title:
The Fourier expansion approximation for high-accuracy computation of the
  Voigt/complex error function at small imaginary argument

abstract:
  It is known that the computation of the Voigt/complex error function is
problematic for highly accurate and rapid computation at small imaginary
argument $y << 1$, where $y = \operatorname{Im} \left[ z \right]$. In this
paper we consider an approximation based on the Fourier expansion that can be
used to resolve effectively such a problem when $y \to 0$.


title:
Efficient implementation of the adaptive scale pixel decomposition
  algorithm

abstract:
  Context. Most popular algorithms in use to remove the effects of a
telescope's point spread function (PSF) in radio astronomy are variants of the
CLEAN algorithm. Most of these algorithms model the sky brightness using the
delta-function basis, which results in undesired artefacts when used on image
extended emission. The adaptive scale pixel decomposition (Asp-Clean) algorithm
models the sky brightness on a scale-sensitive basis and thus gives a
significantly better imaging performance when imaging fields that contain both
resolved and unresolved emission.
  Aims. However, the runtime cost of Asp-Clean is higher than that of
scale-insensitive algorithms. In this paper, we identify the most expensive
step in the original Asp-Clean algorithm and present an efficient
implementation of it, which significantly reduces the computational cost while
keeping the imaging performance comparable to the original algorithm. The PSF
sidelobe levels of modern wide-band telescopes are significantly reduced,
allowing us to make approximations to reduce the computing cost, which in turn
allows for the deconvolution of larger images on reasonable timescales.
  Methods. As in the original algorithm, scales in the image are estimated
through function fitting. Here we introduce an analytical method to model
extended emission, and a modified method for estimating the initial values used
for the fitting procedure, which ultimately leads to a lower computational
cost.
  Results.The new implementation was tested with simulated EVLA data and the
imaging performance compared well with the original Asp-Clean algorithm. Tests
show that the current algorithm can recover features at different scales with
lower computational cost.


title:
An Uncertain Future: Forecasting from Static Images using Variational
  Autoencoders

abstract:
  In a given scene, humans can often easily predict a set of immediate future
events that might happen. However, generalized pixel-level anticipation in
computer vision systems is difficult because machine learning struggles with
the ambiguity inherent in predicting the future. In this paper, we focus on
predicting the dense trajectory of pixels in a scene, specifically what will
move in the scene, where it will travel, and how it will deform over the course
of one second. We propose a conditional variational autoencoder as a solution
to this problem. In this framework, direct inference from the image shapes the
distribution of possible trajectories, while latent variables encode any
necessary information that is not available in the image. We show that our
method is able to successfully predict events in a wide variety of scenes and
can produce multiple different predictions when the future is ambiguous. Our
algorithm is trained on thousands of diverse, realistic videos and requires
absolutely no human labeling. In addition to non-semantic action prediction, we
find that our method learns a representation that is applicable to semantic
vision tasks.


title: On certain hyperplane arrangements and colored graphs

abstract:
  We exhibit a one-to-one correspondence between $3$-colored graphs and
subarrangements of certain hyperplane arrangements denoted $\mathcal J_n$, $n
\in \mathbb N$. We define the notion of centrality of $3$-colored graphs which
corresponds to the centrality of hyperplane arrangements. Via the
correspondence, the characteristic polynomial $\chi_{\mathcal J_n}$ of
$\mathcal J_n$ can be expressed in terms of the number of central $3$-colored
graphs, and we compute $\chi_{\mathcal J_n}$ for $n = 2, 3$.


title: Self-gravitating fluid systems and galactic dark matter

abstract:
  We study gravitational collapse with anisotropic pressures, whose end stage
can mimic space-times that are seeded by galactic dark matter. To this end, we
identify a class of space-times (with conical defects) that can arise out of
such a collapse process, and admit stable circular orbits at all radial
distances. These have a naked singularity at the origin. An example of such a
space-time is seen to be the Bertrand space-time discovered by Perlick, that
admits closed, stable orbits at all radii. Using relativistic two- fluid
models, we show that our galactic space-times might indicate exotic matter, i.e
one of the component fluids may have negative pressure for a certain asymptotic
fall off of the associated mass density, in the Newtonian limit. We complement
this analysis by studying some simple examples of Newtonian two-fluid systems,
and compare this with the Newtonian limit of the relativistic systems
considered.


title:
P2P-PL: A Pattern Language to Design Efficient and Robust Peer-to-Peer
  Systems

abstract:
  To design peer-to-peer (P2P) software systems is a challenging task, because
of their highly decentralized nature, which may cause unexpected emergent
global behaviors. The last fifteen years have seen many P2P applications to
come out and win favor with millions of users. From success histories of
applications like BitTorrent, Skype, MyP2P we have learnt a number of useful
design patterns. Thus, in this article we present a P2P pattern language
(shortly, P2P-PL) which encompasses all the aspects that a fully effective and
efficient P2P software system should provide, namely consistency of stored
data, redundancy, load balancing, coping with asymmetric bandwidth,
decentralized security. The patterns of the proposed P2P-PL are described in
detail, and a composition strategy for designing robust, effective and
efficient P2P software systems is proposed.


title: Rate of curvature decay for the contracting cusp Ricci flow

abstract:
  We prove that the Ricci flow that contracts a hyperbolic cusp has curvature
decay like one over time squared. In order to do this, we prove a new Li-Yau
type differential Harnack inequality for Ricci flow on surfaces.


title: On linear equations arising in Combinatorics (Part III)

abstract:
  In the first two papers, the author embarked on a study of classes of linear
equations over integers satisfying a "Farkas-type" property. As the third paper
in this study, the present paper deals with another class of linear equations
over integers that has a similar "Farkas-type" property. Furthermore it is
shown that if an arbitrary system of equations over integers satisfies the
conditions imposed by Farkas' lemma then it has rational solutions of a special
type.


title:
Self-interacting charged massive spin two particles in Minkowski
  spacetime

abstract:
  A model of the self-interacting charged massive spin-two field is
constructed. We investigate several properties of the model and find that the
trivial vacuum is only allowed due to the internal symmetry. This suggests that
the Higgs mechanism might not be induced by the model of the massive spin-two
field with the ghost-free potential.


title: Broken Lifshitz invariance, spin waves and hydrodynamics

abstract:
  In this paper, based on the basic principles of thermodynamics, we explore
the hydrodynamic regime of interacting Lifshitz field theories in the presence
of broken rotational invariance. We compute the entropy current and discover
new dissipative effects those are consistent with the principle of local
entropy production in the fluid. In our analysis, we consider both the parity
even as well as the parity odd sector upto first order in the derivative
expansion. Finally, we argue that the present construction of the paper could
be systematically identified as that of the hydrodynamic description associated
with \textit{spin waves} (away from the domain of quantum criticality) under
certain limiting conditions.


title: Fractal property of the graph homomorphism order

abstract:
  We show that every interval in the homomorphism order of finite undirected
graphs is either universal or a gap. Together with density and universality
this "fractal" property contributes to the spectacular properties of the
homomorphism order.
  We first show the fractal property by using Sparse Incomparability Lemma and
then by more involved elementary argument.


title:
Key rate enhancement using qutrit states for uncharacterized quantum key
  distribution

abstract:
  It is known that measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
(MDI-QKD) provides ultimate security from all types of side-channel attack
against detectors at the expense of low key generation rate. Here, we propose
MDI-QKD using 3-dimensional quantum states and show that the protocol improves
the secret key rate under the analysis of mismatched-basis statistics.
Specifically, we analyze security of the 3d-MDI-QKD protocol with
uncharacterized sources, meaning that the original sources contain unwanted
states instead of expected one. We simulate secret key rate of the protocol and
identify the regime where the key rate is higher than the protocol with the
qubit MDI-QKD.


title: The asymptotics of the Touchard polynomials

abstract:
  We examine the asymptotic expansion of the Touchard polynomials $T_n(z)$
(also known as the exponential polynomials) for large $n$ and complex values of
the variable $z$. In our treatment $|z|$ may be finite or allowed to be large
like $O(n)$. We employ the method of steepest descents to a suitable integral
representation of $T_n(z)$ and find that the number of saddle points that
contribute to the expansion depends on the values of $n$ and $z$. Numerical
results are given to illustrate the accuracy of the various expansions.


title: Leptogenesis in a neutrino mass model coupled with inflaton

abstract:
  We propose a scenario for the generation of baryon number asymmetry based on
the inflaton decay in a radiative neutrino mass model extended with singlet
scalars. In this scenario, lepton number asymmetry is produced through the
decay of non-thermal right-handed neutrinos caused from the inflaton decay.
Since the amount of non-thermal right-handed neutrinos could be much larger
than the thermal ones, the scenario could work without any resonance effect for
rather low reheating temperature. Sufficient baryon number asymmetry can be
generated for much lighter right-handed neutrinos compared with the
Davidson-Ibarra bound.


title: Azumaya geometry and representation stacks

abstract:
  We develop Azumaya geometry, which is an extension of classical affine
geometry to the world of Azumaya algebras, and package the information
contained in all quotient stacks $[\mathrm{rep}_n R\,/\,\mathrm{PGL}_n]$ into a
presheaf $\mathrm{Rep}_R$ on it. We show that the classical \'etale and Zariski
topologies extend to Grothendieck topologies on Azumaya geometry in uncountably
many ways, and prove that $\mathrm{Rep}_R$ is a sheaf for all of them. The
restriction to a specific Azumaya algebra $A$ with center $C$ gives us a sheaf
in the \'etale topology which is represented by an affine $C$-scheme
$\mathrm{rep}_A(R)$, which we call the Azumaya representation scheme of $R$
with respect to $A$.


title:
Timed Multiset Rewriting and the Verification of Time-Sensitive
  Distributed Systems

abstract:
  Time-Sensitive Distributed Systems (TSDS), such as applications using
autonomous drones, achieve goals under possible environment interference (\eg,
winds). Moreover, goals are often specified using explicit time constraints
which must be satisfied by the system \emph{perpetually}. For example, drones
carrying out the surveillance of some area must always have \emph{recent
pictures}, \ie, at most $M$ time units old, of some strategic locations. This
paper proposes a Multiset Rewriting language with explicit time for specifying
and analysing TSDSes. We introduce two properties, \emph{realizability} (some
trace is good) and \emph{survivability} (where, in addition, all admissible
traces are good). A good trace is an infinite trace in which goals are
perpetually satisfied. We propose a class of systems called \emph{progressive
timed systems} (PTS), where intuitively only a finite number of actions can be
carried out in a bounded time period. We prove that for this class of systems
both the realizability and the survivability problems are PSPACE-complete.
Furthermore, if we impose a bound on time (as in bounded model-checking), we
show that for PTS, realizability becomes NP-complete, while survivability is in
the $\Delta_2^p$ class of the polynomial hierarchy. Finally, we demonstrate
that the rewriting logic system Maude can be used to automate time bounded
verification of PTS.


