title:
The Dark Energy Survey view of the Sagittarius stream: discovery of two
  faint stellar system candidates

abstract:
  We report the discovery of two new candidate stellar systems in the
constellation of Cetus using the data from the first two years of the Dark
Energy Survey (DES). The objects, DES J0111-1341 and DES J0225+0304, are
located at a heliocentric distance of ~ 25 kpc and appear to have old and
metal-poor populations. Their distances to the Sagittarius orbital plane, ~
1.73 kpc (DES J0111-1341) and ~ 0.50 kpc (DES J0225+0304), indicate that they
are possibly associated with the Sagittarius dwarf stream. The half-light
radius (r_h ~ 4.55 pc) and luminosity (M_V ~ +0.3) of DES J0111-1341 are
consistent with it being an ultrafaint stellar cluster, while the half-light
radius (r_h ~ 18.55 pc) and luminosity (M_V ~ -1.1) of DES J0225+0304 place it
in an ambiguous region of size-luminosity space between stellar clusters and
dwarf galaxies. Determinations of the characteristic parameters of the
Sagittarius stream, metallicity spread (-2.18 < [Fe/H] < -0.95) and distance
gradient (23 kpc < D_sun < 29 kpc), within the DES footprint in the Southern
hemisphere, using the same DES data, also indicate a possible association
between these systems. If these objects are confirmed through spectroscopic
follow-up to be gravitationally bound systems and to share a Galactic
trajectory with the Sagittarius stream, DES J0111-1341 and DES J0225+0304 would
be the first ultrafaint stellar systems associated with the Sagittarius stream.
Furthermore, DES J0225+0304 would also be the first confirmed case of an
ultrafaint satellite of a satellite.


title:
Smart viscoelastic and self-healing characteristics of graphene
  nano-gels

abstract:
  Readily synthesizable nano-graphene and poly ethylene glycol based stable
gels have been synthesized employing an easy refluxing method and exhaustive
rheological and viscoelastic characterizations have been performed to
understand the nature of such complex gel systems. The gels exhibit shear
thinning response with pronounced yield stress values which is indicative of a
microstructure where the graphene nanoflakes intercalate with the polymer
chains and form a pseudo spring damper network. Experimentations on the
thixotropic behavior of the gels indicate that the presence of the G nanoflakes
leads to immensely augmented structural stability capable of withstanding
severe impact shears. Further information about the localized interactions of
the G nanoflakes with the polymer chains is revealed from the amplitude and
frequency sweep analyses in both linear and nonlinear viscoelastic regimes.
Massively enhanced cross over amplitude values are recorded and several smart
effects such as enhanced elastic behavior at increasing forcing frequencies are
registered. Structural resonance induced disruption of the elastic behavior is
observed for the gels for a given range of frequency and the proposition of
resonance has been justified mathematically. It is observed that post this
resonance bandwidth, the gels are able to self-heal and regain their original
elastic behavior back without any external intervention. More detailed
information on the viscoelastic nature of the gels has been obtained from creep
and recovery compliance tests and justifications for the spring damper
microstructure has been obtained. Smart features such as enhanced stress
relaxation behavior with increasing strain have been observed and the same
explained based on the proposed microstructure.


title: Three-dimensional sand ripples as the product of vortex instability

abstract:
  Three-dimensional sand ripples can be observed under steady liquid flows in
both nature and industry. Some examples are the ripples observed on the bed of
rivers and in petroleum pipelines conveying sand. Although of importance, the
formation of these patterns is not completely understood. There are theoretical
and experimental evidence that aquatic ripples grow from two-dimensional bed
instabilities, so that a straight vortex is formed just downstream of their
crests. The proposition of Raudkivi (2006), that three-dimensionality has its
origin in a vortex instability, is employed here. This paper presents a linear
stability analysis of the downstream vortex in order to obtain the transverse
scales of three-dimensional ripples. The obtained wavelength is compared with
experimentally observed ripples.


title: Greedy Maximization Framework for Graph-based Influence Functions

abstract:
  The study of graph-based submodular maximization problems was initiated in a
seminal work of Kempe, Kleinberg, and Tardos (2003): An {\em influence}
function of subsets of nodes is defined by the graph structure and the aim is
to find subsets of seed nodes with (approximately) optimal tradeoff of size and
influence. Applications include viral marketing, monitoring, and active
learning of node labels. This powerful formulation was studied for
(generalized) {\em coverage} functions, where the influence of a seed set on a
node is the maximum utility of a seed item to the node, and for pairwise {\em
utility} based on reachability, distances, or reverse ranks.
  We define a rich class of influence functions which unifies and extends
previous work beyond coverage functions and specific utility functions. We
present a meta-algorithm for approximate greedy maximization with strong
approximation quality guarantees and worst-case near-linear computation for all
functions in our class. Our meta-algorithm generalizes a recent design by Cohen
et al (2014) that was specific for distance-based coverage functions.


title:
An approach to dealing with missing values in heterogeneous data using
  k-nearest neighbors

abstract:
  Techniques such as clusterization, neural networks and decision making
usually rely on algorithms that are not well suited to deal with missing
values. However, real world data frequently contains such cases. The simplest
solution is to either substitute them by a best guess value or completely
disregard the missing values. Unfortunately, both approaches can lead to biased
results. In this paper, we propose a technique for dealing with missing values
in heterogeneous data using imputation based on the k-nearest neighbors
algorithm. It can handle real (which we refer to as crisp henceforward),
interval and fuzzy data. The effectiveness of the algorithm is tested on
several datasets and the numerical results are promising.


title:
Prediction of the bed-load transport by gas-liquid stratified flows in
  horizontal ducts

abstract:
  Solid particles can be transported as a mobile granular bed, known as
bed-load, by pressure-driven flows. A common case in industry is the presence
of bed-load in stratified gas-liquid flows in horizontal ducts. In this case,
an initially flat granular bed may be unstable, generating ripples and dunes.
This three-phase flow, although complex, can be modeled under some simplifying
assumptions. This paper presents a model for the estimation of some bed-load
characteristics. Based on parameters easily measurable in industry, the model
can predict the local bed-load flow rates and the celerity and the wavelength
of instabilities appearing on the granular bed.


title: Bootstrap Seasonal Unit Root Test under Periodic Variation

abstract:
  Both seasonal unit roots and periodic variation can be prevalent in seasonal
data. When testing seasonal unit roots under periodic variation, the validity
of the existing methods, such as the HEGY test, remains unknown. This paper
analyzes the behavior of the augmented HEGY test and the unaugmented HEGY test
under periodic variation. It turns out that the asymptotic null distributions
of the HEGY statistics testing the single roots at $1$ or $-1$ when there is
periodic variation are identical to the asymptotic null distributions when
there is no periodic variation. On the other hand, the asymptotic null
distributions of the statistics testing any coexistence of roots at $1$, $-1$,
$i$, or $-i$ when there is periodic variation are non-standard and are
different from the asymptotic null distributions when there is no periodic
variation. Therefore, when periodic variation exists, HEGY tests are not
directly applicable to the joint tests for any concurrence of seasonal unit
roots. As a remedy, bootstrap is proposed; in particular, the augmented HEGY
test with seasonal independent and identically distributed (iid) bootstrap and
the unaugmented HEGY test with seasonal block bootstrap are implemented. The
consistency of these bootstrap procedures is established. The finite-sample
behavior of these bootstrap tests is illustrated via simulation and prevails
over their competitors'. Finally, these bootstrap tests are applied to detect
the seasonal unit roots in various economic time series.


title: Hadronic molecules with a ${\bar{D}}$ meson in a medium

abstract:
  We study the effect of a hot and dense medium on the binding energy of
hadronic molecules with open-charm mesons. We focus on a recent chiral
quark-model-based prediction of a molecular state in the $N \bar D$ system. We
analyze how the two-body thresholds and the hadron-hadron interactions are
modified when quark and meson masses and quark-meson couplings change in a
function of the temperature and baryon density according to predictions of the
Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. We find that in some cases the molecular binding is
enhanced in medium as compared to their free-space binding. We discuss the
consequences of our findings for the search for exotic hadrons in high-energy
heavy-ion collisions as well as in the forthcoming facilities FAIR or J-PARC.


title: Julia Implementation of the Dynamic Distributed Dimensional Data Model

abstract:
  Julia is a new language for writing data analysis programs that are easy to
implement and run at high performance. Similarly, the Dynamic Distributed
Dimensional Data Model (D4M) aims to clarify data analysis operations while
retaining strong performance. D4M accomplishes these goals through a
composable, unified data model on associative arrays. In this work, we present
an implementation of D4M in Julia and describe how it enables and facilitates
data analysis. Several experiments showcase scalable performance in our new
Julia version as compared to the original Matlab implementation.


title:
Can Peripheral Representations Improve Clutter Metrics on Complex
  Scenes?

abstract:
  Previous studies have proposed image-based clutter measures that correlate
with human search times and/or eye movements. However, most models do not take
into account the fact that the effects of clutter interact with the foveated
nature of the human visual system: visual clutter further from the fovea has an
increasing detrimental influence on perception. Here, we introduce a new
foveated clutter model to predict the detrimental effects in target search
utilizing a forced fixation search task. We use Feature Congestion (Rosenholtz
et al.) as our non foveated clutter model, and we stack a peripheral
architecture on top of Feature Congestion for our foveated model. We introduce
the Peripheral Integration Feature Congestion (PIFC) coefficient, as a
fundamental ingredient of our model that modulates clutter as a non-linear gain
contingent on eccentricity. We finally show that Foveated Feature Congestion
(FFC) clutter scores r(44) = -0.82 correlate better with target detection (hit
rate) than regular Feature Congestion r(44) = -0.19 in forced fixation search.
Thus, our model allows us to enrich clutter perception research by computing
fixation specific clutter maps. A toolbox for creating peripheral
architectures: Piranhas: Peripheral Architectures for Natural, Hybrid and
Artificial Systems will be made available.


title:
Existence and uniqueness of solutions to parabolic equations with
  superlinear Hamiltonians

abstract:
  We give a proof of existence and uniqueness of viscosity solutions to
parabolic quasilinear equations for a fairly general class of nonconvex
Hamiltonians with superlinear growth in the gradient variable. The approach is
mainly based on classical techniques for uniformly parabolic quasilinear
equations and on the Lipschitz estimates proved in [S.N. Armstrong and H.V.
Tran, Viscosity solutions of general viscous Hamilton-Jacobi equations, Math.
Ann., 361 (2015)], as well as on viscosity solution arguments.


