title:
Asynchronous Stochastic Proximal Optimization Algorithms with Variance
  Reduction

abstract:
  Regularized empirical risk minimization (R-ERM) is an important branch of
machine learning, since it constrains the capacity of the hypothesis space and
guarantees the generalization ability of the learning algorithm. Two classic
proximal optimization algorithms, i.e., proximal stochastic gradient descent
(ProxSGD) and proximal stochastic coordinate descent (ProxSCD) have been widely
used to solve the R-ERM problem. Recently, variance reduction technique was
proposed to improve ProxSGD and ProxSCD, and the corresponding ProxSVRG and
ProxSVRCD have better convergence rate. These proximal algorithms with variance
reduction technique have also achieved great success in applications at small
and moderate scales. However, in order to solve large-scale R-ERM problems and
make more practical impacts, the parallel version of these algorithms are
sorely needed. In this paper, we propose asynchronous ProxSVRG (Async-ProxSVRG)
and asynchronous ProxSVRCD (Async-ProxSVRCD) algorithms, and prove that
Async-ProxSVRG can achieve near linear speedup when the training data is
sparse, while Async-ProxSVRCD can achieve near linear speedup regardless of the
sparse condition, as long as the number of block partitions are appropriately
set. We have conducted experiments on a regularized logistic regression task.
The results verified our theoretical findings and demonstrated the practical
efficiency of the asynchronous stochastic proximal algorithms with variance
reduction.


title: Non-flat Ground Detection Based on A Local Descriptor

abstract:
  The detection of road and free space remains challenging for non-flat plane,
especially with the varying latitudinal and longitudinal slope or in the case
of multi-ground plane. In this paper, we propose a framework of the ground
plane detection with stereo vision. The main contribution of this paper is a
newly proposed descriptor which is implemented in the disparity image to obtain
a disparity texture image. The ground plane regions can be distinguished from
their surroundings effectively in the disparity texture image. Because the
descriptor is implemented in the local area of the image, it can address well
the problem of non-flat plane. And we also present a complete framework to
detect the ground plane regions base on the disparity texture image with
convolutional neural network architecture.


title:
Enhancing Big Data in the Social Sciences with Crowdsourcing: Data
  Augmentation Practices, Techniques, and Opportunities

abstract:
  The importance of big data is a contested topic among social scientists.
Proponents claim it will fuel a research revolution, but skeptics challenge it
as unreliably measured and decontextualized, with limited utility for
accurately answering social science research questions. We argue that social
scientists need effective tools to quantify big data's measurement error and
expand the contextual information associated with it. Standard research efforts
in many fields already pursue these goals through data augmentation, the
systematic assessment of measurement against known quantities and expansion of
extant data by adding new information. Traditionally, these tasks are
accomplished using trained research assistants or specialized algorithms.
However, such approaches may not be scalable to big data or appease its
skeptics. We consider a third alternative that may increase the validity and
value of big data: data augmentation with online crowdsourcing. We present
three empirical cases to illustrate the strengths and limits of crowdsourcing
for academic research, with a particular eye to how they can be applied to data
augmentation tasks that will accelerate acceptance of big data among social
scientists. The cases use Amazon Mechanical Turk to 1. verify automated coding
of the academic discipline of dissertation committee members, 2. link online
product pages to a book database, and 3. gather data on mental health resources
at colleges. In light of these cases, we consider the costs and benefits of
augmenting big data with crowdsourcing marketplaces and provide guidelines on
best practices. We also offer a standardized reporting template that will
enhance reproducibility.


title: Flows Generating Nonlinear Eigenfunctions

abstract:
  Nonlinear variational methods have become very powerful tools for many image
processing tasks. Recently a new line of research has emerged, dealing with
nonlinear eigenfunctions induced by convex functionals. This has provided new
insights and better theoretical understanding of convex regularization and
introduced new processing methods. However, the theory of nonlinear eigenvalue
problems is still at its infancy. We present a new flow that can generate
nonlinear eigenfunctions of the form $T(u)=\lambda u$, where $T(u)$ is a
nonlinear operator and $\lambda \in \mathbb{R} $ is the eigenvalue. We develop
the theory where $T(u)$ is a subgradient element of a regularizing
one-homogeneous functional, such as total-variation (TV) or
total-generalized-variation (TGV). We introduce two flows: a forward flow and
an inverse flow; for which the steady state solution is a nonlinear
eigenfunction. The forward flow monotonically smooths the solution (with
respect to the regularizer) and simultaneously increases the $L^2$ norm. The
inverse flow has the opposite characteristics. For both flows, the steady state
depends on the initial condition, thus different initial conditions yield
different eigenfunctions. This enables a deeper investigation into the space of
nonlinear eigenfunctions, allowing to produce numerically diverse examples,
which may be unknown yet. In addition we suggest an indicator to measure the
affinity of a function to an eigenfunction and relate it to
pseudo-eigenfunctions in the linear case.


title:
Model-based Test Generation for Robotic Software: Automata versus
  Belief-Desire-Intention Agents

abstract:
  Robotic code needs to be verified to ensure its safety and functional
correctness, especially when the robot is interacting with people. Testing real
code in simulation is a viable option. However, generating tests that cover
rare scenarios, as well as exercising most of the code, is a challenge
amplified by the complexity of the interactions between the environment and the
software. Model-based test generation methods can automate otherwise manual
processes and facilitate reaching rare scenarios during testing. In this paper,
we compare using Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agents as models for test
generation with more conventional automata-based techniques that exploit model
checking, in terms of practicality, performance, transferability to different
scenarios, and exploration (`coverage'), through two case studies: a
cooperative manufacturing task, and a home care scenario. The results highlight
the advantages of using BDI agents for test generation. BDI agents naturally
emulate the agency present in Human-Robot Interactions (HRIs), and are thus
more expressive than automata. The performance of the BDI-based test generation
is at least as high, and the achieved coverage is higher or equivalent,
compared to test generation based on model checking automata.


title: Affine $G_2$ Centralizer Algebras

abstract:
  We show that ${\rm End}_{\bf U}(V_\lambda\otimes V^{\otimes n})$ is generated
by the affine braid group $AB_n$ where ${\bf U}=U_q\mathfrak g(G_2)$, $V$ is
its 7-dimensional irreducible representation and $V_\lambda$ is an arbitrary
irreducible representation.


title: Weakly Supervised PLDA Training

abstract:
  PLDA is a popular normalization approach for the i-vector model, and it has
delivered state-of-the-art performance in speaker verification. However, PLDA
training requires a large amount of labelled development data, which is highly
expensive in most cases. We present a cheap PLDA training approach, which
assumes that speakers in the same session can be easily separated, and speakers
in different sessions are simply different. This results in `weak labels' which
are not fully accurate but cheap, leading to a weak PLDA training.
  Our experimental results on real-life large-scale telephony customer service
achieves demonstrated that the weak training can offer good performance when
human-labelled data are limited. More interestingly, the weak training can be
employed as a discriminative adaptation approach, which is more efficient than
the prevailing unsupervised method when human-labelled data are insufficient.


title: Collaborative Learning for Language and Speaker Recognition

abstract:
  This paper presents a unified model to perform language and speaker
recognition simultaneously and altogether. The model is based on a multi-task
recurrent neural network where the output of one task is fed as the input of
the other, leading to a collaborative learning framework that can improve both
language and speaker recognition by borrowing information from each other. Our
experiments demonstrated that the multi-task model outperforms the
task-specific models on both tasks.


title: Classification of $Q$-multiplicity-free skew Schur $Q$-functions

abstract:
  We classify the $Q$-multiplicity-free skew Schur $Q$-functions. Towards this
result, we also provide new relations between the shifted Littlewood-Richardson
coefficients.


title: Radio lighting based on dynamic chaos generators

abstract:
  A problem of lighting objects and surfaces with artificial sources of
noncoherent microwave radiation with the aim to observe them using radiometric
equipment is considered. Transmitters based on dynamic chaos generators are
used as sources of noncoherent wideband microwave radiation. An experimental
sample of such a device, i.e., a radio lighting lamp based on a chaos
microgenerator and its performance are presented.


title:
AP16-OL7: A Multilingual Database for Oriental Languages and A Language
  Recognition Baseline

abstract:
  We present the AP16-OL7 database which was released as the training and test
data for the oriental language recognition (OLR) challenge on APSIPA 2016.
Based on the database, a baseline system was constructed on the basis of the
i-vector model. We report the baseline results evaluated in various metrics
defined by the AP16-OLR evaluation plan and demonstrate that AP16-OL7 is a
reasonable data resource for multilingual research.


title: Online Informative Path Planning for Active Classification Using UAVs

abstract:
  In this paper, we introduce an informative path planning (IPP) framework for
active classification using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Our algorithm uses
a combination of global viewpoint selection and evolutionary optimization to
refine the planned trajectory in continuous 3D space while satisfying dynamic
constraints. Our approach is evaluated on the application of weed detection for
precision agriculture. We model the presence of weeds on farmland using an
occupancy grid and generate adaptive plans according to information-theoretic
objectives, enabling the UAV to gather data efficiently. We validate our
approach in simulation by comparing against existing methods, and study the
effects of different planning strategies. Our results show that the proposed
algorithm builds maps with over 50% lower entropy compared to traditional
"lawnmower" coverage in the same amount of time. We demonstrate the planning
scheme on a multirotor platform with different artificial farmland set-ups.


title:
Spectral Gap for the Stochastic Quantization Equation on the
  2-dimensional Torus

abstract:
  We study the long time behavior of the stochastic quantization equation.
Extending recent results by Mourrat and Weber we first establish a strong
non-linear dissipative bound that gives control of moments of solutions at all
positive times independent of the initial datum. We then establish that
solutions give rise to a Markov process whose transition semigroup satisfies
the strong Feller property. Following arguments by Chouk and Friz we also prove
a support theorem for the laws of the solutions. Finally all of these results
are combined to show that the transition semigroup satisfies the Doeblin
criterion which implies exponential convergence to equilibrium.
  Along the way we give a simple direct proof of the Markov property of
solutions and an independent argument for the existence of an invariant measure
using the Krylov-Bogoliubov existence theorem. Our method makes no use of the
reversibility of the dynamics or the explicit knowledge of the invariant
measure and it is therefore in principle applicable to situations where these
are not available, e.g. the vector-valued case.


