title: AGN are cooler than you think: the intrinsic far-IR emission from QSOs

abstract:
  We present an intrinsic AGN SED extending from the optical to the submm,
derived with a sample of unobscured, optically luminous (vLv(5100)>10^43.5
erg/s) QSOs at z<0.18 from the Palomar Green survey. The intrinsic AGN SED was
computed by removing the contribution from stars using the 11.3um polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) feature in the QSOs' mid-IR spectra; the 1sigma
uncertainty on the SED ranges between 12 and 45 per cent as a function of
wavelength and is a combination of PAH flux measurement errors and the
uncertainties related to the conversion between PAH luminosity and star-forming
luminosity. Longwards of 20um the shape of the intrinsic AGN SED is independent
of the AGN power indicating that our template should be applicable to all
systems hosting luminous AGN (vLv(5100) or L_X(2-10keV) > 10^43.5 erg/s). We
note that for our sample of luminous QSOs, the average AGN emission is at least
as high as, and mostly higher than, the total stellar powered emission at all
wavelengths from the optical to the submm. This implies that in many galaxies
hosting powerful AGN, there is no `safe' broadband photometric observation (at
lambda<1000um) which can be used in calculating star-formation rates without
subtracting the AGN contribution. Roughly, the AGN contribution may be ignored
only if the intrinsic AGN luminosity at 5100 Ang is at least a factor of 4
smaller than the total infrared luminosity (L_IR; 8-1000um) of the galaxy.
Finally, we examine the implication of our work in statistical studies of
star-formation in AGN host galaxies.


title:
XNOR-Net: ImageNet Classification Using Binary Convolutional Neural
  Networks

abstract:
  We propose two efficient approximations to standard convolutional neural
networks: Binary-Weight-Networks and XNOR-Networks. In Binary-Weight-Networks,
the filters are approximated with binary values resulting in 32x memory saving.
In XNOR-Networks, both the filters and the input to convolutional layers are
binary. XNOR-Networks approximate convolutions using primarily binary
operations. This results in 58x faster convolutional operations and 32x memory
savings. XNOR-Nets offer the possibility of running state-of-the-art networks
on CPUs (rather than GPUs) in real-time. Our binary networks are simple,
accurate, efficient, and work on challenging visual tasks. We evaluate our
approach on the ImageNet classification task. The classification accuracy with
a Binary-Weight-Network version of AlexNet is only 2.9% less than the
full-precision AlexNet (in top-1 measure). We compare our method with recent
network binarization methods, BinaryConnect and BinaryNets, and outperform
these methods by large margins on ImageNet, more than 16% in top-1 accuracy.


title:
Local convergence of Newton's method for solving generalized equations
  with monotone operator

abstract:
  In this paper we study Newton's method for solving the generalized equation
$F(x)+T(x)\ni 0$ in Hilbert spaces, where $F$ is a Fr\'echet differentiable
function and $T$ is set-valued and maximal monotone. We show that this method
is local quadratically convergent to a solution. Using the idea of majorant
condition on the nonlinear function which is associated to the generalized
equation, the convergence of the method, the optimal convergence radius and
results on the convergence rate are established. The advantage of working with
a majorant condition rests in the fact that it allow to unify several
convergence results pertaining to Newton's method.


title:
Implications of a variable IMF for the interpretation of observations of
  galaxy populations

abstract:
  We investigate the effect of a metallicity-dependent stellar initial mass
function (IMF), as deduced observationally by Martin-Navarro et al. (2015c), on
the inferred stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) of a representative
sample of 186,886 SDSS galaxies. Relative to a Chabrier IMF, for which we show
the implied masses to be close to minimal, the inferred masses increase in both
the low- and high-metallicity regimes due to the addition of stellar remnants
and dwarf stars, respectively. The resulting galaxy stellar mass function
(GSMF) shifts toward higher masses by 0.5 dex, without affecting the high-mass
slope (and thus the need for effective quenching). The implied low-redshift SFR
density increases by an order of magnitude. However, these results depend
strongly on the assumed IMF parametrisation, which is not directly constrained
by the observations. Varying the low-end IMF slope instead of the high-end IMF
slope, while maintaining the same dwarf-to-giant ratio, results in a much more
modest GSMF shift of 0.2 dex and a 10 per cent increase in the SFR density
relative to the Chabrier IMF. A bottom-heavy IMF during the late, metal-rich
evolutionary stage of a galaxy would help explain the rapid quenching and the
bimodality in the galaxy population by on the one hand making galaxies less
quenched (due to the continued formation of dwarf stars) and on the other hand
reducing the gas consumption timescale. We conclude that the implications of
the observational evidence for a variable IMF could vary from absolutely
dramatic to mild but significant.


title:
Multiple solutions for a fractional $p$-Laplacian equation with
  sign-changing potential

abstract:
  We use a variant of the fountain Theorem to prove the existence of infinitely
many weak solutions for the following fractional p-Laplace equation
(-\Delta)^{s}_{p}u+V(x)|u|^{p-2}u=f(x,u) in R^N, where $s \in (0,1)$,$ p \geq
2$,$ N \geq 2$, $(-\Delta)^{s}_{p}$ is the fractional $p$-Laplace operator, the
nonlinearity f is $p$-superlinear at infinity and the potential V(x) is allowed
to be sign-changing.


title:
Evolution of Thermally Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars V:
  Constraining the Mass Loss and Lifetimes of Intermediate Mass, Low
  Metallicity AGB Stars

abstract:
  Thermally-Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch (TP-AGB) stars are relatively short
lived (less than a few Myr), yet their cool effective temperatures, high
luminosities, efficient mass-loss and dust production can dramatically effect
the chemical enrichment histories and the spectral energy distributions of
their host galaxies. The ability to accurately model TP-AGB stars is critical
to the interpretation of the integrated light of distant galaxies, especially
in redder wavelengths. We continue previous efforts to constrain the evolution
and lifetimes of TP-AGB stars by modeling their underlying stellar populations.
Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) optical and near-infrared photometry taken
of 12 fields of 10 nearby galaxies imaged via the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey
Treasury and the near-infrared HST/SNAP follow-up campaign, we compare the
model and observed TP-AGB luminosity functions as well as the number ratio of
TP-AGB to red giant branch stars. We confirm the best-fitting mass-loss
prescription, introduced by Rosenfield et al. 2014, in which two different wind
regimes are active during the TP-AGB, significantly improves models of many
galaxies that show evidence of recent star formation. This study extends
previous efforts to constrain TP-AGB lifetimes to metallicities ranging -1.59 <
[Fe/H] < -0.56 and initial TP-AGB masses up to ~ 4 Msun, which include TP-AGB
stars that undergo hot-bottom burning.


title:
Computing coherence vectors and correlation matrices, with application
  to quantum discord quantification

abstract:
  Coherence vectors and correlation matrices are important functions frequently
used in physics. The numerical calculation of these functions directly from
their definitions, which involves Kronecker products and matrix
multiplications, may seem to be a reasonable option. Notwithstanding, as we
demonstrate in this article, some algebraic manipulations before programming
can reduce considerably their computational complexity. Besides, we provide
Fortran code to generate generalized Gell Mann matrices and to compute the
optimized and unoptimized versions of the associated Bloch's vectors and
correlation matrix, in the case of bipartite quantum systems. As a code test
and application example, we consider the calculation of Hilbert-Schmidt quantum
discords.


title: Image Labeling by Assignment

abstract:
  We introduce a novel geometric approach to the image labeling problem.
Abstracting from specific labeling applications, a general objective function
is defined on a manifold of stochastic matrices, whose elements assign prior
data that are given in any metric space, to observed image measurements. The
corresponding Riemannian gradient flow entails a set of replicator equations,
one for each data point, that are spatially coupled by geometric averaging on
the manifold. Starting from uniform assignments at the barycenter as natural
initialization, the flow terminates at some global maximum, each of which
corresponds to an image labeling that uniquely assigns the prior data. Our
geometric variational approach constitutes a smooth non-convex inner
approximation of the general image labeling problem, implemented with sparse
interior-point numerics in terms of parallel multiplicative updates that
converge efficiently.


title: Thermal Conductivity of Suspended Graphene with Defects

abstract:
  We investigate the thermal conductivity of suspended graphene as a function
of the density of defects, ND, introduced in a controllable way. Graphene
layers are synthesized using chemical vapor deposition, transferred onto a
transmission electron microscopy grid, and suspended over ~7.5-micrometer size
square holes. Defects are induced by irradiation of graphene with the
low-energy electron beam (20 keV) and quantified by the Raman D-to-G peak
intensity ratio. As the defect density changes from 2.0x10^10 cm-2 to 1.8x10^11
cm-2 the thermal conductivity decreases from ~(1.8+/-0.2)x10^3 W/mK to
~(4.0+/-0.2)x10^2 W/mK near room temperature. At higher defect densities, the
thermal conductivity reveals an intriguing saturation behavior at a relatively
high value of ~400 W/mK. The thermal conductivity dependence on defect density
is analyzed using the Boltzmann transport equation and molecular dynamics
simulations. The results are important for understanding phonon - point defect
scattering in two-dimensional systems and for practical applications of
graphene in thermal management.


title:
The Size and Shape of the Milky Way Disk and Halo from M-type Brown
  Dwarfs in the BoRG Survey

abstract:
  We have identified 274 M-type Brown Dwarfs in the Hubble Space Telescope's
Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) pure parallel fields from the Brightest of
Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) survey for high redshift galaxies. These are
near-infrared observations with multiple lines-of-sight out of our Milky Way.
Using these observed M-type Brown Dwarfs we fitted a Galactic disk and halo
model with a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis. This model worked best
with the scale length of the disk fixed at $h$ = 2.6 kpc. For the scale height
of the disk, we found $z_0 = 0.29^{+0.02}_{-0.019}$ kpc and for the central
number density $\rho_0 = 0.29^{+0.20}_{-0.13}$ \#/pc$^3$. For the halo we
derived a flattening parameter $\kappa$ = 0.45$\pm{0.04}$ and a power-law index
$p$ = 2.4$\pm{0.07}$. We found the fraction of M-type brown dwarfs in the local
density that belong to the halo to be $f_{h}$ = 0.0075$^{+0.0025}_{-0.0019}$.
We found no correlation between subtype of M-dwarf and any model parameters.
  The total number of M-type Brown Dwarfs in the disk and halo was determined
to be $58.2^{+9.81}_{-6.70} \times10^{9}$. We found an upper limit for the
fraction of M-type Brown Dwarfs in the halo of 7$^{+5}_{-4}$\%. The upper limit
for the total Galactic Disk mass in M-dwarfs is
$4.34^{+0.73}_{-0.5}\times10^{9}$ $M_{\odot}$, assuming all M-type Brown Dwarfs
have a mass of $80 M_J$.


