title: Non-classical pathways of crystallization in colloidal systems

abstract:
  Colloidal systems offer the ideal conditions to study the nucleation process,
both from an experimental viewpoint, due to their relative large size and long
time-scales, and from a modeling point of view, due to the tunability of their
interactions. Here we review some recent works that study the process of
colloidal crystallization from a microscopic perspective. We focus in
particular on non-classical pathways to nucleation where the appearance of the
solid crystals involves fluctuations of two (or more) order parameters. We
interpret the non-classical behavior as a decoupling of positional and
orientational symmetry breaking. We then consider how the nucleation pathway
determines which polymorph is selected upon nucleation from the melt. Moreover
we show how the study of nucleation pathways not only sheds new light on the
microscopic mechanism of nucleation, but also provides important information
regarding its avoidance, thus suggesting a deep link between crystallization
and vitrification.


title:
Lepton production cross sections in quasielastic $\nu/\bar{\nu}-$A
  scattering

abstract:
  We present the results of (anti)neutrino induced CCQE cross sections from
some nuclear targets in the energy region of $E_\nu \le 1 GeV$. The aim of the
study is to confront electron and muon production cross sections relevant for
$\nu_\mu \leftrightarrow \nu_e$ or $\bar\nu_\mu \leftrightarrow \bar\nu_e$
oscillation experiments. The effects due to lepton mass and its kinematic
implications, second class currents and uncertainties in the axial and
pseudoscalar form factors are discussed for (anti)neutrino induced reaction
cross sections on free nucleon as well as the nucleons bound in a nucleus where
nuclear medium effects influence the cross section. The calculations have been
performed using local Fermi gas model with nucleon correlation effects. The
details are given in Ref.[1].


title:
Medium effects in the deep-inelastic charged lepton/neutrino-A
  scattering

abstract:
  In this work, we have discussed the recent developments that have taken place
to understand the differences in the weak $F_{2A}^{Weak} (x,Q^2)$ and
electromagnetic $F_{2A}^{EM} (x,Q^2)$ nuclear structure functions. Also we
present the results of our work on nuclear medium effects on $F_{2A}^{Weak}
(x,Q^2)$ and $F_{2A}^{EM} (x,Q^2)$ for a wide range of $x$ and $Q^2$. These
results have been obtained using a microscopic nuclear model, where to
incorporate nuclear medium effects, Fermi motion, binding energy, nucleon
correlations, mesonic contributions from pion and rho mesons and shadowing
effects are considered.
  The calculations are performed in local density approximation using
relativistic nucleon spectral function. We have also compared the theoretical
results with the recent experimental data on electromagnetic and weak structure
functions. Furthermore, we have studied the nuclear medium effects in
Drell-Yan(DY) process and present the results for differential cross section,
and the results are compared with the data of E772 experiment.


title:
New method of 85Kr reduction in a noble gas based low-background
  detector

abstract:
  Krypton-85 is an anthropogenic beta-decaying isotope which produces low
energy backgrounds in dark matter and neutrino experiments, especially those
based upon liquid xenon. Several technologies have been developed to reduce the
Kr concentration in such experiments. We propose to augment those separation
technologies by first adding to the xenon an 85Kr-free sample of krypton in an
amount much larger than the natural krypton that is already present. After the
purification system reduces the total Kr concentration to the same level, the
final 85Kr concentration will have been reduced even further by the dilution
factor. A test cell for measurement of the activity of various Kr samples has
been assembled, and the activity of 25-year-old Krypton has been measured. The
measured activity agrees well with the expected activity accounting for the
85Kr abundance of the earth atmosphere in 1990 and the half-life of the
isotope. Additional tests with a Kr sample produced in the year 1944 (before
the atomic era) have been done in order to demonstrate the sensitivity of the
test cell.