title: Axiomatic, Parameterized, Off-Shell Quantum Field Theory

abstract:
  Axiomatic quantum field theory (QFT) provides a rigorous mathematical
foundation for QFT, and it is the basis for proving some important general
results, such as the well-known spin-statistics theorem. Free-field QFT meets
the axioms of axiomatic QFT, showing they are consistent. Nevertheless, even
after more than 50 years, there is still no known non-trivial theory of quantum
fields with interactions in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime that meets the
same axioms.
  This paper provides a similar axiomatic basis for parameterized QFT, in which
an invariant, fifth path parameter is added to the usual four spacetime
position arguments of quantum fields. Dynamic evolution is in terms of the path
parameter rather than the frame-dependent time coordinate. Further, the states
of the theory are allowed to be off shell. Particles are therefore
fundamentally "virtual" during interaction but, in the appropriate
non-interacting, large-time limit, they dynamically tend towards "physical",
on-shell states.
  Unlike traditional QFT, it is possible to define a mathematically consistent
interaction picture in parameterized QFT. This may be used to construct
interacting fields that meet the same axioms as the corresponding free fields.
One can then re-derive the Dyson series for scattering amplitudes, but without
the mathematical inconsistency of traditional, perturbative QFT. The present
work is limited to the case of scalar fields, and it does not address remaining
issues of gauge symmetry and renormalization. Nevertheless, it still
demonstrates that the parameterized formalism can provide a consistent
foundation for the interpretation of QFT as used in practice and, perhaps, for
better dealing with its further mathematical issues.


title: Photometric Variability of the Be Star Population

abstract:
  Be stars have generally been characterized by the emission lines in their
spectra, and especially the time variability of those spectroscopic features.
They are known to also exhibit photometric variability at multiple timescales,
but have not been broadly compared and analyzed by that behavior. We have taken
advantage of the advent of wide-field, long-baseline, and high-cadence
photometric surveys that search for transiting exoplanets to perform a
comprehensive analysis of brightness variations among a large number of known
Be stars. The photometric data comes from the KELT transit survey, with a
typical cadence of 30 minutes, baseline of up to ten years, photometric
precision of about 1%, and coverage of about 60% of the sky. We analyze KELT
light curves of 610 known Be stars in both the Northern and Southern
hemispheres in an effort to study their variability. Consistent with other
studies of Be star variability, we find most of the stars to be photometrically
variable. We derive lower limits on the fraction of stars in our sample that
exhibit features consistent with non-radial pulsations (25%), outbursts (36%),
and long term trends in the circumstellar disk (37%), and show how these are
correlated with spectral sub-type. Other types of variability, such as those
owing to binarity, are also explored. Simultaneous spectroscopy for some of
these systems from the Be Star Spectral Database (BeSS) allow us to better
understand the physical causes for the observed variability, especially in
cases of outbursts and changes in the disk.


title: Stochastic epidemic dynamics on extremely heterogeneous networks

abstract:
  Networks of contacts capable of spreading infectious diseases are often
observed to be highly heterogeneous, with the majority of individuals having
fewer contacts than the mean, and a significant minority having relatively very
many contacts. We derive a two-dimensional diffusion model for the full
temporal behavior of the stochastic susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR)
model on such a network, by making use of a time-scale separation in the
deterministic limit of the dynamics. This low-dimensional process is an
accurate approximation to the full model in the limit of large populations,
even for cases when the time-scale separation is not too pronounced, provided
the maximum degree is not of the order of the population size.


title:
Momentum of superconducting electrons and the explanation of the
  Meissner effect

abstract:
  Momentum and energy conservation are fundamental tenets of physics, that
valid physical theories have to satisfy. In the reversible transformation
between superconducting and normal phases in the presence of a magnetic field,
the mechanical momentum of the supercurrent has to be transferred to the body
as a whole and vice versa, the kinetic energy of the supercurrent stays in the
electronic degrees of freedom, and no energy is dissipated nor entropy is
generated in the process. We argue on general grounds that to explain these
processes it is necessary that the electromagnetic field mediates the transfer
of momentum between electrons and the body as a whole, and this requires that
when the phase boundary between normal and superconducting phases is displaced,
a flow and counterflow of charge occurs in direction perpendicular to the phase
boundary. This flow and counterflow does not occur according to the
conventional BCS-London theory of superconductivity, therefore we argue that
within BCS-London theory the Meissner transition is a `forbidden transition'.
Furthermore, to explain the phase transformation in a way that is consistent
with the experimental observations requires that (i) the wavefunction $and$
charge distribution of superconducting electrons near the phase boundary extend
into the normal phase, and (ii) that the charge carriers in the normal state
have hole-like character. The conventional theory of superconductivity does not
have these physical elements, the theory of hole superconductivity does.


title: Power structure over the Grothendieck ring of maps

abstract:
  A power structure over a ring is a method to give sense to expressions of the
form $(1+a_1t+a_2t^2+\ldots)^m$, where $a_i$, $i=1, 2,\ldots$, and $m$ are
elements of the ring. The (natural) power structure over the Grothendieck ring
of complex quasi-projective varieties appeared to be useful for a number of
applications. We discuss new examples of $\lambda$- and power structures over
some Grothendieck rings of varieties. The main example is for the Grothendieck
ring of maps of complex quasi-projective varieties. We describe two natural
$\lambda$-structures on it which lead to the same power structure. We show that
this power structure is effective. In the terms of this power structure we
write some equations containing classes of Hilbert-Chow morphisms. We describe
some generalizations of this construction for maps of varieties with some
additional structures.


title:
Generalized Weyl Conformal Curvature Tensor of a Generalized Riemannian
  Space

abstract:
  It is generalized Weyl conformal curvature tensor in the case of a conformal
mappings of a generalized Riemannian space in this paper. Moreover, it is found
universal generalizations of it without any additional assumption. A method
used in this paper may help different scientists in their researching.


title:
Position-space approach to hadronic light-by-light scattering in the
  muon $g-2$ on the lattice

abstract:
  The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon currently exhibits a discrepancy of
about three standard deviations between the experimental value and recent
Standard Model predictions. The theoretical uncertainty is dominated by the
hadronic vacuum polarization and the hadronic light-by-light (HLbL) scattering
contributions, where the latter has so far only been fully evaluated using
different models. To pave the way for a lattice calculation of HLbL, we present
an expression for the HLbL contribution to $g-2$ that involves a
multidimensional integral over a position-space QED kernel function in the
continuum and a lattice QCD four-point correlator. We describe our
semi-analytic calculation of the kernel and test the approach by evaluating the
$\pi^0$-pole contribution in the continuum.


title:
Stratified construction of neural network based interatomic models for
  multicomponent materials

abstract:
  Recent application of neural networks (NNs) to modeling interatomic
interactions has shown the learning machines' encouragingly accurate
performance for select elemental and multicomponent systems. In this study, we
explore the possibility of building a library of NN-based models by introducing
a hierarchical NN training. In such a stratified procedure NNs for
multicomponent systems are obtained by sequential training from the bottom up:
first unaries, then binaries, and so on. Advantages of constructing NN sets
with shared parameters include acceleration of the training process and intact
description of the constituent systems. We use an automated generation of
diverse structure sets for NN training on density functional theory-level
reference energies. In the test case of Cu, Pd, Ag, Cu-Pd, Cu-Ag, Pd-Ag, and
Cu-Pd-Ag systems, NNs trained in the traditional and stratified fashions are
found to have essentially identical accuracy for defect energies, phonon
dispersions, formation energies, etc. The models' robustness is further
illustrated via unconstrained evolutionary structure searches in which the NN
is used for the local optimization of crystal unit cells.


title: Control of Rayleigh-like waves in thick plate Willis metamaterials

abstract:
  We explore interactions of elastic waves propagating in plates (with soil
parameters) structured with concrete pillars buried in the soil. Pillars are 2
m in diameter, 30 m in depth and the plate is 50 m in thickness. We study the
frequency range 5 to 10 Hz, for which Rayleigh wave wavelengths are smaller
than the plate thickness. This frequency range is compatible with frequency
ranges of particular interest in earthquake engineering. It is demonstrated in
this paper that two seismic cloaks' configurations allow for an unprecedented
flow of elastodynamic energy associated with Rayleigh surface waves. The first
cloak design is inspired by some approximation of ideal cloaks' parameters
within the framework of thin plate theory. The second, more accomplished but
more involved, cloak design is deduced from a geometric transform in the full
Navier equations that preserves the symmetry of the elasticity tensor but leads
to Willis' equations, well approximated by a homogenization procedure, as
corroborated by numerical simulations. The two cloaks's designs are strikingly
different, and the superior efficiency of the second type of cloak emphasizes
the necessity for rigor in transposition of existing cloaks's designs in thin
plates to the geophysics setting. Importantly, we focus our attention on
geometric transforms applied to thick plates, which is an intermediate case
between thin plates and semi-infinite media, not studied previously. Cloaking
efficiency (reduction of the disturbance of the wave wavefront and its
amplitude behind an obstacle) and protection (reduction of the wave amplitude
within the center of the cloak) are studied for ideal and approximated cloaks'
parameters. These results represent a preliminary step towards designs of
seismic cloaks for surface Rayleigh waves propagating in sedimentary soils
structured with concrete pillars.


title: Universal growth scheme for entanglement-ready quantum dots

abstract:
  Efficient sources of individual pairs of entangled photons are required for
quantum networks to operate using fibre optic infrastructure. Entangled light
can be generated by quantum dots (QDs) with naturally small
fine-structure-splitting (FSS) between exciton eigenstates. Moreover, QDs can
be engineered to emit at standard telecom wavelengths. To achieve sufficient
signal intensity for applications, QDs have been incorporated into 1D optical
microcavities. However, combining these properties in a single device has so
far proved elusive. Here, we introduce a growth strategy to realise QDs with
small FSS in the conventional telecom band, and within an optical cavity. Our
approach employs droplet-epitaxy of InAs quantum dots on (001) substrates. We
show the scheme improves the symmetry of the dots by 72%. Furthermore, our
technique is universal, and produces low FSS QDs by molecular beam epitaxy on
GaAs emitting at ~900nm, and metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy on InP emitting
at 1550 nm, with mean FSS 4x smaller than for Stranski-Krastanow QDs.


title: A note on the isoperimetric inequality in the plane

abstract:
  It is well known that among all closed bounded curves in the plane with the
given perimeter, the circle encloses the maximum area. There are many proofs in
the literature. In this article we have given a new proof using some ideas of
Demar.