title:
Tracing the electronic pairing glue in unconventional superconductors
  via inelastic Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy

abstract:
  The origin of Cooper pairing in high-temperature superconductors, such as the
copper-oxide and iron-based system, is still under debate. High transition
temperatures together with unconventional pairing states support the picture of
an electronic pairing glue in the cuprates, where superconductivity is mediated
by collective bosonic excitations of the electron fluid. In other materials,
most importantly iron based systems with only hole or only electron pockets,
the microscopic origin is hotly debated. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)
has been shown to be a powerful experimental probe to detect electronic
excitations and further allows to deduce some fingerprints of bosonic
collective modes. Here, we demonstrate that the inclusion of inelastic tunnel
events is crucial for the interpretation of tunneling spectra and allows to
directly probe bosonic excitations via STM. We develop a model describing both
the elastic tunneling current, which displays the electronic spectral function,
and the inelastic current, that contains the information about the bosonic
spectrum, in the superconducting state. Adopting this extended tunneling
formalism we can naturally reproduce the tunneling spectra of various
unconventional superconductors and trace the occurring features back to an
opening of a spin gap in the superconducting state. More generally, our
approach is a strong argument in favour of a collective mode mediating the
pairing state in particular in iron-based systems. In particular, we conclude
that the debated pairing mechanism in LiFeSe is also of electronic origin with
sign-changing pairing symmetry.


title: Stability and Control of Ad Hoc DC Microgrids

abstract:
  Ad hoc electrical networks are formed by connecting power sources and loads
without pre-determining the network topology. These systems are well-suited to
addressing the lack of electricity in rural areas because they can be assembled
and modified by non-expert users without central oversight. There are two core
aspects to ad hoc system design: 1) designing source and load units such that
the microgrid formed from the arbitrary interconnection of many units is always
stable and 2) developing control strategies to autonomously manage the
microgrid (i.e., perform power dispatch and voltage regulation) in a
decentralized manner and under large uncertainty. To address these challenges
we apply a number of nonlinear control techniques---including Brayton-Moser
potential theory and primal-dual dynamics---to obtain conditions under which an
ad hoc dc microgrid will have a suitable and asymptotically stable equilibrium
point. Further, we propose a new decentralized control scheme that coordinates
many sources to achieve a specified power dispatch from each. A simulated
comparison to previous research is included.


title: Jump filtering and efficient drift estimation for L\'evy-driven SDE's

abstract:
  The problem of drift estimation for the solution $X$ of a stochastic
differential equation with L\'evy-type jumps is considered under discrete
high-frequency observations with a growing observation window. An efficient and
asymptotically normal estimator for the drift parameter is constructed under
minimal conditions on the jump behavior and the sampling scheme. In the case of
a bounded jump measure density these conditions reduce to $n
\Delta_n^{3-\epsilon}\to 0,$ where $n$ is the number of observations and
$\Delta_n$ is the maximal sampling step. This result relaxes the condition
$n\Delta_n^2 \to 0$ usually required for joint estimation of drift and
diffusion coefficient for SDE's with jumps. The main challenge in this
estimation problem stems from the appearance of the unobserved continuous part
$X^c$ in the likelihood function. In order to construct the drift estimator we
recover this continuous part from discrete observations. More precisely, we
estimate, in a nonparametric way, stochastic integrals with respect to $X^c$.
Convergence results of independent interest are proved for these nonparametric
estimators. Finally, we illustrate the behavior of our drift estimator for a
number of popular L\'evy-driven models from finance.


title:
Pressure and surface tension of an active simple liquid: a comparison
  between kinetic, mechanical and free-energy based approaches

abstract:
  We discuss different definitions of pressure for a system of active spherical
particles driven by a non-thermal coloured noise. We show that mechanical,
kinetic and free-energy based approaches lead to the same result up to first
order in the non-equilibrium expansion parameter. The first prescription is
based on a generalisation of the kinetic mesoscopic virial equation and
expresses the pressure exerted on the walls in terms of the average of the
virial of the inter-particle forces. In the second approach, the pressure and
the surface tension are identified with the volume and area derivatives,
respectively, of the partition function associated with the known stationary
non-equilibrium distribution of the model. The third method is a mechanical
approach and is related to the work necessary to deform the system. The
pressure is obtained by comparing the expression of the work in terms of local
stress and strain with the corresponding expression in terms of microscopic
distribution. This is determined from the force balance encoded in the
Born-Green-Yvon equation. Such a method has the advantage of giving a formula
for the local pressure tensor and the surface tension even in inhomogeneous
situations. By direct inspection, we show that the three procedures lead to the
same values of the pressure, and give support to the idea that the partition
function, obtained via the unified coloured noise approximation, is more than a
formal property of the system, but determines the stationary non-equilibrium
thermodynamics of the model.


title: Teleportation stretching for lossy Gaussian channels

abstract:
  If a quantum channel is commutable with a certain set of operators, a Choi
state of the channel becomes a sufficient resource for any entanglement
generation achieved by a single use of the channel with the help of local
operation and classical communications (LOCC). This property, called the
teleportation stretchable, could be useful to determine an upper bound of a
fundamental rate-loss trade-off for optical quantum key distribution.
Unfortunately, the known formulation of the teleportation-stretching expansion
for lossy Gaussian channels is based on an additional assumption of the Choi
state with infinite energy. In this paper, we present an entanglement-assisted
LOCC protocol with a bounded energy entangled state, and identify a resource
state being sufficient for a general entanglement generation protocol through a
single use of lossy Gaussian channels. We also extend this protocol for the
cases of general single-mode Gaussian channels. Our results provide a regular
path to determine an ultimate limit of quantum communication.


title: Evolution of worker policing

abstract:
  Workers in insect societies are sometimes observed to kill male eggs of other
workers, a phenomenon known as worker policing. We perform a mathematical
analysis of the evolutionary dynamics of policing. We investigate the selective
forces behind policing for both dominant and recessive mutations for different
numbers of matings of the queen. The traditional, relatedness-based argument
suggests that policing evolves if the queen mates with more than two males, but
does not evolve if the queen mates with a single male. We derive precise
conditions for the invasion and stability of policing alleles. We find that the
relatedness-based argument is not robust with respect to small changes in
colony efficiency caused by policing. We also calculate evolutionarily singular
strategies and determine when they are evolutionarily stable. We use a
population genetics approach that applies to dominant or recessive mutations of
any effect size.


title: Modeling and Estimation of the Risk When Choosing a Provider

abstract:
  The paper provides an algorithm for the risk estimation when a company
selects an outsourcing service provider for innovation product. Calculations
are based on expert surveys conducted among customers and among providers of
outsourcing. The surveys assessed the degree of materiality of species at risk.


title: A sharp inscribed radius estimate for fully nonlinear flows

abstract:
  We prove a sharp estimate for the inscribed radius under certain fully
nonlinear curvature flows. This estimate is asymptotically sharp on cylinders.


title: Exact Clustering of Weighted Graphs via Semidefinite Programming

abstract:
  As a model problem for clustering, we consider the densest k-disjoint-clique
problem of partitioning a weighted complete graph into k disjoint subgraphs
such that the sum of the densities of these subgraphs is maximized. We
establish that such subgraphs can be recovered from the solution of a
particular semidefinite relaxation with high probability if the input graph is
sampled from a distribution of clusterable graphs. Specifically, the
semidefinite relaxation is exact if the graph consists of k large disjoint
subgraphs, corresponding to clusters, with weight concentrated within these
subgraphs, plus a moderate number of outliers. Further, we establish that if
noise is weakly obscuring these clusters, i.e, the between-cluster edges are
assigned very small weights, then we can recover significantly smaller
clusters. For example, we show that in approximately sparse graphs, where the
between-cluster weights tend to zero as the size n of the graph tends to
infinity, we can recover clusters of size polylogarithmic in n. Empirical
evidence from numerical simulations is also provided to support these
theoretical phase transitions to perfect recovery of the cluster structure.


title:
A Computationally Efficient Framework for Automatic Inertial Sensor
  Calibration

abstract:
  The calibration of (low-cost) inertial sensors has become increasingly
important over the past years since their use has grown exponentially in many
applications going from unmanned aerial vehicle navigation to 3D-animation.
However, this calibration procedure is often quite problematic since the
signals issued from these sensors have a complex spectral structure and the
methods available to estimate the parameters of these models are either
unstable, computationally intensive and/or statistically inconsistent. This
paper presents a new software platform for inertial sensor calibration based on
the Generalized Method of Wavelet Moments which provides a computationally
efficient, flexible, user-friendly and statistically sound tool to estimate and
select from a wide range of complex models. The software is developed within
the open-source statistical software R and is based on C++ language allowing it
to achieve high computational performance.


title:
Probing Collective Effects in Hadronisation with the Extremes of the
  Underlying Event

abstract:
  We define a new set of observables to probe the structure of the underlying
event in hadron collisions. We use the conventional definition of the
`transverse region' in jet events and, for a fixed window in jet $p_\perp$,
propose to measure several discriminating quantities as a function of the level
of activity in the transverse region. The measurement of these observables in
LHC data would reveal whether, e.g., the properties of `low-UE' events are
compatible with equivalent measurements in $e^+e^-$ collisions (jet
universality), and whether the scaling behaviour towards `high-UE' events
exhibits properties of non-trivial soft-QCD dynamics, such as colour
re-connections or other collective phenomena. We illustrate at $\sqrt{s} = 13$
TeV that significant discriminatory power is obtained in comparisons between MC
models with varying treatments of collective effects, including Pythia 8, EPOS,
and Dipsy.