title: Quasi-regular sequences and optimal schedules for security games

abstract:
  We study security games in which a defender commits to a mixed strategy for
protecting a finite set of targets of different values. An attacker, knowing
the defender's strategy, chooses which target to attack and for how long. If
the attacker spends time $t$ at a target $i$ of value $\alpha_i$, and if he
leaves before the defender visits the target, his utility is $t \cdot \alpha_i
$; if the defender visits before he leaves, his utility is 0. The defender's
goal is to minimize the attacker's utility. The defender's strategy consists of
a schedule for visiting the targets; it takes her unit time to switch between
targets. Such games are a simplified model of a number of real-world scenarios
such as protecting computer networks from intruders, crops from thieves, etc.
  We show that optimal defender play for this continuous time security games
reduces to the solution of a combinatorial question regarding the existence of
infinite sequences over a finite alphabet, with the following properties for
each symbol $i$: (1) $i$ constitutes a prescribed fraction $p_i$ of the
sequence. (2) The occurrences of $i$ are spread apart close to evenly, in that
the ratio of the longest to shortest interval between consecutive occurrences
is bounded by a parameter $K$. We call such sequences $K$-quasi-regular.
  We show that, surprisingly, $2$-quasi-regular sequences suffice for optimal
defender play. What is more, even randomized $2$-quasi-regular sequences
suffice for optimality. We show that such sequences always exist, and can be
calculated efficiently.
  The question of the least $K$ for which deterministic $K$-quasi-regular
sequences exist is fascinating. Using an ergodic theoretical approach, we show
that deterministic $3$-quasi-regular sequences always exist. For $2 \leq K < 3$
we do not know whether deterministic $K$-quasi-regular sequences always exist.


title:
A unified approach to Fiedler-like pencils via strong block minimal
  bases pencils

abstract:
  The standard way of solving the polynomial eigenvalue problem associated with
a matrix polynomial is to embed the matrix polynomial into a matrix pencil,
transforming the problem into an equivalent generalized eigenvalue problem.
Such pencils are known as linearizations. Many of the families of
linearizations for matrix polynomials available in the literature are
extensions of the so-called family of Fiedler pencils. These families are known
as generalized Fiedler pencils, Fiedler pencils with repetition and generalized
Fiedler pencils with repetition, or Fiedler-like pencils for simplicity. The
goal of this work is to unify the Fiedler-like pencils approach with the more
recent one based on strong block minimal bases pencils introduced in
\cite{canonical}. To this end, we introduce a family of pencils that we have
named extended block Kronecker pencils, whose members are, under some generic
nonsingularity conditions, strong block minimal bases pencils, and show that,
with the exception of the non proper generalized Fiedler pencils, all
Fiedler-like pencils belong to this family modulo permutations. As a
consequence of this result, we obtain a much simpler theory for Fiedler-like
pencils than the one available so far. Moreover, we expect this unification to
allow for further developments in the theory of Fiedler-like pencils such as
global or local backward error analyses and eigenvalue conditioning analyses of
polynomial eigenvalue problems solved via Fiedler-like linearizations.


title:
A New Approximate Solution of Time-Fractional, Non-linear Schrodinger
  Equations Using Fractional Reduced Differential Transformation

abstract:
  This paper is concerned with an alternative analytical solution of
time-fractional nonlinear Schrodinger equation and nonlinear coupled
Schrodinger equation obtained by employing fractional reduced differential
transform method. The proposed solutions are obtained in series form, converges
to the exact solution very rapidly. These results are agreed well with the
results obtained by using differential transform method, homotopy perturbation
method, homotopy analysis method and Adomian decomposition method. However, the
computations shows that the described method is easy to apply, and it needs
small size of computation contrary to the existing above said methods.


title:
Convergence of the immersed-boundary finite-element method for the
  Stokes problem

abstract:
  Convergence results for the immersed boundary method applied to a model
Stokes problem with the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition are presented.
As a discretization method, we deal with the finite element method. First, the
immersed force field is approximated using a regularized delta function and its
error in the $W^{-1,p}$ norm is examined for $1\le p<n/(n-1)$, $n$ being the
space dimension. Then, we consider the immersed boundary discretization of the
Stokes problem and study the regularization and discretization errors
separately. Consequently, error estimate of order $h^{1-\alpha}$ in the
$W^{1,1}\times L^1$ norm for the velocity and pressure is derived, where
$\alpha$ is an arbitrarily small positive number. Error estimate of order
$h^{1-\alpha}$ in the $L^r$ norm for the velocity is also derived with
$r=n/(n-1-\alpha)$. The validity of those theoretical results are confirmed by
numerical examples.


title: A Class of Toeplitz Operators in Several Complex Variables

abstract:
  In order to study the Toeplitz algebras related to a Dirac operators in a
neighborhood of a closed bounded domain D with smooth boundary in C^n we
introduce a singular Cauchy type integral. We compute its principal symbol,
thus initiating the index theory.