title: Atomicity and boundedness of monotone Puiseux monoids

abstract:
  In this paper, we study the atomic structure of Puiseux monoids generated by
monotone sequences. To understand this atomic structure, it is often useful to
know whether the monoid has a bounded generating set. We provide necessary and
sufficient conditions for the atomicity and boundedness to be transferred from
a monotone Puiseux monoid to all its submonoids. Finally, we present two
special subfamilies of monotone Puiseux monoids and fully classify their atomic
structure.


title:
Branching Gaussian Processes with Applications to Spatiotemporal
  Reconstruction of 3D Trees

abstract:
  We propose a robust method for estimating dynamic 3D curvilinear branching
structure from monocular images. While 3D reconstruction from images has been
widely studied, estimating thin structure has received less attention. This
problem becomes more challenging in the presence of camera error, scene motion,
and a constraint that curves are attached in a branching structure. We propose
a new general-purpose prior, a branching Gaussian processes (BGP), that models
spatial smoothness and temporal dynamics of curves while enforcing attachment
between them. We apply this prior to fit 3D trees directly to image data, using
an efficient scheme for approximate inference based on expectation propagation.
The BGP prior's Gaussian form allows us to approximately marginalize over 3D
trees with a given model structure, enabling principled comparison between tree
models with varying complexity. We test our approach on a novel multi-view
dataset depicting plants with known 3D structures and topologies undergoing
small nonrigid motion. Our method outperforms a state-of-the-art 3D
reconstruction method designed for non-moving thin structure. We evaluate under
several common measures, and we propose a new measure for reconstructions of
branching multi-part 3D scenes under motion.


title:
Content-Centric Networking at Internet Scale through The Integration of
  Name Resolution and Routing

abstract:
  We introduce CCN-RAMP (Routing to Anchors Matching Prefixes), a new approach
to content-centric networking. CCN-RAMP offers all the advantages of the Named
Data Networking (NDN) and Content-Centric Networking (CCNx) but eliminates the
need to either use Pending Interest Tables (PIT) or lookup large Forwarding
Information Bases (FIB) listing name prefixes in order to forward Interests.
CCN-RAMP uses small forwarding tables listing anonymous sources of Interests
and the locations of name prefixes. Such tables are immune to Interest-flooding
attacks and are smaller than the FIBs used to list IP address ranges in the
Internet. We show that no forwarding loops can occur with CCN-RAMP, and that
Interests flow over the same routes that NDN and CCNx would maintain using
large FIBs. The results of simulation experiments comparing NDN with CCN-RAMP
based on ndnSIM show that CCN-RAMP requires forwarding state that is orders of
magnitude smaller than what NDN requires, and attains even better performance.


title: The $p$-Adic Valuations of Weil Sums of Binomials

abstract:
  We investigate the $p$-adic valuation of Weil sums of the form
$W_{F,d}(a)=\sum_{x \in F} \psi(x^d -a x)$, where $F$ is a finite field of
characteristic $p$, $\psi$ is the canonical additive character of $F$, the
exponent $d$ is relatively prime to $|F^\times|$, and $a$ is an element of $F$.
Such sums often arise in arithmetical calculations and also have applications
in information theory. For each $F$ and $d$ one would like to know $V_{F,d}$,
the minimum $p$-adic valuation of $W_{F,d}(a)$ as $a$ runs through the elements
of $F$. We exclude exponents $d$ that are congruent to a power of $p$ modulo
$|F^\times|$ (degenerate $d$), which yield trivial Weil sums. We prove that
$V_{F,d} \leq (2/3)[F\colon{\mathbb F}_p]$ for any $F$ and any nondegenerate
$d$, and prove that this bound is actually reached in infinitely many fields
$F$. We also prove some stronger bounds that apply when $[F\colon{\mathbb
F}_p]$ is a power of $2$ or when $d$ is not congruent to $1$ modulo $p-1$, and
show that each of these bounds is reached for infinitely many $F$.


title:
Ultra High-Dimensional Nonlinear Feature Selection for Big Biological
  Data

abstract:
  Machine learning methods are used to discover complex nonlinear relationships
in biological and medical data. However, sophisticated learning models are
computationally unfeasible for data with millions of features. Here we
introduce the first feature selection method for nonlinear learning problems
that can scale up to large, ultra-high dimensional biological data. More
specifically, we scale up the novel Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion
Lasso (HSIC Lasso) to handle millions of features with tens of thousand
samples. The proposed method is guaranteed to find an optimal subset of
maximally predictive features with minimal redundancy, yielding higher
predictive power and improved interpretability. Its effectiveness is
demonstrated through applications to classify phenotypes based on module
expression in human prostate cancer patients and to detect enzymes among
protein structures. We achieve high accuracy with as few as 20 out of one
million features --- a dimensionality reduction of 99.998%. Our algorithm can
be implemented on commodity cloud computing platforms. The dramatic reduction
of features may lead to the ubiquitous deployment of sophisticated prediction
models in mobile health care applications.


title:
Impact of asymptomatic infection on coupled disease-behavior dynamics in
  complex networks

abstract:
  Studies on how to model the interplay between diseases and behavioral
responses (so-called coupled disease-behavior interaction) have attracted
increasing attention. Owing to the lack of obvious clinical evidence of
diseases, or the incomplete information related to the disease, the risks of
infection cannot be perceived and may lead to inappropriate behavioral
responses. Therefore, how to quantitatively analyze the impacts of asymptomatic
infection on the interplay between diseases and behavioral responses is of
particular importance. In this Letter, under the complex network framework, we
study the coupled disease-behavior interaction model by dividing infectious
individuals into two states: U-state (without evident clinical symptoms,
labelled as U) and I-state (with evident clinical symptoms, labelled as I). A
susceptible individual can be infected by U- or I-nodes, however, since the
U-nodes cannot be easily observed, susceptible individuals take behavioral
responses \emph{only} when they contact I-nodes. The mechanism is considered in
the improved Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model and the improved
Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model, respectively. Then, one of the most
concerned problems in spreading dynamics: the epidemic thresholds for the two
models are given by two methods. The analytic results \emph{quantitatively}
describe the influence of different factors, such as asymptomatic infection,
the awareness rate, the network structure, and so forth, on the epidemic
thresholds. Moreover, because of the irreversible process of the SIR model, the
suppression effect of the improved SIR model is weaker than the improved SIS
model.


title: Semi-regular biorthogonal pairs and generalized Riesz bases

abstract:
  In this paper we define the notion of semi-regular biorthogonal pairs what is
a generalization of regular biorthogonal pairs in Ref. \cite{hiroshi1} and show
that if $(\{ \phi_{n} \} , \{ \psi_{n} \})$ is a semi-regular biorthogonal
pair, then $\{ \phi_{n} \}$ and $\{ \psi_{n} \}$ are generalized Riesz bases.
This result improves the results of Ref. \cite{h-t, hiroshi1, h-t2} in the
regular case.


title:
SSHMT: Semi-supervised Hierarchical Merge Tree for Electron Microscopy
  Image Segmentation

abstract:
  Region-based methods have proven necessary for improving segmentation
accuracy of neuronal structures in electron microscopy (EM) images. Most
region-based segmentation methods use a scoring function to determine region
merging. Such functions are usually learned with supervised algorithms that
demand considerable ground truth data, which are costly to collect. We propose
a semi-supervised approach that reduces this demand. Based on a merge tree
structure, we develop a differentiable unsupervised loss term that enforces
consistent predictions from the learned function. We then propose a Bayesian
model that combines the supervised and the unsupervised information for
probabilistic learning. The experimental results on three EM data sets
demonstrate that by using a subset of only 3% to 7% of the entire ground truth
data, our approach consistently performs close to the state-of-the-art
supervised method with the full labeled data set, and significantly outperforms
the supervised method with the same labeled subset.


title: Group theory, entropy and the third law of thermodynamics

abstract:
  Curado \textit{et al.} [Ann. Phys. \textbf{366} (2016) 22] have recently
studied the axiomatic structure and the universality of a three-parameter
trace-form entropy inspired by the group-theoretical structure. In this work,
we study the group-theoretical entropy $S_{a,b,r}$ in the context of the third
law of thermodynamics where the parameters $\left\lbrace a,b,r \right\rbrace $
are all independent. We show that this three-parameter entropy expression can
simultaneously satisfy the third law of thermodynamics and the three Khinchin
axioms, namely continuity, concavity and expansibility only when the parameter
$b$ is set to zero. In other words, it is thermodynamically valid only as a
two-parameter generalization $S_{a,r}$. Moreover, the restriction set by the
third law i.e., the condition $b = 0$, is important in the sense that the so
obtained two-parameter group-theoretical entropy becomes extensive only when
this condition is met. We also illustrate the interval of validity of the third
law using the one-dimensional Ising model with no external field. Finally, we
show that the $S_{a,r}$ is in the same universality class as that of the
Kaniadakis entropy for $0 < r < 1$ while it has a distinct universality class
in the interval $-1 < r < 0$.


title: Red Runaways II: Low mass Hills stars in SDSS Stripe 82

abstract:
  Stars ejected from the Galactic centre can be used to place important
constraints on the Milky Way potential. Since existing hypervelocity stars are
too distant to accurately determine orbits, we have conducted a search for
nearby candidates using full three-dimensional velocities. Since the efficacy
of such studies are often hampered by deficiencies in proper motion catalogs,
we have chosen to utilize the reliable, high-precision SDSS Stripe 82 proper
motion catalog. Although we do not find any candidates which have velocities in
excess of the escape speed, we identify 226 stars on orbits that are consistent
with Galactic centre ejection. This number is significantly larger than what we
would expect for halo stars on radial orbits and cannot be explained by disk or
bulge contamination. If we restrict ourselves to metal-rich stars, we find 29
candidates with [Fe/H] > -0.8 dex and 10 with [Fe/H] > -0.6 dex. Their
metallicities are more consistent with what we expect for bulge ejecta, and so
we believe these candidates are especially deserving of further study. We have
supplemented this sample using our own radial velocities, developing an
algorithm to use proper motions for optimizing candidate selection. This
technique provides considerable improvement on the blind spectroscopic sample
of SDSS, being able to identify candidates with an efficiency around 20 times
better than a blind search.