title: Radiation Backgrounds at Cosmic Dawn: X-Rays from Compact Binaries

abstract:
  We compute the expected X-ray diffuse background and radiative feedback on
the intergalactic medium (IGM) from X-ray binaries prior and during the epoch
of reionization. The cosmic evolution of compact binaries is followed using a
population synthesis technique that treats separately neutron stars and black
hole binaries in different spectral states and is calibrated to reproduce the
observed X-ray properties of galaxies at z<4. Together with an updated
empirical determination of the cosmic history of star formation, recent
modeling of the stellar mass-metallicity relation, and a scheme for absorption
by the IGM that accounts for the presence of ionized HII bubbles during the
epoch of reionization, our detailed calculations provide refined predictions of
the X-ray volume emissivity and filtered radiation background from "normal"
galaxies at z>6. Radiative transfer effects modulate the background spectrum,
which shows a characteristic peak between 1 and 2 keV. While the filtering of
X-ray radiation through the IGM slightly increases the mean excess energy per
photoionization, it also weakens the radiation intensity below 1 keV, lowering
the mean photoionization and heating rates. Numerical integration of the rate
and energy equations shows that the contribution of X-ray binaries to the
ionization of the bulk IGM is negligible, with the electron fraction never
exceeding 1%. Direct HeI photoionizations are the main source of IGM heating,
and the temperature of the largely neutral medium in between HII cavities
increases above the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) only
at z<10, when the volume filling factor of HII bubbles is already >0.1.
Therefore, in this scenario, it is only at relatively late epochs that the bulk
of neutral intergalactic hydrogen may be observable in 21-cm emission against
the CMB.


title:
Q2-evolution of parton densities at small x values. Charm contribution
  in the combined H1 and ZEUS F2 data

abstract:
  The Bessel-inspired behavior of parton densities at small x, obtained in the
case of the flat initial conditions for DGLAP evolution equations, is used in
the fixed flavor scheme to analyze precise H1+ZEUS combined data on the
structure function F2.


title: Observable gravitational waves in pre-big bang cosmology: an update

abstract:
  In the light of the recent results concerning CMB observations and GW
detection we address the question of whether it is possible, in a
self-consistent inflationary framework, to simultaneously generate a spectrum
of scalar metric perturbations in agreement with Planck data and a stochastic
background of primordial gravitational radiation compatible with the design
sensitivity of aLIGO/Virgo and/or eLISA. We suggest that this is possible in a
string cosmology context, for a wide region of the parameter space of the
so-called pre-big bang models. We also discuss the associated values of the
tensor-to-scalar ratio relevant to the CMB polarization experiments. We
conclude that future, cross-correlated results from CMB observations and GW
detectors will be able to confirm or disprove pre-big bang models and -- in any
case -- will impose new significant constraints on the basic string
theory/cosmology parameters.


title:
Interaction of Magnetization and Heat Dynamics for Pulsed Domain Wall
  Movement with Joule Heating

abstract:
  Pulsed domain wall movement is studied here in Ni80Fe20 nanowires on SiO2,
using a fully integrated electrostatic, thermoelectric, and micromagnetics
solver based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Bloch equation, including Joule heating,
anisotropic magneto-resistance, and Oersted field contributions. During the
applied pulse the anisotropic magneto-resistance of the domain wall generates a
dynamic heat gradient which increases the current-driven velocity by up to 15%.
Using a temperature-dependent conductivity significant differences are found
between the constant voltage-pulsed and constant current-pulsed domain wall
movement: constant voltage pulses are shown to be more efficient at displacing
domain walls whilst minimizing the increase in temperature, with the total
domain wall displacement achieved over a fixed pulse duration having a maximum
with respect to the driving pulse strength.


title:
Invitation to H-systems in higher dimensions: known results, new facts,
  and related open problems

abstract:
  In this paper, we discuss two well-known open problems in the regularity
theory for nonlinear, conformally invariant elliptic systems in dimensions
$n\ge 3$, with a critical nonlinearity: $H$-systems (equations of hypersurfaces
of prescribed mean curvature) and $n$-harmonic maps into compact Riemannian
manifolds.
  For $n=2$ several solutions of these problems are known but they all break
down in higher dimensions (unless one considers special cases, e.g.
hypersurfaces of constant mean curvature or manifolds with symmetries). We
discuss some of the known proofs and hint at the main difficulties.
  We also state a few new results (such as positive answers for all solutions
of class $W^{n/2,2}$ for even $n$, instead of $W^{1,n}$) and list some open
questions of independent interest - including specific endpoint variants of the
Coifman-Rochberg-Weiss theorem, addressing the boundedness of commutators of
fractional and singular integrals with multiplication by bounded functions of
class $W^{1,n}$ - that would lead to solutions of these two problems.


title: Large-Scale Kernel Methods for Independence Testing

abstract:
  Representations of probability measures in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces
provide a flexible framework for fully nonparametric hypothesis tests of
independence, which can capture any type of departure from independence,
including nonlinear associations and multivariate interactions. However, these
approaches come with an at least quadratic computational cost in the number of
observations, which can be prohibitive in many applications. Arguably, it is
exactly in such large-scale datasets that capturing any type of dependence is
of interest, so striking a favourable tradeoff between computational efficiency
and test performance for kernel independence tests would have a direct impact
on their applicability in practice. In this contribution, we provide an
extensive study of the use of large-scale kernel approximations in the context
of independence testing, contrasting block-based, Nystrom and random Fourier
feature approaches. Through a variety of synthetic data experiments, it is
demonstrated that our novel large scale methods give comparable performance
with existing methods whilst using significantly less computation time and
memory.


title: The Dimension of One-step Idempotent Right Modular Quasigroups

abstract:
  We prove that one-step idempotent right modular groupoids are quasigroups.
The dimension of such quasigroups is defined and all such quasigroups of
dimensions 2,3 and 4 are determined.


title: Real pinor bundles and real Lipschitz structures

abstract:
  We obtain the topological obstructions to existence of a bundle of
irreducible real Clifford modules over a pseudo-Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ of
arbitrary dimension and signature and prove that bundles of Clifford modules
are associated to so-called real Lipschitz structures. The latter give a
generalization of spin structures based on certain groups which we call real
Lipschitz groups. In the fiberwise-irreducible case, we classify the latter in
all dimensions and signatures. As a simple application, we show that the
supersymmetry generator of eleven-dimensional supergravity in "mostly plus"
signature can be interpreted as a global section of a bundle of irreducible
Clifford modules if and $\textit{only if}$ the underlying eleven-manifold is
orientable and spin.


title:
Observation of $J/\psi\phi$ structures consistent with exotic states
  from amplitude analysis of $B^+\to J/\psi \phi K^+$ decays

abstract:
  The first full amplitude analysis of $B^+\to J/\psi \phi K^+$ with
$J/\psi\to\mu^+\mu^-$, $\phi\to K^+K^-$ decays is performed with a data sample
of 3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=7$ and $8$ TeV
with the LHCb detector. The data cannot be described by a model that contains
only excited kaon states decaying into $\phi K^+$, and four $J/\psi\phi$
structures are observed, each with significance over $5$ standard deviations.
The quantum numbers of these structures are determined with significance of at
least $4$ standard deviations. The lightest has mass consistent with, but width
much larger than, previous measurements of the claimed $X(4140)$ state.


title: Asymptotically Minimax Prediction in Infinite Sequence Models

abstract:
  We study asymptotically minimax predictive distributions in an infinite
sequence model. First, we discuss the connection between the prediction in the
infinite sequence model and the prediction in the function model. Second, we
construct an asymptotically minimax predictive distribution when the parameter
space is a known ellipsoid. We show that the Bayesian predictive distribution
based on the Gaussian prior distribution is asymptotically minimax in the
ellipsoid. Third, we construct an asymptotically minimax predictive
distribution for any Sobolev ellipsoid. We show that the Bayesian predictive
distribution based on the product of Stein's priors is asymptotically minimax
for any Sobolev ellipsoid. Finally, we present an efficient sampling method
from the proposed Bayesian predictive distribution.


title: Monolayer graphene as dissipative membrane in an optical resonator

abstract:
  We experimentally demonstrate coupling of an atomically thin, free-standing
graphene membrane to an optical cavity. By changing the position of the
membrane along the standing-wave field of the cavity we tailor the dissipative
coupling between the membrane and the cavity, and we show that the dissipative
coupling can outweigh the dispersive coupling. Such a system, for which
controlled dissipation prevails dispersion, will prove useful for novel
laser-cooling schemes in optomechanics. In addition, we have determined the
continuous-wave optical damage threshold of free-standing monolayer graphene of
1.8(4)~MW/cm$^2$ at 780nm.


title: Amplitude analysis of $B^+\to J/\psi \phi K^+$ decays

abstract:
  The first full amplitude analysis of $B^+\to J/\psi \phi K^+$ with
$J/\psi\to\mu^+\mu^-$, $\phi\to K^+K^-$ decays is performed with a data sample
of 3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=7$ and $8$ TeV
with the LHCb detector. The data cannot be described by a model that contains
only excited kaon states decaying into $\phi K^+$, and four $J/\psi\phi$
structures are observed, each with significance over $5$ standard deviations.
The quantum numbers of these structures are determined with significance of at
least $4$ standard deviations. The lightest has mass consistent with, but width
much larger than, previous measurements of the claimed $X(4140)$ state. The
model includes significant contributions from a number of expected kaon
excitations, including the first observation of the $K^{*}(1680)^+\to\phi K^+$
transition.


title: Quantum estimation of unknown parameters

abstract:
  We discuss the problem of finding the best measurement strategy for
estimating the value of a quantum system parameter. In general the optimum
quantum measurement, in the sense that it maximizes the quantum Fisher
information and hence allows one to minimize the estimation error, can only be
determined if the value of the parameter is already known. A modification of
the quantum Van Trees inequality, which gives a lower bound on the error in the
estimation of a random parameter, is proposed. The suggested inequality allows
us to assert if a particular quantum measurement, together with an appropriate
estimator, is optimal. An adaptive strategy to estimate the value of a
parameter, based on our modified inequality, is proposed.