title:
Deep Recurrent Convolutional Neural Network: Improving Performance For
  Speech Recognition

abstract:
  A deep learning approach has been widely applied in sequence modeling
problems. In terms of automatic speech recognition (ASR), its performance has
significantly been improved by increasing large speech corpus and deeper neural
network. Especially, recurrent neural network and deep convolutional neural
network have been applied in ASR successfully. Given the arising problem of
training speed, we build a novel deep recurrent convolutional network for
acoustic modeling and then apply deep residual learning to it. Our experiments
show that it has not only faster convergence speed but better recognition
accuracy over traditional deep convolutional recurrent network. In the
experiments, we compare the convergence speed of our novel deep recurrent
convolutional networks and traditional deep convolutional recurrent networks.
With faster convergence speed, our novel deep recurrent convolutional networks
can reach the comparable performance. We further show that applying deep
residual learning can boost the convergence speed of our novel deep recurret
convolutional networks. Finally, we evaluate all our experimental networks by
phoneme error rate (PER) with our proposed bidirectional statistical n-gram
language model. Our evaluation results show that our newly proposed deep
recurrent convolutional network applied with deep residual learning can reach
the best PER of 17.33\% with the fastest convergence speed on TIMIT database.
The outstanding performance of our novel deep recurrent convolutional neural
network with deep residual learning indicates that it can be potentially
adopted in other sequential problems.


title: Optimal Local and Remote Controllers with Unreliable Uplink Channels

abstract:
  We consider a networked control system consisting of a remote controller and
a collection of linear plants, each associated with a local controller. Each
local controller directly observes the state of its co-located plant and can
inform the remote controller of the plant's state through an unreliable uplink
channel. We assume that the downlink channels from the remote controller to
local controllers are perfect. The objective of the local controllers and the
remote controller is to cooperatively minimize a quadratic performance cost. We
provide a dynamic program for this decentralized control problem using the
common information approach. Although our problem is not a partially nested
problem, we obtain explicit optimal strategies for all controllers. In the
optimal strategies, all controllers compute common estimates of the states of
the plants based on the common information obtained from the communication
network. The remote controller's action is linear in the common state
estimates, and the action of each local controller is linear in both the actual
state of its co-located plant and the common state estimates. We illustrate our
results with numerical experiments using randomly generated models.


title:
Phonon transport in a one-dimensional harmonic chain with long-range
  interaction and mass disorder

abstract:
  Atomic mass and interatomic interaction are the two key quantities that
significantly affect the heat conduction carried by phonons. Here, we study the
effects of long-range (LR) interatomic interaction and mass-disorder on the
phonon transport in a one-dimensional harmonic chain withup to 10^5 atoms. We
find that while LR interaction reduces the transmission of low frequency
phonons, it enhances the transmission of high frequency phonons by suppressing
the localization effects caused by mass disorder. Therefore, long-range
interaction is able to boost heat conductance in the high temperature regime or
in the large size regime, where the high frequency modes are important.


title:
Branch groups, orbit growth, and subgroup growth types for pro-$p$
  groups

abstract:
  We first show that a class of pro-$p$ branch groups including the Grigorchuk
group and the Gupta-Sidki groups all have subgroup growth type $n^{\log n}$. We
then introduce the notion of orbit growth and use it to construct extensions of
the Grigorchuk group and the Gupta-Sidki groups. We compute the subgroup growth
type of these extensions and deduce that all functions between $n^{(\log n)^2}$
and $e^n$ occur as the subgroup growth type of a pro-$p$ group, thus, giving
almost complete answer to a question raised by Lubotzky and Segal.


title: Proceedings Fifth Workshop on Synthesis

abstract:
  The SYNT workshop aims to bring together researchers interested in the broad
area of synthesis of computing systems. The goal is to foster the development
of frontier techniques in automating the development of computing system.
Contributions of interest include algorithms, complexity and decidability
analysis, as well as reproducible heuristics, implemented tools, and
experimental evaluation. Application domains include software, hardware,
embedded, and cyberphysical systems. Computation models include functional,
reactive, hybrid and timed systems. Identifying, formalizing, and evaluating
synthesis in particular application domains is encouraged.
  The fifth iteration of the workshop took place in Toronto, Canada. It was
co-located with the 28th International Conference on Computer Aided
Verification. The workshop included twelve contributed talks and two invited
talks. In addition, it featured a special session about the Syntax-Guided
Synthesis Competition (SyGuS) and the SyntComp Synthesis competition.