title: Convection in Oblate Solar-Type Stars

abstract:
  We present the first global 3D simulations of thermal convection in the
oblate envelopes of rapidly-rotating solar-type stars. This has been achieved
by exploiting the capabilities of the new Compressible High-ORder Unstructured
Spectral difference (CHORUS) code. We consider rotation rates up to 85\% of the
critical (breakup) rotation rate, which yields an equatorial radius that is up
to 17\% larger than the polar radius. This substantial oblateness enhances the
disparity between polar and equatorial modes of convection. We find that the
convection redistributes the heat flux emitted from the outer surface, leading
to an enhancement of the heat flux in the polar and equatorial regions. This
finding implies that lower-mass stars with convective envelopes may not have
darker equators as predicted by classical gravity darkening arguments. The
vigorous high-latitude convection also establishes elongated axisymmetric
circulation cells and zonal jets in the polar regions. Though the overall
amplitude of the surface differential rotation, $\Delta \Omega$, is insensitive
to the oblateness, the oblateness does limit the fractional kinetic energy
contained in the differential rotation to no more than 61\%. Furthermore, we
argue that this level of differential rotation is not enough to have a
significant impact on the oblateness of the star.

categories: astro-ph.SR cs.DC physics.comp-ph physics.flu-dyn


title:
A stochastic solution with Gaussian stationary increments of the
  symmetric space-time fractional diffusion equation

abstract:
  The stochastic solution with Gaussian stationary increments is establihsed
for the symmetric space-time fractional diffusion equation when $0 < \beta <
\alpha \le 2$, where $0 < \beta \le 1$ and $0 < \alpha \le 2$ are the
fractional derivation orders in time and space, respectively. This solution is
provided by imposing the identity between two probability density functions
resulting (i) from a new integral representation formula of the fundamental
solution of the symmetric space-time fractional diffusion equation and (ii)
from the product of two independent random variables. This is an alternative
method with respect to previous approaches such as the scaling limit of the
continuos time random walk, the parametric subordination and the subordinated
Langevin equation. A new integral representation formula for the fundamental
solution of the space-time fractional diffusion equation is firstly derived. It
is then shown that, in the symmetric case, a stochastic solution can be
obtained by a Gaussian process with stationary increments and with a random
wideness scale variable distributed according to an arrangement of two extremal
L\'evy stable densities. This stochastic solution is self-similar with
stationary increments and uniquely defined in a statistical sense by the mean
and the covariance structure. Numerical simulations are carried out by choosing
as Gaussian process the fractional Brownian motion. Sample paths and
probability densities functions are shown to be in agreement with the
fundamental solution of the symmetric space-time fractional diffusion equation.

categories: cond-mat.stat-mech math-ph math.MP math.PR


title:
Violation of the Born Rule: Implications for the Classical
  Electromagnetic Field

abstract:
  It is shown that violation of the Born Rule leads to a breakdown of the
correspondence between the quantum electromagnetic field and its classical
counterpart. Specifically, the relationship of the quantum coherent state to
the classical electromagnetic field turns out to imply that if the Born Rule
were violated, this could result in apparent deviations from the energy
conservation law applying to the field and its sources (Poynting's Theorem).
The result suggests that the Born Rule is just as fundamental a law of Nature
as are the conservation laws.


title:
Connecting inflation with late cosmic acceleration by particle
  production

abstract:
  A continuous process of creation of particles is investigated as a possible
connection between the inflationary stage with late cosmic acceleration. In
this model, the inflationary era occurs due to a continuous and fast process of
creation of relativistic particles, and the recent accelerating phase is driven
by the non-relativistic matter creation from the gravitational field acting on
the quantum vacuum, which finally results in an effective equation of state
less than $-1$. Thus, explaining recent results in favor of a phantom dynamics
without the need of any modifications in the gravity theory has been proposed.
Finally, we confront the model with recent observational data of type Ia
Supernova, history of the Hubble parameter, baryon acoustic oscillations, and
the cosmic microwave background.


title: The Dynamical Andre-Oort Conjecture for cubic polynomials

abstract:
  In the moduli space of degree d polynomials, the special subvarieties are
those cut out by critical orbit relations, and then the special points are the
post-critically finite polynomials. It was conjectured that in the moduli space
of degree d polynomials, the subvarieties containing a Zariski-dense set of
special points are exactly these special subvarieties. In this article, we
prove the first non-trivial case for this conjecture: the case of cubic
polynomials.


title:
New physics and signal-background interference in associated $pp\to HZ$
  production

abstract:
  We re-investigate electroweak signal-background interference in associated
Higgs production via gluon fusion in the presence of new physics in the
top-Higgs sector. Considering the full final state $pp \to b \bar b
\ell^+\ell^-$ ($\ell=e,\mu$), we discuss how new physics in the top-Higgs
sector that enhances the $ZZ$ component can leave footprints in the $HZ$ limit
setting. In passing we investigate the phenomenology of a class of new physics
interactions that can be genuinely studied in this process.


title:
Near-Optimal Stochastic Approximation for Online Principal Component
  Estimation

abstract:
  Principal component analysis (PCA) has been a prominent tool for
high-dimensional data analysis. Online algorithms that estimate the principal
component by processing streaming data are of tremendous practical and
theoretical interests. Despite its rich applications, theoretical convergence
analysis remains largely open. In this paper, we cast online PCA into a
stochastic nonconvex optimization problem, and we analyze the online PCA
algorithm as a stochastic approximation iteration. The stochastic approximation
iteration processes data points incrementally and maintains a running estimate
of the principal component. We prove for the first time a nearly optimal
finite-sample error bound for the online PCA algorithm. Under the subgaussian
assumption, we show that the finite-sample error bound closely matches the
minimax information lower bound.


title: An inverse and analytic lens design method

abstract:
  Traditional lens design is a numerical and forward process based on ray
tracing and aberration theory. This method has limitations because the initial
configuration of the lens has to be specified and the aberrations of the lenses
have to considered. This paper is an initial attempt to investigate an analytic
and inverse lens design method, called Lagrange, to overcome these barriers.
Lagrange method tries to build differential equations in terms of the system
parameters and the system input and output (object and image). The generalized
Snell's law in three dimensional space and the normal of a surface in
fundamental differential geometry are applied. Based on the Lagrange method
equations for a single surface system are derived which can perfectly image a
point object.


title: Cooperative Robust Estimation with Local Performance Guarantees

abstract:
  The paper considers the problem of cooperative estimation for a linear
uncertain plant observed by a network of communicating sensors. We take a novel
approach by treating the filtering problem from the view point of local sensors
while the network interconnections are accounted for via an uncertain signals
modelling of estimation performance of other nodes. That is, the information
communicated between the nodes is treated as the true plant information subject
to perturbations, and each node is endowed with certain believes about these
perturbations during the filter design. The proposed distributed filter
achieves a suboptimal $H_\infty$ consensus performance. Furthermore, local
performance of each estimator is also assessed given additional constraints on
the performance of the other nodes. These conditions are shown to be useful in
tuning the desired estimation performance of the sensor network.


title: Deviation of polynomials from their expectations and isoperimetry

abstract:
  In the first part we study deviation of a polynomial from its mathematical
expectation. This deviation can be estimated from above by Carbery--Wright
inequality, so we investigate estimates of the deviation from below. We obtain
such estimates in two different cases: for Gaussian measures and a polynomial
of an arbitrary degree and for an arbitrary log-concave measure but only for
polynomials of the second degree. In the second part we deals with
isoperimetric inequality and the Poincar\'e inequality for probability measures
on the real line that are images of the uniform distributions on convex compact
sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$ under polynomial mappings.


title: HD 16771: A lithium-rich giant in the red-clump stage

abstract:
  Aims: We report the discovery of a young lithium rich giant, HD 16771, in the
core-helium burning phase that does not seem to fit existing proposals of Li
synthesis near the luminosity function bump or during He-core flash. We aim to
understand the nature of Li enrichment in the atmosphere of HD 16771 by
exploring various Li enhancement scenarios. Methods: We have collected
high-resolution echelle spectra of HD 16771 and derived stellar parameters and
chemical abundances for 27 elements by either line equivalent widths or
synthetic spectrum analyses. Results: HD 16771 is a Li-rich
(log(n(Li))=+2.67+/-0.10 dex) intermediate mass giant star (M=2.4+/-0.1 Msun)
with age=0.76+/-0.13 Gyr and located at the red giant clump. Kinematics and
chemical compositions are consistent with HD 16771 being a member of the
Galactic thin disk population. The non-detection of 6Li(< 3%), a low carbon
isotopic ratio (12C/13C=12+/-2), and the slow rotation (vsini=2.8 km/s) all
suggest that lithium might have been synthesized in this star. On the contrary,
HD 16771 with a mass of 2.4 Msun has no chance of encountering luminosity
function bump and He-core flash where the possibility of fast deep-mixing for
Li enrichment in K giants has been suggested previously. Conclusions: Based of
the evolutionary status of this star, we discuss the possibility that 7Li
synthesis in HD 16771 is triggered by the engulfment of close-in planet(s)
during the RGB phase.


title: Persistent Homology of Attractors For Action Recognition

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a novel framework for dynamical analysis of human
actions from 3D motion capture data using topological data analysis. We model
human actions using the topological features of the attractor of the dynamical
system. We reconstruct the phase-space of time series corresponding to actions
using time-delay embedding, and compute the persistent homology of the
phase-space reconstruction. In order to better represent the topological
properties of the phase-space, we incorporate the temporal adjacency
information when computing the homology groups. The persistence of these
homology groups encoded using persistence diagrams are used as features for the
actions. Our experiments with action recognition using these features
demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms other baseline methods.


title: Mathematical Modeling of CRISPR-CAS system effects on biofilm formation

abstract:
  Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), linked
with CRISPR associated (CAS) genes, play a profound role in the interactions
between phage and their bacterial hosts. It is now well understood that
CRISPR-CAS systems can confer adaptive immunity against bacteriophage
infections. However, the possibility of failure of CRISPR immunity may lead to
a productive infection by the phage (cell lysis) or lysogeny. Recently,
CRISPR-CAS genes have been implicated in changes to group behaviour, including
biofilm formation, of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa when lysogenized.
For lysogens with a CRISPR system, another recent experimental study suggests
that bacteriophage re-infection of previously lysogenized bacteria may lead to
cell death. Thus CRISPR immunity can have complex effects on phage-host-lysogen
interactions, particularly in a biofilm. In this contribution, we develop and
analyse a series of models to elucidate and disentangle these interactions.
From a therapeutic standpoint, CRISPR immunity increases biofilm resistance to
phage therapy. Our models predict that lysogens may be able to displace
CRISPR-immune bacteria in a biofilm, and thus suggest strategies to eliminate
phage resistant biofilms.