title:
Violations of the Kerr and Reissner-Nordstrom bounds: horizon versus
  asymptotic quantities

abstract:
  A central feature of the most elementary rotating black hole (BH) solution in
General Relativity is the Kerr bound, which, for vacuum Kerr BHs, can be
expressed either in terms of the ADM or the horizon "charges". This bound,
however, is not a fundamental properties of General Relativity and stationary,
asymptotically flat, regular (on and outside an event horizon) BHs are known to
violate the Kerr bound, both in terms of their ADM and horizon quantities.
Examples include the recently discovered Kerr BHs with scalar or Proca hair.
Here, we point the fact that the Kerr bound in terms of horizon quantities is
also violated by well-known rotating and charged solutions, known in closed
form, such as the Kerr-Newman and Kerr-Sen BHs. For the former, moreover, we
observe that the Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) bound is also violated in terms of
horizon quantities, even in the static (i.e RN) limit. For the latter, by
contrast, the existence of charged matter outside the horizon, allows a curious
invariance of the charge to mass ratio, between ADM and horizon quantities.
Regardless of the Kerr bound violation, we show that in all case, the event
horizon linear velocity never exceeds the speed of light. Finally, we suggest a
new type of informative parameterization for BH spacetimes where part of the
asymptotic charges is supported outside the horizon.


title: Corpus-level Fine-grained Entity Typing Using Contextual Information

abstract:
  This paper addresses the problem of corpus-level entity typing, i.e.,
inferring from a large corpus that an entity is a member of a class such as
"food" or "artist". The application of entity typing we are interested in is
knowledge base completion, specifically, to learn which classes an entity is a
member of. We propose FIGMENT to tackle this problem. FIGMENT is
embedding-based and combines (i) a global model that scores based on aggregated
contextual information of an entity and (ii) a context model that first scores
the individual occurrences of an entity and then aggregates the scores. In our
evaluation, FIGMENT strongly outperforms an approach to entity typing that
relies on relations obtained by an open information extraction system.


title: Intrinsic Subspace Evaluation of Word Embedding Representations

abstract:
  We introduce a new methodology for intrinsic evaluation of word
representations. Specifically, we identify four fundamental criteria based on
the characteristics of natural language that pose difficulties to NLP systems;
and develop tests that directly show whether or not representations contain the
subspaces necessary to satisfy these criteria. Current intrinsic evaluations
are mostly based on the overall similarity or full-space similarity of words
and thus view vector representations as points. We show the limits of these
point-based intrinsic evaluations. We apply our evaluation methodology to the
comparison of a count vector model and several neural network models and
demonstrate important properties of these models.


title: Leptoquarks: 750 GeV Diphoton Resonance and IceCube Events

abstract:
  The recent data from ATLAS and CMS hint at a new resonance at around 750 GeV
in the diphoton invariant mass distribution. The explanation of the
significantly large cross section for this diphoton resonance requires coloured
particles in its loop-induced production via gluon fusion and subsequent decay
to diphoton. A natural candidate for the coloured particle is the
colour-triplet leptoquark, lying in the mass range 375-1000 GeV, which can
account for such large cross section. The leptoquarks in this mass range can
also be produced resonantly from neutrino and quark interactions at IceCube and
provide an explanation to the PeV-energy neutrino events. In this work, we show
that the scalar leptoquark with quantum number $(3,2,7/6)$ can uniquely provide
a unified explanation to both the PeV IceCube events and the 750 GeV diphoton
resonance.


title: A Satisfactory Power Control for 5G Self-Organizing Networks

abstract:
  SmallCells are deployed in order to enhance the network performance by
bringing the network closer to the user. However, as the number of low power
nodes grows increasingly, the overall energy consumption of the SmallCells base
stations cannot be ignored. A relevant amount of energy could be saved through
several techniques, especially power control mechanisms. In this paper, we are
concerned with energy aware self organizing networks that guarantee a
satisfactory performance. We consider satisfaction equilibria, mainly the
efficient satisfaction equilibrium (ESE), to ensure a target quality of service
(QoS) and save energy. First, we identify conditions of existence and
uniqueness of ESE under a stationary channel assumption. We fully characterize
the ESE and prove that, whenever it exists, it is a solution of a linear
system. Moreover, we define satisfactory Pareto optimality and show that, at
the ESE, no player can increase its QoS without degrading the overall
performance. Under a fast fading channel assumption, as the robust satisfaction
equilibrium solution is very restrictive, we propose an alternative solution
namely the long term satisfaction equilibrium, and describe how to reach this
solution efficiently. Finally, in order to find satisfactory solution per all
users, we propose fully distributed strategic learning schemes based on
Banach-Picard, Mann and Bush Mosteller algorithms, and show through simulations
their qualitative properties. fully distributed strategic learning schemes
based on Banach Picard, Mann and Bush Mosteller algorithms, and show through
simulations their qualitative properties.


title: Linear and quadratic in temperature resistivity from holography

abstract:
  We present a new black hole solution in the asymptotic Lifshitz spacetime
with a hyperscaling violating factor. A novel computational method is
introduced to compute the DC thermoelectric conductivities analytically. We
find that both the linear-T and quadratic-T contributions to the resistivity
can be realized, indicating that a more detailed comparison with experimental
phenomenology can be performed in this scenario.


title: Large Deviations for Permutations Avoiding Monotone Patterns

abstract:
  For a given permutation $\tau$, let $P_N^{\tau}$ be the uniform probability
distribution on the set of $N$-element permutations $\sigma$ that avoid the
pattern $\tau$. For $\tau=\mu_k:=123\cdots k$, we consider
$P_N^{\mu_k}(\sigma_I=J)$ where $I\sim \gamma N$ and $J\sim \delta N$ for
$\gamma,\delta \in (0,1)$. If $\gamma+\delta\neq 1$ then we are in the large
deviations regime with the probability decaying exponentially, and we calculate
the limiting value of $P_N^{\mu_k}(\sigma_I=J)^{1/N}$. We also observe that for
$\tau = \lambda_{k,\ell} := 12\ldots\ell k(k-1)\ldots(\ell+1)$ and
$\gamma+\delta<1$, the limit of $P_N^{\tau}(\sigma_I=J)^{1/N}$ is the same as
for $\tau=\mu_k$.


title:
The fine $\spo(2|n)$-equivariant quantizations on the super circles
  $S^{1|n}$

abstract:
  In this paper, we generalize the known results on the super circles $S^{1|1}$
and $S^{1|2}$. We construct the fine equivariant quantization on the super
circle $S^{1|n}$ for $n\geqslant 3$. The equivariant Lie superalgebra is
$\spo(2|n)$ which is constituted of the contact projective vector fields on
$S^{1|n}$. In order to construct the fine equivariant quantization on
$S^{1|n}$, we use the model developed, in the purely even case, by Charles H.
Conley and Valentin Ovsienko in \textit{[Linear Differential Operators on
Contact manifolds, http://www.arxiv:math-Ph/1205.6562v1,24p, 2012]}. We also
use the technical of Casimir operators to prove the uniqueness of the fine
quantization on $S^{1|n}$. The technical of Casimir operators used here is the
same as the one used by P. Mathonet and F. Radoux in [\textit{Lett. Math. Phys.
98 (2011),311-331}] to prove the existence of a $\pgl(p+1|q)$-equivariant
quantization on $\R^{p|q}$.


title: Label Tree Embeddings for Acoustic Scene Classification

abstract:
  We present in this paper an efficient approach for acoustic scene
classification by exploring the structure of class labels. Given a set of class
labels, a category taxonomy is automatically learned by collectively optimizing
a clustering of the labels into multiple meta-classes in a tree structure. An
acoustic scene instance is then embedded into a low-dimensional feature
representation which consists of the likelihoods that it belongs to the
meta-classes. We demonstrate state-of-the-art results on two different datasets
for the acoustic scene classification task, including the DCASE 2013 and LITIS
Rouen datasets.


title: Derivations on semidirect products of Banach algebras

abstract:
  Let A and U be Banach algebras such that U is also a Banach A- bimodule with
compatible algebra operations, module actions and norm. By defining an
approprite action, we turn l1-direct product A item U into a Banach algebra
such that A is closed subalgebra and U is a closed ideal of it. This algebra,
is in fact semidirect product of A and U which we denote it by A litem U and
every semidirect products of Banach algebras can be represented as this form.
In this paper we consider the Banach algebra A litem U as mentioned and study
the derivations on it. In fact we consider the automatic continuity of the
derivations on A litem U and obtain some results in this context and study its
relation with the automatic continuity of the derivations on A and U. Also we
calculate the first cohomology group of A litem U in some different cases and
establish relations among the first cohomology group of A litem U and those of
A and U. As applications of these contents, we present various results about
the automatic continuity of derivations and the first cohomology group of
direct products of Banach algebras, module extension Banach algebras and theta
Lau products of Banach algebras.


title: Optimal redundancy in computations from random oracles

abstract:
  A classic result in algorithmic information theory is that every infinite
binary sequence is computable from a Martin-Loef random infinite binary
sequence. Proved independently by Kucera and Gacs, this result answered a
question by Charles Bennett and has seen numerous applications in the last 30
years. The optimal redundancy in such a coding process has, however, remained
unknown. If the computation of the first n bits of a sequence requires n + g(n)
bits of the random oracle, then g is the redundancy of the computation. Kucera
implicitly achieved redundancy n log n while Gacs used a more elaborate
block-coding procedure which achieved redundancy sqrt(n) log n. Different
approaches to coding such as the one by Merkle and Mihailovic have not improved
this redundancy bound. In this paper we devise a new coding method that
achieves optimal logarithmic redundancy. Our redundancy bound is exponentially
smaller than the previously best known bound and is known to be the best
possible. It follows that redundancy r log n in computation from a random
oracle is possible for every stream, if and only if r > 1.


title: Differencing Methods for Korobov-type exponential sums

abstract:
  We study exponential sums of the form $\sum_{n=1}^N e^{2\pi i a b^n/m}$ for
non-zero integers $a,b,m$. Classically, non-trivial bounds were known for $N\ge
\sqrt{m}$ by Korobov, and this range has been extended significantly by
Bourgain as a result of his and others' work on the sum-product phenomenon. We
use a new technique, similar to the Weyl-van der Corput method of differencing,
to give more explicit bounds bounds that become non-trivial around the time
when $\exp(\log m/\log_2\log m) \le N$. We include applications to the digits
of rational numbers and constructions of normal numbers.