title: PB-AM: An Open-Source, Fully Analytical Linear Poisson-Boltzmann Solver

abstract:
  We present the open source distributed software package Poisson-Boltzmann
Analytical Method (PB-AM), a fully analytical solution to the linearized
Poisson Boltzmann equation, for molecules represented as non-overlapping
spherical cavities. The PB-AM software package includes the generation of
outputs files appropriate for visualization using VMD, a Brownian dynamics
scheme that uses periodic boundary conditions to simulate dynamics, the ability
to specify docking criteria, and offers two different kinetics schemes to
evaluate biomolecular association rate constants. Given that PB-AM defines
mutual polarization completely and accurately, it can be refactored as a
many-body expansion to explore 2- and 3-body polarization. Additionally, the
software has been integrated into the Adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann Solver (APBS)
software package to make it more accessible to a larger group of scientists,
educators and students that are more familiar with the APBS framework.


title:
An isomorphism theorem for degenerate cyclotomic Yokonuma-Hecke algebras
  and applications

abstract:
  Inspired by the work [PA], we establish an explicit algebra isomorphism
between the degenerate cyclotomic Yokonuma-Hecke algebra $Y_{r,n}^{d}(q)$ and a
direct sum of matrix algebras over tensor products of degenerate cyclotomic
Hecke algebras of type $A$. We then develop several applications of this
result, including a new proof of the modular representation theory of
$Y_{r,n}^{d}(q)$, a semisimplicity criterion for it and cellularity of it.
Moreover, we prove that $Y_{r,n}^{d}(q)$ is a symmetric algebra and determine
the associated Schur elements by using the isomorphism theorem for it.


title: Interpretations of the possible 42.7 GeV $\gamma$-ray line

abstract:
  Recently Liang et al. found a tentative line signal at about 43 GeV in the
directions of sixteen nearby Galaxy Clusters. If arising from dark matter
annihilation, the mass of the dark matter particles should be $m_{\chi}\sim 43$
GeV and the annihilation cross section $\langle \sigma v \rangle \sim
5\times10^{-28}(\overline{\rm BF}/10^{3})^{-1}~{\rm cm^3~s^{-1}}$ is needed,
where $\overline{\rm BF}$ is the averaged boost factor of the annihilation
signal of these Galaxy Clusters. In this work we discuss several models which
could interpret these features and estimate the model parameters. Usually
sizeable coupling parameter is needed. The $2\sigma$ upper limits on the cross
section of the dark matter annihilation into various final states such as
$b\bar{b}$, $\mu^+\mu^-$ and so on are also presented.


title:
Refined analysis and updated constraints on general non-standard tbW
  couplings

abstract:
  We recently studied possible non-standard tbW couplings based on the
effective-Lagrangian which consists of four kinds of SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1)
invariant dimension-6 effective operators and gave an experimentally allowed
region for each non-standard coupling. We here re-perform that analysis much
more precisely based on the same experimental data but on a new computational
procedure using the Graphics-Processing-Unit (GPU) calculation system.
Comparing these two analyses with each other, the previous one is found to have
given quite reliable results despite of its limited computation capability. We
then apply this new procedure to the latest data and present updated results.


title:
Towards Boij-S\"oderberg theory for Grassmannians: the case of square
  matrices

abstract:
  We characterize the cone of GL-equivariant Betti tables of Cohen-Macaulay
modules of codimension 1, up to rational multiple, over the coordinate ring of
square matrices. This result serves as the base case for `Boij-S\"oderberg
theory for Grassmannians', with the goal of characterizing the cones of
GL_k-equivariant Betti tables of modules over the coordinate ring of k x n
matrices, and, dually, cohomology tables of vector bundles on the Grassmannian
Gr(k, C^n). The proof uses Hall's Theorem on perfect matchings in bipartite
graphs to compute the extremal rays of the cone, and constructs the
corresponding equivariant free resolutions by applying Weyman's geometric
technique to certain graded pure complexes of Eisenbud-Fl{\o}ystad-Weyman.


title: Scout-It: Interior tomography using modified scout acquisition

abstract:
  Global scout views have been previously used to reduce interior
reconstruction artifacts in high-resolution micro-CT and C-arm systems. However
these methods cannot be directly used in the all-important domain of clinical
CT. This is because when the CT scan is truncated, the scout views are also
truncated. However many cases of truncation in clinical CT involve partial
truncation, where the anterio-posterior (AP) scout is truncated, but the
medio-lateral (ML) scout is non-truncated. In this paper, we show that in such
cases of partially truncated CT scans, a modified configuration may be used to
acquire non-truncated AP scout view, and ultimately allow for highly accurate
interior reconstruction.


title:
An $hp$-version error analysis of the discontinuous Galerkin method for
  linear elasticity

abstract:
  An $hp$-version error analysis is developed for the general DG method in
mixed formulation for solving the linear elastic problem. First of all, we give
the $hp$-version error estimates of two $L^2$ projection operators. Then
incorporated with the techniques in [11], we obtain the $hp$-version error
estimates in energy norm and $L^2$ norm. Some numerical experiments are
provided for demonstrating the theoretical results.


title:
Second-order Sobolev inequalities on a class of Riemannian manifolds
  with nonnegative Ricci curvature

abstract:
  Let $(M,g)$ be an $n-$dimensional complete open Riemannian manifold with
nonnegative Ricci curvature verifying $\rho\Delta_g \rho \geq n- 5\geq 0$,
where $\Delta_g$ is the Laplace-Beltrami operator on $(M,g)$ and $\rho$ is the
distance function from a given point. If $(M,g)$ supports a second-order
Sobolev inequality with a constant $C>0$ close to the optimal constant $K_0$ in
the second-order Sobolev inequality in $\mathbb R^n$, we show that a global
volume non-collapsing property holds on $(M,g)$. The latter property together
with a Perelman-type construction established by Munn (J. Geom. Anal., 2010)
provide several rigidity results in terms of the higher-order homotopy groups
of $(M,g)$. Furthermore, it turns out that $(M,g)$ supports the second-order
Sobolev inequality with the constant $C=K_0$ if and only if $(M,g)$ is
isometric to the Euclidean space $\mathbb R^n$.


abstract:
  With the agreement of my coauthors, I Zhangyang Wang would like to withdraw
the manuscript "Stacked Approximated Regression Machine: A Simple Deep Learning
Approach". Some experimental procedures were not included in the manuscript,
which makes a part of important claims not meaningful. In the relevant
research, I was solely responsible for carrying out the experiments; the other
coauthors joined in the discussions leading to the main algorithm.
  Please see the updated text for more details.


title:
Bayesian Model Selection Methods for Mutual and Symmetric $k$-Nearest
  Neighbor Classification

abstract:
  The $k$-nearest neighbor classification method ($k$-NNC) is one of the
simplest nonparametric classification methods. The mutual $k$-NN classification
method (M$k$NNC) is a variant of $k$-NNC based on mutual neighborship. We
propose another variant of $k$-NNC, the symmetric $k$-NN classification method
(S$k$NNC) based on both mutual neighborship and one-sided neighborship. The
performance of M$k$NNC and S$k$NNC depends on the parameter $k$ as the one of
$k$-NNC does. We propose the ways how M$k$NN and S$k$NN classification can be
performed based on Bayesian mutual and symmetric $k$-NN regression methods with
the selection schemes for the parameter $k$. Bayesian mutual and symmetric
$k$-NN regression methods are based on Gaussian process models, and it turns
out that they can do M$k$NN and S$k$NN classification with new encodings of
target values (class labels). The simulation results show that the proposed
methods are better than or comparable to $k$-NNC, M$k$NNC and S$k$NNC with the
parameter $k$ selected by the leave-one-out cross validation method not only
for an artificial data set but also for real world data sets.


title: About Pyramid Structure in Convolutional Neural Networks

abstract:
  Deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) brought revolution without any doubt
to various challenging tasks, mainly in computer vision. However, their model
designing still requires attention to reduce number of learnable parameters,
with no meaningful reduction in performance. In this paper we investigate to
what extend CNN may take advantage of pyramid structure typical of biological
neurons. A generalized statement over convolutional layers from input till
fully connected layer is introduced that helps further in understanding and
designing a successful deep network. It reduces ambiguity, number of
parameters, and their size on disk without degrading overall accuracy.
Performance are shown on state-of-the-art models for MNIST, Cifar-10,
Cifar-100, and ImageNet-12 datasets. Despite more than 80% reduction in
parameters for Caffe_LENET, challenging results are obtained. Further, despite
10-20% reduction in training data along with 10-40% reduction in parameters for
AlexNet model and its variations, competitive results are achieved when
compared to similar well-engineered deeper architectures.


title: Proton Decay Prediction in 5D Gauge-Higgs Unification

abstract:
  The Higgs boson mass and top quark mass imply that the Higgs quartic coupling
vanishes around the scale of $10^9 - 10^{13}$ GeV, depending on the precise
value of the top quark mass. The vanishing quartic coupling can be naturally
addressed if the Higgs field originates from a 5-dimensional gauge field and
the 5th dimension is compactified at the scale of the vanishing Higgs quartic
coupling, which is a scenario based on gauge-Higgs unification. We present a
general prediction of the scenario on the proton decay process $p \to \pi^0
e^+$. In many gauge-Higgs unification models, the 1st generation fermions are
localized towards an orbifold fixed point in order to realize the realistic
Yukawa couplings. Hence, four-fermion operators responsible for the proton
decay can appear with a suppression of the 5-dimensional Planck scale (not the
4-dimensional Planck scale). Since the 5-dimensional Planck scale is connected
to the compactification scale, we have a correlation between the proton partial
decay width and the top quark mass. We show that the future Hyper-Kamiokande
experiment may discover the proton decay if the top quark pole mass is larger
than about 172.5 GeV.


title: Forbidden minors: Finding the finite few

abstract:
  The Graph Minor Theorem of Robertson and Seymour asserts that any graph
property, whatsoever, is determined by an associated finite list of graphs. We
view this as an impressive generalization of Kuratowski's theorem, which
characterizes planarity in terms of two forbidden subgraphs, $K_5$ and
$K_{3,3}$. Robertson and Seymour's result empowers students to devise their own
Kuratowski type theorems; we propose several undergraduate research projects
with that goal. As an explicit example, we determine the seven forbidden minors
for a property we call strongly almost--planar (SAP). A graph is SAP if, for
any edge $e$, both deletion and contraction of $e$ result in planar graphs.