title:
Delocalization effects, entanglement entropy and spectral collapse of
  boson mixtures in a double well

abstract:
  We investigate the ground-state properties of a two-species condensate of
interacting bosons in a double-well potential. Each atomic species is described
by a two-space-mode Bose-Hubbard model. The coupling of the two species is
controlled by the interspecies interaction $W$. To analyze the ground state
when $W$ is varied in both the repulsive ($W>0$) and the attractive ($W<0$)
regime, we apply two different approaches. First we solve the problem
numerically i) to obtain an exact description of the ground-state structure and
ii ) to characterize its correlation properties by studying (the appropriate
extensions to the present case of) the quantum Fisher information, the
coherence visibility and the entanglement entropy as functions of $W$. Then we
approach analytically the description of the low-energy scenario by means of
the Bogoliubov scheme. In this framework the ground-state transition from
delocalized to localized species (with space separation for $W>0$, and mixing
for $W<0$) is well reproduced. These predictions are qualitatively corroborated
by our numerical results. We show that such a transition features a spectral
collapse reflecting the dramatic change of the dynamical algebra of the
four-mode model Hamiltonian.


title: Hyperbolic polygons of minimal perimeter in punctured discs

abstract:
  We prove that, among the polygons in a punctured disc with fixed angles, the
perimeter is minimized by the polygon with an inscribed horocycle centered at
the puncture. We generalize this to a disc with a cone point and to an annulus
with a geodesic boundary component and a complete end. Then we apply this
result to describe the minimum of the spine systole on the moduli space of
punctured surfaces.


title: Aging and communication in the twin paradox

abstract:
  The twin paradox of the special theory of relativity has given rise to a
large body of literature discussing its implications. In its standard form, the
traveler changes velocity only at the destination of the trip, so that he
appears to perceive an improbably instantaneous and non-continuous change in
age of the stationary twin. In this work, a smooth velocity/acceleration
profile is used that allows the abrupt velocity-change case as a limit. All
gravitational effects are ignored in this treatment. Aside from mutual
perception of simultaneous clock times in an accelerating frame, constant
communication of clock times between the twins by means of (digital) light
signals is shown to be possible, in principle if not in practice.


title: R\'enyi relative entropies and noncommutative $L_p$-spaces

abstract:
  We propose an extension of the sandwiched R\'enyi relative $\alpha$-entropy
to normal positive functionals on arbitrary von Neumann algebras, for the
values $\alpha>1$. For this, we use Kosaki's definition of noncommutative
$L_p$-spaces with respect to a state. We show that these extensions coincide
with the previously defined Araki-Masuda divergences [M. Berta et al., Annales
Henri Poincar\'e, 19:1843--1867, 2018] and prove some of their properties, in
particular the data processing inequality with respect to positive normal
unital maps. As a consequence, we obtain monotonicity of the Araki relative
entropy with respect to such maps, extending the results of [A. M\"uller-Hermes
and D. Reeb. Annales Henri Poincar\'e,18:1777--1788, 2017] to arbitrary von
Neumann algebras. It is also shown that equality in data processing inequality
characterizes sufficiency (reversibility) of quantum channels.


title: Nuclear Effects in the Deuteron and Global PDF Fits

abstract:
  We present a detailed study of nuclear corrections in the deuteron (D) from
an analysis of data from charged-lepton deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) off
proton and D, as well as from dimuon pair production in pp and pD collisions
and $W^\pm$ and the $Z$ boson production at pp (p$\rm \bar p$) colliders. In
particular, we discuss the determination of the off-shell function describing
the modification of parton distributions (PDF) in bound nucleons in the context
of global PDF fits. Our results are consistent with the ones obtained earlier
from the study of the ratios of DIS structure functions $F_2^A/F_2^D$ in nuclei
with $A\geq4$, confirming the universality of the off-shell function. We also
discuss the sensitivity to various models of the deuteron wave function and the
impact of nuclear corrections on the determination of the $d$ quark
distribution.


title:
Mass spectra and Regge trajectories of $\Lambda_{c}^{+}$,
  $\Sigma_{c}^{0}$, $\Xi_{c}^{0}$ and $\Omega_{c}^{0}$ Baryons

abstract:
  We calculate the mass spectra of the singly charmed baryons
($\Lambda_{c}^{+}$, $\Sigma_{c}^{0}$, $\Xi_{c}^{0}$ and $\Omega_{c}^{0}$) using
Hypercentral constituent quark model(hCQM). The hyper color coloumb plus linear
potential is used to calculate the masses of positive(upto
$J^{p}=\frac{7}{2}^{+}$) and negative parity(upto $J^{p}=\frac{9}{2}^{-}$)
excited states. The spin-spin, spin-orbital and tensor interaction terms are
also incorporated for mass spectra. We have compared our results with other
theoretical predictions and Lattice QCD for each baryons. Moreover, the known
experimental results are also reasonably closed to our predicted masses. By
using the radial and orbital excitation, we construct Regge trajectories for
the baryons in (n,$M^{2}$) plane and find their slopes and intercepts. The
other properties like, magnetic moments, radiative transitions and radiative
decay widths of these baryons are also calculated successfully.


title: On the energy dissipation rate at the inner edge of circumbinary discs

abstract:
  We study, by means of numerical simulations and analysis, the details of the
accretion process from a disc onto a binary system. We show that energy is
dissipated at the edge of a circumbinary disc and this is associated with the
tidal torque that maintains the cavity: angular momentum is transferred from
the binary to the disc through the action of compressional shocks and viscous
friction. These shocks can be viewed as being produced by fluid elements which
drift into the cavity and, before being accreted, are accelerated onto
trajectories that send them back to impact the disc. The rate of energy
dissipation is approximately equal to the product of potential energy per unit
mass at the disc's inner edge and the accretion rate, estimated from the disc
parameters just beyond the cavity edge, that would occur without the binary.
For very thin discs, the actual accretion rate onto the binary may be
significantly less. We calculate the energy emitted by a circumbinary disc
taking into account energy dissipation at the inner edge and also irradiation
arising there from reprocessing of light from the stars. We find that, for
tight PMS binaries, the SED is dominated by emission from the inner edge at
wavelengths between 1-4 and 10 $\mu$m. This may apply to systems like CoRoT
223992193 and V1481 Ori.


title: Lifshitz Transitions in the Ferromagnetic Superconductor UCoGe

abstract:
  We present high field magnetoresistance, Hall effect and thermopower
measurements in the Ising-type ferromagnetic superconductor UCoGe. Magnetic
field is applied along the easy magnetization $c$ axis of the orthorhombic
crystal. In the different experimental probes we observed five successive
anomalies at $H \approx 4$, 9, 12, 16, and 21~T. Magnetic quantum oscillations
were detected both in resistivity and thermoelectric power. At most of the
anomalies, significant changes of the oscillation frequencies and the effective
masses have been observed indicating successive Fermi surface instabilities
induced by the strong magnetic polarization under magnetic field.


title:
A family of permutation groups with exponentially many non-conjugated
  regular elementary abelian subgroups

abstract:
  Given a prime $p$, we construct a permutation group containing at least
$p^{p-2}$ non-conjugated regular elementary abelian subgroups of order $p^3$.
This gives the first example of a permutation group with exponentially many
non-conjugated regular subgroups.


title: Maximum range of a projectile thrown from constant-speed circular motion

abstract:
  The problem of determining the angle at which a point mass launched from
ground level with a given speed is a standard exercise in mechanics. Similar,
yet conceptually and calculationally more difficult problems have been
suggested to improve student proficiency in projectile motion. The problem of
determining the maximum distance of a rock thrown from a rotating arm motion is
presented and analyzed in detail in this text. The calculational results
confirm several conceptually derived conclusions regarding the initial throw
position and provide some details on the angles and the way of throwing
(underhand or overhand) which produce the maximum throw distance.


title:
Optomechanical measurement of a millimeter-sized mechanical oscillator
  near the quantum limit

abstract:
  Cavity optomechanics is a tool to study the interaction between light and
micromechanical motion. Here we observe near-quantum limited optomechanical
physics in a truly macroscopic oscillator. As the mechanical system, we use a
mm-sized piezoelectric quartz disk oscillator. Its motion is coupled to a
charge qubit which translates the piezo-induced charge into an effective
radiation-pressure interaction between the disk and a microwave cavity. We
measure the thermal motion of the lowest mechanical shear mode at 7MHz down to
35 mK, corresponding to roughly 100 quanta in a 20mg oscillator. The work opens
up opportunities for macroscopic quantum experiments.


title:
A computer program for simulating time travel and a possible 'solution'
  for the grandfather paradox

abstract:
  While the possibility of time travel in physics is still debated, the
explosive growth of virtual-reality simulations opens up new possibilities to
rigorously explore such time travel and its consequences in the digital domain.
Here we provide a computational model of time travel and a computer program
that allows exploring digital time travel. In order to explain our method we
formalize a simplified version of the famous grandfather paradox, show how the
system can allow the participant to go back in time, try to kill their
ancestors before they were born, and experience the consequences. The system
has even come up with scenarios that can be considered consistent "solutions"
of the grandfather paradox. We discuss the conditions for digital time travel,
which indicate that it has a large number of practical applications.


title:
TeV- and MeV-physics out of an $SU_{L}(2)\times U_{R}(1)_{J} \times
  U(1)_{K}$ model

abstract:
  The standard electroweak interaction is here re-assessed to accommodate two
different situations in Particle Physics. The first one is a $Z'$-model at the
TeV-scale physics. The second one tackles the recent discussion of a possible
fifth force mediated by a $17$-MeV X-boson associated with an electron-positron
emission in the transition of an excited 8-Beryllium to its ground state. The
anomaly-free model that provides these two scenarios is based on an $SU_{L}(2)
\times U_{R}(1)_{J} \times U(1)_{K}$-symmetry. It yields a new massive neutral
boson, an exotic massive neutral fermion, right-neutrinos and an additional
neutral Higgs particle, which stems from a supplementary Higgs field,
introduced along with the usual Higgs doublet responsible for the electroweak
breaking and the masses of $W^{\pm}$ and $Z^{0}$. Yukawa interactions of the
two scalars generate the masses of the Standard Model leptons, neutrinos and a
new exotic fermion of the model. The vacuum expectation values of the Higgses
fix up two independent energy scales. One of them is the well-confirmed
electroweak scale, $246 \, \mbox{GeV}$, whereas the other one is set up by
adopting an experimental estimate for the $Z'$-mass.