title: Quantum optical effective-medium theory for layered metamaterials

abstract:
  The quantum optics of metamaterials starts with the question whether the same
effective-medium theories apply as in classical optics. In general the answer
is negative. For active plasmonics but also for some passive metamaterials, we
show that an additional effective-medium parameter is indispensable besides the
effective index, namely the effective noise-photon distribution. Only with the
extra parameter can one predict how well the quantumness of states of light is
preserved in the metamaterial. The fact that the effective index alone is not
always sufficient and that one additional effective parameter suffices in the
quantum optics of metamaterials is both of fundamental and practical interest.
Here from a Lagrangian description of the quantum electrodynamics of media with
both linear gain and loss, we compute the effective noise-photon distribution
for quantum light propagation in arbitrary directions in layered metamaterials,
thereby detailing and generalizing our recent work [ E. Amooghorban et al.,
Phys. Rev. Lett. ${\bf 110}$, 153602 (2013)]. The effective index with its
direction and polarization dependence is the same as in classical
effective-medium theories. As our main result we derive both for passive and
for active media how the value of the effective noise-photon distribution too
depends on the polarization and propagation directions of the light.
Interestingly, for TE-polarized light incident on passive metamaterials, the
noise-photon distribution reduces to a thermal distribution, but for
TM-polarized light it does not. We illustrate the robustness of our quantum
optical effective-medium theory by accurate predictions both for power spectra
and for balanced homodyne detection of output quantum states of the
metamaterial.


title: A permutation code preserving a double Eulerian bistatistic

abstract:
  Visontai conjectured in 2013 that the joint distribution of ascent and
distinct nonzero value numbers on the set of subexcedant sequences is the same
as that of descent and inverse descent numbers on the set of permutations. This
conjecture has been proved by Aas in 2014, and the generating function of the
corresponding bistatistics is the double Eulerian polynomial. Among the
techniques used by Aas are the M\"obius inversion formula and isomorphism of
labeled rooted trees. In this paper we define a permutation code (that is, a
bijection between permutations and subexcedant sequences) and show the more
general result that two $5$-tuples of set-valued statistics on the set of
permutations and on the set of subexcedant sequences, respectively, are
equidistributed. In particular, these results give a bijective proof of
Visontai's conjecture.


title:
Novel Energy Scale in the Interacting 2D Electron System Evidenced from
  Transport and Thermodynamic Measurements

abstract:
  We study how the non-Fermi-liquid two-phase state reveals itself in transport
properties of high-mobility Si-MOSFETs. We have found features in zero-field
transport, magnetotransport, and thermodynamic spin magnetization in a 2D
correlated electron system that may be directly related with the two-phase
state. The features manifest above a density dependent temperature $T^*$ that
represents a novel high-energy scale, apart from the Fermi energy. More
specifically, in magnetoconductivity, we found a sharp onset of the novel
regime $\delta \sigma(B,T) \propto (B/T)^2$ above a density-dependent
temperature $T_{\rm kink}(n)$, a high-energy behavior that "mimics" the
low-temperature diffusive interaction regime. The zero-field resistivity
temperature dependence exhibits an inflection point $T_{\rm infl}(n)$. In
thermodynamic magnetization, the weak-field spin susceptibility per electron,
$\partial \chi /\partial n$ changes sign at $T_{dM/dn}(n)$. All three notable
temperatures, $T_{\rm kink}$, $T_{\rm infl}$, and $T_{d M/ d n}$, behave
critically $\propto (n-n_c)$, are close to each other, and are intrinsic to
high-mobility samples solely, we therefore associate them with an energy scale
$T^*$ caused by interactions in the 2DE system.


title: S-Restricted Compositions Revisited

abstract:
  An S-restricted composition of a positive integer n is an ordered partition
of n where each summand is drawn from a given subset S of positive integers.
There are various problems regarding such compositions which have received
attention in recent years. This paper is an attempt at finding a closed- form
formula for the number of S-restricted compositions of n. To do so, we reduce
the problem to finding solutions to corresponding so-called interpreters which
are linear homogeneous recurrence relations with constant coefficients. Then,
we reduce interpreters to Diophantine equations. Such equations are not in
general solvable. Thus, we restrict our attention to those S-restricted
composition problems whose interpreters have a small number of coefficients,
thereby leading to solvable Diophantine equations. The formalism developed is
then used to study the integer sequences related to some well-known cases of
the S-restricted composition problem.


title:
Going viral: Optimizing Discount Allocation in Social Networks for
  Influence Maximization

abstract:
  In this paper, we investigate the discount allocation problem in social
networks. It has been reported that 40\% of consumers will share an email offer
with their friend and 28\% of consumers will share deals via social media
platforms. What does this mean for a business? Essentially discounts should not
just be treated as short term solutions to attract individual customer,
instead, allocating discounts to a small fraction of users (called seed users)
may trigger a large cascade in a social network. This motivates us to study the
influence maximization discount allocation problem: given a social network and
budget, we need to decide to which initial set users should offer the
discounts, and how much should the discounts be worth. Our goal is to maximize
the number of customers who finally adopt the target product. We investigate
this problem under both non-adaptive and adaptive settings. In the first
setting, we have to commit the set of seed users and corresponding discounts
all at once in advance. In the latter case, the decision process is performed
in a sequential manner, and each seed user that is picked provides the feedback
on the discount, or, in other words, reveals whether or not she will adopt the
discount. We propose a simple greedy policy with an approximation ratio of
$\frac{1}{2}(1 - 1/e)$ in non-adaptive setting. For the significantly more
complex adaptive setting, we propose an adaptive greedy policy with bounded
approximation ratio in terms of expected utility.


title:
Deviation of the statistical fluctuation in heterogeneous anomalous
  diffusion

abstract:
  The exponent of anomalous diffusion of virus in cytoplasm of a living cell is
experimentally known to fluctuate depending on localized areas of the
cytoplasm, indicating heterogeneity of diffusion. In a recent paper (Itto,
2012), a maximum-entropy-principle approach has been developed in order to
propose an Ansatz for the statistical distribution of such exponent
fluctuations. Based on this approach, here the deviation of the statistical
distribution of the fluctuations from the proposed one is studied from the
viewpoint of Einstein's theory of fluctuations (of the thermodynamic
quantities). This may present a step toward understanding the statistical
property of the deviation. It is shown in a certain class of small deviations
that the deviation obeys the multivariate Gaussian distribution.


title:
Properties, Proved and Conjectured, of Keller, Mycielski, and Queen
  Graphs

abstract:
  We prove several results about three families of graphs. For queen graphs,
defined from the usual moves of a chess queen, we find the edge-chromatic
number in almost all cases. In the unproved case, we have a conjecture
supported by a vast amount of computation, which involved the development of a
new edge-coloring algorithm. The conjecture is that the edge-chromatic number
is the maximum degree, except when simple arithmetic forces the edge-chromatic
number to be one greater than the maximum degree. For Mycielski graphs, we
strengthen an old result that the graphs are Hamiltonian by showing that they
are Hamilton-connected (except M(3), which is a cycle). For Keller graphs G(d),
we establish, in all cases, the exact value of the chromatic number, the
edge-chromatic number, and the independence number, and we get the clique
covering number in all cases except 5 <= d <= 7. We also investigate
Hamiltonian decompositions of Keller graphs, obtaining them up to G(6).


title:
Vortex Shedding from an Object Moving in Superfluid $^4$He at mK
  Temperatures and in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

abstract:
  Vortex shedding from a microsphere oscillating in superfluid $^4$He at mK
temperatures is compared with that from a laser beam moving in a Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) as observed by other authors. In particular, in either case a
linear dependence of the shedding frequency $f_v$ on $\Delta v = v - v_c$ is
observed, where $v$ is the velocity amplitude of the sphere or the constant
velocity of the laser beam above a critical velocity $v_c$ for the onset of
turbulent flow: $f_v = a \,\Delta v$, where the coefficient $a$ is proportional
to the oscillation frequency $ \omega $above some characteristic frequency
$\omega_k$ and assumes a finite value for steady motion $\omega \rightarrow 0$.


title:
Determining system poles using row sequences of orthogonal
  Hermite-Pad\'e approximants

abstract:
  Given a system of functions $\textup{\textbf{F}}=(F_1,\ldots,F_d),$ analytic
on a neighborhood of some compact subset $E$ of the complex plane with simply
connected complement, we define a sequence of vector rational functions with
common denominator in terms of the orthogonal expansions of the components
$F_k, k=1,\ldots,d,$ with respect to a sequence of orthonormal polynomials
associated with a measure $\mu$ whose support is contained in $E$. Such
sequences of vector rational functions resemble row sequences of type II
Hermite-Pad\'e approximants. Under appropriate assumptions on $\mu,$ we give
necessary and sufficient conditions for the convergence with geometric rate of
the common denominators of the sequence of vector rational functions so
constructed. The exact rate of convergence of these denominators is provided
and the rate of convergence of the simultaneous approximants is estimated. It
is shown that the common denominator of the approximants detect the location of
the poles of the system of functions.


title: Finding the Topic of a Set of Images

abstract:
  In this paper we introduce the problem of determining the topic that a set of
images is describing, where every topic is represented as a set of words.
Different from other problems like tag assignment or similar, a) we assume
multiple images are used as input instead of single image, b) Input images are
typically not visually related, c) Input images are not necessarily
semantically close, and d) Output word space is unconstrained. In our proposed
solution, visual information of each query image is used to retrieve similar
images with text labels (tags) from an image database. We consider a scenario
where the tags are very noisy and diverse, given that they were obtained by
implicit crowd-sourcing in a database of 1 million images and over seventy
seven thousand tags. The words or tags associated to each query are processed
jointly in a word selection algorithm using random walks that allows to refine
the search topic, rejecting words that are not part of the topic and produce a
set of words that fairly describe the topic. Experiments on a dataset of 300
topics, with up to twenty images per topic, show that our algorithm performs
better than the proposed baseline for any number of query images. We also
present a new Conditional Random Field (CRF) word mapping algorithm that
preserves the semantic similarity of the mapped words, increasing the
performance of the results over the baseline.


title:
Photo-creating supercooled spiral-spin states in a multiferroic
  manganite

abstract:
  We demonstrate that dynamics of the ab-spiral-spin order in a magnetoelectric
multiferroic Eu0.55Y0.45MnO3 can be unambiguously probed through optical second
harmonic signals, generated via the spin-induced ferroelectric polarization. In
the case of relatively weak photoexcitation,the ferroelectric and the
spiral-spin order remains interlocked, both relaxing through spin-lattice
relaxation in the non-equilibrium state. When the additional optical pulse
illuminating sample is intense enough to induced a local phase transition
thermally, the system creates a metastable state of the bc-spiral-spin order
(with the electric polarization P//c) via supercooling across the first-order
phase transition between ab- and bc-spiral. The supercooled state of bc-spiral
spin is formed in the thermodynamical ground state of ab-spiral (P//a),
displaying a prolonged lifetime with strong dependence on the magnetic field
along the a-axis. The observed photo-switching between the two distinct
multiferroic states sheds light on novel photoinduced phenomena in spiral-spin
multiferroics.


