on the surface $S$ surrounded by
$c,$ obtained from a special 2-form $\omega_{(X,g)}$ on $S,$ called an area
form $\omega_{(X,g)}$ related to $(X,g)$ on $S.$


title: Perspective: Accurate ro-vibrational calculations on small molecules

abstract:
  In what has been described as the fourth age of Quantum Chemistry,
variational nuclear motion programs are now routinely being used to obtain the
vibration-rotation levels and corresponding wavefunctions of small molecules to
the sort of high accuracy demanded by comparison with spectroscopy. In this
perspective I will discuss the current state-of-the-art which, for example,
shows that these calculations are increasingly competitive with measurements
or, indeed, replacing them and thus becoming the primary source of data on key
processes. To achieve this accuracy {\it ab initio} requires consideration
small effects, routinely ignored in standard calculations, such those due to
quantum electrodynamics (QED). Variational calculations are being used to
generate huge list of transitions which provide the input for models of
radiative transport through hot atmospheres and to fill in or even replace
measured transition intensities. Future prospects such as study of molecular
states near dissociation, which can provide a link with low-energy chemical
reactions, are discussed.


title:
Azimuthal asymmetries of charged hadrons produced in high-energy muon
  scattering off longitudinally polarised deuterons

abstract:
  Single hadron azimuthal asymmetries of positive and negative hadrons produced
in muon semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering off longitudinally polarised
deuterons are determined using the 2006 COMPASS data and also combined all
deuteron COMPASS data. For each hadron charge, the dependence of the azimuthal
asymmetry on the hadron azimuthal angle $\phi$ is obtained by means of a
five-parameter fitting function that besides a $\phi$-independent term includes
four modulations predicted by theory: $\sin\phi$, $\sin 2 \phi$, $\sin 3\phi$
and $\cos\phi$. The amplitudes of the five terms have been extracted, first,
for the hadrons in the whole available kinematic region. In further fits,
performed for hadrons from a restricted kinematic region, the $\phi$-dependence
is determined as a function of one of three variables (Bjorken-$x$, fractional
energy of virtual photon taken by the outgoing hadron and hadron transverse
momentum), while disregarding the others. Except the $\phi$-independent term,
all the modulation amplitudes are very small, and no clear kinematic dependence
could be observed within experimental uncertainties.


title: Direct characterization of plasmonic slot waveguides and nanocouplers

abstract:
  We demonstrate the use of amplitude- and phase-resolved near-field mapping
for direct characterization of plasmonic slot waveguide mode propagation and
excitation with nanocouplers in the telecom wavelength range. We measure mode's
propagation length, effective index and field distribution and directly
evaluate the relative coupling efficiencies for various couplers
configurations. We report 26- and 15-fold improvements in the coupling
efficiency with two serially connected dipole and modified bow-tie antennas,
respectively, as compared to that of the short-circuited waveguide termination.


title: Continued fraction algorithm for Sturmian colorings of trees

abstract:
  Factor complexity $b_\phi(n)$ for a vertex coloring $\phi$ of a regular tree
is the number of colored $n$-balls up to color-preserving automorphisms.
Sturmian colorings are colorings of minimal unbounded factor complexity
$b_\phi(n) = n+2$. In this article, we prove an induction algorithm for
Sturmian colorings using colored balls in a way analogous to induction
algorithm of Sturmian words. Furthermore, we characterize Sturmian colorings in
terms of the data for the induction algorithm.


title:
Complete classification of $(\delta+\alpha u^2)$-constacyclic codes over
  $\mathbb{F}_{2^m}[u]/\langle u^4\rangle$ of oddly even length

abstract:
  Let $\mathbb{F}_{2^m}$ be a finite field of cardinality $2^m$,
$R=\mathbb{F}_{2^m}[u]/\langle u^4\rangle)$ and $n$ is an odd positive integer.
For any $\delta,\alpha\in \mathbb{F}_{2^m}^{\times}$, ideals of the ring
$R[x]/\langle x^{2n}-(\delta+\alpha u^2)\rangle$ are identified as
$(\delta+\alpha u^2)$-constacyclic codes of length $2n$ over $R$. In this
paper, an explicit representation and enumeration for all distinct
$(\delta+\alpha u^2)$-constacyclic codes of length $2n$ over $R$ are presented.