title: Temperature and Density Structure of a Recurring Active Region Jet

abstract:
  We present a study of a recurring jet observed on October 31, 2011 by
SDO/AIA, Hinode/XRT and Hinode/EIS. We discuss the physical parameters of the
jet such as density, differential emission measure, peak temperature, velocity
and filling factor obtained using imaging and spectroscopic observations. A
differential emission measure (DEM) analysis was performed at the region of the
jet-spire and the footpoint using EIS observations and also by combining AIA
and XRT observations. The DEM curves were used to create synthetic spectra with
the CHIANTI atomic database. The plasma along the line-of-sight in the
jet-spire and jet-footpoint was found to be peak at 2.0 MK. We calculated
electron densities using the Fe XII ($\lambda$186/$\lambda$195) line ratio in
the region of the spire (Ne = 7.6x$10^{10}$ $cm^{-3}$) and the footpoint
(1.1x$10^{11}$ $cm^{-3}$). The plane-of-sky velocity of the jet is found to be
524 km/s. The resulting EIS DEM values are in good agreement with those
obtained from AIA-XRT. There is no indication of high temperatures, such as
emission from Fe XVII ($\lambda$254.87) (log T [K] = 6.75) seen in the
jet-spire. In case of the jet-footpoint, synthetic spectra predict weak
contributions from Ca XVII ($\lambda$192.85) and Fe XVII ($\lambda$254.87).
With further investigation, we confirmed emission from the Fe XVIII
($\lambda$93.932) line in the AIA 94 ${\AA}$ channel in the region of the
footpoint. We also found good agreement between the estimated and predicted Fe
XVIII count rates. A study of the temporal evolution of the jet-footpoint and
the presence of high-temperature emission from the Fe XVIII (log T [K] = 6.85)
line leads us to conclude that the hot component in the jet-footpoint was
present initially that the jet had cooled down by the time EIS observed it.


title: Leveraging beam deformation to improve the detection of resonances

abstract:
  Decades of work on beam deformation on reflection, and especially on lateral
shifts, have spread the idea that a reflected beam is larger than the incident
beam. However, when the right conditions are met, a beam reflected by a
multilayered resonant structure can be 10\% narrower than the incoming beam.
Such an easily measurable change occurs on a very narrow angular range close to
a resonance, which can be leveraged to improve the resolution of sensors based
on the detection of surface plasmon resonances by a factor three. We provide
theoretical tools to deal with this effect, and a thorough physical discussion
that leads to expect similar phenomenon to occur for temporal wavepackets and
in other domains of physics.


title: Cubulable K\"ahler groups

abstract:
  We prove that a K\"ahler group which is cubulable, i.e. which acts properly
discontinuously and cocompactly on a CAT(0) cubical complex, has a finite index
subgroup isomorphic to a direct product of surface groups, possibly with a free
Abelian factor. Similarly, we prove that a closed aspherical K\"ahler manifold
with a cubulable fundamental group has a finite cover which is biholomorphic to
a topologically trivial principal torus bundle over a product of Riemann
surfaces. Along the way, we prove a factorization result for essential actions
of K\"ahler groups on irreducible, locally finite CAT(0) cubical complexes,
under the assumption that there is no fixed point in the visual boundary.


title: Blind Facial Image Quality Enhancement using Non-Rigid Semantic Patches

abstract:
  We propose to combine semantic data and registration algorithms to solve
various image processing problems such as denoising, super-resolution and
color-correction. It is shown how such new techniques can achieve significant
quality enhancement, both visually and quantitatively, in the case of facial
image enhancement. Our model assumes prior high quality data of the person to
be processed, but no knowledge of the degradation model. We try to overcome the
classical processing limits by using semantically-aware patches, with adaptive
size and location regions of coherent structure and context, as building
blocks. The method is demonstrated on the problem of cellular photography
enhancement of dark facial images for different identities, expressions and
poses.


title:
Joint Cell Muting and User Scheduling in Multi-Cell Networks with
  Temporal Fairness

abstract:
  A semi-centralized joint cell muting and user scheduling scheme for
interference coordination in a multicell network is proposed under two
different temporal fairness criteria. The main principle behind the proposed
scheme is that a central entity selects a cell muting pattern out of a pattern
set at a decision instant, and subsequently the un-muted base stations
opportunistically schedule the users in the associated cells, both decisions
made on a temporal-fair basis. Although some pattern sets are easily obtainable
from static frequency reuse systems, we propose a more general pattern set
construction algorithm in this paper. As for the first fairness criterion, all
cells are assigned to receive the same temporal share with the ratio between
the temporal share of a cell center section and that of the cell edge section
is set to a fixed desired value for all cells. The second fairness criterion is
based on the max-min temporal fairness for which the temporal share of the
network-wide worst-case user is maximized. Numerical results are provided to
validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme for both criteria. The impact
of choice of the cell muting pattern set is also studied through numerical
examples for various cellular topologies.


title: Soliton resolution for equivariant wave maps on a wormhole: I

abstract:
  In this paper, we initiate the study of finite energy equivariant wave maps
from the (1+3)-dimensional spacetime $\mathbb R \times (\mathbb R \times
\mathbb{S}^2) \rightarrow \mathbb{S}^3$ where the metric on $\mathbb R \times
(\mathbb R \times \mathbb{S}^2)$ is given by ds^2 = -dt^2 + dr^2 + (r^2 + 1)
\left ( d \theta^2 + \sin^2 \theta d \varphi^2 \right ), \quad t,r \in
\mathbb{R}, (\theta,\varphi) \in \mathbb{S}^2. The constant time slices are
each given by the Riemannian manifold $\mathcal M := \mathbb R \times
\mathbb{S}^2$ with metric ds^2 = dr^2 + (r^2 + 1) \left ( d \theta^2 + \sin^2
\theta d \varphi^2 \right ). The Riemannian manifold $\mathcal M$ contains two
asymptotically Euclidean ends at $r \rightarrow \pm \infty$ that are connected
by a spherical throat of area $4 \pi^2$ at $r = 0$. The spacetime $\mathbb R
\times \mathcal M$ is a simple example of a wormhole geometry in general
relativity. In this work we will consider 1--equivariant or corotational wave
maps. Each corotational wave map can be indexed by its topological degree $n$.
For each $n$, there exists a unique energy minimizing corotational harmonic map
$Q_{n} : \mathcal M \rightarrow \mathbb{S}^3$ of degree $n$. In this work, we
show that modulo a free radiation term, every corotational wave map of degree
$n$ converges strongly to $Q_{n}$. This resolves a conjecture made by Bizon and
Kahl in the corotational case.


title:
Star formation rates on global and cloud scales within the Galactic
  Centre

abstract:
  The environment within the inner few hundred parsecs of the Milky Way, known
as the "Central Molecular Zone" (CMZ), harbours densities and pressures orders
of magnitude higher than the Galactic Disc; akin to that at the peak of cosmic
star formation (Kruijssen & Longmore 2013). Previous studies have shown that
current theoretical star-formation models under-predict the observed level of
star-formation (SF) in the CMZ by an order of magnitude given the large
reservoir of dense gas it contains. Here we explore potential reasons for this
apparent dearth of star formation activity.


title:
Tunnelling phenomenon near an apparent horizon in two-dimensional
  dilaton gravity

abstract:
  Based on the definition of the apparent horizon in a general two-dimensional
dilaton gravity theory, we analyze the tunnelling phenomenon of the apparent
horizon by using Hamilton-Jacobi method. In this theory the definition of the
horizon is very different from those in higher-dimensional gravity theories.
The spectrum of the radiation is obtained and the temperature of the radiation
is read out from this spectrum and it satisfies the usual relationship with the
surface gravity. Besides, the calculation with Parikh's null geodesic method
for a simple example conforms to our result in general stationary cases.


title: Mass Formulae for Broken Supersymmetry in Curved Space-Time

abstract:
  We derive the mass formulae for ${\cal N}=1$, $D=4$ matter-coupled
Supergravity for broken (and unbroken) Supersymmetry in curved space-time.
These formulae are applicable to de Sitter configurations as is the case for
inflation. For unbroken Supersymmetry in anti-de Sitter (AdS) one gets the mass
relations modified by the AdS curvature. We compute the mass relations both for
the potential and its derivative non-vanishing.


title: Stable lattices and the diagonal group

abstract:
  Inspired by work of McMullen, we show that any orbit of the diagonal group in
the space of lattices accumulates on the set of stable lattices. As
consequences, we settle a conjecture of Ramharter concerning the asymptotic
behaviour of the Mordell constant, and reduce Minkowski's conjecture on
products of linear forms to a geometric question, yielding two new proofs of
the conjecture in dimensions up to 7.


title:
Dynamical Quantum Phase Transitions in Spin Chains with Long-Range
  Interactions: Merging different concepts of non-equilibrium criticality

abstract:
  We theoretically study the dynamics of a transverse-field Ising chain with
power-law decaying interactions characterized by an exponent $\alpha$, which
can be experimentally realized in ion traps. We focus on two classes of
emergent dynamical critical phenomena following a quantum quench from a
ferromagnetic initial state: The first one manifests in the time averaged order
parameter, which vanishes at a critical transverse field. We argue that such a
transition occurs only for long-range interactions $\alpha \leq 2$ . The second
class corresponds to the emergence of time-periodic singularities in the return
probability to the ground state manifold (a.k.a. Loschmidt echo) which is
obtained for all values of $\alpha$ and agrees with the order parameter
transition for $\alpha\leq 2$. We characterize how the two classes of
nonequilibrium criticality correspond to each other and give a physical
interpretation based on the symmetry of the time-evolved quantum states.


title: Soliton resolution for equivariant wave maps on a wormhole: II

abstract:
  In this paper, we continue our study of equivariant \emph{wave maps on a
wormhole} initiated in our companion paper. More precisely, we study finite
energy $\ell$--equivariant wave maps from the (1+3)-dimensional spacetime
$\mathbb R \times (\mathbb R \times \mathbb{S}^2) \rightarrow \mathbb{S}^3$
where the metric on $\mathbb R \times (\mathbb R \times \mathbb{S}^2)$ is given
by \begin{align*} ds^2 = -dt^2 + dr^2 + (r^2 + 1) \left ( d \theta^2 + \sin^2
\theta d \varphi^2 \right ), \quad t,r \in \mathbb R, (\theta,\varphi) \in
\mathbb{S}^2. \end{align*} The constant time slices are each given by a
Riemannian manifold $\mathcal M$ with two asymptotically Euclidean ends at $r =
\pm \infty$ that are connected by a 2--sphere at $r = 0$. The spacetime
$\mathbb R \times (\mathbb R \times \mathbb{S}^2)$ has appeared in the general
relativity literature as a prototype wormhole geometry (but is not expected to
exist in nature). Each $\ell$--equivariant finite energy wave map can be
indexed by its topological degree $n$. For each $\ell$ and $n$, there exists a
unique, linearly stable energy minimizing $\ell$--equivariant harmonic map
$Q_{\ell,n} : \mathcal M \rightarrow \mathbb{S}^3$ of degree $n$. In this work,
we prove the soliton resolution conjecture for this model. More precisely, we
show that modulo a free radiation term every $\ell$--equivariant wave map of
degree $n$ converges strongly to $Q_{\ell,n}$. This fully resolves a conjecture
made by Bizon and Kahl. In the companion paper, we showed this for the
corotational case $\ell = 1$ and established many preliminary results that are
used in the current work.