title:
Searching for cosmological signatures of the Einstein equivalence
  principle breaking

abstract:
  Modifications of gravity generated by a multiplicative coupling of a scalar
field to the electromagnetic Lagrangian lead to a breaking of Einstein
equivalence principle (EEPB) as well as to variations of fundamental constants.
In these theoretical frameworks, deviations of standard values of the fine
structure constant, $\Delta \alpha/\alpha=\phi$, and of the cosmic distance
duality relation, $D_L(1+z)^{-2}/D_A=\eta=1$, where $D_L$ and $D_A$ are the
luminosity and angular diameter distances, respectively, are unequivocally
linked. In this paper, we search for cosmological signatures of the EEPB by
using angular diameter distance from galaxy clusters, obtained via their
Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) and X-ray observations, and distance modulus of
type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). The crucial point here is that we take into
account the dependence of the SZE/X-ray technique with $\phi$ and $\eta$. Our
new results show no indication of the EEPB.


title:
Inflationary spectra from a near $\Omega$-deformed space-time transition
  point in Loop Quantum Cosmology

abstract:
  Anomaly-free perturbations of loop quantum cosmology with holonomy
corrections reveal an $\Omega$ -deformed spacetime structure,
$\Omega:=1-2\rho/\rho_c$, where $\Omega<0$ indicates a Euclidean-like space and
$\Omega>0$ indicates a Lorentz-like space. It would be reasonable to give the
initial value at the spacetime transition point, $\rho=\rho_c/2$, but we find
that it is impossible to define a Minkowski-like vacuum even for large $k$
modes at that time. However, if we loosen the condition and give the initial
value slightly after $\Omega=0$, e.g., $\Omega\simeq 0.2$, the vacuum state can
be well defined and, furthermore the slow roll approximation also works well in
that region. Both scalar and tensor spectra are considered in the framework of
loop quantum cosmology with holonomy corrections. We find that if the energy
density is not too small in relation to $\rho_c/2$ when the considered $k$ mode
crossing the horizon, effective theory can give a much smaller scalar power
spectrum than classical theory and the spectrum of tensor perturbations could
blueshift. But when compared to other observations, since the energy densities
when the modes crossed the horizon were significantly smaller than $\rho_c$,the
results we get agree with previous work in the literature and with the
classical inflation theory.


title:
Parametrized cobordism categories and the Dwyer-Weiss-Williams index
  theorem

abstract:
  We define parametrized cobordism categories and study their formal properties
as bivariant theories. Bivariant transformations to a strongly excisive
bivariant theory give rise to characteristic classes of smooth bundles with
strong additivity properties. In the case of cobordisms between manifolds with
boundary, we prove that such a bivariant transformation is uniquely determined
by its value at the universal disk bundle. This description of bivariant
transformations yields a short proof of the Dwyer-Weiss-Williams family index
theorem for the parametrized A-theory Euler characteristic of a smooth bundle.


title:
Multiple testing with the structure adaptive Benjamini-Hochberg
  algorithm

abstract:
  In multiple testing problems, where a large number of hypotheses are tested
simultaneously, false discovery rate (FDR) control can be achieved with the
well-known Benjamini-Hochberg procedure, which adapts to the amount of signal
present in the data. Many modifications of this procedure have been proposed to
improve power in scenarios where the hypotheses are organized into groups or
into a hierarchy, as well as other structured settings. Here we introduce
SABHA, the "structure-adaptive Benjamini-Hochberg algorithm", as a
generalization of these adaptive testing methods. SABHA incorporates prior
information about any pre-determined type of structure in the pattern of
locations of the signals and nulls within the list of hypotheses, to reweight
the p-values in a data-adaptive way. This raises the power by making more
discoveries in regions where signals appear to be more common. Our main
theoretical result proves that SABHA controls FDR at a level that is at most
slightly higher than the target FDR level, as long as the adaptive weights are
constrained sufficiently so as not to overfit too much to the
data-interestingly, the excess FDR can be related to the Rademacher complexity
or Gaussian width of the class from which we choose our data-adaptive weights.
We apply this general framework to various structured settings, including
ordered, grouped, and low total variation structures, and get the bounds on FDR
for each specific setting. We also examine the empirical performance of SABHA
on fMRI activity data and on gene/drug response data, as well as on simulated
data.


title: Chromatic index determined by fractional chromatic index

abstract:
  Given a graph $G$ possibly with multiple edges but no loops, denote by
$\Delta$ the {\it maximum degree}, $\mu$ the {\it multiplicity}, $\chi'$ the
{\it chromatic index} and $\chi_f'$ the {\it fractional chromatic index} of
$G$, respectively. It is known that $\Delta\le \chi_f' \le \chi' \le \Delta +
\mu$, where the upper bound is a classic result of Vizing. While deciding the
exact value of $\chi'$ is a classic NP-complete problem, the computing of
$\chi_f'$ is in polynomial time. In fact, it is shown that if $\chi_f' >
\Delta$ then $\chi_f'= \max \frac{|E(H)|}{\lfloor |V(H)|/2\rfloor}$, where the
maximality is over all induced subgraphs $H$ of $G$. Gupta\,(1967),
Goldberg\,(1973), Andersen\,(1977), and Seymour\,(1979) conjectured that
$\chi'=\lceil\chi_f'\rceil$ if $\chi'\ge \Delta+2$, which is commonly referred
as Goldberg's conjecture. In this paper, we show that if $\chi'
>\Delta+\sqrt[3]{\Delta/2}$ then $\chi'=\lceil\chi_f'\rceil$. The previous best
known result is for graphs with $\chi'> \Delta +\sqrt{\Delta/2}$ obtained by
Scheide, and by Chen, Yu and Zang, independently. It has been shown that
Goldberg's conjecture is equivalent to the following conjecture of Jakobsen:
{\it For any positive integer $m$ with $m\ge 3$, every graph $G$ with
$\chi'>\frac{m}{m-1}\Delta+\frac{m-3}{m-1}$ satisfies
$\chi'=\lceil\chi_f'\rceil$.} Jakobsen's conjecture has been verified for $m$
up to 15 by various researchers in the last four decades. We show that it is
true for $m\le 23$. Moreover, we show that Goldberg's conjecture holds for
graphs $G$ with $\Delta\leq 23$ or $|V(G)|\leq 23$.


title:
Finite volume effects on the electric polarizability of neutral hadrons
  in lattice QCD

abstract:
  We study the finite volume effects on the electric polarizability for the
neutron, neutral pion, and neutral kaon using eight dynamically generated
two-flavor nHYP-clover ensembles at two different pion masses: 306(1) and
227(2) MeV. An infinite volume extrapolation is performed for each hadron at
both pion masses. For the neutral kaon, finite volume effects are relatively
mild. The dependence on the quark mass is also mild and a reliable chiral
extrapolation can be performed along with the infinite volume extrapolation.
Our result is $\alpha_{K^0}^\mbox{phys}=0.356(74) \times 10^{-4} \mbox{fm}^3$.
In contrast, for neutron the electric polarizability depends strongly on the
volume. After removing the finite volume corrections, our neutron
polarizability results are in good agreement with $\chi$PT. For the connected
part of the neutral pion polarizability, the negative trend persists, and it is
not due to finite volume effects, but likely sea quark charging effects.


title:
Spectral Properties of Cool Stars: Extended Abundance Analysis of 1617
  Planet Search Stars

abstract:
  We present a catalog of uniformly determined stellar properties and
abundances for 1626 F, G, and K stars using an automated spectral synthesis
modeling procedure. All stars were observed using the HIRES spectrograph at
Keck Observatory. Our procedure used a single line list to fit model spectra to
observations of all stars to determine effective temperature, surface gravity,
metallicity, projected rotational velocity, and the abundances of 15 elements
(C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, & Y). Sixty percent of the
sample had Hipparcos parallaxes and V-band photometry which we combined with
the spectroscopic results to obtain mass, radius, and luminosity. Additionally,
we used the luminosity, effective temperature, metallicity and alpha-element
enhancement to interpolate in the Yonsei-Yale isochrones to derive mass,
radius, gravity, and age ranges for those stars. Finally, we determined new
relations between effective temperature and macroturbulence for dwarfs and
subgiants. Our analysis achieved precisions of 25 K in Teff , 0.01 dex in
[M/H], 0.028 dex for log g and 0.5 km/s in v sin ibased on multiple
observations of the same stars. The abundance results were similarly precise,
between 0.01 and - 0.04 dex, though trends with respect to Teff remained for
which we derived empirical corrections. The trends, though small, were much
larger than our uncertainties and are shared with published abundances. We show
that changing our model atmosphere grid accounts for most of the trend in [M/H]
between 5000 K and 5500 K indicating a possible problem with the atmosphere
models or opacities.


title:
Photon asymmetry measurements of $\overrightarrow{\gamma} \mathrm{p}
  \rightarrow \pi^{0} \mathrm{p}$ for E$_{\gamma}$=320$-$650 MeV

abstract:
  High statistics measurements of the photon asymmetry $\mathrm{\Sigma}$ for
the $\overrightarrow{\gamma}$p$\rightarrow\pi^{0}$p reaction have been made in
the center of mass energy range W=1214-1450 MeV. The data were measured with
the MAMI A2 real photon beam and Crystal Ball/TAPS detector systems in Mainz,
Germany. The results significantly improve the existing world data and are
shown to be in good agreement with previous measurements, and with the MAID,
SAID, and Bonn-Gatchina predictions. We have also combined the photon asymmetry
results with recent cross-section measurements from Mainz to calculate the
profile functions, $\check{\mathrm{\Sigma}}$ (= $\sigma_{0}\mathrm{\Sigma}$),
and perform a moment analysis. Comparison with calculations from the
Bonn-Gatchina model shows that the precision of the data is good enough to
further constrain the higher partial waves, and there is an indication of
interference between the very small $F$-waves and the $N(1520) 3/2^{-}$ and
$N(1535) 1/2^{-}$ resonances.