title:
Determination of Cooper pairs and Majorana fermions currents ratio in
  DC-SQUID with topologically nontrivial barriers

abstract:
  We present the results of numerical study of the phase dynamics of the
DC-SQUID with topologically trivial and nontrivial barriers. In our
calculations we take into account two components of supperconducting current,
Cooper pairs ($2\pi$-periodic) and Majorana fermions ($4\pi$-periodic)
currents. Magnetic field dependence of return current is presented. The
qualitative behavior of this dependence is explained. We show that in case of
two component superconducting current the periodicity of magnetic field
dependence of return current displaced by Cooper pairs and Majorana fermion
ratio over the magnetic field. This effect makes possible the experimental
determination of ratio of Cooper pairs and Majorana fermions currents.


title: Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays & Super-heavy Dark Matter

abstract:
  We reanalyse the prospects for upcoming Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray
experiments in connection with the phenomenology of Super-heavy Dark Matter. We
identify a set of observables well suited to reveal a possible anisotropy in
the High Energy Cosmic Ray flux induced by the decays of these particles, and
quantify their performance via Monte Carlo simulations that mimic the outcome
of near-future and next-generation experiments. The spherical and circular
dipoles are able to tell isotropic and anisotropic fluxes apart at a confidence
level as large as $4\sigma$ or $5\sigma$, depending on the Dark Matter profile.
The forward-to-backward flux ratio yields a comparable result for relatively
large opening angles of about 40~deg, but it is less performing once a very
large number of events is considered. We also find that an actual experiment
employing these observables and collecting 300~events at 60~EeV would have a
$50\%$ chance of excluding isotropy against Super-heavy Dark Matter at a
significance of at least $3\sigma$


title: Fractal Analysis Based on Hierarchical Scaling in Complex Systems

abstract:
  A fractal is in essence a hierarchy with cascade structure, which can be
described with a set of exponential functions. From these exponential
functions, a set of power laws indicative of scaling can be derived. Hierarchy
structure and spatial network proved to be associated with one another. This
paper is devoted to exploring the theory of fractal analysis of complex systems
by means of hierarchical scaling. Two research methods are utilized to make
this study, including logic analysis method and empirical analysis method. The
main results are as follows. First, a fractal system such as Cantor set is
described from the hierarchical angle of view; based on hierarchical structure,
three approaches are proposed to estimate fractal dimension. Second, the
hierarchical scaling can be generalized to describe multifractals, fractal
complementary sets, and self-similar curve such as logarithmic spiral. Third,
complex systems such as urban systems are demonstrated to be a self-similar
hierarchy. The human settlements in Germany and the population of different
languages in the world are taken as two examples to make empirical analyses.
This study may be revealing for associating fractal analysis with other types
of scaling analysis of complex systems, and spatial optimization theory may be
developed in future by combining the theories of fractals, allometry, and
hierarchy.


title:
Investigating resonance energy transfer from protein molecules to van
  der Waals nanosheets

abstract:
  The resonance energy transfer (RET) from tryptophan present in bovine serum
albumin (BSA) to two dimensional (2D) nanomaterials has been reported. In these
bio-nano systems, BSA molecules act as efficient donors while 2D van der Waals
nanosheets of graphene, molybdenum disulfide (Mo$S_2$) and tungsten disulfide
(W$S_2$) act as acceptors. The fluorescence emission from tryptophan arises at
350 nm, in presence of 2D nanosheets, the fluorescence intensity of BSA
decreases. The time resolved fluorescence study shows that there is decrease in
the fluorescence lifetime of BSA molecules in presence of 2D nanosheets. The
decrease in fluorescence lifetime of BSA confirms the energy transfer
phenomenon in bio-nano interactions. This study is important for finding the
bio-compatibility of 2D nanomaterials in biological applications.


title: \"Uber die Funktionen des Irrationalit\"atsma\ss es

abstract:
  We study two irrationality measure functions $\psi_\alpha^{[2]} (t) $ and
$\psi_\alpha^{[2]*} (t)$ related to the "second best" approximations to a real
numbers and prove some results on the structure of the corresponding
Diophantine spectra. It happened that the first two elements of the spectrum
for the function $\psi_\alpha^{[2]*} (t)$ are associated with the numbers
$\frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2}$ and $e =\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{1}{n!}$.


title: Gorenstein stable Godeaux surfaces

abstract:
  We classify Gorenstein stable numerical Godeaux surfaces with worse than
canonical singularities and compute their fundamental groups.