title: Anomalous edge state in a non-Hermitian lattice

abstract:
  We show that the bulk-boundary correspondence for topological insulators can
be modified in the presence of non-Hermiticity. We consider a one-dimensional
tight-binding model with gain and loss as well as long-range hopping. The
system is described by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian that encircles an
exceptional point in momentum space. The winding number has a fractional value
of 1/2. There is only one dynamically stable zero-energy edge state due to the
defectiveness of the Hamiltonian. This edge state is robust to disorder due to
protection by a chiral symmetry. We also discuss experimental realization with
arrays of coupled resonator optical waveguides.

categories: quant-ph cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.quant-gas physics.optics


title: Market Dynamics vs. Statistics: Limit Order Book Example

abstract:
  Commonly used limit order book attributes are empirically considered based on
NASDAQ ITCH data. It is shown that some of them have the properties drastically
different from the ones assumed in many market dynamics study. Because of this
difference we propose to make a transition from "Statistical" type of order
book study (typical for academics) to "Dynamical" type of study (typical for
market practitioners). Based on market data analysis we conclude, that most of
market dynamics information is contained in attributes with spikes (e.g.
executed trades flow $I=dv/dt$), there is no any "stationary case" on the
market and typical market dynamics is a "fast excitation and then slow
relaxation" type of behavior with a wide distribution of excitation frequencies
and relaxation times. A computer code, providing full depth order book
information and recently executed trades is available from authors [1].


title:
Hardware Acceleration for Boolean Satisfiability Solver by Applying
  Belief Propagation Algorithm

abstract:
  Boolean satisfiability (SAT) has an extensive application domain in computer
science, especially in electronic design automation applications. Circuit
synthesis, optimization, and verification problems can be solved by
transforming original problems to SAT problems. However, the SAT problem is
known as NP-complete, which means there is no efficient method to solve it.
Therefore, an efficient SAT solver to enhance the performance is always
desired. We propose a hardware acceleration method for SAT problems. By
surveying the properties of SAT problems and the decoding of low-density
parity-check (LDPC) codes, a special class of error-correcting codes, we
discover that both of them are constraint satisfaction problems. The belief
propagation algorithm has been successfully applied to the decoding of LDPC,
and the corresponding decoder hardware designs are extensively studied.
Therefore, we proposed a belief propagation based algorithm to solve SAT
problems. With this algorithm, the SAT solver can be accelerated by hardware. A
software simulator is implemented to verify the proposed algorithm and the
performance improvement is estimated. Our experiment results show that time
complexity does not increase with the size of SAT problems and the proposed
method can achieve at least 30x speedup compared to MiniSat.


title:
Towards the Emulation of the Cardiac Conduction System for Pacemaker
  Testing

abstract:
  The heart is a vital organ that relies on the orchestrated propagation of
electrical stimuli to coordinate each heart beat. Abnormalities in the heart's
electrical behaviour can be managed with a cardiac pacemaker. Recently, the
closed-loop testing of pacemakers with an emulation (real-time simulation) of
the heart has been proposed. An emulated heart would provide realistic
reactions to the pacemaker as if it were a real heart. This enables developers
to interrogate their pacemaker design without having to engage in costly or
lengthy clinical trials. Many high-fidelity heart models have been developed,
but are too computationally intensive to be simulated in real-time. Heart
models, designed specifically for the closed-loop testing of pacemakers, are
too abstract to be useful in the testing of physical pacemakers.
  In the context of pacemaker testing, this paper presents a more
computationally efficient heart model that generates realistic continuous-time
electrical signals. The heart model is composed of cardiac cells that are
connected by paths. Significant improvements were made to an existing cardiac
cell model to stabilise its activation behaviour and to an existing path model
to capture the behaviour of continuous electrical propagation. We provide
simulation results that show our ability to faithfully model complex re-entrant
circuits (that cause arrhythmia) that existing heart models can not.


title:
Wave mixing in coupled phononic crystals via a variable stiffness
  mechanism

abstract:
  We investigate wave mixing effects in a phononic crystal that couples the
wave dynamics of two channels -- primary and control ones -- via a variable
stiffness mechanism. We demonstrate analytically and numerically that the wave
transmission in the primary channel can be manipulated by the control channel's
signal. We show that the application of control waves allows the selection of a
specific mode through the primary channel. We also demonstrate that the mixing
of two wave modes is possible whereby a modulation effect is observed. A
detailed study of the design parameters is also carried out to optimize the
switching capabilities of the proposed system. Finally, we verify that the
system can fulfill both switching and amplification functionalities,
potentially enabling the realization of an acoustic transistor.


title: Domination of multilinear singular integrals by positive sparse forms

abstract:
  We establish a uniform domination of the family of trilinear multiplier forms
with singularity over a one-dimensional subspace by positive sparse forms
involving $L^p$-averages. This class includes the adjoint forms to the bilinear
Hilbert transforms. Our result strengthens the $L^p$-boundedness proved in
\cite{MTT} and entails as a corollary a rich multilinear weighted theory. In
particular, we obtain $L^{q_1}(v_1) \times L^{q_2}(v_2)$-boundedness of the
bilinear Hilbert transform when the weights $v_j$ belong to the class
$A_{\frac{q+1}{2}}\cap RH_2$. Our proof relies on a stopping time construction
based on newly developed localized outer-$L^p$ embedding theorems for the wave
packet transform. In an Appendix, we show how our domination principle can be
applied to recover the vector-valued bounds for the bilinear Hilbert transforms
recently proved by Benea and Muscalu.


title: The asymptotically flat scalar-flat Yamabe problem with boundary

abstract:
  We consider two cases of the asymptotically flat scalar-flat Yamabe problem
on a non-compact manifold with boundary, in dimension $n\geq3$. First,
following arguments of Cantor and Brill in the compact case, we show that given
an asymptotically flat metric $g$, there is a conformally equivalent
asymptotically flat scalar-flat metric that agrees with $g$ on the boundary. We
then replace the metric boundary condition with a condition on the mean
curvature: Given a function $f$ on the boundary that is not too large, we show
that there is an asymptotically flat scalar-flat metric, conformally equivalent
to $g$ whose boundary mean curvature is given by $f$. The latter case involves
solving an elliptic PDE with critical exponent using the method of sub- and
supersolutions. Both results require the usual assumption that the Sobolev
quotient is positive.


title: Understanding the spatiotemporal pattern of grazing cattle movement

abstract:
  In this study, we analyse a high-frequency movement dataset for a group of
grazing cattle and investigate their spatiotemporal patterns using a simple
two-state `stop-and-move' mobility model. We find that the dispersal kernel in
the moving state is best described by a mixture exponential distribution,
indicating the hierarchical nature of the movement. On the other hand, the
waiting time appears to be scale-invariant below a certain cut-off and is best
described by a truncated power-law distribution, suggesting heterogenous
dynamics in the non-moving state. We explore possible explanations for the
observed phenomena, covering factors that can play a role in the generation of
mobility patterns, such as the context of grazing environment, the intrinsic
decision-making mechanism or the energy status of different activities. In
particular, we propose a new hypothesis that the underlying movement pattern
can be attributed to the most probable observable energy status under the
maximum entropy configuration. These results are not only valuable for
modelling cattle movement but also provide new insights for understanding the
underlying biological basis of grazing behaviour.


title:
Rattling enhanced superconductivity in MV$_2$Al$_{20}$ (M = Sc, Lu, Y)
  intermetallic cage compounds

abstract:
  Polycrystalline samples of four intermetallic compounds: MV$_2$Al$_{20}$ (M =
Sc, Y, La, and Lu) were synthesized using an arc-melting technique. The crystal
structures were analyzed by means of powder x-ray diffraction and Rietveld
analysis, and the physical properties were studied by means of heat capacity,
electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements down to 0.4 K.
For ScV$_2$Al$_{20}$, LuV$_2$Al$_{20}$, and YV$_2$Al$_{20}$, superconductivity
was observed with critical temperatures T$_c$ = 1.00 K, 0.57 K, and 0.60 K,
respectively. Superconductivity for the Lu compound is reported for the first
time. Theoretical calculations of the electronic and phonon structures were
conducted in order to analyze the superconductivity and dynamics in
ScV$_2$Al$_{20}$, YV$_2$Al$_{20}$, and LuV$_2$Al$_{20}$ and to explain the lack
of a superconducting transition in LaV$_2$Al$_{20}$ down to 0.4 K. The results
of the experimental and theoretical studies show that all the compounds are
weakly-coupled type II BCS superconductors, and reveal the importance of the
M-atom anharmonic "rattling" modes for the superconductivity in these
materials, which seem to enhance T$_c$, especially for ScV$_2$Al$_{20}$.


title: On the dual frame induced by an invertible frame multiplier

abstract:
  Recently it has been established that given an invertible frame multiplier
with semi-normalized symbol, a specific dual of any of the two involved frames
can be determined for the inversion purpose. The inverse can be represented as
a multiplier with the reciprocal symbol, this particular dual of one of the
given frames, and any dual of the other frame. The specific dual is the only
one having this property among all Bessel sequences.
  In this manuscript we extend the results showing that the specific dual with
the above mentioned property is unique among all possible sequences.
Furthermore, we allow the symbol to be not necessarily semi-normalized. Finally
we characterize cases when the canonical dual frame and the new specific dual
frame coincide.