title: A coarse stratification of the monster tower

abstract:
  The monster tower is a tower of spaces over a specified base; each space in
the tower is a parameter space for curvilinear data up to a specified order. We
describe and analyze a natural stratification of these spaces.


title:
A Distributed Sensor Data Search Platform for Internet of Things
  Environments

abstract:
  Recently, the number of devices has grown increasingly and it is hoped that,
between 2015 and 2016, 20 billion devices will be connected to the Internet and
this market will move around 91.5 billion dollars. The Internet of Things (IoT)
is composed of small sensors and actuators embedded in objects with Internet
access and will play a key role in solving many challenges faced in today's
society. However, the real capacity of IoT concepts is constrained as the
current sensor networks usually do not exchange information with other sources.
In this paper, we propose the Visual Search for Internet of Things (ViSIoT)
platform to help technical and non-technical users to discover and use sensors
as a service for different application purposes. As a proof of concept, a real
case study is used to generate weather condition reports to support rheumatism
patients. This case study was executed in a working prototype and a performance
evaluation is presented.


title: Work function of bulk-insulating topological insulator Bi2-xSbxTe3-ySey

abstract:
  Recent discovery of bulk insulating topological insulator (TI)
Bi2-xSbxTe3-ySey paved a pathway toward practical device application of TIs.
For realizing TI-based devices, it is necessary to contact TIs with a metal.
Since the band-bending at the interface dominates the character of devices,
knowledge of TIs' work function is of essential importance. We have determined
the compositional dependence of work function in Bi2-xSbxTe3-ySey by
high-resolution photoemission spectroscopy. The obtained work-function values
(4.95-5.20 eV) show a systematic variation with the composition, well tracking
the energy shift of the surface chemical potential seen by angle-resolved
photoemission spectroscopy. The present result serves as a useful guide for
developing TI-based electronic devices.


title:
Probing quantumness with joint continuous measurements of non-commuting
  qubit observables

abstract:
  We analyze the continuous measurement of two non-commuting observables for a
qubit, and investigate whether the simultaneously observed noisy signals are
consistent with the evolution of an equivalent classical system. Following the
approach outlined by Leggett and Garg, we show that the readouts violate
macrorealistic inequalities for arbitrarily short temporal correlations.
Moreover, the derived inequalities are manifestly violated even in the absence
of Hamiltonian evolution, unlike for Leggett-Garg inequalities that use a
single continuous measurement. Such a violation should indicate the failure of
at least one postulate of macrorealism: either physical quantities do not have
well defined values at all times, or the measurement process itself disturbs
what is being measured. For measurements of equal strength we are able to
construct a classical stochastic model for a spin that perfectly emulates both
the qubit evolution and the observed noisy signals, thus emulating the
violations; interestingly, this model also requires an unphysical noise to
emulate the readouts, which effectively restricts the ability of an observer to
learn information about the spin.


title:
Analytics-as-a-Service in a Multi-Cloud Environment through Semantically
  enabled Hierarchical Data Processing

abstract:
  A large number of cloud middleware platforms and tools are deployed to
support a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) data analytics tasks. It is a
common practice that such cloud platforms are only used by its owners to
achieve their primary and predefined objectives, where raw and processed data
are only consumed by them. However, allowing third parties to access processed
data to achieve their own objectives significantly increases integration,
cooperation, and can also lead to innovative use of the data. Multicloud,
privacy-aware environments facilitate such data access, allowing different
parties to share processed data to reduce computation resource consumption
collectively. However, there are interoperability issues in such environments
that involve heterogeneous data and analytics-as-a-service providers. There is
a lack of both - architectural blueprints that can support such diverse,
multi-cloud environments, and corresponding empirical studies that show
feasibility of such architectures. In this paper, we have outlined an
innovative hierarchical data processing architecture that utilises semantics at
all the levels of IoT stack in multicloud environments. We demonstrate the
feasibility of such architecture by building a system based on this
architecture using OpenIoT as a middleware, and Google Cloud and Microsoft
Azure as cloud environments. The evaluation shows that the system is scalable
and has no significant limitations or overheads.


title: The uncertainty principle in terms of isoperimetric inequalities

abstract:
  Simultaneous measurements of position and momentum are considered in $n$
dimensions. We find, that for a particle whose position is strictly localized
in a compact domain $D\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ (spatial uncertainty) with
non-empty boundary, the standard deviation of its momentum is sharply bounded
by $\sigma_p \geq \lambda_1^{1/2}\hbar$, while $\lambda_1$ is the first
Dirichlet eigenvalue of the Laplacian on $D$.


title: Universal Darwinism as a process of Bayesian inference

abstract:
  Many of the mathematical frameworks describing natural selection are
equivalent to Bayes Theorem, also known as Bayesian updating. By definition, a
process of Bayesian Inference is one which involves a Bayesian update, so we
may conclude that these frameworks describe natural selection as a process of
Bayesian inference. Thus natural selection serves as a counter example to a
widely-held interpretation that restricts Bayesian Inference to human mental
processes (including the endeavors of statisticians). As Bayesian inference can
always be cast in terms of (variational) free energy minimization, natural
selection can be viewed as comprising two components: a generative model of an
"experiment" in the external world environment, and the results of that
"experiment" or the "surprise" entailed by predicted and actual outcomes of the
"experiment". Minimization of free energy implies that the implicit measure of
"surprise" experienced serves to update the generative model in a Bayesian
manner. This description closely accords with the mechanisms of generalized
Darwinian process proposed both by Dawkins, in terms of replicators and
vehicles, and Campbell, in terms of inferential systems. Bayesian inference is
an algorithm for the accumulation of evidence-based knowledge. This algorithm
is now seen to operate over a wide range of evolutionary processes, including
natural selection, the evolution of mental models and cultural evolutionary
processes, notably including science itself. The variational principle of free
energy minimization may thus serve as a unifying mathematical framework for
universal Darwinism, the study of evolutionary processes operating throughout
nature.


title:
Spin liquid like Raman signatures in hyperkagome iridate
  Na$_4$Ir$_3$O$_8$

abstract:
  Combining Raman scattering measurements with mean field calculations of the
Raman response we show that Kitaev-like magnetic exchange is dominant in the
hyperkagome iridate Na$_4$Ir$_3$O$_8$. In the measurements we observe a broad
Raman band at $\sim$~3500 cm$^{-1}$ with a band-width $\sim 1700$~cm$^{-1}$.
Calculations of the Raman response of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model on the
hyperkagome lattice shows that the experimental observations are consistent
with calculated Raman response where Kitaev exchange interaction ($J_K$) is
much larger than the Heisenberg term J$_1$ ($J_1/J_K \sim 0.1$). A comparison
with the theoretical model gives an estimate of the Kitaev exchange interaction
parameter.


title:
Fractional diffusion limit for a fractional Vlasov-Fokker-Planck
  equation

abstract:
  This paper is devoted to the rigorous derivation of the macroscopic limit of
a Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation in which the Laplacian is replaced by a
fractional Laplacian. The evolution of the density is governed by a fractional
heat equation with the addition of a convective term coming from the external
force. The analysis is performed by a modified test function method and by
obtaining a priori estimates from quadratic entropy bounds. In addition, we
give the proof of existence and uniqueness of solutions to the
Vlasov-fractional-Fokker-Planck equation.


title: On the representation by bivariate ridge functions

abstract:
  We consider the problem of representation of a bivariate function by sums of
ridge functions. We show that if a function of a certain smoothness class is
represented by a sum of finitely many, arbitrarily behaved ridge functions,
then it can also be represented by a sum of ridge functions of the same
smoothness class. As an example, this result is applied to a homogeneous
constant coefficient partial differential equation.


title: XML Entity Architecture for Efficient Software Integration

abstract:
  This paper proposed xml entities based architectural implementation to
improve integration between multiple third party vendor software systems with
incompatible xml schema. The xml entity architecture implementation showed that
the lines of code change required for mapping the schema between in house
software and three other vendor schema, decreased by 5.2%, indicating an
improvement in quality. The schema mapping development time decreased by 3.8%
and overall release time decreased by 5.3%, indicating an improvement in
productivity. The proposed technique proved that using xml entities and XSLT
transforms is more efficient in terms of coding effort and deployment
complexity when compared to mapping the schema using object oriented scripting
language such as C#.


title:
Prestellar core modeling in the presence of a filament - The dense heart
  of L1689B

abstract:
  Short version: We apply a new synergetic radiative transfer method: the
derived 1D density profiles are both consistent with a cut through the Herschel
PACS/SPIRE and JCMT SCUBA-2 continuum maps of L1689B and with a derived local
interstellar radiation field. Choosing an appropriate cut along the filament
major axis, we minimize the impact of the filament emission on the modeling.
For the bulk of the core (5000-20000 au) an isothermal sphere model with a
temperature of around 10 K provides the best fits. We show that the power law
index of the density profile, as well as the constant temperature can be
derived directly from the radial surface brightness profiles. For the inner
region (< 5000 au), we find a range of densities and temperatures that are
consistent with the surface brightness profiles and the local interstellar
radiation field. Based on our core models, we find that pixel-by-pixel single
temperature spectral energy distribution fits are incapable of determining
dense core properties. We conclude that, to derive physical core properties, it
is important to avoid an azimuthal average of core and filament.
Correspondingly, derived core masses are too high since they include some mass
of the filament, and might introduce errors when determining core mass
functions. The forward radiative transfer methods also avoids the loss of
information owing to smearing of all maps to the coarsest spatial resolution.
We find the central core region to be colder and denser than estimated in
recent inverse radiative transfer modeling, possibly indicating the start of
star formation in L1689B.


title: A lack of classical Cepheids in the inner part of the Galactic disk

abstract:
  Recent large-scale infrared surveys have been revealing stellar populations
in the inner Galaxy seen through strong interstellar extinction in the disk. In
particular, classical Cepheids with their period-luminosity and period-age
relations are useful tracers of Galactic structure and evolution. Interesting
groups of Cepheids reported recently include four Cepheids in the Nuclear
Stellar Disk (NSD), about 200 pc around the Galactic Centre, found by Matsunaga
et al. and those spread across the inner part of the disk reported by Dekany
and collaborators. We here report our discovery of nearly thirty classical
Cepheids towards the bulge region, some of which are common with Dekany et al.,
and discuss the large impact of the reddening correction on distance estimates
for these objects. Assuming that the four Cepheids in the NSD are located at
the distance of the Galactic Centre and that the near-infrared extinction law,
i.e. wavelength dependency of the interstellar extinction, is not
systematically different between the NSD and other bulge lines-of-sight, most
of the other Cepheids presented here are located significantly further than the
Galactic Centre. This suggests a lack of Cepheids in the inner 2.5 kpc region
of the Galactic disk except the NSD. Recent radio observations show a similar
distribution of star-forming regions.