title:
The distribution and density of cyclic groups of the reductions of an
  elliptic curve over a function field

abstract:
  Let $K$ be a global field of finite characteristic $p\geq2$, and let $E/K$ be
a non-isotrivial elliptic curve. We give an asympotoic formula of the number of
places $\nu$ for which the reduction of $E$ at $\nu$ is a cyclic group.
Moreover we determine when the Dirichlet density of those places is 0.


title: On Perrin-Riou's exponential map for $(\varphi, \Gamma)$-modules

abstract:
  Let $K / \mathbb{Q}_p$ be a finite Galois extension and $D$ a $(\varphi,
\Gamma)$-module over the Robba-ring $B^{\dagger}_{\textrm{rig}, K}$. We give a
generalization of the Bloch-Kato exponential map for $D$ using continuous
Galois-cohomology groups $H^i(G_K, W(D))$ for the $B$-pair $W(D)$ associated to
$D$. We construct a big exponential map $\Omega_{D,h}$ ($h \in \mathbb{N}$) for
cyclotomic extensions of $K$ for $D$ in the style of Perrin-Riou using the
theory of Berger's $B$-pairs, which interpolates the generalized Bloch-Kato
exponential maps on the finite levels.


title: Fast ADMM for Semidefinite Programs with Chordal Sparsity

abstract:
  Many problems in control theory can be formulated as semidefinite programs
(SDPs). For large-scale SDPs, it is important to exploit the inherent sparsity
to improve the scalability. This paper develops efficient first-order methods
to solve SDPs with chordal sparsity based on the alternating direction method
of multipliers (ADMM). We show that chordal decomposition can be applied to
either the primal or the dual standard form of a sparse SDP, resulting in
scaled versions of ADMM algorithms with the same computational cost. Each
iteration of our algorithms consists of a projection on the product of small
positive semidefinite cones, followed by a projection on an affine set, both of
which can be carried out efficiently. Our techniques are implemented in CDCS,
an open source add-on to MATLAB. Numerical experiments on large-scale sparse
problems in SDPLIB and random SDPs with block-arrow sparse patterns show
speedups compared to some common state-of-the-art software packages.


title: Measuring Consciousness

abstract:
  A measurement based formula for consciousness, C, as a function of time t, is
constructed. The formula depends on identifying a natural relevant
self-generated, time-dependent dynamical process inherent in any entity. For
human beings the relevant dynamical process identified is the ensemble of brain
waves, observed in EEG measurements, that are represented in the model by their
measured time dependent correlation functions. These correlation functions
define the accessible dynamical state of the brain at any moment of time. From
them a time dependent probability function, P(t), is extracted by using a
mathematical identity. According to information theory, -P(t) log P(t), is a
measure of the information contained in the brain waves. Consciousness, C, is
defined by this information theory formula: it is not localized, does not
depend on specific hardwire details of the brain, but reflects the information
content present in brain waves. Justifications, based on observational
evidence, are given for the formula and it is shown that C reflects the degree
of "awareness" that a person has at a given moment of time. The model explains
the observed time delay between when a brain wave is seen to initiate an action
and when there is awareness that the action has been initiated, in terms of the
way brain waves processes information. Some testable consequences of the model,
including the role dreaming sleep plays in long term memory storage, are
discussed. It is also shown that non living entities have C=0.


title:
Boosting Factor-Specific Functional Historical Models for the Detection
  of Synchronisation in Bioelectrical Signals

abstract:
  The link between different psychophysiological measures during emotion
episodes is not well understood. To analyse the functional relationship between
electroencephalography (EEG) and facial electromyography (EMG), we apply
historical function-on-function regression models to EEG and EMG data that were
simultaneously recorded from 24 participants while they were playing a
computerised gambling task. Given the complexity of the data structure for this
application, we extend simple functional historical models to models including
random historical effects, factor-specific historical effects, and
factor-specific random historical effects. Estimation is conducted by a
component-wise gradient boosting algorithm, which scales well to large data
sets and complex models.


title:
Software-Defined Networking Based Network Virtualization for Mobile
  Operators

abstract:
  Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm provides many features including
hardware abstraction, programmable networking and centralized policy control.
One of the main benefits used along with these features is core/backhaul
network virtualization which ensures sharing of mobile core and backhaul
networks among Mobile Operators (MOs). In this paper, we propose a virtualized
SDN-based Evolved Packet System (EPS) cellular network architecture including
design of network virtualization controller. After virtualization of
core/backhaul network elements, eNodeBs associated with MOs become a part of
resource allocation problem for Backhaul Transport Providers (BTPs). We
investigate the performance of our proposed architecture where eNodeBs are
assigned to the MOs using quality-of-service (QoS)-aware and QoS-unaware
scheduling algorithms under the consideration of time-varying numbers and
locations of user equipments (UEs) through Monte-Carlo simulations. The
performances are compared with traditional EPS in Long Term Evolution (LTE)
architecture and the results reveal that our proposed architecture outperforms
the traditional cellular network architecture.