title:
Stein's method for positively associated random variables with
  applications to the Ising and voter models, bond percolation, and contact
  process

abstract:
  We provide non-asymptotic $L^1$ bounds to the normal for four well-known
models in statistical physics and particle systems in $\mathbb{Z}^d$; the
ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor Ising model, the supercritical bond percolation
model, the voter model and the contact process. In the Ising model, we obtain
an $L^1$ distance bound between the total magnetization and the normal
distribution at any temperature when the magnetic moment parameter is nonzero,
and when the inverse temperature is below critical and the magnetic moment
parameter is zero. In the percolation model we obtain such a bound for the
total number of points in a finite region belonging to an infinite cluster in
dimensions $d \ge 2$, in the voter model for the occupation time of the origin
in dimensions $d \ge 7$, and for finite time integrals of non-constant
increasing cylindrical functions evaluated on the one dimensional supercritical
contact process started in its unique invariant distribution.
  The tool developed for these purposes is a version of Stein's method adapted
to positively associated random variables. In one dimension, letting
$\boldsymbol{\xi}=(\xi_1,\ldots,\xi_m)$ be a positively associated mean zero
random vector with components that obey the bound $|\xi_i| \le B,
i=1,\ldots,m$, and whose sum $W = \sum_{i=1}^m \xi_i$ has variance 1, it holds
that $$ d_1 \left(\mathcal{L}(W),\mathcal{L}(Z) \right) \leq 5B +
\sqrt{\frac{8}{\pi}}\sum_{i \neq j} \mathbb{E}[\xi_i \xi_j] $$ where $Z$ has
the standard normal distribution and $d_1(\cdot,\cdot)$ is the $L^1$ metric.
Our methods apply in the multidimensional case with the $L^1$ metric replaced
by a smooth function metric.


title: Differential K-characters and D-branes

abstract:
  Starting from the definition of Cheeger-Simons K-character, we show how to
describe D-brane world-volumes, the Wess-Zumino action and topological D-brane
charges within the K-theoretical framework in type II superstring theory. We
stress in particular how each feature of the old cohomological classification
can be reproduced using the K-theoretical language.


title: Fast moment estimation for generalized latent Dirichlet models

abstract:
  We develop a generalized method of moments (GMM) approach for fast parameter
estimation in a new class of Dirichlet latent variable models with mixed data
types. Parameter estimation via GMM has been demonstrated to have computational
and statistical advantages over alternative methods, such as expectation
maximization, variational inference, and Markov chain Monte Carlo. The key
computational advan- tage of our method (MELD) is that parameter estimation
does not require instantiation of the latent variables. Moreover, a
representational advantage of the GMM approach is that the behavior of the
model is agnostic to distributional assumptions of the observations. We derive
population moment conditions after marginalizing out the sample-specific
Dirichlet latent variables. The moment conditions only depend on component mean
parameters. We illustrate the utility of our approach on simulated data,
comparing results from MELD to alternative methods, and we show the promise of
our approach through the application of MELD to several data sets.


title: Spin-Wave Fiber

abstract:
  Spin waves are collective excitations propagating in the magnetic medium with
ordered magnetizations. Magnonics, utilizing the spin wave (magnon) as
information carrier, is a promising candidate for low-dissipation computation
and communication technologies. We discover that, due to the
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, the scattering behavior of spin wave at a
magnetic domain wall follows a generalized Snell's law, where two magnetic
domains work as two different mediums. Similar to optical total reflection that
occurs at the water-air interfaces, spin waves may experience total reflection
at magnetic domain walls when their incident angle larger than a critical
value. We design a spin wave fiber using a magnetic domain structure with two
domain walls, and demonstrate that such a spin wave fiber can transmit spin
waves over long distance by total internal reflections, in analogy to an
optical fiber. Our design of spin wave fiber opens up new possibilities in pure
magnetic information processing.


title:
Broadband highly-efficient dielectric metadevices for polarization
  control

abstract:
  Metadevices based on dielectric nanostructured surfaces with both electric
and magnetic Mie-type resonances have resulted in the best efficiency to date
for functional flat optics with only one disadvantage: a narrow operational
bandwidth. Here we experimentally demonstrate broadband transparent
all-dielectric metasurfaces for highly efficient polarization manipulation. We
utilize the generalized Huygens principle, with a superposition of the
scattering contributions from several electric and magnetic multipolar modes of
the constituent meta-atoms, to achieve destructive interference in reflection
over a large spectral bandwidth. By employing this novel concept, we
demonstrate reflectionless (~90% transmission) half-wave plates, quarter-wave
plates, and vector beam q-plates that can operate across multiple telecom bands
with ~99% polarization conversion efficiency.


title: Quantum state transfer through time reversal of an optical channel

abstract:
  Rare earth ions have exceptionally long coherence times, making them an
excellent candidate for quantum information processing. A key part of this
processing is quantum state transfer. We show that perfect state transfer can
be achieved by time reversing the intermediate quantum channel, and suggest
using a gradient echo memory (GEM) to perform this time reversal. We propose an
experiment with rare earth ions to verify these predictions, where an emitter
and receiver crystal are connected with an optical channel passed through a
GEM. We investigate the affect experimental imperfections and collective
dynamics have on the state transfer process. We demonstrate superrandiant
effects can enhance coupling into the optical channel and improve the transfer
fidelity. We lastly discuss how our results apply to state transfer of
entangled states.


title: Topological origin of universal few-body clusters in Efimov physics

abstract:
  Efimov physics is renowned for the self-similar spectrum featuring the
universal ratio of one eigenenergy to its neighbor. Even more esoteric is the
numerically unveiled fact that every Efimov trimer is accompanied by a pair of
tetramers. Here we demonstrate that this hierarchy of universal few-body
clusters has a topological origin by identifying the numbers of universal 3-
and 4-body bound states with the winding numbers of the renormalization-group
limit cycle in theory space. The finding suggests a topological phase
transition in mass-imbalanced few-body systems which should be tested
experimentally.


title:
Infinitely many solutions for three classes of self-similar equations,
  with the $p$-Laplace operator

abstract:
  We study the global solution curves, and prove the existence of infinitely
many positive solutions for three classes of self-similar equations, with
$p$-Laplace operator. In case $p=2$, these are well-known problems involving
the Gelfand equation, the equation modeling electrostatic
micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and a polynomial nonlinearity. We
extend the classical results of D.D. Joseph and T.S. Lundgren \cite{JL} to the
case $p \ne 2$, and we generalize the main result of Z. Guo and J. Wei
\cite{GW} on the equation modeling MEMS.


title: Groups not acting on compact metric spaces by homeomorphisms

abstract:
  We show that the direct sum of uncountably many non-Abelian groups does not
embed into the group of homeomorphisms of a compact metric space.


title: Density property of certain sets and their applications

abstract:
  In this paper we show that certain sets are dense in $\mathbb{R}$. We give
some applications. For example, we show an analytical proof that
$q^{\frac{1}{n}}$, $q$ is a prime number and $e$; are irrational numbers. As
another application we show: If $f$ is an locally integrable function on
$\mathbb{R}-\{0\}$ satisfying $\int_x ^{px}f(t)dt$ and $\int_x ^{qx}f(t)dt$ are
constant with $\frac{\ln p}{\ln q}$ is an irrational number; implies
$f(t)=\frac{c}{t}\,\,\ a.e.$, where $c$ is constant; which is already
considered in \cite{b1} for the case when $f$ is continuous.


title: Regularization based on all-at-once formulations for inverse problems

abstract:
  Parameter identification problems typically consist of a model equation, e.g.
a (system of) ordinary or partial differential equation(s), and the observation
equation. In the conventional reduced setting, the model equation is eliminated
via the parameter-to-state map. Alternatively, one might consider both sets of
equations (model and observations) as one large system, to which some
regularization method is applied. The choice of the formulation (reduced or
all-at-once) can make a large difference computationally, depending on which
regularization method is used: Whereas almost the same optimality system arises
for the reduced and the all-at-once Tikhonov method, the situation is different
for iterative methods, especially in the context of nonlinear models. In this
paper we will exemplarily provide some convergence results for all-at-once
versions of variational, Newton type and gradient based regularization methods.
Moreover we will compare the implementation requirements for the respective
all-at-one and reduced versions and provide some numerical comparison.


title: Existence of Projective Planes

abstract:
  This report gives an overview of the history of finite projective planes and
their properties before going on to outline the proof that no projective plane
of order 10 exists. The report also investigates the search carried out by
MacWilliams, Sloane and Thompson in 1970 [12] and confirms their result by
providing independent verification that there is no vector of weight 15 in the
code generated by the projective plane of order 10.


title:
Weighted mining of massive collections of $p$-values by convex
  optimization

abstract:
  Researchers in data-rich disciplines---think of computational genomics and
observational cosmology---often wish to mine large bodies of $p$-values looking
for significant effects, while controlling the false discovery rate or
family-wise error rate. Increasingly, researchers also wish to prioritize
certain hypotheses, for example those thought to have larger effect sizes, by
upweighting, and to impose constraints on the underlying mining, such as
monotonicity along a certain sequence.
  We introduce Princessp, a principled method for performing weighted multiple
testing by constrained convex optimization. Our method elegantly allows one to
prioritize certain hypotheses through upweighting and to discount others
through downweighting, while constraining the underlying weights involved in
the mining process. When the $p$-values derive from monotone likelihood ratio
families like the Gaussian means model, the new method allows exact solution of
an important optimal weighting problem previously thought to be nonconvex and
computationally infeasible. Our method scales to massive dataset sizes.
  We illustrate the applications of Princessp on a series of standard genomics
datasets and offer comparisons with several previous `standard' methods.
Princessp offers both ease of operation and the ability to scale to extremely
large problem sizes. The method is available as open-source software from
http://github.com/dobriban/pvalue_weighting_matlab .


title: Saliency Detection with Spaces of Background-based Distribution

abstract:
  In this letter, an effective image saliency detection method is proposed by
constructing some novel spaces to model the background and redefine the
distance of the salient patches away from the background. Concretely, given the
backgroundness prior, eigendecomposition is utilized to create four spaces of
background-based distribution (SBD) to model the background, in which a more
appropriate metric (Mahalanobis distance) is quoted to delicately measure the
saliency of every image patch away from the background. After that, a coarse
saliency map is obtained by integrating the four adjusted Mahalanobis distance
maps, each of which is formed by the distances between all the patches and
background in the corresponding SBD. To be more discriminative, the coarse
saliency map is further enhanced into the posterior probability map within
Bayesian perspective. Finally, the final saliency map is generated by properly
refining the posterior probability map with geodesic distance. Experimental
results on two usual datasets show that the proposed method is effective
compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms.


title: Ricci flow on asymptotically Euclidean manifolds

abstract:
  In this paper, we prove that if an asymptotically Euclidean manifold
$(M^n,g)$ under the condition that $R \ge 0$ has long time existence of Ricci
flow, the mass of $(M^n,g)$ is nonnegative. In addition, we give an independent
proof of positive mass theorem in dimension $3$.