title:
Scenic Routes Now: Efficiently Solving the Time-Dependent Arc
  Orienteering Problem

abstract:
  This paper extends the Arc Orienteering Problem (AOP) to large road networks
with time-dependent travel times and time-dependent value gain, termed Twofold
Time-Dependent AOP or 2TD-AOP for short. In its original definition, the
NP-hard Orienteering Problem (OP) asks to find a path from a source to a
destination maximizing the accumulated value while not exceeding a cost budget.
Variations of the OP and AOP have many practical applications such as mobile
crowdsourcing tasks (e.g., repairing and maintenance or dispatching field
workers), diverse logistics problems (e.g., crowd control or controlling
wildfires) as well as several tourist guidance problems (e.g., generating trip
recommendations or navigating through theme parks). In the proposed 2TD-AOP,
travel times and value functions are assumed to be time-dependent. The dynamic
values model, for instance, varying rewards in crowdsourcing tasks or varying
urgency levels in damage control tasks. We discuss this novel problem, prove
the benefit of time-dependence empirically and present an efficient
approximative solution, optimized for fast response systems. Our approach is
the first time-dependent variant of the AOP to be evaluated on a large scale,
fine-grained, real-world road network. We show that optimal solutions are
infeasible and solutions to the static problem are often invalid. We propose an
approximate dynamic programming solution which produces valid paths and is
orders of magnitude faster than any optimal solution.


title: Constraints on the size and dynamics of the J1407b ring system

abstract:
  Context. J1407 (1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 in full) is a young star in the
Scorpius-Centaurus OB association that underwent a series of complex eclipses
over 56 days in 2007. To explain these, it was hypothesised that a secondary
substellar companion, J1407b, has a giant ring system filling a large fraction
of the Hill sphere, causing the eclipses. Observations have not successfully
detected J1407b, but do rule out circular orbits for the companion around the
primary star.
  Aims. We test to what degree the ring model of J1407b could survive in an
eccentric orbit required to fit the observations.
  Methods. We run N-body simulations under the AMUSE framework to test the
stability of Hill radius-filling systems where the companion is on an eccentric
orbit.
  Results. We strongly rule out prograde ring systems and find that a secondary
of 60 to 100MJup with an 11 year orbital period and retrograde orbiting
material can survive for at least $10^4$ orbits and produce eclipses with
similar durations as the observed one.


title: Exponential Separations in the Energy Complexity of Leader Election

abstract:
  Energy is often the most constrained resource for battery-powered wireless
devices and the lion's share of energy is often spent on transceiver usage
(sending/receiving packets), not on computation. In this paper we study the
energy complexity of LeaderElection and ApproximateCounting in several models
of wireless radio networks. It turns out that energy complexity is very
sensitive to whether the devices can generate random bits and their ability to
detect collisions. We consider four collision-detection models: Strong-CD (in
which transmitters and listeners detect collisions), Sender-CD and Receiver-CD
(in which only transmitters or only listeners detect collisions), and No-CD (in
which no one detects collisions.)
  The take-away message of our results is quite surprising. For randomized
LeaderElection algorithms, there is an exponential gap between the energy
complexity of Sender-CD and Receiver-CD, and for deterministic LeaderElection
algorithms there is another exponential gap, but in the reverse direction.
  In particular, the randomized energy complexity of LeaderElection is
$\Theta(\log^* n)$ in Sender-CD but $\Theta(\log(\log^* n))$ in Receiver-CD,
where $n$ is the (unknown) number of devices. Its deterministic complexity is
$\Theta(\log N)$ in Receiver-CD but $\Theta(\log\log N)$ in Sender-CD, where
$N$ is the (known) size of the devices' ID space.
  There is a tradeoff between time and energy. We give a new upper bound on the
time-energy tradeoff curve for randomized LeaderElection and
ApproximateCounting. A critical component of this algorithm is a new
deterministic LeaderElection algorithm for dense instances, when $n=\Theta(N)$,
with inverse-Ackermann-type ($O(\alpha(N))$) energy complexity.


title:
Fully general device-independence for two-party cryptography and
  position verification

abstract:
  Device-independent quantum cryptography allows security even if the devices
used to execute the protocol are untrusted - whether this is due to unknown
imperfections in the implementation, or because the adversary himself
constructed them to subvert the security of the protocol. While
device-independence has seen much attention in the domain of quantum key
distribution, relatively little is known for general protocols. Here we
introduce a new model for device-independence for two-party protocols and
position verification in the noisy-storage model. For the first time, we show
that such protocols are secure in the most general device-independent model in
which the devices may have arbitrary memory, states and measurements. In our
analysis, we make use of a slight modification of a beautiful new tool
developed in [arXiv:1607.01796] called "Entropy Accumulation Theorem". What's
more, the protocols we analyze use only simple preparations and measurements,
and can be realized using any experimental setup able to perform a CHSH Bell
test. Specifically, security can be attained for any violation of the CHSH
inequality, where a higher violation merely leads to a reduction in the amount
of rounds required to execute the protocol.


title:
A strategy for an accurate estimation of the basal permittivity in the
  Martian North Polar Layered Deposits

abstract:
  The paper deals with the investigation of the Mars subsurface by means of
data collected by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere
Sounding working at few MHz frequencies. A data processing strategy, which
combines a simple inversion model and an accurate procedure for data selection
is presented. This strategy permits to mitigate the theoretical and practical
difficulties of the inverse problem arising because of the inaccurate knowledge
of the parameters regarding both the scenario under investigation and the
radiated electromagnetic field impinging on the Mars surface. The results
presented in this paper show that, it is possible to reliably retrieve the
electromagnetic properties of deeper structures, if such strategy is accurately
applied. An example is given here, where the analysis of the data collected on
Gemina Lingula, a region of the North Polar layer deposits, allowed us to
retrieve permittivity values for the basal unit in agreement with those usually
associated to the Earth basaltic rocks.


title: Periodic measures and partially hyperbolic homoclinic classes

abstract:
  In this paper, we give a precise meaning to the following fact, and we prove
it: $C^1$-open and densely, all the non-hyperbolic ergodic measures generated
by a robust cycle are approximated by periodic measures.
  We apply our technique to the global setting of partially hyperbolic
diffeomorphisms with one dimensional center. When both strong stable and
unstable foliations are minimal, we get that the closure of the set of ergodic
measures is the union of two convex sets corresponding to the two possible
$s$-indices; these two convex sets intersect along the closure of the set of
non-hyperbolic ergodic measures. That is the case for robustly transitive
perturbation of the time one map of a transitive Anosov flow, or of the skew
product of an Anosov torus diffeomorphism by rotation of the circle.


title:
Pulse-shape discrimination and energy quenching of alpha particles in
  Cs$_2$LiLaBr$_6$:Ce$^{3+}$

abstract:
  Cs$_2$LiLaBr$_6$:Ce$^{3+}$ (CLLB) is an elpasolite scintillator that offers
excellent linearity and gamma-ray energy resolution and sensitivity to thermal
neutrons with the ability to perform pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) to
distinguish gammas and neutrons. Our investigation of CLLB has indicated the
presence of intrinsic radioactive alpha background that we have determined to
be from actinium contamination of the lanthanum component. We measured the
pulse shapes for gamma, thermal neutron, and alpha events and determined that
PSD can be performed to separate the alpha background with a moderate figure of
merit of 0.98. We also measured the electron-equivalent-energy of the alpha
particles in CLLB and simulated the intrinsic alpha background from $^{227}$Ac
to determine the quenching factor of the alphas. A linear quenching
relationship $L_{\alpha} = E_{\alpha} \times q + L_0$ was found at alpha
particle energies above 5 MeV, with a quenching factor $q = 0.71$ MeVee/MeV and
an offset $L_0 = - 1.19$ MeVee.


title: Radiatively induced Fermi scale and unification

abstract:
  We propose a framework, where the hierarchy between the unification and the
Fermi scale emerges radiatively. This work tackles the long-standing question
about the connection between the low Fermi scale and a more fundamental scale
of Nature. As a concrete example, we study a Pati-Salam-type unification of
Elementary-Goldstone-Higgs scenario, where the Standard Model scalar sector is
replaced by an SU(4)-symmetric one, and the observed Higgs particle is an
elementary pseudo-Goldstone boson. We construct a concrete model where the
unification scale is fixed to a phenomenologically viable value, while the
Fermi scale is generated radiatively. This scenario provides an interesting
link between the unification and Fermi scale physics, and opens up prospects
for exploring a wide variety of open problems in particle physics, ranging from
neutrinos to cosmic inflation.


title:
WS4A: a Biomedical Question and Answering System based on public Web
  Services and Ontologies

abstract:
  This paper describes our system, dubbed WS4A (Web Services for All), that
participated in the fourth edition of the BioASQ challenge (2016). We used WS4A
to perform the Question and Answering (QA) task 4b, which consisted on the
retrieval of relevant concepts, documents, snippets, RDF triples, exact answers
and ideal answers for each given question. The novelty in our approach consists
on the maximum exploitation of existing web services in each step of WS4A, such
as the annotation of text, and the retrieval of metadata for each annotation.
The information retrieved included concept identifiers, ontologies, ancestors,
and most importantly, PubMed identifiers. The paper describes the WS4A pipeline
and also presents the precision, recall and f-measure values obtained in task
4b. Our system achieved two second places in two subtasks on one of the five
batches.


title: Intrinsic Tetrahedron Formation of Reduced Attitude

abstract:
  In this paper, formation control for reduced attitude is studied, in which
both stationary and rotating regular tetrahedron formation can be achieved and
are asymptotically stable under a large family of gain functions in the
control. Moreover, by further restriction on the control gain, almost global
stability of the stationary formation is obtained. In addition, the control
proposed is an intrinsic protocol that only uses relative information and does
not need to contain any information of the desired formation beforehand. The
constructed formation pattern is totally attributed to the geometric properties
of the space and the designed inter-agent connection topology. Besides, a novel
coordinates transformation is proposed to represent the relative reduced
attitudes in S^2, which is shown to be an efficient approach to reduced
attitude formation problems.