title: On the distribution of the van der Corput sequence in arbitrary base

abstract:
  A central limit theorem with explicit error bound, and a large deviation
result are proved for a sequence of weakly dependent random variables of a
special form. As a corollary, under certain conditions on the function $f:
[0,1] \to \mathbb{R}$ a central limit theorem and a large deviation result are
obtained for the sum $\sum_{n=0}^{N-1} f(x_n)$, where $x_n$ is the base $b$ van
der Corput sequence for an arbitrary integer $b \ge 2$. Similar results are
also proved for the $L^p$ discrepancy of the same sequence for $1 \le p <
\infty$. The main methods used in the proofs are the Berry-Esseen theorem and
Fourier analysis.


title:
Intrinsic volumes and Gaussian polytopes: the missing piece of the
  jigsaw

abstract:
  The intrinsic volumes of Gaussian polytopes are considered. A lower variance
bound for these quantities is proved, showing that, under suitable
normalization, the variances converge to strictly positive limits. The
implications of this missing piece of the jigsaw in the theory of Gaussian
polytopes are discussed.


title: On the theorem of Davenport and generalized Dedekind sums

abstract:
  A symmetrized lattice of $2n$ points in terms of an irrational real number
$\alpha$ is considered in the unit square, as in the theorem of Davenport. If
$\alpha$ is a quadratic irrational, the square of the $L^2$ discrepancy is
found to be $c( \alpha ) \log n + O \left( \log \log n \right)$ for a
computable positive constant $c( \alpha )$. For the golden ratio $\varphi$, the
value $\sqrt{c (\varphi ) \log n}$ yields the smallest $L^2$ discrepancy of any
sequence of explicitly constructed finite point sets in the unit square. If the
partial quotients $a_k$ of $\alpha$ grow at most polynomially fast, the $L^2$
discrepancy is found in terms of $a_k$ up to an explicitly bounded error term.
It is also shown that certain generalized Dedekind sums can be approximated
using the same methods. For a special generalized Dedekind sum with arguments
$a, b$ an asymptotic formula in terms of the partial quotients of $\frac{a}{b}$
is proved.


title: Sequence-Level Knowledge Distillation

abstract:
  Neural machine translation (NMT) offers a novel alternative formulation of
translation that is potentially simpler than statistical approaches. However to
reach competitive performance, NMT models need to be exceedingly large. In this
paper we consider applying knowledge distillation approaches (Bucila et al.,
2006; Hinton et al., 2015) that have proven successful for reducing the size of
neural models in other domains to the problem of NMT. We demonstrate that
standard knowledge distillation applied to word-level prediction can be
effective for NMT, and also introduce two novel sequence-level versions of
knowledge distillation that further improve performance, and somewhat
surprisingly, seem to eliminate the need for beam search (even when applied on
the original teacher model). Our best student model runs 10 times faster than
its state-of-the-art teacher with little loss in performance. It is also
significantly better than a baseline model trained without knowledge
distillation: by 4.2/1.7 BLEU with greedy decoding/beam search. Applying weight
pruning on top of knowledge distillation results in a student model that has 13
times fewer parameters than the original teacher model, with a decrease of 0.4
BLEU.


title:
Bandwidth selection in deconvolution kernel distribution estimators
  defined by stochastic approximation method with Laplace errors

abstract:
  In this paper we consider the kernel estimators of a distribution function
defined by the stochastic approximation algorithm when the observation are
contamined by measurement errors. It is well known that this estimators depends
heavily on the choice of a smoothing parameter called the bandwidth. We propose
a specific second generation plug-in method of the deconvolution kernel
distribution estimators defined by the stochastic approximation algorithm. We
show that, using the proposed bandwidth selection and the stepsize which
minimize the MISE (Mean Integrated Squared Error), the proposed estimator will
be better than the classical one for small sample setting when the error
variance is controlled by the noise to signal ratio. We corroborate these
theoretical results through simulations and a real dataset.


title: Coulomb explosion of "hot spot"

abstract:
  The study presented in this paper has shown that the generation of hard x
rays and high-energy ions, which are detected in pinch implosion experiments,
may be associated with the Coulomb explosion of the hot spot that is formed due
to the outflow of the material from the pinch cross point. During the process
of material outflow, the temperature of the hot spot plasma increases, and
conditions arise for the plasma electrons to become continuously accelerated.
The runaway of electrons from the hot spot region results in the buildup of
positive space charge in this region followed by a Coulomb explosion. The
conditions for the hot spot plasma electrons to become continuously accelerated
have been revealed and estimates have been obtained for the kinetic energy of
the ions generated by the Coulomb explosion.


title: Word sense disambiguation: a complex network approach

abstract:
  In recent years, concepts and methods of complex networks have been employed
to tackle the word sense disambiguation (WSD) task by representing words as
nodes, which are connected if they are semantically similar. Despite the
increasingly number of studies carried out with such models, most of them use
networks just to represent the data, while the pattern recognition performed on
the attribute space is performed using traditional learning techniques. In
other words, the structural relationship between words have not been explicitly
used in the pattern recognition process. In addition, only a few investigations
have probed the suitability of representations based on bipartite networks and
graphs (bigraphs) for the problem, as many approaches consider all possible
links between words. In this context, we assess the relevance of a bipartite
network model representing both feature words (i.e. the words characterizing
the context) and target (ambiguous) words to solve ambiguities in written
texts. Here, we focus on the semantical relationships between these two type of
words, disregarding the relationships between feature words. In special, the
proposed method not only serves to represent texts as graphs, but also
constructs a structure on which the discrimination of senses is accomplished.
Our results revealed that the proposed learning algorithm in such bipartite
networks provides excellent results mostly when topical features are employed
to characterize the context. Surprisingly, our method even outperformed the
support vector machine algorithm in particular cases, with the advantage of
being robust even if a small training dataset is available. Taken together, the
results obtained here show that the proposed representation/classification
method might be useful to improve the semantical characterization of written
texts.


title:
On the $C^{1,\alpha}$ Regularity of $p$-Harmonic Functions in the
  Heisenberg Group

abstract:
  We present a proof of the local H\"older regularity of the horizontal
derivatives of weak solutions to the $p$-Laplace equation in the Heisenberg
group $\mathbb{H}^1$ for $p>4 $.


title:
Comparison of the Pulkovo Compilation of Radial Velocities with the RAVE
  DR1 Catalogue

abstract:
  The Data Release 1 of the Radial-Velocity Experiment (RAVE DR1, 24 748 stars)
is compared with the May 15, 2006 version of the Pulkovo Compilation of Radial
Velocities (PCRV, 35 495 stars). RAVE DR1 includes mostly $9^m-13^m$ stars,
while the PCRV contains brighter stars. Analysis of the "RAVE minus PCRV"
radial-velocity differences for 14 common stars has revealed no systematic
dependences on any factors, except the effect due to the RAVE radial-velocity
zero-point offset known from the RAVE observations. This effect shows up for
ten of these stars observed on a single night as a sine wave with an amplitude
of 1.5 km s$^{-1}$ in the dependence of the radial-velocity difference on the
ordinal number of the optical fiber used and, accordingly, on the star position
angle in the field of view of the RAVE instrument. The detection of this
dependence confirms a high radial-velocity accuracy in both catalogs: on
average, better than 1 km s$^{-1}$ for stars brighter than $10^m$ (for the
RAVE, after applying a correction for the zeropoint offset). The RAVE
zero-point offset can be corrected for with an accuracy better than 1 km
s$^{-1}$ by observing several PCRV stars in each RAVE frame and by analyzing
the "RAVE minus PCRV" radialvelocity differences.


title:
Bidirectional Recurrent Neural Networks for Medical Event Detection in
  Electronic Health Records

abstract:
  Sequence labeling for extraction of medical events and their attributes from
unstructured text in Electronic Health Record (EHR) notes is a key step towards
semantic understanding of EHRs. It has important applications in health
informatics including pharmacovigilance and drug surveillance. The state of the
art supervised machine learning models in this domain are based on Conditional
Random Fields (CRFs) with features calculated from fixed context windows. In
this application, we explored various recurrent neural network frameworks and
show that they significantly outperformed the CRF models.


title:
Evidence for simultaneous jets and disk winds in luminous low-mass X-ray
  binaries

abstract:
  Recent work on jets and disk winds in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs)
suggests that they are to a large extent mutually exclusive, with jets observed
in spectrally hard states and disk winds observed in spectrally soft states. In
this paper we use existing literature on jets and disk winds in the luminous
neutron star (NS) LMXB GX 13+1, in combination with archival Rossi X-ray Timing
Explorer data, to show that this source is likely able to produce jets and disk
winds simultaneously. We find that jets and disk winds occur in the same
location on the source's track in its X-ray color-color diagram. A further
study of literature on other luminous LMXBs reveals that this behavior is more
common, with indications for simultaneous jets and disk winds in the black hole
LMXBs V404 Cyg and GRS 1915+105 and the NS LMXBs Sco X-1 and Cir X-1. For the
three sources for which we have the necessary spectral information, we find
that the simultaneous jets/winds all occur in their spectrally hardest states.
Our findings indicate that in LMXBs with luminosities above a few tens of
percent of the Eddington luminosity, jets and disk winds are not mutually
exclusive, and that the presence of disk winds does not necessarily result in
jet suppression.


title: X575: writing rengas with web services

abstract:
  Our software system simulates the classical collaborative Japanese poetry
form, renga, made of linked haikus. We used NLP methods wrapped up as web
services. Our experiments were only a partial success, since results fail to
satisfy classical constraints. To gather ideas for future work, we examine
related research in semiotics, linguistics, and computing.


title:
Hilbert series of symmetric ideals in infinite polynomial rings via
  formal languages

abstract:
  Let $R$ be the polynomial ring $K[x_{i,j}]$ where $1 \le i \le r$ and $j \in
\mathbb{N}$, and let $I$ be an ideal of $R$ stable under the natural action of
the infinite symmetric group $S_{\infty}$. Nagel--R\"omer recently defined a
Hilbert series $H_I(s,t)$ of $I$ and proved that it is rational. We give a much
shorter proof of this theorem using tools from the theory of formal languages
and a simple algorithm that computes the series.