title:
A coupled spin-electron diamond chain with different Land\'e g-factors
  of localized Ising spins and mobile electrons

abstract:
  A coupled spin-electron diamond chain with localized Ising spins placed on
its nodal sites and mobile electrons delocalized over interstitial sites is
explored in a magnetic field taking into account the difference between Land\'e
g-factors of the localized spins and mobile electrons. The ground-state phase
diagram is constituted by two classical ferrimagnetic phases, the quantum
unsaturated paramagnetic phase and the saturated paramagnetic phase. Both
classical ferrimagnetic phases as well as the unsaturated paramagnetic phase
are reflected in a low-temperature magnetization curve as intermediate
magnetization plateaus. The unsaturated paramagnetic phase is quantum in its
character as evidenced by the fermionic concurrence calculated for a pair of
the mobile electrons hopping in between the interstitial sites. It is shown
that the magnetic field can under certain conditions induce a quantum
entanglement above the disentangled ground state.


title:
Power spectrum analysis and missing level statistics of microwave graphs
  with violated time reversal invariance

abstract:
  We present experimental studies of the power spectrum and other fluctuation
properties in the spectra of microwave networks simulating chaotic quantum
graphs with violated time reversal in- variance. On the basis of our data sets
we demonstrate that the power spectrum in combination with other long-range and
also short-range spectral fluctuations provides a powerful tool for the
identification of the symmetries and the determination of the fraction of
missing levels. Such a pro- cedure is indispensable for the evaluation of the
fluctuation properties in the spectra of real physical systems like, e.g.,
nuclei or molecules, where one has to deal with the problem of missing levels.


title:
Detecting Changes Between Optical Images of Different Spatial and
  Spectral Resolutions: a Fusion-Based Approach

abstract:
  Change detection is one of the most challenging issues when analyzing
remotely sensed images. Comparing several multi-date images acquired through
the same kind of sensor is the most common scenario. Conversely, designing
robust, flexible and scalable algorithms for change detection becomes even more
challenging when the images have been acquired by two different kinds of
sensors. This situation arises in case of emergency under critical constraints.
This paper presents, to the best of authors' knowledge, the first strategy to
deal with optical images characterized by dissimilar spatial and spectral
resolutions. Typical considered scenarios include change detection between
panchromatic or multispectral and hyperspectral images. The proposed strategy
consists of a 3-step procedure: i) inferring a high spatial and spectral
resolution image by fusion of the two observed images characterized one by a
low spatial resolution and the other by a low spectral resolution, ii)
predicting two images with respectively the same spatial and spectral
resolutions as the observed images by degradation of the fused one and iii)
implementing a decision rule to each pair of observed and predicted images
characterized by the same spatial and spectral resolutions to identify changes.
The performance of the proposed framework is evaluated on real images with
simulated realistic changes.


title: Lambert Multipliers Between $L^P$-spaces as a Banach Algebra

abstract:
  For 1 â¤ p < â, it is known that the set K^*_p contains of all Lambert
multipliers acting between L^p-spaces is a Banach space. In this study, we
introduce a new induced norm by conditional expectation operators to show that
K^*_p is a commutative Banach algebra with respect to this norm. Furthermore,
in main result, the Fredholm *-multiplication operators on L^p-spaces are
characterized, and some more results are obtained.