title: On involutions in Weyl groups

abstract:
  Let $(W,S)$ be a Coxeter system and $\ast$ be an automorphism of $W$ with
order $\leq 2$ such that $s^{\ast}\in S$ for any $s\in S$. Let $I_{\ast}$ be
the set of twisted involutions relative to $\ast$ in $W$. In this paper we
consider the case when $\ast=\text{id}$ and study the braid
$I_\ast$-transformations between the reduced $I_\ast$-expressions of
involutions. If $W$ is the Weyl group of type $B_n$ or $D_n$, we explicitly
describe a finite set of basic braid $I_\ast$-transformations for all $n$
simultaneously, and show that any two reduced $I_\ast$-expressions for a given
involution can be transformed into each other through a series of basic braid
$I_\ast$-transformations. In both cases, these basic braid
$I_\ast$-transformations consist of the usual basic braid transformations plus
some natural "right end transformations" and plus exactly one extra
transformation. The main result generalizes our previous work for the Weyl
group of type $A_{n}$.


title:
Geometric properties of rotation minimizing vector fields along curves
  in Riemannian manifolds

abstract:
  Rotation minimizing vector fields and frames were introduced by Bishop as an
alternative to the Frenet frame. They are used in CAGD because they can be
defined even the curvature vanishes. Nevertheless, many other geometric
properties have not been studied. In the present paper, RM vector fields along
a curve immersed into a Riemannian manifold are studied when the ambient
manifold is the Euclidean 3-space, the Hyperbolic 3-space and a K\"{a}hler
manifold.


title: Topic Modeling over Short Texts by Incorporating Word Embeddings

abstract:
  Inferring topics from the overwhelming amount of short texts becomes a
critical but challenging task for many content analysis tasks, such as content
charactering, user interest profiling, and emerging topic detecting. Existing
methods such as probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) and latent
Dirichlet allocation (LDA) cannot solve this prob- lem very well since only
very limited word co-occurrence information is available in short texts. This
paper studies how to incorporate the external word correlation knowledge into
short texts to improve the coherence of topic modeling. Based on recent results
in word embeddings that learn se- mantically representations for words from a
large corpus, we introduce a novel method, Embedding-based Topic Model (ETM),
to learn latent topics from short texts. ETM not only solves the problem of
very limited word co-occurrence information by aggregating short texts into
long pseudo- texts, but also utilizes a Markov Random Field regularized model
that gives correlated words a better chance to be put into the same topic. The
experiments on real-world datasets validate the effectiveness of our model
comparing with the state-of-the-art models.


title: Cognitive Random Access for Internet-of-Things Networks

abstract:
  This paper focuses on cognitive radio (CR) internet- of-things (IoT) networks
where spectrum sensors are deployed for IoT CR devices, which do not have
enough hardware capability to identify an unoccupied spectrum by themselves. In
this sensor- enabled IoT CR network, the CR devices and the sensors are
separated. It induces that spectrum occupancies at locations of CR devices and
sensors could be different. To handle this difference, we investigate a
conditional interference distribution (CID) at the CR device for a given
measured interference at the sensor. We can observe a spatial correlation of
the aggregate interference distribution through the CID. Reflecting the CID, we
devise a cognitive random access scheme which adaptively adjusts transmission
probability with respect to the interference measurement of the sensor. Our
scheme improves area spectral efficiency (ASE) compared to a conventional ALOHA
and an adaptive transmission scheme which attempts to send data when the sensor
measurement is lower than an interference threshold.


title: Towards a Perron--Frobenius Theory for Eventually Positive Operators

abstract:
  This article is a contribution to the spectral theory of so-called eventually
positive operators, i.e.\ operators $T$ which may not be positive but whose
powers $T^n$ become positive for large enough $n$. While the spectral theory of
such operators is well understood in finite dimensions, the infinite
dimensional case has received much less attention in the literature.
  We show that several sensible notions of "eventual positivity" can be defined
in the infinite dimensional setting, and in contrast to the finite dimensional
case those notions do not in general coincide. We then prove a variety of
typical Perron--Frobenius type results: we show that the spectral radius of an
eventually positive operator is contained in the spectrum; we give sufficient
conditions for the spectral radius to be an eigenvalue admitting a positive
eigenvector; and we show that the peripheral spectrum of an eventually positive
operator is a cyclic set under quite general assumptions. All our results are
formulated for operators on Banach lattices, and many of them do not impose any
compactness assumptions on the operator.


title: Magnetic solitons in Rabi-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

abstract:
  We study magnetic solitons, solitary waves of spin polarization (i.e.,
magnetization), in binary Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of Rabi
coupling. We show that the system exhibits two types of magnetic solitons,
called $2\pi$ and $0\pi$ solitons, characterized by a different behavior of the
relative phase between the two spin components. $2\pi$ solitons exhibit a
$2\pi$ jump of the relative phase, independent of their velocity, the static
domain wall explored by Son and Stephanov being an example of such $2\pi$
solitons with vanishing velocity and magnetization. $0\pi$ solitons instead do
not exhibit any asymptotic jump in the relative phase. Systematic results are
provided for both types of solitons in uniform matter. Numerical calculations
in the presence of a one-dimensional harmonic trap reveal that a $2\pi$ soliton
evolves in time into a $0\pi$ soliton, and vice versa, oscillating around the
center of the trap. Results for the effective mass, the Landau critical
velocity, and the role of the transverse confinement are also discussed.


title: Soliton mechanics

abstract:
  The domain of outer communication of five-dimensional asymptotically flat
stationary spacetimes may possess non-trivial 2-cycles (bubbles). Spacetimes
containing such 2-cycles can have non-zero energy, angular momenta, and charge
even in the absence of horizons. A mass variation formula has been established
for spacetimes containing bubbles and possibly a black hole horizon. This
`first law of black hole and soliton mechanics' contains new intensive and
extensive quantities associated to each 2-cycle. We consider examples of such
spacetimes for which we explicitly calculate these quantities and show how
regularity is essential for the formulae relating them to hold. We also derive
new explicit expressions for the angular momenta and charge for spacetimes
containing solitons purely in terms of fluxes supporting the bubbles.


title:
Searching for $\gamma$-ray signature in WHSP blazars: Fermi-LAT
  detection of 150 excess signal in the 0.3-500 GeV band

abstract:
  A direct search of $\gamma$-ray emission centered on multi-frequency selected
candidates is a valuable complementary approach to the standard search adopted
in current $\gamma$-ray Fermi-LAT catalogs. Our candidates are part of the
2WHSP sample, that was assembled with the aim of providing targets for Imaging
Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT), and is currently the largest set of
high synchrotron peaked (HSP) blazars. We perform a likelihood analysis with
the Fermi Science Tools using positions from 400 2WHSP blazars as seeds of
tentative $\gamma$-ray sources. This enabled us to detect 150 $\gamma$-ray
excess signals that have not yet been reported in previous $\gamma$-ray
catalogs (1FGL, 2FGL, and 3FGL). By identifying new sources, we solve a
fraction of the extragalactic isotropic $\gamma$-ray background (IGRB)
composition, improving the description of the $\gamma$-ray sky. Our analysis
considers the 0.3-500 GeV energy band, integrating over 7.2 yrs of Fermi-LAT
observation and making use of the Pass 8 data release. Within the 150 2WHSPs
that showed excess $\gamma$-ray signature: 85 are high-significance detections
with test statistic (TS)$>$25, and 65 are lower-significance detections with TS
between 10 to 25. We study the $\gamma$-ray photon spectral index distribution,
the likelihood of detection according to the synchrotron peak brightness, and
plot the measured $\gamma$-ray LogN-LogS of HSP blazars, also discussing the
portion of the IGRB that has been resolved by this work. We report on four
cases where we could resolve source confusion and find counterparts for
unassociated 3FGL sources with the help of high-energy TS maps together with
multi-frequency data. The 150 new $\gamma$-ray sources are named with the
acronym 1BIGB for the first version of the Brazil ICRANet Gamma-ray Blazar
catalog, in reference to the cooperation agreement supporting this work.


title: Exact and Inexact Subsampled Newton Methods for Optimization

abstract:
  The paper studies the solution of stochastic optimization problems in which
approximations to the gradient and Hessian are obtained through subsampling. We
first consider Newton-like methods that employ these approximations and discuss
how to coordinate the accuracy in the gradient and Hessian to yield a
superlinear rate of convergence in expectation. The second part of the paper
analyzes an inexact Newton method that solves linear systems approximately
using the conjugate gradient (CG) method, and that samples the Hessian and not
the gradient (the gradient is assumed to be exact). We provide a complexity
analysis for this method based on the properties of the CG iteration and the
quality of the Hessian approximation, and compare it with a method that employs
a stochastic gradient iteration instead of the CG method. We report preliminary
numerical results that illustrate the performance of inexact subsampled Newton
methods on machine learning applications based on logistic regression.


title:
Entropic structure and duality for multiple species cross-diffusion
  systems

abstract:
  This paper deals with the existence of global weak solutions for a wide class
of (multiple species) cross-diffusions systems. The existence is based on two
different ingredients: an entropy estimate giving some gradient control and a
duality estimate that gives naturally L^2 control. The proof relies on a
semi-implicit scheme tailored for cross-diffusion systems firstly defined by
the two authors and collaborators. These results are applied to models having
an entropy relying on the detailed balance condition recently exhibited by Chen
et. al.


title:
Observation of Stable Jones-Roberts Solitons in Bose-Einstein
  Condensates

abstract:
  We experimentally generate two-dimensional Jones-Roberts solitons in a
three-dimensional atomic Bose-Einstein condensate by imprinting a triangular
phase pattern. By monitoring their dynamics we observe that this kind of
solitary waves are resistant to both dynamic (snaking) and thermodynamic
instabilities, that usually are known to strongly limit the lifetime of dark
plane solitons in dimensions higher than one. We additionally find signatures
of a possible dipole-like interaction between them. Our results confirm that
Jones-Roberts solitons are stable solutions of the non-linear Schr\"odinger
equation in higher dimensions and promote these excitations for applications
beyond matter wave physics, like energy and information transport in noisy and
inhomogeneous environments.


title:
Polycycle omega-limit sets of flows on the compact Riemann surfaces and
  Eulerian path

abstract:
  Let $(S,\Phi)$ be a pair of a closed oriented surface and $\Phi$ be a real
analytic flow with finitely many singularities. Let $x$ be a point of $S$ with
the polycycle $\omega$-limit set $\omega(x)$. In this paper we give topological
classification of $\omega(x)$. Our main theorem says that $\omega(x)$ is
diffeomorphic to the boundary of a cactus in the $2$-sphere $S^{2}$. Moreover
$S$ is a connected sum of the above $S^{2}$ and a closed oriented surface along
finitely many embedded circles which are disjoint from $\omega(x)$. This gives
a natural generalization to the higher genus of the main result of \cite{JL}
for the genus $0$ case. Our result is further applicable to a larger class of
surface flows, a compact oriented surface with corner and a $C^{1}$-flow with
finitely many singularities locally diffeomorphic to an analytic flow.