title:
Sharp lower bounds on the spectral radius of uniform hypergraphs
  concerning degrees

abstract:
  Let $\mathcal{A}(H)$ and $\mathcal{Q}(H)$ be the adjacency tensor and
signless Laplacian tensor of an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$. Denote by $\rho(H)$
and $\rho(\mathcal{Q}(H))$ the spectral radii of $\mathcal{A}(H)$ and
$\mathcal{Q}(H)$, respectively. In this paper we present a lower bound on
$\rho(H)$ in terms of vertex degrees and we characterize the extremal
hypergraphs attaining the bound, which solves a problem posed by Nikiforov [V.
Nikiforov, Analytic methods for uniform hypergraphs, Linear Algebra Appl. 457
(2014) 455-535]. Also, we prove a lower bound on $\rho(\mathcal{Q}(H))$
concerning degrees and give a characterization of the extremal hypergraphs
attaining the bound.


title:
Energy spectrum, exchange interaction and gate crosstalk in a pair of
  double-quantum-dot system: a molecular orbital calculation

abstract:
  We present a theoretical study of a four-electron four-quantum-dot system
based on molecular orbital methods, which hosts a pair of singlet-triplet spin
qubits. We explicitly take into account of the admixture of electron wave
functions in all dots, and have found that this mixing of wave functions has
consequences on the energy spectrum, exchange interaction and the gate
crosstalk of the system. Specifically, we have found that when the two
singlet-triplet qubits are close enough, some of the states are no longer
dominated by the computational basis states and the exchange interaction can
not simply be understood as the energy difference between the singlet and
triplet states. Using the Hund-Mulliken calculation of the Hubbard parameters,
we characterize the effective exchange interaction of the system and have found
good agreement with results calculated by taking energy differences where
applicable. We have studied the two commonly conceived schemes coupling two
qubits, the exchange and capacitive coupling, and have found that when the
inter-qubit distance is at certain intermediate values, the two kinds of
coupling are comparable in strength, complicating analyses of the evolution of
the two qubits. We also investigate the gate crosstalk in the system due to the
quantum mechanical mixing of electron states and have found that while this
effect is typically very weak, it should not be ignored if the spacing between
the qubits are similar to or less than the distance between the double dots
that constitute the qubit.


title: Singular mean-filed games

abstract:
  Here, we prove the existence of smooth solutions for mean-field games with a
singular mean-field coupling; that is, a coupling in the Hamilton-Jacobi
equation of the form $g(m)=-m^{-\alpha}$. We consider stationary and
time-dependent settings. The function $g$ is monotone, but it is not bounded
from below. With the exception of the logarithmic coupling, this is the first
time that MFGs whose coupling is not bounded from below is examined in the
literature. This coupling arises in models where agents have a strong
preference for low-density regions. Paradoxically, this causes the agents to
spread and prevents the creation of solutions with a very-low density. To prove
the existence of solutions, we consider an approximate problem for which the
existence of smooth solutions is known. Then, we prove new a priori bounds for
the solutions that show that $\frac 1 m$ is bounded. Finally, using a limiting
argument, we obtain the existence of solutions. The proof in the stationary
case relies on a blow-up argument and in the time-dependent case on new bounds
for $m^{-1}$.


title:
New bounds of permutation codes under Hamming metric and Kendall's
  $\tau$-metric

abstract:
  Permutation codes are widely studied objects due to their numerous
applications in various areas, such as power line communications, block
ciphers, and the rank modulation scheme for flash memories. Several kinds of
metrics are considered for permutation codes according to their specific
applications. This paper concerns some improvements on the bounds of
permutation codes under Hamming metric and Kendall's $\tau$-metric
respectively, using mainly a graph coloring approach. Specifically, under
Hamming metric, we improve the Gilbert-Varshamov bound asymptotically by a
factor $n$, when the minimum Hamming distance $d$ is fixed and the code length
$n$ goes to infinity. Under Kendall's $\tau$-metric, we narrow the gap between
the known lower bounds and upper bounds. Besides, we also obtain some sporadic
results under Kendall's $\tau$-metric for small parameters.


title:
Models of Elastic Shells in Contact with a Rigid Foundation: An
  Asymptotic Approach

abstract:
  We consider a family of linearly elastic shells with thickness $2\varepsilon$
(where $\varepsilon$ is a small parameter). The shells are clamped along a
portion of their lateral face, all having the same middle surface $S$, and may
enter in contact with a rigid foundation along the bottom face. We are
interested in studying the limit behavior of both the three-dimensional
problems, given in curvilinear coordinates, and their solutions (displacements
of covariant components $u_i^\varepsilon$) when $\varepsilon$ tends to zero. To
do that, we use asymptotic analysis methods. On one hand, we find that if the
applied body force density is $O(1)$ with respect to $\varepsilon$ and surface
tractions density is $O(\varepsilon)$, a suitable approximation of the
variational formulation of the contact problem is a two-dimensional variational
inequality which can be identified as the variational formulation of the
obstacle problem for an elastic membrane. On the other hand, if the applied
body force density is $O(\varepsilon^2)$ and surface tractions density is
$O(\varepsilon^3)$, the corresponding approximation is a different
two-dimensional inequality which can be identified as the variational
formulation of the obstacle problem for an elastic flexural shell. We finally
discuss the existence and uniqueness of solution for the limit two-dimensional
variational problems found.