title:
Impacts of B-factory measurements on determination of fragmentation
  functions from electron-positron annihilation data

abstract:
  Fragmentation functions are determined for the pion and kaon by global
analyses of charged-hadron production data in electron-positron annihilation.
Accurate measurements were reported by the Belle and BaBar collaborations for
the fragmentation functions at the center-of-mass energies of 10.52 GeV and
10.54 GeV, respectively, at the KEK and SLAC B factories, whereas other
available $e^+e^-$ measurements were mostly done at higher energies, mainly at
the $Z$ mass of 91.2 GeV. There is a possibility that gluon fragmentation
functions, as well as quark fragmentation functions, are accurately determined
by scaling violation. We report our global analysis of the fragmentation
functions especially to show impacts of the B-factory measurements on the
fragmentation function determination. Our results indicate that the
fragmentation functions are determined more accurately not only by the scaling
violation but also by high-statistical nature of the Belle and BaBar data.
However, there are some tensions between the Belle and BaBar data in comparison
with previous measurements. We also explain how the flavor dependence of quark
fragmentation functions and the gluon function are separated by using
measurements at different $Q^2$ values. In particular, the electric and weak
changes are different depending on the quark type, so that a light-quark flavor
separation also became possible in principle due to the precise data at both
$\sqrt{s}\simeq 10.5$ GeV and 91.2 GeV.


title:
Extracting temperature and transverse flow by fitting transverse mass
  spectra and HBT radii together

abstract:
  Single particle transverse mass spectra and HBT radii of identical pion and
identical kaon are analyzed with a blast-wave parametrization under the
assumptions local thermal equilibrium and transverse expansion. Under the
assumptions, temperature parameter $T$ and transverse expansion rapidity $\rho$
are sensitive to the shapes of transverse mass $m_\text T$ spectrum and HBT
radius $R_\text{s}(K_\text T)$. Negative and positive correlations between $T$
and $\rho$ are observed by fitting $m_\text{T}$ spectrum and HBT radius
$R_\text s (K_\text T)$, respectively. For a Monte Carlo simulation using the
blast-wave function, $T$ and $\rho$ are extracted by fitting $m_T$ spectra and
HBT radii together utilizing a combined optimization function $\chi^2$. With
this method, $T$ and $\rho$ of the Monte Carlo sources can be extracted. Using
this method for A Multi-Phase Transport model (AMPT) at RHIC energy, the
differences of $T$ and $\rho$ between pion and kaon are observed obviously, and
the tendencies of $T$ and $\rho$ vs collision energy $\sqrt{s_\text{NN}}$ are
similar with the results extracted directly from the AMPT model.


title:
Design of Variable Bandpass Filters Using First Order Allpass
  Transformation And Coefficient Decimation

abstract:
  In this paper, the design of a computationally efficient variable bandpass
digital filter is presented. The center frequency and bandwidth of this filter
can be changed online without updating the filter coefficients. The warped
filters, obtained by replacing each unit delay of a digital filter with an
allpass filter, are widely used for various audio processing applications.
However, warped filters fail to provide variable bandwidth bandpass responses
for a given center frequency using first order allpass transformation. To
overcome this drawback, our design is accomplished by combining warped filter
with the coefficient decimation technique. The design example shows that the
proposed variable digital filter is simple to design and offers a total gate
count reduction of 36% and 65% over the warped filters compared to the designs
presented in [3] and [1] respectively


title:
A Low Complexity Spectrum Sensing Scheme for Estimating Frequency Band
  Edges in Multi-Standard Military Communication Receivers

abstract:
  In a typical multi-standard military communication receiver, fast and
reliable spectrum sensing unit is required to extract the information of
multiple channels (frequency bands) present in a wideband input signal. In this
paper, an energy detector based on our reconfigurable filter bank, in [5], for
detecting the edge frequencies of the channels is proposed. Simulation results
are presented to show the trade-off between the time required to calculate edge
frequencies of all the channels and the maximum normalized error in estimating
the edge frequencies. The proposed method is compared with existing energy
detector methods for complexity and performance. It is shown that, for a fixed
number of input samples, error decreases with time in the proposed algorithm as
compared to other methods where error is constant. Design examples and
simulations show that the complexity of the proposed method is lower than the
other methods for a given error in estimating the edge frequencies


title:
Mechanical energy and mean equivalent viscous damping for SDOF
  fractional oscillators

abstract:
  This paper addresses the total mechanical energy of a single degree of
freedom fractional oscillator. Based on the energy storage and dissipation
properties of the Caputo fractional derivatives, the expression for total
mechanical energy in the single degree of freedom fractional oscillator is
firstly presented. The energy regeneration due to the external exciting force
and the energy loss due to the fractional damping force during the vibratory
motion are analyzed. Furthermore, based on the mean energy dissipation of the
fractional damping element in steady-state vibration, a new concept of mean
equivalent viscous damping is suggested and the value of the damping
coefficient is evaluated.


title:
Positive solutions for asymptotically linear problems in exterior
  domains

abstract:
  The existence of a positive solution for a class of asymptotically lin- ear
problems in exterior domains is established via a linking argument on the
Nehari manifold and by means of a barycenter function.


title:
Quantum Stern-Gerlach experiment and path entanglement of Bose-Einstein
  condensate

abstract:
  In this paper, a quantum Stern-Gerlach thought experiment is introduced
where, in addition to the intrinsic angular momentum of an atom, the magnetic
field is also treated quantum mechanically. A freely falling spin polarised
Bose-Einstein condensate passes close to a flux-qubit and interacts with the
quantum superimposed magnetic field of the flux-qubit. Such an interaction
results a macroscopic quantum entanglement of the path of a Bose-Einstein
condensate with the magnetic flux quantum state of the flux-qubit. In this
paper, three regimes of coupling between the flux-qubit and a freely falling
Bose-Einstein condensate are discussed. The decoherence time limit required to
achieve a strong coupling regime is also estimated. This paper also explores,
how to produce a path entangled Bose-Einstein condensate where, the condensate
can be located at physically distinct locations simultaneously. Paper provides
new fundamental insights about the foundations of the quantum Stern-Gerlach
experiment.


title: Entanglement entropy after selective measurements in quantum chains

abstract:
  We study bipartite post measurement entanglement entropy after selective
measurements in quantum chains. We first study the quantity for the critical
systems that can be described by conformal field theories. We find a connection
between post measurement entanglement entropy and the Casimir energy of
floating objects. Then we provide formulas for the post measurement
entanglement entropy for open and finite temperature systems. We also comment
on the Affleck-Ludwig boundary entropy in the context of the post measurement
entanglement entropy. Finally, we also provide some formulas regarding modular
hamiltonians and entanglement spectrum in the after measurement systems. After
through discussion regarding CFT systems we also provide some predictions
regarding massive field theories. We then discuss a generic method to calculate
the post measurement entanglement entropy in the free fermion systems. Using
the method we study the post measurement entanglement entropy in the XY spin
chain. We check numerically the CFT and the massive field theory results in the
transverse field Ising chain and the XX model. In particular, we study the post
meaurement entanglement entropy in the infinite, periodic and open critical
transverse field Ising chain and the critical XX model. The effect of the
temperature and the gap is also discussed in these models.


title: Sound waves in the compactified D0-D4 brane system

abstract:
  As an extension to our previous work, we study the transport properties of
the Witten-Sakai-Sugimoto model in the black D4-brane background with smeared
D0-branes (D0-D4/D8 system). Because of the presence of the D0-branes, in the
bubble configuration this model is holographically dual to 4d QCD or Yang-Mills
theory with a Chern-Simons term. And the number density of the D0-branes
corresponds to the coupling constant ($\theta$ angle) of the Chern-Simons term
in the dual field theory. In this paper, we accordingly focus on small number
density of the D0-branes to study the sound mode in the black D0-D4 brane
system since the coupling of the Chern-Simons term should be quite weak in QCD.
Then we derive its 5d effective theory and analytically compute the speed of
sound and the sound wave attenuation in the approach of Gauge/Gravity duality.
Our result shows the speed of sound and the sound wave attenuation is modified
by the presence of the D0-branes. Thus they depend on the $\theta$ angle or
chiral potential in this holographic description.


title: Composite electronic orders induced by orbital Kondo effect

abstract:
  In a large number of rare-earth and actinide systems, Kondo effect tends to
suppress magnetic order by making the spin singlet between localized and
conduction electron spins. In the presence of orbital degrees of freedom,
however, there emerge exotic electronic orders induced by Kondo effect. The
orbital Kondo effect can collectively make diagonal and off-diagonal
(superconducting) orders. With the particle-hole symmetry in conduction bands,
these orders are all degenerate, forming a macroscopic SO(5) multiplet. This
paper discusses recent theoretical development on these electronic orders which
are relevant to Pr$^{3+}$ and U$^{4+}$ systems with even number of $f$
electrons per site. In the superconducting order, each conduction-electron pair
is coupled with local degrees of freedom, forming a composite entity with a
staggered spatial pattern. The quasi-particle spectrum is best interpreted as
virtual hybridization with resonant states at the Fermi level. Possible order
parameter for URu$_2$Si$_2$ in the hidden order state is discussed in the
context of composite orders. Briefly discussed are related issues such as
homogeneous odd-frequency pairing and SO(5) theory for high-temperature
superconductors.


title: Generative Knowledge Transfer for Neural Language Models

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a generative knowledge transfer technique that
trains an RNN based language model (student network) using text and output
probabilities generated from a previously trained RNN (teacher network). The
text generation can be conducted by either the teacher or the student network.
We can also improve the performance by taking the ensemble of soft labels
obtained from multiple teacher networks. This method can be used for privacy
conscious language model adaptation because no user data is directly used for
training. Especially, when the soft labels of multiple devices are aggregated
via a trusted third party, we can expect very strong privacy protection.


title:
Calculations for electron-impact ionization of beryllium in the method
  of interacting configurations in the complex number representation

abstract:
  The beginning of the application of the method of interacting configurations
in the complex number representation to the compound atomic systems has been
presented. The spectroscopic characteristics of the Be atom in the problem of
the electron-impact ionization of this atom are investigated. The energies and
the widths of the lowest autoionizing states of Be atom are calculated.


title: Twisted Centralizer Codes

abstract:
  Given an $n\times n$ matrix $A$ over a field $F$ and a scalar $a\in F$, we
consider the linear codes $C(A,a):=\{B\in F^{n\times n}\mid \,AB=aBA\}$ of
length $n^2$. We call $C(A,a)$ a twisted centralizer code. We investigate
properties of these codes including their dimensions, minimum distances,
parity-check matrices, syndromes, and automorphism groups. The minimal distance
of a centralizer code (when $a=1$) is at most $n$, however for $a\ne 0,1$ the
minimal distance can be much larger, as large as $n^2$.