title: Study of branes with variable tension

abstract:
  In this work we study a brane world model with variable tension which gives
rise to four dimensional cosmologies. The brane worlds obtained correspond to
E\"{o}tv\"{o}s branes whose (internal) geometry can be casted as either a four
dimensional (A)dS$_{4}$ or a standard radiation period cosmology. The matter
dominated period is discussed as well.


title: The (vertex-)monochromatic index of a graph

abstract:
  A tree $T$ in an edge-colored graph $H$ is called a \emph{monochromatic tree}
if all the edges of $T$ have the same color. For $S\subseteq V(H)$, a
\emph{monochromatic $S$-tree} in $H$ is a monochromatic tree of $H$ containing
the vertices of $S$. For a connected graph $G$ and a given integer $k$ with
$2\leq k\leq |V(G)|$, the \emph{$k$-monochromatic index $mx_k(G)$} of $G$ is
the maximum number of colors needed such that for each subset $S\subseteq V(G)$
of $k$ vertices, there exists a monochromatic $S$-tree. In this paper, we prove
that for any connected graph $G$, $mx_k(G)=|E(G)|-|V(G)|+2$ for each $k$ such
that $3\leq k\leq |V(G)|$.
  A tree $T$ in a vertex-colored graph $H$ is called a
\emph{vertex-monochromatic tree} if all the internal vertices of $T$ have the
same color. For $S\subseteq V(H)$, a \emph{vertex-monochromatic $S$-tree} in
$H$ is a vertex-monochromatic tree of $H$ containing the vertices of $S$. For a
connected graph $G$ and a given integer $k$ with $2\leq k\leq |V(G)|$, the
\emph{$k$-monochromatic vertex-index $mvx_k(G)$} of $G$ is the maximum number
of colors needed such that for each subset $S\subseteq V(G)$ of $k$ vertices,
there exists a vertex-monochromatic $S$-tree. We show that for a given a
connected graph $G$, and a positive integer $L$ with $L\leq |V(G)|$, to decide
whether $mvx_k(G)\geq L$ is NP-complete for each integer $k$ such that $2\leq
k\leq |V(G)|$. We also obtain some Nordhaus-Gaddum-type results for the
$k$-monochromatic vertex-index.


title: Review Article: Quantum Nanophotonics in Diamond

abstract:
  The past decade has seen great advances in developing color centers in
diamond for sensing, quantum information processing, and tests of quantum
foundations. Increasingly, the success of these applications as well as
fundamental investigations of light-matter interaction depend on improved
control of optical interactions with color centers -- from better fluorescence
collection to efficient and precise coupling with confined single optical
modes. Wide ranging research efforts have been undertaken to address these
demands through advanced nanofabrication of diamond. This review will cover
recent advances in diamond nano- and microphotonic structures for efficient
light collection, color center to nanocavity coupling, hybrid integration of
diamond devices with other material systems, and the wide range of fabrication
methods that have enabled these complex photonic diamond systems.

categories: quant-ph cond-mat.mes-hall physics.atom-ph physics.optics


title:
On stable manifolds for fractional differential equations in high
  dimensional spaces

abstract:
  Our aim in this paper is to establish stable manifolds near hyperbolic
equilibria of fractional differential equations in arbitrary finite dimensional
spaces.


title:
Covariate Microaggregation for Logistic Regression: An Application for
  Analysis of Confidential Data

abstract:
  In the recent past, electronic health records and distributed data networks
emerged as a viable resource for medical and scientific research. As the use of
confidential patient information from such sources become more common,
maintaining privacy of patients is of utmost importance. For a binary disease
outcome of interest, we show that the techniques of microaggregation
(equivalent to specimen pooling) and \underline{Po}oled \underline{Lo}gistic
\underline{R}egression (PoLoR) could be applied for analysis of large and/or
distributed data while respecting patient privacy. PoLoR is exactly the same as
standard logistic regression, but instead of using individual covariate level,
the analysis uses microaggregated covariate level when microaggregation is
conditional on the outcome status. Aggregate levels of covariates can be passed
from the nodes of the network to the analysis center without revealing
individual-level microdata and can be used very easily with standard softwares
for estimation of disease odds ratio associated with a set of categorical or
continuous covariates. Microaggregation of covariates allows for consistent
estimation of the parameters of logistic regression model that can include
confounders and transformation of exposure. Additionally, since the microdata
can be accessed within nodes, effect modifiers can be accommodated and
consistently estimated. For analysis of confidential health data, covariate
microaggregation for logistic regression will provide a practical and
straightforward alternative to more complicated existing options.


title:
Role of structural H$_2$O in intercalation electrodes: the case of Mg in
  nano-crystalline Xerogel-V$_2$O$_5$

abstract:
  Co-intercalation is a potential approach to influence the voltage and
mobility with which cations insert in electrodes for energy storage devices.
Combining a robust thermodynamic model with first-principles calculations, we
present a detailed investigation revealing the important role of H$_2$O during
ion intercalation in nano-materials. We examine the scenario of Mg$^{2+}$ and
H$_2$O co-intercalation in nano-crystalline Xerogel-V$_2$O$_5$, a potential
cathode material to achieve energy density greater than Li-ion batteries. Water
co-intercalation in cathode materials could broadly impact an electrochemical
system by influencing its voltages or causing passivation at the anode. The
analysis of the stable phases of Mg-Xerogel V$_2$O$_5$ and voltages at
different electrolytic conditions reveals a range of concentrations for Mg in
the Xerogel and H$_2$O in the electrolyte where there is no thermodynamic
driving force for H$_2$O to shuttle with Mg during electrochemical cycling.
Also, we demonstrate that H$_2$O shuttling with the Mg$^{2+}$ ions in wet
electrolytes yields higher voltages than in dry electrolytes. The thermodynamic
framework used to study water and Mg$^{2+}$ co-intercalation in this work opens
the door for studying the general phenomenon of solvent co-intercalation
observed in other complex solvent-electrode pairs used in the Li- and Na-ion
chemical spaces.


title:
The dual frequency RV-coupling coefficient: a novel measure for
  quantifying cross-frequency information transactions in the brain

abstract:
  Identifying dynamic transactions between brain regions has become
increasingly important. Measurements within and across brain structures,
demonstrating the occurrence of bursts of beta/gamma oscillations only during
one specific phase of each theta/alpha cycle, have motivated the need to
advance beyond linear and stationary time series models. Here we offer a novel
measure, namely, the "dual frequency RV-coupling coefficient", for assessing
different types of frequency-frequency interactions that subserve information
flow in the brain. This is a measure of coherence between two complex-valued
vectors, consisting of the set of Fourier coefficients for two different
frequency bands, within or across two brain regions. RV-coupling is expressed
in terms of instantaneous and lagged components. Furthermore, by using
normalized Fourier coefficients (unit modulus), phase-type couplings can also
be measured. The dual frequency RV-coupling coefficient is based on previous
work: the second order bispectrum, i.e. the dual-frequency coherence (Thomson
1982; Haykin & Thomson 1998); the RV-coefficient (Escoufier 1973); Gorrostieta
et al (2012); and Pascual-Marqui et al (2011). This paper presents the new
measure, and outlines relevant statistical tests. The novel aspects of the
"dual frequency RV-coupling coefficient" are: (1) it can be applied to two
multivariate time series; (2) the method is not limited to single discrete
frequencies, and in addition, the frequency bands are treated by means of
appropriate multivariate statistical methodology; (3) the method makes use of a
novel generalization of the RV-coefficient for complex-valued multivariate
data; (4) real and imaginary covariance contributions to the RV-coherence are
obtained, allowing the definition of a "lagged-coupling" measure that is
minimally affected by the low spatial resolution of estimated cortical electric
neuronal activity.


title:
Entropy Production, Hydrodynamics, and Resurgence in the Primordial
  Quark-Gluon Plasma from Holography

abstract:
  Microseconds after the Big Bang quarks and gluons formed a strongly-coupled
non-conformal liquid driven out-of-equilibrium by the expansion of the
Universe. We use holography to determine the non-equilibrium behavior of this
liquid in a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker Universe and develop an
expansion for the corresponding entropy production in terms of the derivatives
of the cosmological scale factor. We show that the resulting series has zero
radius of convergence and we discuss its resurgent properties. Finally, we
compute the resummed entropy production rate in de Sitter Universe at late
times and show that the leading order approximation given by bulk viscosity
effects can strongly overestimate/underestimate the rate depending on the
microscopic parameters.


title:
Multiple binding sites for transcriptional repressors can produce
  regular bursting and enhance noise suppression

abstract:
  Cells may control fluctuations in protein levels by means of negative
autoregulation, where transcription factors bind DNA sites to repress their own
production. Theoretical studies have assumed a single binding site for the
repressor, while in most species it is found that multiple binding sites are
arranged in clusters. We study a stochastic description of negative
autoregulation with multiple binding sites for the repressor. We find that
increasing the number of binding sites induces regular bursting of gene
products. By tuning the threshold for repression, we show that multiple binding
sites can also suppress fluctuations. Our results highlight possible roles for
the presence of multiple binding sites of negative autoregulators.


title: Optimal Quantile Approximation in Streams

abstract:
  This paper resolves one of the longest standing basic problems in the
streaming computational model. Namely, optimal construction of quantile
sketches. An $\varepsilon$ approximate quantile sketch receives a stream of
items $x_1,\ldots,x_n$ and allows one to approximate the rank of any query up
to additive error $\varepsilon n$ with probability at least $1-\delta$. The
rank of a query $x$ is the number of stream items such that $x_i \le x$. The
minimal sketch size required for this task is trivially at least
$1/\varepsilon$. Felber and Ostrovsky obtain a
$O((1/\varepsilon)\log(1/\varepsilon))$ space sketch for a fixed $\delta$. To
date, no better upper or lower bounds were known even for randomly permuted
streams or for approximating a specific quantile, e.g.,\ the median. This paper
obtains an $O((1/\varepsilon)\log \log (1/\delta))$ space sketch and a matching
lower bound. This resolves the open problem and proves a qualitative gap
between randomized and deterministic quantile sketching. One of our
contributions is a novel representation and modification of the widely used
merge-and-reduce construction. This subtle modification allows for an analysis
which is both tight and extremely simple. Similar techniques should be useful
for improving other sketching objectives and geometric coreset constructions.