title: AlM2B2 (M=Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni): a group of nanolaminated materials

abstract:
  Combining theory with experiments, we study the phase stability, elastic
properties, electronic structure and hardness of layered ternary borides
AlCr2B2, AlMn2B2, AlFe2B2, AlCo2B2, and AlNi2B2. We find that the first three
borides of this series are stable phases, while AlCo2B2 and AlNi2B2 are
metastable. We show that the elasticity increases in the boride series, and
predict that AlCr2B2, AlMn2B2, and AlFe2B2 are more brittle, while AlCo2B2 and
AlNi2B2 are more ductile. We propose that the elasticity of AlFe2B2 can be
improved by alloying it with cobalt or nickel, or a combination of them. We
present evidence that these ternary borides represent nanolaminated systems.
Based on SEM measurements, we demonstrate that they exhibit the delamination
phenomena, which leads to a reduced hardness compared to transition metal mono-
and diborides. We discuss the background of delamination by analyzing chemical
bonding and theoretical work of separation in these borides.


title: Distributable Consistent Multi-Object Matching

abstract:
  In this paper we propose an optimization-based framework to multiple object
matching. The framework takes maps computed between pairs of objects as input,
and outputs maps that are consistent among all pairs of objects. The central
idea of our approach is to divide the input object collection into overlapping
sub-collections and enforce map consistency among each sub-collection. This
leads to a distributed formulation, which is scalable to large-scale datasets.
We also present an equivalence condition between this decoupled scheme and the
original scheme. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets show
that our framework is competitive against state-of-the-art multi-object
matching techniques.


title: Extremally charged line

abstract:
  We investigate the properties of a static, cylindrically symmetric
Majumdar-Papapetrou-type solution of Einstein-Maxwell equations. We locate its
singularities, establish its algebraic type, find its asymptotic properties and
weak-field limit, study the structure of electrogeodesics, and determine the
mass and charge of its sources. We provide an interpretation of the spacetime
and discuss the parameter appearing in the metric.


title:
On the kinematic detection of accreted streams in the Gaia era: a
  cautionary tale

abstract:
  The $\Lambda$CDM cosmological scenario predicts that our Galaxy should
contain hundreds of stellar streams at the solar vicinity, fossil relics of the
merging history of the Milky Way and more generally of the hierarchical growth
of galaxies. Because of the mixing time scales in the inner Galaxy, it has been
claimed that these streams should be difficult to detect in configuration space
but can still be identifiable in kinematic-related spaces like the
energy/angular momenta spaces, E-Lz and Lperp-Lz, or spaces of orbital/velocity
parameters. By means of high-resolution, dissipationless N-body simulations,
containing between 25$\times10^6$ and 35$\times10^6$ particles, we model the
accretion of a series of up to four 1:10 mass ratio satellites then up to eight
1:100 satellites and we search systematically for the signature of these
accretions in these spaces. In all spaces considered (1) each satellite gives
origin to several independent overdensities; (2) overdensities of multiple
satellites overlap; (3) satellites of different masses can produce similar
substructures; (4) the overlap between the in-situ and the accreted population
is considerable everywhere; (5) in-situ stars also form substructures in
response to the satellite(s) accretion. These points are valid even if the
search is restricted to kinematically-selected halo stars only. As we are now
entering the 'Gaia era', our results warn that an extreme caution must be
employed before interpreting overdensities in any of those spaces as evidence
of relics of accreted satellites. Reconstructing the accretion history of our
Galaxy will require a substantial amount of accurate spectroscopic data, that,
complemented by the kinematic information, will possibly allow us to
(chemically) identify accreted streams and measure their orbital properties.
(abridged)


title:
Supersymmetric Meson-Baryon Properties of QCD from Light-Front
  Holography and Superconformal Algebra