title:
Dynamic Hand Gesture Recognition for Wearable Devices with Low
  Complexity Recurrent Neural Networks

abstract:
  Gesture recognition is a very essential technology for many wearable devices.
While previous algorithms are mostly based on statistical methods including the
hidden Markov model, we develop two dynamic hand gesture recognition techniques
using low complexity recurrent neural network (RNN) algorithms. One is based on
video signal and employs a combined structure of a convolutional neural network
(CNN) and an RNN. The other uses accelerometer data and only requires an RNN.
Fixed-point optimization that quantizes most of the weights into two bits is
conducted to optimize the amount of memory size for weight storage and reduce
the power consumption in hardware and software based implementations.


title:
An analysis of a class of variational multiscale methods based on
  subspace decomposition

abstract:
  Numerical homogenization tries to approximate the solutions of elliptic
partial differential equations with strongly oscillating coefficients by
functions from modified finite element spaces. We present in this paper a class
of such methods that are very closely related to the method of M{\aa}lqvist and
Peterseim [Math. Comp. 83, 2014]. Like the method of M{\aa}lqvist and
Peterseim, these methods do not make explicit or implicit use of a scale
separation. Their compared to that in the work of M{\aa}lqvist and Peterseim
strongly simplified analysis is based on a reformulation of their method in
terms of variational multiscale methods and on the theory of iterative methods,
more precisely, of additive Schwarz or subspace decomposition methods.


title:
A weighted binary average of point-normal pairs with application to
  subdivision schemes

abstract:
  Subdivision is a well-known and established method for generating smooth
curves and surfaces from discrete data by repeated refinements. The typical
input for such a process is a mesh of vertices. In this work we propose to
refine 2D data consisting of vertices of a polygon and a normal at each vertex.
Our core refinement procedure is based on a circle average, which is a new
non-linear weighted average of two points and their corresponding normals. The
ability to locally approximate curves by the circle average is demonstrated.
With this ability, the circle average is a candidate for modifying linear
subdivision schemes refining points, to schemes refining point-normal pairs.
This is done by replacing the weighted binary arithmetic means in a linear
subdivision scheme, expressed in terms of repeated binary averages, by circle
averages with the same weights. Here we investigate the modified
Lane-Riesenfeld algorithm and the 4-point scheme. For the case that the initial
data consists of a control polygon only, a naive method for choosing initial
normals is proposed. An example demonstrates the superiority of the above two
modified schemes, with the naive choice of initial normals over the
corresponding linear schemes, when applied to a control polygon with edges of
significantly different lengths.


title: Axisymmetric equilibria with pressure anisotropy and plasma flow

abstract:
  In this Master thesis we investigate the influence of pressure anisotropy and
incompressible flow of arbitrary direction on the equilibrium properties of
magnetically confined, axisymmetric toroidal plasmas. The main novel
contribution is the derivation of a pertinent generalised Grad-Shafranov
equation. This equation includes six free surface functions and recovers known
Grad-Shafranov-like equations in the literature as well as the usual static,
isotropic one. The form of the generalised equation indicates that pressure
anisotropy and flow act additively on equilibrium. In addition, two sets of
analytical solutions, an extended Solovev one with a plasma reaching the
separatrix and an extended Hernegger-Maschke one for a plasma surrounded by a
fixed boundary possessing an X-point, are constructed, particularly in
relevance to the ITER and NSTX tokamaks. Furthermore, the impacts both of
pressure anisotropy, through an anisotropy function assumed to be uniform on
the magnetic surfaces, and plasma flow, via the variation of an Alfvenic Mach
function, on these equilibria are examined.
  It turns out that depending on the maximum value and the shape of an
anisotropy function, the anisotropy can act either paramagnetically or
diamagnetically. Also, in most of the cases considered both the anisotropy and
the flow have stronger effects on NSTX equilibria than on ITER ones. We
conjecture that these effects may have an influence on plasma stability and
transport, and play a role in the transitions to the improved confinement
regimes in tokamaks.


title:
Tightness results for infinite-slit limits of the chordal Loewner
  equation

abstract:
  In this note we consider a multi-slit Loewner equation with constant
coefficients that describes the growth of multiple SLE curves connecting $N$
points on $\mathbb{R}$ to infinity within the upper half-plane. For every
$N\in\mathbb{N}$, this equation provides a measure valued process $t\mapsto
\{\alpha_{N,t}\},$ and we are interested in the limit behaviour as
$N\to\infty.$ We prove tightness of the sequence
$\{\alpha_{N,t}\}_{N\in\mathbb{N}}$ under certain assumptions and address some
further problems.


title: Non-split linear sharply $2$-transitive groups

abstract:
  We give examples of countable linear groups in $SL_{n}(R)$ for $n \ge 3$,
with no nontrivial normal abelian subgroups, that admit a faithful sharply
2-transitive action on a set. Without the linearity assumption, such groups
were recently constructed by Rips, Segev, and Tent. Our examples are of
permutational characteristic $2$, in the sense that involutions do not fix a
point in the $2$-transitive action.


title: Nambu-Goldstone-Leggett modes in multi-condensate superconductors

abstract:
  Multi-gap superconductors exhibit interesting properties. In an $N$-gap
superconductor, we have in general $U(1)^N$ phase invariance. This
multiple-phase invariance is partially or totally spontaneously broken in a
superconductor. The Nambu-Goldstone modes, as well as Higgs modes, are
important and will play an important role in multi-condensate superconductors.
The additional phase invariance leads to a new quantum phase, with help of
frustrated Josephson effects, such as the time-reversal symmetry breaking, the
emergence of massless modes and fractionally quantized-flux vortices. There is
a possibility that half-flux vortices exist in two-component superconductors in
a magnetic field. The half-quantum flux vortex can be interpreted as a
monopole, and two half-flux vortices form a bound state connected by a domain
wall. There is an interesting analogy between quarks and fractionally
quantized-flux vortices in superconductors.


title:
Resonant quenching of Raman scattering due to out-of-plane
  A$_{1g}$/A'$_1$ modes in few-layer MoTe$_2$

abstract:
  Temperature-dependent (5 K to 300 K) Raman scattering study of
A$_{1g}$/A'$_1$ phonon modes in mono-layer (1L), bilayer (2L), trilayer (3L),
and tetralayer (4L) MoTe$_2$ is reported. The temperature evolution of the
modes' intensity critically depends on the flake thickness. In particular with
$\lambda$=632.8 nm light excitation, a strongly non-monotonic dependence of the
A$_{1g}$ mode intensity is observed in 2L MoTe$_2$. The intensity decreases
with decreasing temperature down to 220 K and the A$_{1g}$ mode almost
completely vanishes from the Stokes scattering spectrum in the temperature
range between 160 K and 220 K. The peak recovers at lower temperatures and at
T=5 K it becomes three times more intense that at room temperature. Similar
non-monotonic intensity evolution is observed for the out-of-plane mode in 3L
MoTe$_2$ in which tellurium atoms in all three layers vibrate in-phase. The
intensity of the other out-of-plane Raman-active mode, (with vibrations of
tellurium atoms in the central layer shifted by 180$^o$ with respect to the
vibrations in outer layers), only weakly depends on temperature. The observed
quenching of the Raman scattering in 2L and 3L MoTe$_2$ is attributed to a
destructive interference between the resonant and non-resonant contributions to
the Raman scattering amplitude. The observed "antiresonance" is related to the
electronic excitation at the M point of the Brillouin zone in few-layer
MoTe$_2$.


title: HfS, Hyperfine Structure Fitting Tool

abstract:
  HfS is a tool to fit the hyperfine structure of spectral lines, with multiple
velocity components. The HfS_nh3 procedures included in HfS fit simultaneously
the hyperfine structure of the NH$_3$ (J,K)= (1,1) and (2,2) transitions, and
perform a standard analysis to derive $T_\mathrm{ex}$, NH$_3$ column density,
$T_\mathrm{rot}$, and $T_\mathrm{k}$. HfS uses a Monte Carlo approach for
fitting the line parameters. Especial attention is paid to the derivation of
the parameter uncertainties. HfS includes procedures that make use of parallel
computing for fitting spectra from a data cube.


title: Viewpoint and Topic Modeling of Current Events

abstract:
  There are multiple sides to every story, and while statistical topic models
have been highly successful at topically summarizing the stories in corpora of
text documents, they do not explicitly address the issue of learning the
different sides, the viewpoints, expressed in the documents. In this paper, we
show how these viewpoints can be learned completely unsupervised and
represented in a human interpretable form. We use a novel approach of applying
CorrLDA2 for this purpose, which learns topic-viewpoint relations that can be
used to form groups of topics, where each group represents a viewpoint. A
corpus of documents about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is then used to
demonstrate how a Palestinian and an Israeli viewpoint can be learned. By
leveraging the magnitudes and signs of the feature weights of a linear SVM, we
introduce a principled method to evaluate associations between topics and
viewpoints. With this, we demonstrate, both quantitatively and qualitatively,
that the learned topic groups are contextually coherent, and form consistently
correct topic-viewpoint associations.


title:
On Credit-based Incentive Mechanisms of Voluntary User Comment Reviewing
  in Social Networks

abstract:
  With the recent advance of micro-blogs and social networks, people can view
and post comments on the websites in a very convenient way. However, it is also
a big concern that the malicious users keep polluting the cyber environment by
scamming, spamming or repeatedly advertising. So far the most common way to
detect and report malicious comments is based on voluntary reviewing from
honest users. To encourage contribution, very often some non-monetary credits
will be given to an honest user who validly reports a malicious comment. In
this note we argue that such credit-based incentive mechanisms should fail in
most cases: if reporting a malicious comment receives diminishing revenue, then
in the long term no rational honest user will participate in comment reviewing.


title: Functions with uniform sublevel sets and scalarization in linear spaces

abstract:
  Functions with uniform sublevel sets can represent orders, preference
relations or other binary relations and thus turn out to be a tool for
scalarization that can be used in multicriteria optimization, decision theory,
mathematical finance, production theory and operator theory. Sets which are not
necessarily convex can be separated by functions with uniform sublevel sets.
This report focuses on properties of real-valued and extended-real-valued
functions with uniform sublevel sets which are defined on a linear space
without assuming topological properties. The functions may be convex or
sublinear. They can coincide with a Minkowski functional or with an order unit
norm on a subset of the space. The considered functionals are applied to the
scalarization of vector optimization problems. These vector optimization
problems refer to arbitrary domination sets. The consideration of such sets is
motivated by their relationship to domination structures in decision making.


title: Dark Matter in Axion Landscape

abstract:
  If there are a plethora of axions in nature, they may have a complicated
potential and create an axion landscape. We study a possibility that one of the
axions is so light that it is cosmologically stable, explaining the observed
dark matter density. In particular we focus on a case in which two (or more)
shift-symmetry breaking terms conspire to make the axion sufficiently light at
the potential minimum. In this case the axion has a flat-bottomed potential. In
contrast to the case in which a single cosine term dominates the potential, the
axion abundance as well as its isocurvature perturbations are significantly
suppressed. This allows an axion with a rather large mass to serve as dark
matter without fine-tuning of the initial misalignment, and further makes
higher-scale inflation to be consistent with the scenario.