title:
A Hierarchical Approach to Stability Assessment of Large Scale
  Interconnected Networks

abstract:
  Interconnected networks describe the dynamics of important systems in a wide
range such as biological systems and electrical power grids. Some important
features of these systems were successfully studied and understood through
simplified model of linear interconnection of linear subsystems, where provably
global properties, e.g. global convergence to a specific state, usually hold
true. However, in severely disturbed conditions many of those systems exhibit
strongly nonlinear behaviour. Particularly, multiple equilibrium points may
coexist and make the dynamical behavior of the system difficult to predict.
Aiming at understanding the fragility of interconnected systems, we will
provide a hierarchical framework to assess the metastability and resilience of
such systems. This framework is based on independently characterizing stability
of individual subsystems when they are uncoupled from the network, and then
enforcing the diagonal dominance property on a structure matrix capturing the
subsystems stability and the input-to-output gains of interconnection network.
Since the subsystems are usually of low order and the structure matrix has size
equal to the number of subsystems, this framework is easy to implement and thus
scalable to large scale interconnected systems. Possible application of this
framework in assessing stability of microgrids will be discussed at the end of
this paper.


title:
Floquet topological phases coupled to environments and the induced
  photocurrent

abstract:
  We consider the fate of a helical edge state of a spin Hall insulator and its
topological transition in presence of a circularly polarized light when coupled
to various forms of environments. A Lindblad type equation is developed to
determine the fermion occupation of the Floquet bands. We find by using
analytical and numerical methods that non-secular terms, corresponding to
2-photon transitions, lead to a mixing of the band occupations, hence the light
induced photocurrent is in general not perfectly quantized in the presence of
finite coupling to the environment, although deviations are small in the
adiabatic limit. Sharp crossovers are identified at frequencies $\Omega$ and
$\frac{1}{2}\Omega$ ($\Omega$ is the strength of light-matter coupling) with
the former resembling to a phase transition.


title:
Parallel repetition via fortification: analytic view and the quantum
  case

abstract:
  In a recent work, Moshkovitz [FOCS '14] presented a transformation on
two-player games called "fortification", and gave an elementary proof of an
(exponential decay) parallel repetition theorem for fortified two-player
projection games. In this paper, we give an analytic reformulation of
Moshkovitz's fortification framework, which was originally cast in
combinatorial terms. This reformulation allows us to expand the scope of the
fortification method to new settings.
  First, we show any game (not just projection games) can be fortified, and
give a simple proof of parallel repetition for general fortified games. Then,
we prove parallel repetition and fortification theorems for games with players
sharing quantum entanglement, as well as games with more than two players. This
gives a new gap amplification method for general games in the quantum and
multiplayer settings, which has recently received much interest.
  An important component of our work is a variant of the fortification
transformation, called "ordered fortification", that preserves the entangled
value of a game. The original fortification of Moshkovitz does not in general
preserve the entangled value of a game, and this was a barrier to extending the
fortification framework to the quantum setting.


title: Self-organization of vocabularies under different interaction orders

abstract:
  Traditionally, the formation of vocabularies has been studied by agent-based
models (specially, the Naming Game) in which random pairs of agents negotiate
word-meaning associations at each discrete time step. This paper proposes a
first approximation to a novel question: To what extent the negotiation of
word-meaning associations is influenced by the order in which the individuals
interact? Automata Networks provide the adequate mathematical framework to
explore this question. Computer simulations suggest that on two-dimensional
lattices the typical features of the formation of word-meaning associations are
recovered under random schemes that update small fractions of the population at
the same time.


title:
Transport evidence for the three-dimensional Dirac semimetal phase in
  ZrTe5

abstract:
  Topological Dirac semimetal is a newly discovered class of materials and has
attracted intense attentions. This material can be viewed as a
three-dimensional (3D) analogue of graphene and has linear energy dispersion in
bulk, leading to a range of exotic transport properties. Here we report direct
quantum transport evidence of 3D Dirac semimetal phase of layered material
ZrTe5 by angular dependent magnetoresistance measurements under high magnetic
fields up to 31 Tesla. We observed very clear negative longitudinal
magnetoresistance induced by chiral anomaly under the condition of the magnetic
field aligned only along the current direction. Pronounced Shubnikov-de Hass
(SdH) quantum oscillations in both longitudinal magnetoresistance and
transverse Hall resistance were observed, revealing anisotropic light cyclotron
masses and high mobility of the system. In particular, a nontrivial {\pi}-Berry
phase in the SdH gives clear evidence for 3D Dirac semimetal phase.
Furthermore, we observed clear Landau Level splitting under high magnetic
field, suggesting possible splitting of Dirac point into Weyl points due to
broken time reversal symmetry. Our results indicate that ZrTe5 is an ideal
platform to study 3D massless Dirac and Weyl fermions in a layered compound.


title: An elemental Erd\H{o}s-Kac theorem for algebraic number fields

abstract:
  Fix a number field $K$. For each nonzero $\alpha \in \mathbb{Z}_K$, let
$\nu(\alpha)$ denote the number of distinct, nonassociate irreducible divisors
of $\alpha$. We show that $\nu(\alpha)$ is normally distributed with mean
proportional to $(\log\log |N(\alpha)|)^{D}$ and standard deviation
proportional to $(\log\log{|N(\alpha)|})^{D-1/2}$. Here $D$, as well as the
constants of proportionality, depend only on the class group of $K$. For
example, for each fixed real $\lambda$, the proportion of $\alpha \in
\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{-5}]$ with $$ \nu(\alpha) \le
\frac{1}{8}(\log\log{N(\alpha)})^2 + \frac{\lambda}{2\sqrt{2}}
(\log\log{N(\alpha)})^{3/2} $$ is given by $\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}}
\int_{-\infty}^{\lambda} e^{-t^2/2}\, \mathrm{d}t$. As further evidence that
"irreducibles play a game of chance", we show that the values $\nu(\alpha)$ are
equidistributed modulo $m$ for every fixed $m$.


title: OpenFunction: Data Plane Abstraction for Software-Defined Middleboxes

abstract:
  The state-of-the-art OpenFlow technology only partially realized SDN vision
of abstraction and centralization for packet forwarding in switches.
OpenFlow/P4 falls short in implementing middlebox functionalities due to the
fundamental limitation in its match-action abstraction. In this paper, we
advocate the vision of Software-Defined Middleboxes (SDM) to realize
abstraction and centralization for middleboxes. We further propose
OpenFunction, an SDM reference architecture and a network function abstraction
layer. Our SDM architecture and OpenFunction abstraction are complementary to
existing SDN and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies. SDM
complements SDN as SDM realizes abstraction and centralization for middleboxes,
whereas SDN realizes those for switches. OpenFunction complements OpenFlow as
OpenFunction addresses network functions whereas OpenFlow addresses packet
forwarding. SDM also complements NFV in that SDM gives NFV the ability to use
heterogenous hardware platforms with various hardware acceleration
technologies.


title:
Modeling self-organization of vocabularies under phonological similarity
  effects

abstract:
  This work develops a computational model (by Automata Networks) of
phonological similarity effects involved in the formation of word-meaning
associations on artificial populations of speakers. Classical studies show that
in recalling experiments memory performance was impaired for phonologically
similar words versus dissimilar ones. Here, the individuals confound
phonologically similar words according to a predefined parameter. The main
hypothesis is that there is a critical range of the parameter, and with this,
of working-memory mechanisms, which implies drastic changes in the final
consensus of the entire population. Theoretical results present proofs of
convergence for a particular case of the model within a worst-case complexity
framework. Computer simulations describe the evolution of an energy function
that measures the amount of local agreement between individuals. The main
finding is the appearance of sudden changes in the energy function at critical
parameters.


title:
GeoReach: An Efficient Approach for Evaluating Graph Reachability
  Queries with Spatial Range Predicates

abstract:
  Graphs are widely used to model data in many application domains. Thanks to
the wide spread use of GPS-enabled devices, many applications assign a spatial
attribute to graph vertices (e.g., geo-tagged social media). Users may issue a
Reachability Query with Spatial Range Predicate (abbr. RangeReach). RangeReach
finds whether an input vertex can reach any spatial vertex that lies within an
input spatial range. An example of a RangeReach query is: Given a social graph,
find whether Alice can reach any of the venues located within the geographical
area of Arizona State University. The paper proposes GeoReach an approach that
adds spatial data awareness to a graph database management system (GDBMS).
GeoReach allows efficient execution of RangeReach queries, yet without
compromising a lot on the overall system scalability (measured in terms of
storage size and initialization/maintenance time). To achieve that, GeoReach is
equipped with a light-weight data structure, namely SPA-Graph, that augments
the underlying graph data with spatial indexing directories. When a RangeReach
query is issued, the system employs a pruned-graph traversal approach.
Experiments based on real system implementation inside Neo4j proves that
GEOREACH exhibits up to two orders of magnitude better query response time and
up to four times less storage than the state-of-the-art spatial and
reachability indexing approaches.


title:
A Stationary Accumulated Projection Method for Linear System of
  Equations

abstract:
  It is shown in this paper that, almost all current prevalent iterative
\mbox{methods} for solving linear system of equations can be classified as what
we called extended Krylov subspace methods. In this paper a new type of
iterative methods are introduced which do not depend on any Krylov subspaces.
This type of methods are based on the so-called accumulated projection
technique proposed by authors. It overcomes some shortcomings of classical
Row-Projection technique and takes full advantages of the linear system.
Comparing with traditional Krylov subspace methods which always depend on the
matrix-vector multiplication with some fixed matrix, the newly introduced
method (SAP) uses different projection matrices which differ in each step in
the iteration process to form an approximate solution. More importantly some
particular accelerative schemes (named as MSAP1 and MSAP2) are introduced to
improve the convergence of the SAP method. Numerical experiments show some
surprisingly improved convergence behavior; some superior experimental behavior
of MSAP methods over GMRES and block-Jacobi are demonstrated in some
situations.