abstract:
  A remarkable feature of QCD is that the mass scale which controls color
confinement and hadron mass scales does not appear explicitly in the QCD
Lagrangian. However, de Alfaro, Fubini, and Furlan have shown that a mass scale
can appear in the equations of motion without affecting the conformal
invariance of the action if one adds a term to the Hamiltonian proportional to
the dilatation operator or the special conformal operator. Applying the same
procedure to the light-front Hamiltonian leads to a unique confinement
potential $\kappa^4 \zeta^2$ for mesons, where $\zeta$ is the LF radial
variable conjugate to the invariant mass. The same result, including spin
terms, is obtained using light-front holography, the duality between the front
form and AdS$_5,$ if one modifies the action by the dilaton $e^{\kappa^2 z^2}$
in the fifth dimension $z$. Generalizing this procedure using superconformal
algebra, leads to a unified Regge spectroscopy of meson, baryon, and
tetraquarks, including remarkable supersymmetric relations between the masses
of mesons and baryons of the same parity. One also predicts observables such as
hadron structure functions, transverse momentum distributions, and the
distribution amplitudes defined from the hadronic light-front wavefunctions.
The mass scale underlying confinement and hadron masses can be connected to the
mass parameter in the QCD running coupling by matching the nonperturbative
dynamics to the perturbative QCD regime. The result is an effective coupling
defined at all momenta and the determination of a momentum scale which sets the
interface between perturbative and nonperturbative hadron dynamics. I also
discuss evidence that the antishadowing of nuclear structure functions is
non-universal, and why shadowing and antishadowing phenomena may be
incompatible with sum rules for nuclear parton distribution functions.


title: $K \rightarrow \pi \ell^+ \ell^-$: Status and update

abstract:
  $K \rightarrow \pi \ell^+ \ell^-$ decays, $\ell = e, \mu$, will be one of the
goals of future kaon facilities, like NA62 (CERN) and K$^0$TO (J-PARC). We
review briefly the theoretical status of those processes.


title:
Constraining cosmic curvature by using age of galaxies and gravitational
  lenses

abstract:
  We use two model-independent methods to constrain the curvature of the
universe. In the first method, we study the evolution of the curvature
parameter ($\Omega_k^0$) with redshift by using the observations of the Hubble
parameter and transverse comoving distances obtained from the age of galaxies.
Secondly, we also use an indirect method based on the mean image separation
statistics of gravitationally lensed quasars. The basis of this methodology is
that the average image separation of lensed images will show a positive,
negative or zero correlation with the source redshift in a closed, open or flat
universe respectively. In order to smoothen the datasets used in both the
methods, we use a non-parametric method namely, Gaussian Process (GP). Finally
from first method we obtain $\Omega_k^0= 0.025\pm0.57$ for a presumed flat
universe while the cosmic curvature remains constant throughout the redshift
region $0<z<1.37$ which indicates that the universe may be homogeneous.
Moreover, the combined result from both the methods suggests that the universe
is marginally closed. However, a flat universe can be incorporated at $3\sigma$
level.


title:
Accelerating cross-validation with total variation and its application
  to super-resolution imaging

abstract:
  We develop an approximation formula for the cross-validation error (CVE) of a
sparse linear regression penalized by $\ell_1$-norm and total variation terms,
which is based on a perturbative expansion utilizing the largeness of both the
data dimensionality and the model. The developed formula allows us to reduce
the necessary computational cost of the CVE evaluation significantly. The
practicality of the formula is tested through application to simulated
black-hole image reconstruction on the event-horizon scale with super
resolution. The results demonstrate that our approximation reproduces the CVE
values obtained via literally conducted cross-validation with reasonably good
precision.


title:
Spectroscopic and DFT studies of graphene intercalation systems on
  metals

abstract:
  Intercalation of different species under graphene on metals is an effective
way to tailor electronic properties of these systems. Here we present the
successful intercalation of metallic (Cu) and gaseous (oxygen) specimens
underneath graphene on Ir(111) and Ru(0001), respectively, that allows to
change the charge state of graphene as well as to modify drastically its
electronic structure in the vicinity of the Fermi level. We employ ARPES and
STS spectroscopic methods in combination with state-of-the-art DFT calculations
in order to illustrate how the energy dispersion of graphene-derived states can
be studied in the macro- and nm-scale experiments.