title: Closeness Centralization Measure for Two-mode Data of Prescribed Sizes

abstract:
  We confirm a conjecture by Everett, Sinclair, and Dankelmann~[Some Centrality
results new and old, J. Math. Sociology 28 (2004), 215--227] regarding the
problem of maximizing closeness centralization in two-mode data, where the
number of data of each type is fixed. Intuitively, our result states that among
all networks obtainable via two-mode data, the largest closeness is achieved by
simply locally maximizing the closeness of a node. Mathematically, our study
concerns bipartite graphs with fixed size bipartitions, and we show that the
extremal configuration is a rooted tree of depth~$2$, where neighbors of the
root have an equal or almost equal number of children.


title: Violation of Onsager's theorem in approximate master equation approaches

abstract:
  The consistency with Onsager's theorem is examined for commonly used
perturbative approaches, such as the Redfield and second-order von Neumann
master equations, for thermoelectric transport through nanostructures. We study
a double quantum dot, which requires coherences between states for a correct
description, and we find that these perturbative approaches violate Onsager's
theorem. We show that the deviations from the theorem scale with the
lead-coupling strength in an order beyond the one considered systematically in
the respective approach.


title:
Dynamics of a prominence-horn structure during its evaporation in the
  solar corona

abstract:
  The physical connection among and formation mechanisms of various components
of the prominence-horn cavity system remain elusive. Here we present
observations of such a system, focusing on a section of the prominence that
rises and separates gradually from the main body. This forms a configuration
sufficiently simple to yield clues to the above issues. It is characterized by
embedding horns, oscillations, and a gradual disappearance of the separated
material. The prominence-horn structure exhibits a large amplitude longitudinal
oscillation with a period of ~150 minutes and an amplitude of ~30 Mm along the
trajectory defined by the concave horn structure. The horns also experience a
simultaneous transverse oscillation with a much smaller amplitude (~3 Mm) and
shorter period (~10-15 minutes), likely representative of a global mode of the
large-scale magnetic structure. The gradual disappearance of the structure
indicates that the horn, an observational manifestation of the field-aligned
transition region separating the cool and dense prominence from the hot and
tenuous corona, is formed due to the heating and diluting process of the
central prominence mass, while most previous studies suggest that it is the
opposite process, i.e., the cooling and condensation of coronal plasmas, to
form the horn. This study also demonstrates how the prominence transports
magnetic flux to the upper corona, a process essential for the gradual build-up
of pre-eruption magnetic energy.


title:
Precise Determination of the U-235 Reactor Antineutrino Cross Section
  per Fission

abstract:
  We investigate which among the reactor antineutrino fluxes from the decays of
the fission products of $^{235}\text{U}$, $^{238}\text{U}$, $^{239}\text{Pu}$,
and $^{241}\text{Pu}$ may be responsible for the reactor antineutrino anomaly
if the anomaly is due to a miscalculation of the antineutrino fluxes. We find
that it is very likely that at least the calculation of the $^{235}\text{U}$
flux must be revised. From the fit of the data we obtain the precise
determination $\sigma_{f,235} = ( 6.33 \pm 0.08 ) \times 10^{-43} \,
\text{cm}^2 / \text{fission}$ of the $^{235}\text{U}$ cross section per
fission, which is more precise than the calculated value and differs from it by
$2.2\sigma$. The cross sections per fission of the other fluxes have large
uncertainties and in practice their values are undetermined by the fit.


title:
Real eigenvalue statistics for products of asymmetric real Gaussian
  matrices

abstract:
  Random matrices formed from i.i.d. standard real Gaussian entries have the
feature that the expected number of real eigenvalues is non-zero. This property
persists for products of such matrices, independently chosen, and moreover it
is known that as the number of matrices in the product tends to infinity, the
probability that all eigenvalues are real tends to unity. We quantify the
distribution of the number of real eigenvalues for products of finite size real
Gaussian matrices by giving an explicit Pfaffian formula for the probability
that there are exactly $k$ real eigenvalues as a determinant with entries
involving particular Meijer G-functions. We also compute the explicit form of
the Pfaffian correlation kernel for the correlation between real eigenvalues,
and the correlation between complex eigenvalues. The simplest example of these
- the eigenvalue density of the real eigenvalues - gives by integration the
expected number of real eigenvalues. Our ability to perform these calculations
relies on the construction of certain skew-orthogonal polynomials in the
complex plane, the computation of which is carried out using their relationship
to particular random matrix averages.


title:
Mean field analysis of large-scale interacting populations of stochastic
  conductance-based spiking neurons using the Klimontovich method

abstract:
  We investigate the dynamics of large-scale interacting neural populations,
composed of conductance based, spiking model neurons with modifiable synaptic
connection strengths, which are possibly also subjected to external noisy
currents. The network dynamics is controlled by a set of neural population
probability distributions ($\mathrm{PPD}$)which are constructed along the same
lines as in the Klimontovich approach to the kinetic theory of plasmas. An
exact non-closed, nonlinear, system of integro-partial differential equations
is derived for the $\mathrm{PPD}$s. As is customary, a closing procedure leads
to a mean field limit. The equations we have obtained are of the same type as
those which have been recently derived using rigorous techniques of probability
theory. The numerical solutions of these so called McKean-Vlasov-Fokker-Planck
equations, which are only valid in the limit of infinite size networks,
actually shows that the statistical measures as obtained from $\mathrm{PPD}$s
are in good agreement with those obtained through direct integration of the
stochastic dynamical system for large but finite size networks. Although
numerical solutions have been obtained in the case of Fitzhugh-Nagumo model
neurons, the theory can be readily applied to systems of Hodgkin-Huxley type
model neurons of arbitrary dimension.


title: Characterization of Nonlocal Resources Under Global Unitary Action

abstract:
  The task of device independent secure key distribution requires preparation
and subsequently distribution of nonlocal resources. For secured practical
implementation, one needs to take two initially uncorrelated quantum systems
and perform a unitary on the composite system to generate the nonlocal
resource, which is supposed to violate a Bell inequality (say, Bell-CHSH).
States which do not violate Bell-CHSH inequality, but violate it when
transformed by a global unitary, can be deemed useful for the preparation of
nonlocal resource. One may then start from a state which is Bell-CHSH local
(take for example, a pure product state) and apply an appropriate global
unitary on it which results in a Bell-CHSH non-local state. However, an
intriguing fact is the existence of useless states from which no Bell-CHSH
non-local resource can be generated with a global unitary. This is due to the
purity preserving nature of unitary operators which bound the amount of
correlation in the set of final states depending on the purity of the initial
(possibly uncorrelated) states. The present work confirms the existence of such
a set, pertaining to two qubit systems. The set exhibits counter intuitive
features by containing within it some entangled states which remain Bell-CHSH
local on the action of any unitary. From practical perspective, this work draws
a line between useful and useless states for the task of preparing nonlocal
resource using global unitary transformations. Furthermore through an analytic
characterization of the set we lay down a generic prescription through which
one can operationally identify the useful states. It has also been shown that
our prescription remains valid for any linear Bell inequality.


title:
Charge-dependent directed flow in Cu+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$
  = 200 GeV

abstract:
  We present the first measurement of charge-dependent directed flow in Cu+Au
collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV. The results are presented as a
function of the particle transverse momentum and pseudorapidity for different
centralities. A finite difference between the directed flow of positive and
negative charged particles is observed that qualitatively agrees with the
expectations from the effects of the initial strong electric field between two
colliding ions with different nuclear charges. The measured difference in
directed flow is much smaller than that obtained from the
parton-hadron-string-dynamics (PHSD) model, which suggests that most of the
electric charges, i.e. quarks and antiquarks, have not yet been created during
the lifetime of the strong electric field, which is of the order of, or less
than, 1fm/$c$.


title:
Ultra-strong nonlinear optical processes and trigonal warping in MoS$_2$
  layers

abstract:
  We report ultra-strong high-order nonlinear multiphoton processes in
monolayer MoS$_2$ (1L-MoS$_2$): the third harmonic is thirty times stronger
than the second harmonic, and the fourth harmonic is comparable to the second
harmonic. We find that second and third harmonic processes are strongly
dependent on elliptical polarization, which can be used to selectively tune
harmonic generation with different orders. We explain this by calculating the
nonlinear response functions of 1L-MoS$_2$ with a continuum-model Hamiltonian
and quantum-mechanical diagrammatic perturbation theory, highlighting the
crucial role of trigonal warping. A similar effect is expected for all other
transition-metal dichalcogenides. Our results pave the way for efficient and
tunable harmonic generation based on layered materials for various
applications, including microscopy and imaging


title: Polymer as a function of monomer: Analytical quantum modeling

abstract:
  To identify an analytical relation between the properties of polymers and
their's monomer a Metal-Molecule-Metal (MMM) junction has been presented as an
interesting and widely used object of research in which the molecule is a
polymer which is able to conduct charge. The method used in this study is based
on the Green's function approach in the tight-binding approximation using basic
properties of matrices. For a polymer base MMM system, transmission, density of
states (DOS) and local density of states (LDOS) have been calculated as a
function of the hamiltonian of the monomer. After that, we have obtained a
frequency for LDOS variations in pass from a subunit to the next one which is a
function of energy.

categories: cond-mat.mes-hall physics.atm-clus physics.chem-ph physics.comp-ph


title:
Supervisor Synthesis to Thwart Cyber Attack with Bounded Sensor Reading
  Alterations

abstract:
  One of the major challenges about cyber physical systems is how to prevent
cyber attacks to ensure system integrity. There has been a large number of
different types of attacks discussed in the modern control and computer science
communities. In this paper we aim to investigate one special type of attacks in
the discrete-event system framework, where an attacker can arbitrarily alter
sensor readings after intercepting them from a target system in order to trick
a given supervisor to issue control commands improperly, driving the system to
an undesirable state. We first consider the cyber attack problem from an
attacker point of view, and formulate an attack with bounded sensor reading
alterations (ABSRA) problem. We then show that the supremal (or least
restrictive) ABSRA exists and can be synthesized, as long as the plant model
and the supervisor model are regular, i.e., representable by finite-state
automata. Upon the synthesis of the supremal ABSRA, we present a synthesis
algorithm, which ensures that a computed supervisor will be ABSRA-robust ,
i.e., either an ABSRA will be detectable or will not lead the system to an
undesirable state.