title: Special functions, integral equations and Riemann-Hilbert problem

abstract:
  We consider a pair of special functions, $u_\beta$ and $v_\beta$, defined
respectively as the solutions to the integral equations \begin{equation*}
u(x)=1+\int^\infty_0 \frac {K(t) u(t) dt}{t+x}
~~\mbox{and}~~v(x)=1-\int^\infty_0 \frac{ K(t) v(t) dt}{t+x},~~x\in [0,
\infty), \end{equation*} where $K(t)= \frac {1} \pi \exp \left (- t^\beta
\sin\frac {\pi\beta} 2\right )\sin \left ( t^\beta\cos\frac{\pi\beta} 2 \right
)$ for $\beta\in (0, 1)$. In this note, we establish the existence and
uniqueness of $u_\beta$ and $v_\beta$ which are bounded and continuous in $[0,
+\infty)$. Also, we show that a solution to a model Riemann-Hilbert problem in
Kriecherbauer and McLaughlin [Int. Math. Res. Not., 1999] can be constructed
explicitly in terms of these functions. A preliminary asymptotic study is
carried out on the Stokes phenomena of these functions by making use of their
connection formulas.
  Several open questions are also proposed for a thorough investigation of the
analytic and asymptotic properties of the functions $u_\beta$ and $v_\beta$,
and a related new special function $G_\beta$.


title:
Self-Interference Cancellation Using Time-Domain Phase Noise Estimation
  in OFDM Full-Duplex Systems

abstract:
  In full-duplex systems, oscillator phase noise (PN) problem is considered the
bottleneck challenge that may face the self-interference cancellation (SIC)
stage especially when orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
transmission scheme is deployed. Phase noise degrades the SIC performance
significantly, if not mitigated before or during the SIC technique. The
presence of the oscillator phase noise has different impacts on the transmitted
data symbol like common phase error (CPE) and inter-carrier interference (ICI).
However, phase noise can be estimated and mitigated digitally in either time or
frequency domain. Through this work, we propose a novel and simple time domain
self-interference (SI) phase noise estimation and mitigation technique. The
proposed algorithm is inspired from Wiener filtering in time domain. Simulation
results show that the proposed algorithm has a superior performance than the
already-existing time-domain or frequency domain PN mitigation solutions with a
noticeable reduction in the computational complexity.


title: Cascading Bandits for Large-Scale Recommendation Problems

abstract:
  Most recommender systems recommend a list of items. The user examines the
list, from the first item to the last, and often chooses the first attractive
item and does not examine the rest. This type of user behavior can be modeled
by the cascade model. In this work, we study cascading bandits, an online
learning variant of the cascade model where the goal is to recommend $K$ most
attractive items from a large set of $L$ candidate items. We propose two
algorithms for solving this problem, which are based on the idea of linear
generalization. The key idea in our solutions is that we learn a predictor of
the attraction probabilities of items from their features, as opposing to
learning the attraction probability of each item independently as in the
existing work. This results in practical learning algorithms whose regret does
not depend on the number of items $L$. We bound the regret of one algorithm and
comprehensively evaluate the other on a range of recommendation problems. The
algorithm performs well and outperforms all baselines.


title:
Why the smectic A -- hexatic phase transition does not follow its
  universality class?

abstract:
  We resolve the old riddle related to the critical behavior of the heat
capacity near the smectic A -- hexatic second order phase transition.
Experiment suggests a "large" positive specific heat critical exponent
inconsistent with the universality class for this phase transition implying the
very small negative exponent. We show that essential features of the heat
capacity for the smectic A -- hexatic phase transition can be rationalized in
the framework of a theoretical model treating jointly fluctuations of the
hexatic orientational order and of the positional (translational) order
parameters. Assuming that the positional (translational) correlation length is
larger than the hexatic correlation length, we calculate a temperature
dependence of the specific heat in the critical region near the smectic A --
hexatic phase transition. Our results are in a quantitative agreement with the
calorimetric experimental data.


title:
Adaptive Rejection of Periodic Disturbances Acting on Linear Systems
  with Unknown Dynamics

abstract:
  This paper proposes a novel direct adaptive control method for rejecting
unknown deterministic disturbances and tracking unknown trajectories in systems
with uncertain dynamics when the disturbances or trajectories are the summation
of multiple sinusoids with known frequencies, such as periodic profiles or
disturbances. The proposed algorithm does not require a model of the plant
dynamics and does not use batches of measurements in the adaptation process.
Moreover, it is applicable to both minimum and non-minimum phase plants. The
algorithm is a "direct" adaptive method, in the sense that the identification
of system parameters and the control design are performed simultaneously. In
order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, an add-on controller
is designed and implemented in the servo system of a hard disk drive to track
unknown nano-scale periodic trajectories.


title: Decompositions and bang-bang properties

abstract:
  In this paper, minimal time and minimal norm control problems are studied.
The target sets considered are the origin of state spaces and controls are
point-wisely bounded functions. The system stuided in this paper is assumed to
have no the null controllability or the backward uniqueness property. In this
study, minimal time and minimal norm control problems depend on two parameters,
respectively. Whether these problems hold the bang-bang property also depend on
the parameters. We study the bang-bang property for different parameters for
minimal time and minimal norm control problems, by assuming some kinds of weak
controllability and unique continuation property. These two properties
automatically hold for general time-invariant finitely dimensional controlled
systems.


title:
Kriging interpolating cosmic velocity field. II. Taking anistropies and
  multistreaming into account

abstract:
  Measuring the volume-weighted peculiar velocity statistics from
inhomogeneously and sparsely distributed galaxies/halos, by existing velocity
assignment methods, suffers from a significant sampling artifact. As an
alternative, the Kriging interpolation based on Gaussian processes was
introduced and evaluated [Y. Yu, J. Zhang, Y. Jing, and P. Zhang, Phys. Rev. D
92, 083527 (2015)]. Unfortunately, the most straightforward application of
Kriging does not perform better than the existing methods in the literature. In
this work, we investigate two physically motivated extensions. The first takes
into account of the anisotropic velocity correlations. The second introduces
the nugget effect, on account of multi-streaming of the velocity field. We find
that the performance is indeed improved. For sparsely sampled data
[$n_P\lesssim 6\times 10^{-3}(h^{-1} {\rm Mpc})^{-3}$] where the sampling
artifact is the most severe, the improvement is significant and is two-fold: 1)
The scale of reliable measurement of the velocity power spectrum is extended by
a factor $\sim 1.6$, and 2) the dependence on the velocity correlation prior is
weakened by a factor of $\sim 2$. We conclude that such extensions are
desirable for accurate velocity assignment by Kriging.


title: Direct measurement of the optical trap-induced decoherence

abstract:
  Thermal decoherence is a major obstacle to the realization of quantum
coherence for massive mechanical oscillators. Although optical trapping has
been used to reduce the thermal decoherence rate for such oscillators, it also
increases the rate by subjecting the oscillator to stochastic forces resulting
from the frequency fluctuations of the optical field, thereby setting a
fundamental limit on the reduction. This is analogous to the noise penalty in
an active feedback system. Here, we directly measure the rethermalizaton
process for an initially cooled and optically trapped suspended mirror, and
identify the current limiting decoherence rate as due to the optical trap. Our
experimental study of the trap-induced decoherence rate will enable future
advances in the probing of fundamental quantum mechanics in the bad cavity
regime, such as testing of deformed commutators.


title:
A Relation Between Network Computation and Functional Index Coding
  Problems

abstract:
  In contrast to the network coding problem wherein the sinks in a network
demand subsets of the source messages, in a network computation problem the
sinks demand functions of the source messages. Similarly, in the functional
index coding problem, the side information and demands of the clients include
disjoint sets of functions of the information messages held by the transmitter
instead of disjoint subsets of the messages, as is the case in the conventional
index coding problem. It is known that any network coding problem can be
transformed into an index coding problem and vice versa. In this work, we
establish a similar relationship between network computation problems and a
class of functional index coding problems, viz., those in which only the
demands of the clients include functions of messages. We show that any network
computation problem can be converted into a functional index coding problem
wherein some clients demand functions of messages and vice versa. We prove that
a solution for a network computation problem exists if and only if a functional
index code (of a specific length determined by the network computation problem)
for a suitably constructed functional index coding problem exists. And, that a
functional index coding problem admits a solution of a specified length if and
only if a suitably constructed network computation problem admits a solution.


title: The Bi-Compact-Open Topology on C(X)

abstract:
  For the set C(X) of real-valued continuous functions on a Tychonoff space X,
the compact-open topology on C(X) is a "set-open topology". This paper studies
the separation and countability properties of the space C(X) having the
topology given by the join of the compact-open topology and an "open-set
topology" called the open-point topology, that was introduced in [6].


title: Null-controllability of hypoelliptic quadratic differential equations

abstract:
  We study the null-controllability of parabolic equations associated to a
general class of hypoelliptic quadratic differential operators. Quadratic
differential operators are operators defined in the Weyl quantization by
complex-valued quadratic symbols. We consider in this work the class of
accretive quadratic operators with zero singular spaces. These possibly
degenerate non-selfadjoint differential operators are known to be hypoelliptic
and to generate contraction semigroups which are smoothing in specific
Gelfand-Shilov spaces for any positive time. Thanks to this regularizing
effect, we prove by adapting the Lebeau-Robbiano method that parabolic
equations associated to these operators are null-controllable in any positive
time from control regions, for which null-controllability is classically known
to hold in the case of the heat equation on the whole space. Some applications
of this result are then given to the study of parabolic equations associated to
hypoelliptic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operators acting on weighted $L^2$ spaces with
respect to invariant measures. By using the same strategy, we also establish
the null-controllability in any positive time from the same control regions for
parabolic equations associated to any hypoelliptic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator
acting on the flat $L^2$ space extending in particular the known results for
the heat equation or the Kolmogorov equation on the whole space.


title:
A Survey on High-Speed Railway Communications: A Radio Resource
  Management Perspective

abstract:
  High-speed railway (HSR) communications will become a key feature supported
by intelligent transportation communication systems. The increasing demand for
HSR communications leads to significant attention on the study of radio
resource management (RRM), which enables efficient resource utilization and
improved system performance. RRM design is a challenging problem due to
heterogenous quality of service (QoS) requirements and dynamic characteristics
of HSR wireless communications. The objective of this paper is to provide an
overview on the key issues that arise in the RRM design for HSR wireless
communications. A detailed description of HSR communication systems is first
presented, followed by an introduction on HSR channel models and
characteristics, which are vital to the cross-layer RRM design. Then we provide
a literature survey on state-of-the-art RRM schemes for HSR wireless
communications, with an in-depth discussion on various RRM aspects including
admission control, mobility management, power control and resource allocation.
Finally, this paper outlines the current challenges and open issues in the area
of RRM design for HSR wireless communications.