title:
Robust Fusion of Multi-Band Images with Different Spatial and Spectral
  Resolutions for Change Detection

abstract:
  Archetypal scenarios for change detection generally consider two images
acquired through sensors of the same modality. However, in some specific cases
such as emergency situations, the only images available may be those acquired
through different kinds of sensors. More precisely, this paper addresses the
problem of detecting changes between two multi-band optical images
characterized by different spatial and spectral resolutions. This sensor
dissimilarity introduces additional issues in the context of operational change
detection. To alleviate these issues, classical change detection methods are
applied after independent preprocessing steps (e.g., resampling) used to get
the same spatial and spectral resolutions for the pair of observed images.
Nevertheless, these preprocessing steps tend to throw away relevant
information. Conversely, in this paper, we propose a method that more
effectively uses the available information by modeling the two observed images
as spatial and spectral versions of two (unobserved) latent images
characterized by the same high spatial and high spectral resolutions. As they
cover the same scene, these latent images are expected to be globally similar
except for possible changes in sparse spatial locations. Thus, the change
detection task is envisioned through a robust multi-band image fusion method
which enforces the differences between the estimated latent images to be
spatially sparse. This robust fusion problem is formulated as an inverse
problem which is iteratively solved using an efficient block-coordinate descent
algorithm. The proposed method is applied to real panchormatic/multispectral
and hyperspectral images with simulated realistic changes. A comparison with
state-of-the-art change detection methods evidences the accuracy of the
proposed strategy.


title: Generating sets of finite groups

abstract:
  We investigate the extent to which the exchange relation holds in finite
groups $G$. We define a new equivalence relation $\equiv_{\mathrm{m}}$, where
two elements are equivalent if each can be substituted for the other in any
generating set for $G$. We then refine this to a new sequence
$\equiv_{\mathrm{m}}^{(r)}$ of equivalence relations by saying that $x
\equiv_{\mathrm{m}}^{(r)}y$ if each can be substituted for the other in any
$r$-element generating set. The relations $\equiv_{\mathrm{m}}^{(r)}$ become
finer as $r$ increases, and we define a new group invariant $\psi(G)$ to be the
value of $r$ at which they stabilise to $\equiv_{\mathrm{m}}$.
  Remarkably, we are able to prove that if $G$ is soluble then $\psi(G) \in
\{d(G), d(G) +1\}$, where $d(G)$ is the minimum number of generators of $G$,
and to classify the finite soluble groups $G$ for which $\psi(G) = d(G)$. For
insoluble $G$, we show that $d(G) \leq \psi(G) \leq d(G) + 5$. However, we know
of no examples of groups $G$ for which $\psi(G) > d(G) + 1$.
  As an application, we look at the generating graph of $G$, whose vertices are
the elements of $G$, the edges being the $2$-element generating sets. Our
relation $\equiv_{\mathrm{m}}^{(2)}$ enables us to calculate
$\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma(G))$ for all soluble groups $G$ of nonzero spread, and
give detailed structural information about $\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma(G))$ in the
insoluble case.


title:
Renormalization group calculation of dynamic exponent in the models E
  and F with hydrodynamic fluctuations

abstract:
  The renormalization group method is applied in order to analyze models E and
F of critical dynamics in the presence of velocity fluctuations generated by
the stochastic Navier-Stokes equation. Results are given to the one-loop
approximation for the anomalous dimension $\gamma_\lambda$ and fixed-points'
structure. The dynamic exponent $z$ is calculated in the turbulent regime and
stability of the fixed points for the standard model E is discussed.


title:
Migdal-Eliashberg equations - the effective model for superconducting
  state in H3S

abstract:
  The high-temperature superconducting state in sulfur trihydride
($T_{C}=203$~K) has been investigated in the context of the non-adiabatic and
anharmonic effects. The Migdal-Eliashberg equations and the extended Eliashberg
equations, which include the lowest-order vertex corrections, have been solved
numerically in the self-consistent way. For $R3m$ crystal structure, the
lowest-order vertex corrections decrease the value of the Coulomb
pseudopotential from $0.123$ to $0.108$. The anharmonic effects work
antagonistically in relation to the vertex corrections shifting the value of
$\mu^{\star}$ to $0.156$. The studies conducted for the structure
$Im\overline{3}m$, where the Eliashberg function includes both the
non-adiabatic and anharmonic effects, prove the even higher value of
$\mu^{\star}=0.185$. Independently of the assumed method of the analysis, the
nearly identical no mean-field dependence of the order parameter on the
temperature was obtained: $2\Delta(0)/k_{B}T_{C}\sim 4.7$ - due to the
significant strong-coupling and retardation effects: $\lambda\sim 2$ and
$k_{B}T_{C}\slash \omega_{\rm \ln}\sim 0.15$-$0.19$. It means that the
classical equations of Migdal-Eliashberg can be treated as a correct effective
model for the superconducting state in $\rm H_{3}S$. This paper has shown that
the McMillan or Allen-Dynes formulas substantially lower the value of the
critical temperature in relation to the result obtained with the Eliashberg
equations.