title: What Information Really Matters in Supervisor Reduction?

abstract:
  To make a supervisor comprehensible to a layman has been a long-lasting goal
in the supervisory control community. One strategy is to reduce the size of a
supervisor to generate a control equivalent version, whose size is hopefully
much smaller than the original one so that a user or control designer can
easily check whether a designed controller fulfils its objectives and
requirements. After the first journal paper on this topic appeared in 1986 by
Vaz and Wonham, which relied on the concept of control covers, in 2004 Su and
Wonham proposed to use control congruences to ensure computational viability.
This work is later adopted in the supervisor localization theory, which aims
for a control equivalent distributed implementation of a given centralized
supervisor. But after so many publications, some fundamental questions, which
should have been addressed in the first place, have not been answered yet,
namely what information is critical to ensure control equivalence, what
information is responsible for size reduction, and whether the partial
observation really makes things different. In this paper we will address these
fundamental questions by showing that there does exist a unified supervisor
reduction theory, which is applicable to all feasible supervisors regardless of
whether they are under full observation or partial observation. Our theory
provides a partial order over all control equivalent feasible supervisors based
on their enabling, disabling and marking information, which can be used to
categorize the corresponding reduction rates. Based on this result we can see
that, given two control equivalent feasible supervisors, the one under full
observation can always result in a reduced supervisor no bigger than that
induced by a supervisor under partial observation.


title: Machine Learning with Memristors via Thermodynamic RAM

abstract:
  Thermodynamic RAM (kT-RAM) is a neuromemristive co-processor design based on
the theory of AHaH Computing and implemented via CMOS and memristors. The
co-processor is a 2-D array of differential memristor pairs (synapses) that can
be selectively coupled together (neurons) via the digital bit addressing of the
underlying CMOS RAM circuitry. The chip is designed to plug into existing
digital computers and be interacted with via a simple instruction set.
Anti-Hebbian and Hebbian (AHaH) computing forms the theoretical framework from
which a nature-inspired type of computing architecture is built where, unlike
von Neumann architectures, memory and processor are physically combined for
synaptic operations. Through exploitation of AHaH attractor states,
memristor-based circuits converge to attractor basins that represents machine
learning solutions such as unsupervised feature learning, supervised
classification and anomaly detection. Because kT-RAM eliminates the need to
shuttle bits back and forth between memory and processor and can operate at
very low voltage levels, it can significantly surpass CPU, GPU, and FPGA
performance for synaptic integration and learning operations. Here, we present
a memristor technology developed for use in kT-RAM, in particular
bi-directional incremental adaptation of conductance via short low-voltage 1.0
V, 1.0 microsecond pulses.


title: The high type quadratic Siegel disks are Jordan domains

abstract:
  Let $\alpha$ be an irrational number of sufficiently high type and suppose
$P_\alpha(z)=e^{2\pi i\alpha}z+z^2$ has a Siegel disk $\Delta_\alpha$ centered
at the origin. We prove that the boundary of $\Delta_\alpha$ is a Jordan curve,
and that it contains the critical point $-e^{2\pi i\alpha}/2$ if and only if
$\alpha$ is a Herman number.


title: Crossover behavior in the distance dependence of hydrophobic force law

abstract:
  Understanding about both the range and the strength of the effective force
between two hydrophobic surfaces suspended in water is important in many areas
of natural science but unfortunately has remained imperfect. Even the
experimental observations have not been explained quantitatively. Here we find
by varying distance (d) between two hydrophobic walls in computer simulations
of water that the force exhibits a bi-exponential distance dependence. The long
range part of the force can be fitted to an exponential force law with
correlation length of 2 nm while the short range part displays a correlation
length of only 0.5 nm. The crossover from shorter range to longer range force
law is rather sharp. We show that the distance dependence of the tetrahedrality
order parameter provides a reliable marker of the force law, and exhibits
similar distance dependence.


title:
Engineering and localization of quantum emitters in large hexagonal
  boron nitride layers

abstract:
  Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a wide bandgap van der Waals material that
has recently emerged as promising platform for quantum photonics experiments.
In this work we study the formation and localization of narrowband quantum
emitters in large flakes (up to tens of microns wide) of hBN. The emitters can
be activated in as-grown hBN by electron irradiation or high temperature
annealing, and the emitter formation probability can be increased by ion
implantation or focused laser irradiation of the as-grown material.
Interestingly, we show that the emitters are always localized at edges of the
flakes, unlike most luminescent point defects in 3D materials. Our results
constitute an important step on the road map of deploying hBN in nanophotonics
applications.


title: Depth and depth-based classification with R-package ddalpha

abstract:
  Following the seminal idea of Tukey, data depth is a function that measures
how close an arbitrary point of the space is located to an implicitly defined
center of a data cloud. Having undergone theoretical and computational
developments, it is now employed in numerous applications with classification
being the most popular one. The R-package ddalpha is a software directed to
fuse experience of the applicant with recent achievements in the area of data
depth and depth-based classification.
  ddalpha provides an implementation for exact and approximate computation of
most reasonable and widely applied notions of data depth. These can be further
used in the depth-based multivariate and functional classifiers implemented in
the package, where the $DD\alpha$-procedure is in the main focus. The package
is expandable with user-defined custom depth methods and separators. The
implemented functions for depth visualization and the built-in benchmark
procedures may also serve to provide insights into the geometry of the data and
the quality of pattern recognition.


title:
Design and modeling of a moderate-resolution astronomic spectrograph
  with volume-phase holographic gratings

abstract:
  We present an optical design of astronomic spectrograph based on a cascade of
volume-phase holographic gratings. The cascade consists of three gratings. Each
of them provides moderately high spectral resolution in a narrow range of 83
nm. Thus the spectrum image represents three lines covering region 430-680 nm.
Two versions of the scheme are described: a full-scale one with estimated
resolving power of 5300-7900 and a small-sized one intended for creation of a
lab prototype, which provides the resolving power of 1500-3000. Diffraction
efficiency modeling confirms that the system throughput can reach 75 %, while
stray light caused by the gratings crosstalk is negligible. We also propose a
design of image slicer and focal reducer allowing to couple the instrument with
the 6-m telescope. Finally, we present concept of the opto-mechanical design.


title: Ergodic recurrence and bounded gaps between primes

abstract:
  Let $(X,B_X,\mu,T)$ be a measure-preserving probability system with $T$ is
invertible. Suppose that $A\in B_X$ with $\mu(A)>0$ and $\epsilon>0$. For any
$m\geq 1$, there exist infinitely many primes $p_0,p_1,\ldots,p_m$ with
$p_0<\cdots<p_m$ such that $$ \mu(A\cap T^{-(p_i-1)}A)\geq \mu(A)^2-\epsilon $$
for each $0\leq i\leq m$ and $$ p_m-p_0<C_m, $$ where $C_m>0$ is a constant
only depending on $m$, $A$ and $\epsilon$.


title:
Optimal Polynomial-Time Estimators: A Bayesian Notion of Approximation
  Algorithm

abstract:
  We introduce a new concept of approximation applicable to decision problems
and functions, inspired by Bayesian probability. From the perspective of a
Bayesian reasoner with limited computational resources, the answer to a problem
that cannot be solved exactly is uncertain and therefore should be described by
a random variable. It thus should make sense to talk about the expected value
of this random variable, an idea we formalize in the language of average-case
complexity theory by introducing the concept of "optimal polynomial-time
estimators." We prove some existence theorems and completeness results, and
show that optimal polynomial-time estimators exhibit many parallels with
"classical" probability theory.


title:
Random Fractal Ansatz for the configurations of Two-Dimensional Critical
  Systems

abstract:
  Critical systems have always intrigued physicists and precipitated the
development of new techniques. Recently, there has been renewed interest in the
information contained in their classical configurations, whose computation do
not require full knowledge of the wavefunction. Inspired by holographic
duality, we investigated the entanglement properties of the classical
configurations (snapshots) of the Potts model by introducing an ansatz ensemble
of random fractal images. By virtue of the central limit theorem, our ansatz
accurately reproduces the entanglement spectra of actual Potts snapshots
without any fine-tuning of parameters or artificial restrictions on ensemble
choice. It provides a microscopic interpretation of the results of previous
studies, which established a relation between the scaling behavior of snapshot
entropy and the critical exponent. More importantly, it elucidates the role of
ensemble disorder in restoring conformal invariance, an aspect previously
ignored. Away from criticality, the breakdown of scale invariance leads to a
renormalization of the parameter $\Sigma$ in the random fractal ansatz, whose
variation can be used as an alternative determination of the critical exponent.
We conclude by providing a recipe for the explicit construction of fractal unit
cells consistent with a given scaling exponent.


title: Approximation by polynomials in Sobolev spaces with Jacobi weight

abstract:
  Polynomial approximation is studied in the Sobolev space
$W_p^r(w_{\alpha,\beta})$ that consists of functions whose $r$-th derivatives
are in weighted $L^p$ space with the Jacobi weight function $w_{\alpha,\beta}$.
This requires simultaneous approximation of a function and its consecutive
derivatives up to $s$-th order with $s \le r$. We provide sharp error estimates
given in terms of $E_n(f^{(r)})_{L^p(w_{\alpha,\beta})}$, the error of best
approximation to $f^{(r)}$ by polynomials in $L^p(w_{\alpha,\beta})$, and an
explicit construction of the polynomials that approximate simultaneously with
the sharp error estimates.


title:
Security and Performance Comparison of Different Secure Channel
  Protocols for Avionics Wireless Networks

abstract:
  The notion of Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) refers to inter-connected
pieces of avionics equipment supported by a wired technology, with stringent
reliability and safety requirements. If the inter-connecting wires are
physically secured so that a malicious user cannot access them directly, then
this enforces (at least partially) the security of the network. However,
substituting the wired network with a wireless network - which in this context
is referred to as an Avionics Wireless Network (AWN) - brings a number of new
challenges related to assurance, reliability, and security. The AWN thus has to
ensure that it provides at least the required security and safety levels
offered by the equivalent wired network. Providing a wired-equivalent security
for a communication channel requires the setting up of a strong, secure
(encrypted) channel between the entities that are connected to the AWN. In this
paper, we propose three approaches to establish such a secure channel based on
(i) pre-shared keys, (ii) trusted key distribution, and (iii) key-sharing
protocols. For each of these approaches, we present two representative protocol
variants. These protocols are then implemented as part of a demo AWN and they
are then compared based on performance measurements. Most importantly, we have
evaluated these protocols based on security and operational requirements that
we define in this paper for an AWN.