title:
Mass-Loss Rates of "Hot-Jupiter" Exoplanets with Various Types of
  Gaseous Envelopes

abstract:
  According to the computations results obtained by Bisikalo et al. (2013b) for
the gas-dynamical effect of stellar winds on exoplanet atmospheres, three types
of gaseous envelopes can form around hot Jupiters: closed, quasi-closed, and
open. The type of envelope that forms depends on the position of the frontal
collision point (where the dynamical pressure of the wind is equal to the
pressure of the surrounding atmosphere) relative to the Roche-lobe boundaries.
Closed envelopes are formed around planets whose atmospheres lie completely
within their Roche lobes. If the frontal collision point is located outside the
Roche lobe, the atmospheric material begins to flow out through the Lagrangian
points $\mathrm{L_1}$ and $\mathrm{L_2}$, which can result in the formation of
quasi-closed (if the dynamical pressure of the stellar wind stops the outflow
through $\mathrm{L_1}$) or open gaseous envelopes. The example of the typical
hot Jupiter HD 209458 b is considered for four sets of atmospheric parameters,
to determine the mass-loss rates for the different types of envelopes arising
with these parameters. The mass-loss rates based on the modeling results were
estimated to be $\dot{M} \leq 10^{9}$ g/s for a closed atmosphere, $\dot{M}
\simeq 3 \times 10^{9}$ g/s for a quasi-closed atmosphere, and $\dot{M} \simeq
3 \times 10^{10}$ g/s for an open atmosphere. The matter in the closed and
quasi-closed atmospheres flows out mainly through $\mathrm{L_2}$, and the
matter in open envelopes primarily through $\mathrm{L_1}$.


title: Disformal invariance of continuous media with linear equation of state

abstract:
  We show that the effective theory describing single component continuous
media with a linear and constant equation of state of the form $p=w\rho$ is
invariant under a 1-parameter family of continuous disformal transformations.
In the special case of $w=1/3$ (ultrarelativistic gas), such a family reduces
to conformal transformations. As examples, perfect fluids, homogeneous and
isotropic solids are discussed.


title: Low-Dose CT via Deep Neural Network

abstract:
  In order to reduce the potential radiation risk, low-dose CT has attracted
more and more attention. However, simply lowering the radiation dose will
significantly degrade the imaging quality. In this paper, we propose a noise
reduction method for low-dose CT via deep learning without accessing the
original projection data. An architecture of deep convolutional neural network
was considered to map the low-dose CT images into its corresponding normal-dose
CT images patch by patch. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations demonstrate
a state-the-art performance of the proposed method.


title: Quantum simulation of a 2D quasicrystal with cold atoms

abstract:
  We describe a way to obtain a two-dimensional quasiperiodic tiling with
eight-fold symmetry using cold atoms. A series of such optical tilings, related
by scale transformations, is obtained for a series of specific values of the
chemical potential of the atoms. A theoretical model for the optical system is
described and compared with that of the well-known cut-and-project method for
the Ammann-Beenker tiling. This type of cold atom structure should allow the
simulation of several important lattice models for interacting quantum
particles and spins in quasicrystals.


title: Cosmological constraints from multiple tracers in spectroscopic surveys

abstract:
  We use the Fisher matrix formalism to study the expansion and growth history
of the Universe using galaxy clustering with 2D angular cross-correlation
tomography in spectroscopic or high resolution photometric redshift surveys.
The radial information is contained in the cross correlations between narrow
redshift bins. We show how multiple tracers with redshift space distortions
cancel sample variance and arbitrarily improve the constraints on the dark
energy equation of state $\omega(z)$ and the growth parameter $\gamma$ in the
noiseless limit. The improvement for multiple tracers quickly increases with
the bias difference between the tracers, up to a factor $\sim4$ in
$\text{FoM}_{\gamma\omega}$. We model a magnitude limited survey with realistic
density and bias using a conditional luminosity function, finding a factor
1.3-9.0 improvement in $\text{FoM}_{\gamma\omega}$ -- depending on global
density -- with a split in a halo mass proxy. Partly overlapping redshift bins
improve the constraints in multiple tracer surveys a factor $\sim1.3$ in
$\text{FoM}_{\gamma\omega}$. This findings also apply to photometric surveys,
where the effect of using multiple tracers is magnified. We also show large
improvement on the FoM with increasing density, which could be used as a
trade-off to compensate some possible loss with radial resolution.


title:
1RXS J161935.7+524630: New Polar with the Varying Accretion Modes on two
  Magnetic Poles

abstract:
  We report the discovery of a new cataclysmic variable DDE 32 identified with
the ROSAT X-ray source 1RXS J161935.7+524630 in Draco. The variability was
originally found by D. Denisenko on the digitized Palomar plates centered at
the position of X-ray source. The photometric observations by F. Martinelli at
Lajatico Astronomical Center in June 2015 have shown the large amplitude
(nearly 2 magnitudes) variability with a period about 100.5 minutes. Using the
publicly available Catalina Sky Survey data from 2005 to 2013 we have improved
the value of period to 0.0697944 days. Comparison of the archival CRTS data
with more recent observations from Lajatico shows the dramatic changes in the
light curve shape. Instead of a single peak present in Catalina data before
2014, there were two peaks of nearly the same height during 2015. SDSS spectrum
taken in June 2009 shows prominent Helium emission lines between the bright
Balmer series. He II 4686 AA line has more than 30% effective width compared to
H_beta line. All those features allow us to interpret 1RXS J161935.7+524630 as
a magnetic cataclysmic variable (polar) with the accretion mode changing from
one pole before 2014 to two poles in 2015.


title:
Non-Gaussian Observations in Nonlinear Compressed Sensing via Stein
  Discrepancies

abstract:
  Performance guarantees for compression in nonlinear models under non-Gaussian
observations can be achieved through the use of distributional characteristics
that are sensitive to the distance to normality, and which in particular return
the value of zero under Gaussian or linear sensing. The use of these
characteristics, or discrepancies, improves some previous results in this area
by relaxing conditions and tightening performance bounds. In addition, these
characteristics are tractable to compute when Gaussian sensing is corrupted by
either additive errors or mixing.


title: Median-of-k Jumplists and Dangling-Min BSTs

abstract:
  We extend randomized jumplists introduced by Br\"onnimann et al. (STACS 2003)
to choose jump-pointer targets as median of a small sample for better search
costs, and present randomized algorithms with expected $O(\log n)$ time
complexity that maintain the probability distribution of jump pointers upon
insertions and deletions. We analyze the expected costs to search, insert and
delete a random element, and we show that omitting jump pointers in small
sublists hardly affects search costs, but significantly reduces the memory
consumption.
  We use a bijection between jumplists and "dangling-min BSTs", a variant of
(fringe-balanced) binary search trees for the analysis. Despite their
similarities, some standard analysis techniques for search trees fail for
dangling-min trees (and hence for jumplists).


title:
Extraction of the $\pi^+\pi^-$ Subsystem in Diffractively Produced
  $\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$ at COMPASS

abstract:
  The COMPASS experiment at CERN has collected a large data sample of 50
million diffractively produced $\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$ events using a $190\,$GeV$/c$
negatively charged hadron beam. The partial-wave analysis (PWA) of these
high-precision data reveals previously unseen details. The PWA, which is
currently limited by systematic uncertainties, is based on an isobar model,
where multi-particle decays are described as subsequent two-body decays and
where a prior-knowledge parametrization for the intermediate two-pion
resonances has to be assumed -- usually a Breit-Wigner amplitude -- thus
increasing systematic uncertainties, due to the concrete choice of the
parametrization. We present a novel method, which allows to extract isobar
amplitudes directly from the data in a less biased way. The focus lies on the
scalar $\pi^+\pi^-$ subsystem, where a previous analysis found a signal for a
new axial-vector state $a_1(1420)$ decaying into $f_0(980)\pi$.


title:
Weakening and Shifting of the Saharan Shallow Meridional Circulation
  During Wet Years of the West African Monsoon

abstract:
  The correlation between increased Sahel rainfall and reduced Saharan surface
pressure is well established in observations and global climate models, and has
been used to imply that increased Sahel rainfall is caused by a stronger
shallow meridional circulation (SMC) over the Sahara. This study uses two
atmospheric reanalyses to examine interannual variability of Sahel rainfall and
the Saharan SMC, which consists of northward near-surface flow across the Sahel
into the Sahara and southward flow near 700 hPa out of the Sahara. During wet
Sahel years, the Saharan SMC shifts poleward, producing a drop in low-level
geopotential and surface pressure over the Sahara. Statistically removing the
effect of the poleward shift from the low-level geopotential eliminates
significant correlations between this geopotential and Sahel precipitation. As
the Saharan SMC shifts poleward, its mid-tropospheric divergent outflow
decreases, indicating a weakening of its overturning mass flux. The poleward
shift and weakening of the Saharan SMC during wet Sahel years is reproduced in
an idealized model of West Africa; a wide range of imposed sea surface
temperature and land surface albedo perturbations in this model produce a much
larger range of SMC variations that nevertheless have similar quantitative
associations with Sahel rainfall as in the reanalyses. These results disprove
the idea that enhanced Sahel rainfall is caused by strengthening of the Saharan
SMC. Instead, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that the a
stronger SMC inhibits Sahel rainfall, perhaps by advecting mid-tropospheric
warm and dry air into the precipitation maximum.


title: Multi-partite entanglement detection with non symmetric probing

abstract:
  We show that spin squeezing criteria commonly used for entanglement detection
can be erroneous, if the probe is not symmetric. We then derive a lower bound
on squeezing for separable states in spin systems probed asymmetrically. Using
this we further develop a procedure that allows us to verify the degree of
entanglement of a quantum state in the spin system. Finally, we apply our
method for entanglement verification to existing experimental data, and use it
to prove the existence of tri-partite entanglement in a spin squeezed atomic
ensemble.


title: The curse of variety in computing, and what can be done about it

abstract:
  Excess freedom in how computers are used creates problems that include: bit
rot, problems with big data, problems in the creation and debugging of
software, and problems with cyber security. To tame excess freedom, "tough
love" is needed in the form of a {\em universal framework for the
representation and processing of diverse kinds of knowledge} (UFK). The "SP
machine", based on the "SP theory of intelligence", has the potential to
provide that framework and to help solve the problems above. There is potential
to reduce the near-4000 different kinds of computer file to one, and to reduce
the hundreds of different computer languages to one.