title: Unexpected Dirac-Node Arc in the Topological Line-Node Semimetal HfSiS

abstract:
  We have performed angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on HfSiS, which
has been predicted to be a topological line-node semimetal with square Si
lattice. We found a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surface hosting bulk nodal
lines, alongside the surface states at the Brillouin-zone corner exhibiting a
sizable Rashba splitting and band-mass renormalization due to many-body
interactions. Most notably, we discovered an unexpected Dirac-like dispersion
extending one-dimensionally in k space - the Dirac-node arc - near the bulk
node at the zone diagonal. These novel Dirac states reside on the surface and
could be related to hybridizations of bulk states, but currently we have no
explanation for its origin. This discovery poses an intriguing challenge to the
theoretical understanding of topological line-node semimetals.


title:
On fractional derivatives with exponential kernel and their discrete
  versions

abstract:
  In this manuscript we define the right fractional derivative and its
corresponding right fractional integral with exponential kernel. Then, we
provide the integration by parts formula and we use $Q-$operator to confirm our
results. The related Euler-Lagrange equations were obtained and one example is
analyzed. Moreover, we formulate and discus the discrete counterparts of our
results.


title: Stability of the Einstein static Universe in $f(R,T)$ gravity

abstract:
  The Einstein static (ES) universe has played a major role in various emergent
scenarios recently proposed in order to cure the problem of initial singularity
of the standard model of cosmology. In the herein model, we study the existence
and stability of ES universe in the context of $f(R,T)$ modified theories of
gravity. Considering specific forms of $f(R,T)$ function, we seek for the
existence of solutions representing ES state. Using dynamical system techniques
along with numerical analysis, we find two classes of solutions: the first one
is always unstable of the saddle type while the second is always stable so that
its dynamical behavior corresponds to a center equilibrium point. The
importance of the second class of solutions is due to the significant duty they
have in constructing non-singular emergent models in which the universe could
have experienced past-eternally, a series of infinite oscillations about such
an initial static state after which, it enters through a suitable physical
mechanism, to an inflationary era. Considering specific forms for the
functionality of $f(R,T)$, we show that this theory is capable of providing
cosmological solutions which admit emergent universe (EU) scenarios. We also
investigate homogeneous scalar perturbations for the mentioned models. The
stability regions of the solutions are parametrized by a linear equation of
state (EoS) parameter and other free parameters that will be introduced for the
models. Our results suggest that modifications in $f(R,T)$ gravity would lead
to stable solutions which are unstable in $f(R)$ gravity model.


title:
Observation of Optical and Electrical In-plane Anisotropy in
  High-mobility Few-layer ZrTe5

abstract:
  Transition metal pentatelluride ZrTe5 is a versatile material in
condensed-matter physics and has been intensively studied since the 1980s. The
most fascinating feature of ZrTe5 is that it is a 3D Dirac semimetal which has
linear energy dispersion in all three dimensions in momentum space.
Structure-wise, ZrTe5 is a layered material held together by weak interlayer
van der Waals force. The combination of its unique band structure and 2D atomic
structure provides a fertile ground for more potential exotic physical
phenomena in ZrTe5 related to 3D Dirac semimentals. However the physical
properties of its few-layer form have yet to be thoroughly explored. Here we
report strong optical and electrical in-plane anisotropy of mechanically
exfoliated few-layer ZrTe5. Raman spectroscopy shows significant intensity
change with sample orientations, and the behavior of angle-resolved phonon
modes at the gamma point is explained by theoretical calculation. DC
conductance measurement indicates a 50% of difference along different in-plane
directions. The diminishing of resistivity anomaly in few-layer samples
indicates the evolution of band structure with reduced thickness.
Low-temperature Hall experiment sheds lights on more intrinsic anisotropic
electrical transport, with hole mobility of 3,000 and 1,500 cm2/Vs along a-axis
and c-axis respectively. Pronounced quantum oscillations in magneto-resistance
are observed at low temperatures with highest electron mobility up to 44,000
cm2/Vs.


title:
Error bounds for the large-argument asymptotic expansions of the Hankel
  and Bessel functions

abstract:
  In this paper, we reconsider the large-argument asymptotic expansions of the
Hankel, Bessel and modified Bessel functions and their derivatives. New
integral representations for the remainder terms of these asymptotic expansions
are found and used to obtain sharp and realistic error bounds. We also give
re-expansions for these remainder terms and provide their error estimates. A
detailed discussion on the sharpness of our error bounds and their relation to
other results in the literature is given. The techniques used in this paper
should also generalize to asymptotic expansions which arise from an application
of the method of steepest descents.


title:
Magnetic Fluctuations, Precursor Phenomena and Phase Transition in MnSi
  under Magnetic Field

abstract:
  The reference chiral helimagnet MnSi is the first system where skyrmion
lattice correlations have been reported. At zero magnetic field the transition
at $T_C$ to the helimagnetic state is of first order. Above $T_C$, in a region
dominated by precursor phenomena, neutron scattering shows the build up of
strong chiral fluctuating correlations over the surface of a sphere with radius
$2\pi/\ell$, where $\ell$ is the pitch of the helix. It has been suggested that
these fluctuating correlations drive the helical transition to first order
following a scenario proposed by Brazovskii for liquid crystals. We present a
comprehensive neutron scattering study under magnetic fields, which provides
evidence that this is not the case. The sharp first order transition persists
for magnetic fields up to 0.4 T whereas the fluctuating correlations weaken and
start to concentrate along the field direction already above 0.2 T. Our results
thus disconnect the first order nature of the transition from the precursor
fluctuating correlations. They also show no indication for a tricritical point,
where the first order transition crosses over to second order with increasing
magnetic field. In this light, the nature of the first order helical transition
and the precursor phenomena above $T_C$, both of general relevance to chiral
magnetism, remain an open question.


title: Event-Shape Engineering and Jet Quenching

abstract:
  Event-Shape Engineering (ESE) is a tool that enables some control of the
initial geometry in heavy-ion collisions in a similar way as the centrality
enables some control of the number of participants. Utilizing ESE, the path
length in and out-of plane can be varied while keeping the medium properties
(centrality) fixed. In this proceeding it is argued that this provides
additional experimental information about jet quenching. Finally, it is
suggested that if ESE studies are done in parallel for light and heavy quarks
one can determine, in a model independent way, if the path-length dependence of
their quenching differs.


title:
The calculation of single-nucleon energies of nuclei by considering
  two-body effective interaction, n(k,rho), and a Hartree-Fock inspired scheme

abstract:
  The nucleon single-particle energies (SPEs) of the selected nuclei, that is,
16O, 40Ca, and 56Ni, are obtained by using the diagonal matrix elements of
two-body effective interaction, which generated through the lowest order
constrained variational (LOCV) calculations for the symmetric nuclear matter
with the AV18 phenomenological nucleon-nucleon potential. The SPEs at the major
levels of nuclei are calculated by employing a Hartree-Fock inspired scheme in
the spherical harmonic oscillator basis. In the scheme, the correlation
influences are taken into account by imposing the nucleon effective mass factor
on the radial wave functions of the major levels. Replacing the
density-dependent one-body momentum distribution functions of nucleons,
n(k,rho), with the Heaviside functions, the role of n(k,rho) on the nucleon
SPEs at the major levels of the selected closed shell nuclei, is investigated.
The best fit of spin-orbit splitting is taken into account when correcting the
major levels of the nuclei by using the parameterized Wood-Saxon potential and
the AV18 density-dependent mean field potential which is constructed by the
LOCV method. Considering the point-like protons in the spherical Coulomb
potential well, the single-proton energies are corrected. The results show the
importance of including n(k,rho), instead of the Heaviside functions, in the
calculation of nucleon SPEs at the different levels, particularly the valence
levels, of the closed shell nuclei.


title: Summarizing Decisions in Spoken Meetings

abstract:
  This paper addresses the problem of summarizing decisions in spoken meetings:
our goal is to produce a concise {\it decision abstract} for each meeting
decision. We explore and compare token-level and dialogue act-level automatic
summarization methods using both unsupervised and supervised learning
frameworks. In the supervised summarization setting, and given true clusterings
of decision-related utterances, we find that token-level summaries that employ
discourse context can approach an upper bound for decision abstracts derived
directly from dialogue acts. In the unsupervised summarization setting,we find
that summaries based on unsupervised partitioning of decision-related
utterances perform comparably to those based on partitions generated using
supervised techniques (0.22 ROUGE-F1 using LDA-based topic models vs. 0.23
using SVMs).


title:
Shimura's Vector-Valued Modular Forms, Weight Changing Operators, and
  Laplacians

abstract:
  We investigate the various types of weight raising and weight lowering
operators on quasi-modular forms, or equivalently on Shimura's vector-valued
modular forms involving symmetric power representations. We also present all
the eigenfunctions of the two possible Laplacian operators.


title:
Leveraging Semantic Web Search and Browse Sessions for Multi-Turn Spoken
  Dialog Systems

abstract:
  Training statistical dialog models in spoken dialog systems (SDS) requires
large amounts of annotated data. The lack of scalable methods for data mining
and annotation poses a significant hurdle for state-of-the-art statistical
dialog managers. This paper presents an approach that directly leverage
billions of web search and browse sessions to overcome this hurdle. The key
insight is that task completion through web search and browse sessions is (a)
predictable and (b) generalizes to spoken dialog task completion. The new
method automatically mines behavioral search and browse patterns from web logs
and translates them into spoken dialog models. We experiment with naturally
occurring spoken dialogs and large scale web logs. Our session-based models
outperform the state-of-the-art method for entity extraction task in SDS. We
also achieve better performance for both entity and relation extraction on web
search queries when compared with nontrivial baselines.


title:
Generalized Wishart processes for interpolation over diffusion tensor
  fields

abstract:
  Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) is a non-invasive tool for
watching the microstructure of fibrous nerve and muscle tissue. From dMRI, it
is possible to estimate 2-rank diffusion tensors imaging (DTI) fields, that are
widely used in clinical applications: tissue segmentation, fiber tractography,
brain atlas construction, brain conductivity models, among others. Due to
hardware limitations of MRI scanners, DTI has the difficult compromise between
spatial resolution and signal noise ratio (SNR) during acquisition. For this
reason, the data are often acquired with very low resolution. To enhance DTI
data resolution, interpolation provides an interesting software solution. The
aim of this work is to develop a methodology for DTI interpolation that enhance
the spatial resolution of DTI fields. We assume that a DTI field follows a
recently introduced stochastic process known as a generalized Wishart process
(GWP), which we use as a prior over the diffusion tensor field. For posterior
inference, we use Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. We perform experiments in
toy and real data. Results of GWP outperform other methods in the literature,
when compared in different validation protocols.