title:
Convergence Rate of Euler-Maruyama Scheme for SDEs with Rough
  Coefficients

abstract:
  In this paper, we are concerned with convergence rate of Euler-Maruyama
scheme for stochastic differential equations with rough coefficients. The key
contributions lie in (i), by means of regularity of non-degenerate Kolmogrov
equation, we investigate convergence rate of Euler-Maruyama scheme for a class
of stochastic differential equations, which allow the drifts to be
Dini-continuous and unbounded; (ii) by the aid of regularization properties of
degenerate Kolmogrov equation, we discuss convergence rate of Euler-Maruyama
scheme for a range of degenerate stochastic differential equations, where the
drift is locally H\"older-Dini continuous of order $\frac{2}{3}$ with respect
to the first component, and is merely Dini-continuous concerning the second
component.


title: Differential inequalities and a Marty-type criterion for quasi-normality

abstract:
  We show that the family of all holomorphic functions $f$ in a domain $D$
satisfying $$\frac{|f^{(k)}|}{1+|f|}(z)\le C \qquad \mbox{ for all } z\in D$$
(where $k$ is a natural number and $C>0$) is quasi-normal. Furthermore, we give
a general counterexample to show that for $\alpha>1$ and $k\ge2$ the condition
$$\frac{|f^{(k)}|}{1+|f|^\alpha}(z)\le C \qquad \mbox{ for all } z\in D$$ does
not imply quasi-normality.


title: Learning Robust Representations of Text

abstract:
  Deep neural networks have achieved remarkable results across many language
processing tasks, however these methods are highly sensitive to noise and
adversarial attacks. We present a regularization based method for limiting
network sensitivity to its inputs, inspired by ideas from computer vision, thus
learning models that are more robust. Empirical evaluation over a range of
sentiment datasets with a convolutional neural network shows that, compared to
a baseline model and the dropout method, our method achieves superior
performance over noisy inputs and out-of-domain data.


title: A classification of anisotropic Besov spaces

abstract:
  We study (homogeneous and inhomogeneous) anisotropic Besov spaces associated
to expansive dilation matrices $A \in {\rm GL}(d,\mathbb{R})$, with the goal of
clarifying when two such matrices induce the same scale of Besov spaces. For
this purpose, we first establish that anisotropic Besov spaces have an
alternative description as decomposition spaces. This result allows to relate
properties of function spaces to combinatorial properties of the underlying
coverings. This principle is applied to the question of classifying dilation
matrices. It turns out the scales of homogeneous and inhomogeneous Besov spaces
differ in the way they depend on the dilation matrix: Two matrices $A,B$ that
induce the same scale of homogeneous Besov spaces also induce the same scale of
inhomogeneous spaces, but the converse of this statement is generally false.
Furthermore, the question whether $A,B$ induce the same scale of homogeneous
spaces is closely related to the question whether they induce the same scale of
Hardy spaces; the latter question had been previously studied by Bownik. We
give a complete characterization of the different types of equivalence in terms
of the Jordan normal forms of $A,B$.


title:
Effect of Ionized Impurity Screening on Spin Decoherence at Low and
  Intermediate Temperatures in GaAs

abstract:
  We study the effect of charged impurity screening on spin decoherence in bulk
{\it n}-type GaAs, and analyse in details the effect of the use of different
Born approximations applied to a linearized Thomas-Fermi screening theory. The
spin relaxation times are calculated by ensemble Monte Carlo techniques,
including electron-electron, electron-impurities, and electron-phonons
scattering. We carefully choose a parameter region so that all the physical
approximations hold, and, in particular, a Yukawa-type potential can be used to
describe the screened Coulomb interaction and the Born series converges. Our
results show that including the second order Born approximation yields much
shorter spin relaxation times compared to the commonly implemented first Born
approximation: spin relaxation times may be reduced by hundreds of picoseconds,
with the first Born approximation overestimating results by 30% or more for a
large region of parameters. Though our ensemble Monte Carlo simulations include
electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions, when considering low to
intermediate carrier densities and $T > 50 $ $\mathrm{K}$, but $T$ smaller than
the Fermi temperature, our results are in good agreement with Dyakonov-Perel
theory when this includes electron-impurity interactions only, which supports
this to be the most relevant scattering mechanism for bulk GaAs in this
low-intermediate temperature regime.