title:
Universal long-time behavior of stochastically driven interacting
  quantum systems

abstract:
  One of the most important concepts in non-equilibrium physics is relaxation.
In the vicinity of a classical critical point, the relaxation time can diverge
and result in a universal power-law for the relaxation dynamics; the emerging
classification of the dynamic universality class has been elucidated by
Hohenberg and Halperin. In this paper, we systematically study the long-time
relaxation dynamics in stochastically driven interacting quantum systems. We
find that even though the stochastic forces will inevitably drive the systems
into a featureless infinite temperature state, the way to approach the steady
state can be highly nontrivial and exhibit rich universal dynamical behavior
determined by the interplay between the stochastic driving and quantum
many-body effects. We investigate the dynamical universality class by including
different types of perturbations. The heating dynamics of a Hamiltonian with
locally unbounded Hilbert space is also studied.


title: MONDian dynamical modeling of NGC 288 with $\beta \neq 0$

abstract:
  NGC 288 is a diffuse Galactic globular cluster, it is remarkable in that its
low density results in internal accelerations being below the critical MOND
$a_{0}$ acceleration throughout. This makes it an ideal testing ground for
MONDian gravity, as the details of the largely unknown transition function
between the Newtonian and modified regimes become unimportant. Further, exact
analytical solutions exist for isothermal spherical equilibrium structures in
MOND, allowing for arbitrary values of the anisotropy parameter, $\beta$. In
this paper we use observations of the velocity dispersion profile of NGC 288,
which is in fact isothermal, as dynamical constraints on MONDian models for
this cluster, where the remaining free parameters are adjusted to fit the
observed surface brightness profile. We find the optimal fit requires $\beta
=0$, an isotropic solution with a total mass of $3.5 \pm 1.1 \times 10^{4}
M_{\odot}$.


title: Clustering Approaches for Financial Data Analysis: a Survey

abstract:
  Nowadays, financial data analysis is becoming increasingly important in the
business market. As companies collect more and more data from daily operations,
they expect to extract useful knowledge from existing collected data to help
make reasonable decisions for new customer requests, e.g. user credit category,
confidence of expected return, etc. Banking and financial institutes have
applied different data mining techniques to enhance their business performance.
Among these techniques, clustering has been considered as a significant method
to capture the natural structure of data. However, there are not many studies
on clustering approaches for financial data analysis. In this paper, we
evaluate different clustering algorithms for analysing different financial
datasets varied from time series to transactions. We also discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of each method to enhance the understanding of
inner structure of financial datasets as well as the capability of each
clustering method in this context.


title: A close encounter of the massive kind

abstract:
  We have used (a) HST ACS imaging and STIS spectroscopy, (b) ground-based
PIONIER/VLT long-baseline interferometry, and (c) ground-based spectroscopy
from different instruments to study the orbit of the extreme multiple system HD
93 129 Aa,Ab, which is composed of (at least) two very massive stars in a
long-period orbit with e>0.92 that will pass through periastron in 2017/2018.
In several ways, the system is an eta Car precursor. Around the time of
periastron passage the two very strong winds will collide and generate an
outburst of non-thermal hard X-ray emission without precedent in an O+O binary
since astronomers have been able to observe above Earth's atmosphere. A
coordinated multiwavelength monitoring in the next two years will enable a
breakthrough understanding of the wind interactions in such extreme close
encounters. Furthermore, we have found evidence that HD 93 129 Aa may be a
binary system itself. In that case, we could witness a three-body interaction
that may yield a runaway star or a stellar collision close to or shortly after
the periastron passage. Either of those outcomes would be unprecedented, as
they are predicted to be low-frequency events in the Milky Way.


title: Phaseless super-resolution in the continuous domain

abstract:
  Phaseless super-resolution refers to the problem of superresolving a signal
from only its low-frequency Fourier magnitude measurements. In this paper, we
consider the phaseless super-resolution problem of recovering a sum of sparse
Dirac delta functions which can be located anywhere in the continuous
time-domain. For such signals in the continuous domain, we propose a novel
Semidefinite Programming (SDP) based signal recovery method to achieve the
phaseless superresolution. This work extends the recent work of Jaganathan et
al. [1], which considered phaseless super-resolution for discrete signals on
the grid.


title: A Fast Summation Method for Oscillatory Lattice Sums

abstract:
  We present a fast summation method for lattice sums of the type which arise
when solving wave scattering problems with periodic boundary conditions. While
there are a variety of effective algorithms in the literature for such
calculations, the approach presented here is new and leads to a rigorous
analysis of Wood's anomalies. These arise when illuminating a grating at
specific combinations of the angle of incidence and the frequency of the wave,
for which the lattice sums diverge. They were discovered by Wood in 1902 as
singularities in the spectral response. The primary tools in our approach are
the Euler-Maclaurin formula and a steepest descent argument. The resulting
algorithm has super-algebraic convergence and requires only milliseconds of CPU
time.


title:
UbuntuWorld 1.0 LTS - A Platform for Automated Problem Solving &
  Troubleshooting in the Ubuntu OS

abstract:
  In this paper, we present UbuntuWorld 1.0 LTS - a platform for developing
automated technical support agents in the Ubuntu operating system.
Specifically, we propose to use the Bash terminal as a simulator of the Ubuntu
environment for a learning-based agent and demonstrate the usefulness of
adopting reinforcement learning (RL) techniques for basic problem solving and
troubleshooting in this environment. We provide a plug-and-play interface to
the simulator as a python package where different types of agents can be
plugged in and evaluated, and provide pathways for integrating data from online
support forums like AskUbuntu into an automated agent's learning process.
Finally, we show that the use of this data significantly improves the agent's
learning efficiency. We believe that this platform can be adopted as a
real-world test bed for research on automated technical support.


title: Phase-driven charge manipulation in Hybrid Single-Electron Transistor

abstract:
  Phase-tunable hybrid devices, built upon nanostructures combining normal
metal and superconductors, have been the subject of intense studies due to
their numerous combinations of different charge and heat transport
configurations. They exhibit solid applications in quantum metrology and
coherent caloritronics. Here we propose and realize a new kind of hybrid device
with potential application in single charge manipulation and quantized current
generation. We show that by tuning superconductivity on two proximized
nanowires, coupled via a Coulombic normal metal island, we are able to control
its charge state configuration. This device supports a
one-control-parameter-cycle being actuated by the sole magnetic flux. In a
voltage biased regime, the phase-tunable superconducting gaps can act as energy
barriers for charge quanta leading to an additional degree of freedom in single
electronics. The resulting configuration is fully electrostatic and the current
across the device is governed by the quasiparticle populations in the source
and drain leads. Notably, the proposed device can be realized using standard
nanotechniques opening the possibility to a straightforward coupling with the
nowadays well developed superconducting electronics.


title: Path Integrals and Lie Groups

abstract:
  The roles of Lie groups in Feynman's path integrals in non-relativistic
quantum mechanics are discussed. Dynamical as well as geometrical symmetries
are found useful for path integral quantization. Two examples having the
symmetry of a non-compact Lie group are considered. The first is the free
quantum motion of a particle on a space of constant negative curvature. The
system has a group SO(d,1) associated with the geometrical structure, to which
the technique of harmonic analysis on a homogeneous space is applied. As an
example of a system having a non-compact dynamical symmetry, the d-dimensional
harmonic oscillator is chosen, which has the non-compact dynamical group
SU(1,1) besides its geometrical symmetry SO(d). The radial path integral is
seen as a convolution of the matrix functions of a compact group element of
SU(1,1) on the continuous basis.


title:
Conformal invariance in random cluster models. II. Full scaling limit as
  a branching SLE

abstract:
  In the second article of this series, we establish the convergence of the
loop ensemble of interfaces in the random cluster Ising model to a conformal
loop ensemble (CLE) --- thus completely describing the scaling limit of the
model in terms of the random geometry of interfaces. The central tool of the
present article is the convergence of an exploration tree of the discrete loop
ensemble to a branching SLE$(16/3,-2/3)$. Such branching version of the
Schramm's SLE not only enjoys the locality property, but also arises logically
from the Ising model observables.


title: The fate of bound systems through Sudden Future Singularities

abstract:
  Sudden singularities occur in FRW spacetimes when the scale factor remains
finite and different from zero while some of its derivatives diverge. After
proper rescaling, the scale factor close to such a singularity at $t=0$ takes
the form $a(t)=1+ c |t|^\eta$ (where $c$ and $\eta$ are parameters and
$\eta\geq 0$). We investigate analytically and numerically the geodesics of
free and gravitationally bound particles through such sudden singularities. We
find that even though free particle geodesics go through sudden singularities
for all $\eta\geq 0$, bound systems get dissociated for a wide range of the
parameter $c$. For $\eta <1$ bound particles receive a diverging impulse at the
singularity and get dissociated for all positive values of the parameter $c$.
For $\eta > 1$ (Sudden Future Singularities (SFS)) bound systems get a finite
impulse that depends on the value of $c$ and get dissociated for values of $c$
larger than a critical value $c_{cr}(\eta,\omega_0)>0$ that increases with the
value of $\eta$ and the rescaled angular velocity $\omega_0$ of the bound
system. We obtain an approximate equation for the analytical estimate of
$c_{cr}(\eta,\omega_0)$. We also obtain its accurate form by numerical
derivation of the bound system orbits through the singularities. Bound system
orbits through Big Brake singularities ($c<0$, $1<\eta<2$) are also derived
numerically and are found to get disrupted at the singularity. However, they
remain bound for all values of the parameter $c$ considered.


title:
Motion Estimation and Correction in Photoacoustic Tomographic
  Reconstruction

abstract:
  Motion, e.g., due to patient movement or improper device calibration, is
inevitable in many imaging modalities such as photoacoustic tomography (PAT) by
a rotating system and can lead to undesirable motion artifacts in image
reconstructions, if ignored. In this paper, we establish a hybrid-type model
for PAT that incorporates motion in the model. We first introduce an
approximate continuous model and establish two uniqueness results for simple
parameterized motion models. Then we formulate the discrete problem of
simultaneous motion estimation and image reconstruction as a separable
nonlinear least squares problem and describe an automatic approach to detect
and eliminate motion artifacts during the reconstruction process. Numerical
examples validate our methods.


title: The Quantum Sine Gordon model in perturbative AQFT

abstract:
  We study the Sine-Gordon model with Minkowski signature in the framework of
perturbative algebraic quantum field theory. We calculate the vertex operator
algebra braiding property. We prove that in the finite regime of the model, the
expectation value - with respect to the vacuum or a Hadamard state - of the
Epstein Glaser S-matrix and the interacting current or the field respectively,
both given as formal power series, converge.