title:
An Efficient, Secure and Trusted Channel Protocol for Avionics Wireless
  Networks

abstract:
  Avionics networks rely on a set of stringent reliability and safety
requirements. In existing deployments, these networks are based on a wired
technology, which supports these requirements. Furthermore, this technology
simplifies the security management of the network since certain assumptions can
be safely made, including the inability of an attacker to access the network,
and the fact that it is almost impossible for an attacker to introduce a node
into the network. The proposal for Avionics Wireless Networks (AWNs), currently
under development by multiple aerospace working groups, promises a reduction in
the complexity of electrical wiring harness design and fabrication, a reduction
in the total weight of wires, increased customization possibilities, and the
capacity to monitor otherwise inaccessible moving or rotating aircraft parts
such as landing gear and some sections of the aircraft engines. While providing
these benefits, the AWN must ensure that it provides levels of safety that are
at minimum equivalent to those offered by the wired equivalent. In this paper,
we propose a secure and trusted channel protocol that satisfies the stated
security and operational requirements for an AWN protocol. There are three main
objectives for this protocol. First, the protocol has to provide the assurance
that all communicating entities can trust each other, and can trust their
internal (secure) software and hardware states. Second, the protocol has to
establish a fair key exchange between all communicating entities so as to
provide a secure channel. Finally, the third objective is to be efficient for
both the initial start-up of the network and when resuming a session after a
cold and/or warm restart of a node. The proposed protocol is implemented and
performance measurements are presented based on this implementation. In
addition, we formally verify our proposed protocol using CasperFDR.


title: The Importance of Skip Connections in Biomedical Image Segmentation

abstract:
  In this paper, we study the influence of both long and short skip connections
on Fully Convolutional Networks (FCN) for biomedical image segmentation. In
standard FCNs, only long skip connections are used to skip features from the
contracting path to the expanding path in order to recover spatial information
lost during downsampling. We extend FCNs by adding short skip connections, that
are similar to the ones introduced in residual networks, in order to build very
deep FCNs (of hundreds of layers). A review of the gradient flow confirms that
for a very deep FCN it is beneficial to have both long and short skip
connections. Finally, we show that a very deep FCN can achieve
near-to-state-of-the-art results on the EM dataset without any further
post-processing.


title:
Multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann model for convection heat
  transfer in porous media under local thermal non-equilibrium condition

abstract:
  In this paper, a multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann (LB) model
is proposed for convection heat transfer in porous media under local thermal
non-equilibrium (LTNE) condition. The model is constructed within the framework
of the three-distribution-function approach: two temperature-based MRT-LB
equations are proposed for the temperature fields of fluid and solid phases in
addition to the MRT-LB equation of a density distribution function for the
velocity field described by the generalized non-Darcy model. The thermal
non-equilibrium effects are incorporated into the model by adding source terms
into the temperature-based MRT-LB equations. Moreover, the discrete lattice
effects are considered in the introduction of source terms into the
temperature-based MRT-LB equations. The source terms accounting for the thermal
non-equilibrium effects are simple and the model retains the inherent features
of the standard LB method. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed
model can be served as an accurate and efficient numerical method for studying
convection heat transfer in porous media under LTNE condition.


title: Examples of subfactors from conformal field theory

abstract:
  Conformal field theory (CFT) in two dimensions provide a rich source of
subfactors. The fact that there are so many subfactors coming from CFT have led
people to conjecture that perhaps all finite depth subfactors are related to
CFT. In this paper we examine classes of subfactors from known CFT. In
particular we identify the so called $3^{\Z_2\times \Z_2}$ subfactor with an
intermediate subfactor from conformal inclusion, and construct new subfactors
from recent work on holomorphic CFT with central charge $24$.


title: Yule's "Nonsense Correlation" Solved!

abstract:
  In this paper, we resolve a longstanding open statistical problem. The
problem is to mathematically confirm Yule's 1926 empirical finding of "nonsense
correlation" (\cite{Yule}). We do so by analytically determining the second
moment of the empirical correlation coefficient
  \beqn \theta := \frac{\int_0^1W_1(t)W_2(t) dt - \int_0^1W_1(t) dt \int_0^1
W_2(t) dt}{\sqrt{\int_0^1 W^2_1(t) dt - \parens{\int_0^1W_1(t) dt}^2}
\sqrt{\int_0^1 W^2_2(t) dt - \parens{\int_0^1W_2(t) dt}^2}}, \eeqn of two {\em
independent} Wiener processes, $W_1,W_2$. Using tools from Fred- holm integral
equation theory, we successfully calculate the second moment of $\theta$ to
obtain a value for the standard deviation of $\theta$ of nearly .5. The
"nonsense" correlation, which we call "volatile" correlation, is volatile in
the sense that its distribution is heavily dispersed and is frequently large in
absolute value. It is induced because each Wiener process is "self-correlated"
in time. This is because a Wiener process is an integral of pure noise and thus
its values at different time points are correlated. In addition to providing an
explicit formula for the second moment of $\theta$, we offer implicit formulas
for higher moments of $\theta$.


title: Convex geometry and waist inequalities

abstract:
  This paper presents connections between Gromov's work on isoperimetry of
waists and Milman's work on the $M$-ellipsoid of a convex body. It is proven
that any convex body $K \subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$ has a linear image $\tilde{K}
\subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$ of volume one satisfying the following waist
inequality: Any continuous map $f:\tilde{K} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{\ell}$ has
a fiber $f^{-1}(t)$ whose $(n-\ell)$-dimensional volume is at least
$c^{n-\ell}$, where $c > 0$ is a universal constant. In the specific case where
$K = [0,1]^n$ it is shown that one may take $\tilde{K} = K$ and $c = 1$,
confirming a conjecture by Guth. We furthermore exhibit relations between waist
inequalities and various geometric characteristics of the convex body $K$.


title: The Sard conjecture on Martinet surfaces

abstract:
  Given a totally nonholonomic distribution of rank two on a three-dimensional
manifold we investigate the size of the set of points that can be reached by
singular horizontal paths starting from a same point. In this setting, the Sard
conjecture states that that set should be a subset of the so-called Martinet
surface of 2-dimensional Hausdorff measure zero. We prove that the conjecture
holds in the case where the Martinet surface is smooth. Moreover, we address
the case of singular real-analytic Martinet surfaces and show that the result
holds true under an assumption of non-transversality of the distribution on the
singular set of the Martinet surface. Our methods rely on the control of the
divergence of vector fields generating the trace of the distribution on the
Martinet surface and some techniques of resolution of singularities.


title:
The Spectral Condition Number Plot for Regularization Parameter
  Determination

abstract:
  Many modern statistical applications ask for the estimation of a covariance
(or precision) matrix in settings where the number of variables is larger than
the number of observations. There exists a broad class of ridge-type estimators
that employs regularization to cope with the subsequent singularity of the
sample covariance matrix. These estimators depend on a penalty parameter and
choosing its value can be hard, in terms of being computationally unfeasible or
tenable only for a restricted set of ridge-type estimators. Here we introduce a
simple graphical tool, the spectral condition number plot, for informed
heuristic penalty parameter selection. The proposed tool is computationally
friendly and can be employed for the full class of ridge-type covariance
(precision) estimators.


title:
Lepton-flavour violation in a Pati-Salam model with gauged flavour
  symmetry

abstract:
  Combining Pati-Salam (PS) and flavour symmetries in a renormalisable setup,
we devise a scenario which produces realistic masses for the charged leptons.
Flavour-symmetry breaking scalar fields in the adjoint representations of the
PS gauge group are responsible for generating different flavour structures for
up- and down-type quarks as well as for leptons. The model is characterised by
new heavy fermions which mix with the Standard Model quarks and leptons. In
particular, the partners for the third fermion generation induce sizeable
sources of flavour violation. Focusing on the charged-lepton sector, we
scrutinise the model with respect to its implications for lepton-flavour
violating processes such as $\mu \rightarrow e\gamma$, $\mu\rightarrow 3e$ and
muon conversion in nuclei.


title: An Analogue of the Erd\H{o}s-Ginzburg-Ziv Theorem over $\mathbb Z$

abstract:
  Let $\mathcal S$ be a multiset of integers. We say $\mathcal S$ is a
$\textit{zero-sum sequence}$ if the sum of its elements is 0. We study zero-sum
sequences whose elements lie in the interval $[-k,k]$ such that no subsequence
of length $t$ is also zero-sum. Given these restrictions, Augspurger, Minter,
Shoukry, Sissokho, Voss show that there are arbitrarily long $t$-avoiding,
$k$-bounded zero-sum sequences unless $t$ is divisible by
$\mathrm{LCM}(2,3,4,\dots,2k-1)$. We confirm a conjecture of these authors that
for $k$ and $t$ such that this divisibility condition holds, every zero-sum
sequence of length at least $t+k^2-k$ contains a zero-sum subsequence of length
$t$, and that this is the minimal length for which this property holds.


title: Log-concavity of rows of Pascal type triangles

abstract:
  Menon's proof of the preservation of log-concavity of sequences under
convolution becomes simpler when adapted to 2-sided infinite sequences. Under
assumption of log-concavity of two 2-sided infinite sequences, the existence of
the convolution is characterised by a convergence criterion. Preservation of
log-concavity under convolution yields a method of establishing the
log-concavity of rows of a large class of Pascal type triangles, including a
weighted generalization of the Delannoy triangle. This method is also compared
with known techniques of proving log-concavity.


title: Generalizations of Fourier analysis, and how to apply them

abstract:
  This is a survey of the use of Fourier analysis in additive combinatorics,
with a particular focus on situations where it cannot be straightforwardly
applied, but needs to be generalized first. Sometimes very satisfactory
generalizations exist, while sometimes we have to make do with theories that
have some of the desirable properties of Fourier analysis but not all of them.
In the latter case, there are intriguing hints that there may be more
satisfactory theories yet to be discovered. This article grew out of the
Colloquium Lectures at the Joint Meeting of the AMS and the MAA, given in
Seattle in January 2016.


title:
Persistence of Physics and Engineering Students via Peer Mentoring,
  Active Learning, and Intentional Advising

abstract:
  We have developed and implemented a low-cost peer-mentoring program that
blends personal and academic support to help students achieve academic success
in the introductory courses required for the Physics Major or the Dual-Degree
Program in Engineering. As a result of this program, retention has increased
among entering science, technology, engineering and mathematics students at
Albion College as they move through the introductory classes, as shown by a 20
per cent increase in retention from first-semester to third-semester physics
courses compared to years when this program was not in place.