title: A class of weakly compact sets in Lebesgue-Bochner spaces

abstract:
  Let $X$ be a Banach space and $\mu$ a probability measure. A set $K \subseteq
L^1(\mu,X)$ is said to be a $\delta\mathcal{S}$-set if it is uniformly
integrable and for every $\delta>0$ there is a weakly compact set $W \subseteq
X$ such that $\mu(f^{-1}(W)) \geq 1-\delta$ for every $f\in K$. This is a
sufficient, but in general non necessary, condition for relative weak
compactness in $L^1(\mu,X)$. We say that $X$ has property
($\delta\mathcal{S}_\mu$) if every relatively weakly compact subset of
$L^1(\mu,X)$ is a $\delta\mathcal{S}$-set. In this paper we study
$\delta\mathcal{S}$-sets and Banach spaces having property
($\delta\mathcal{S}_\mu$). We show that testing on uniformly bounded sets is
enough to check this property. New examples of spaces having property
($\delta\mathcal{S}_\mu$) are provided. Special attention is paid to the
relationship with strongly weakly compactly generated (SWCG) spaces. In
particular, we show an example of a SWCG (in fact, separable Schur) space
failing property ($\delta\mathcal{S}_\mu$) when $\mu$ is the Lebesgue measure
on $[0,1]$.


title:
Connection coefficients and monodromy representations for a class of
  Okubo systems of ordinary differential equations, II

abstract:
  In this paper we construct explicit connection coefficients and monodromy
representations for the canonical solution matrices of Okubo systems ${\rm
II}^*$, ${\rm III}^*$, ${\rm IV}$ and ${\rm IV}^*$ of ordinary differential
equations in Yokoyama's list. This work is a continuation of our previous work
arXiv:1606.07187.


title:
Preconditioning PDE-constrained optimization with $\rm L^1$-sparsity and
  control constraints

abstract:
  PDE-constrained optimization aims at finding optimal setups for partial
differential equations so that relevant quantities are minimized. Including
sparsity promoting terms in the formulation of such problems results in more
practically relevant computed controls but adds more challenges to the
numerical solution of these problems. The needed $\rm L^1$-terms as well as
additional inclusion of box control constraints require the use of semismooth
Newton methods. We propose robust preconditioners for different formulations of
the Newton's equation. With the inclusion of a line-search strategy and an
inexact approach for the solution of the linear systems, the resulting
semismooth Newton's method is feasible for practical problems. Our results are
underpinned by a theoretical analysis of the preconditioned matrix. Numerical
experiments illustrate the robustness of the proposed scheme.


title: Perturbative solution to the Lane-Emden equation: An eigenvalue approach

abstract:
  Under suitable scaling, the structure of self-gravitating polytropes is
described by the standard Lane-Emden equation (LEE), which is characterised by
the polytropic index $n$. Here we use the known exact solutions of the LEE at
$n=0$ and $1$ to solve the equation perturbatively. We first introduce a scaled
LEE (SLEE) where polytropes with different polytropic indices all share a
common scaled radius. The SLEE is then solved perturbatively as an eigenvalue
problem. Analytical approximants of the polytrope function, the radius and the
mass of polytropes as a function of $n$ are derived. The approximant of the
polytrope function is well-defined and uniformly accurate from the origin down
to the surface of a polytrope. The percentage errors of the radius and the mass
are bounded by $8.1 \times 10^{-7}$ per cent and $8.5 \times 10^{-5}$ per cent,
respectively, for $n\in[0,1]$. Even for $n\in[1,5)$, both percentage errors are
still less than $2$ per cent.


title: Debian Astro: An open computing platform for astronomy

abstract:
  Debian Astro is a Debian Pure Blend that aims to distribute the available
astronomy software within the Debian operating system. Using Debian as the
foundation has unique advantages for end-users and developers such as an easy
installation and upgrading of packages, an open distribution and development
model, or the reproducibility due to the standardized build system.


title: On a new class of fractional partial differential equations II

abstract:
  In this paper we continue to advance the theory regarding the Riesz
fractional gradient in the calculus of variations and fractional partial
differential equations begun in an earlier work of the same name. In particular
we here establish an $L^1$ Hardy inequality, obtain further regularity results
for solutions of certain fractional PDE, demonstrate the existence of
minimizers for integral functionals of the fractional gradient with non-linear
dependence in the field, and also establish the existence of solutions to
corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations obtained as conditions of minimality. In
addition we pose a number of open problems, the answers to which would fill in
some gaps in the theory as well as to establish connections with more classical
areas of study, including interpolation and the theory of Dirichlet forms.


title: Volume reduction through perturbative Wilson loops

abstract:
  We derive the perturbative expansion of Wilson loops to order g^4 in a SU(N)
lattice gauge theory with twisted boundary conditions. Our expressions show
that the thermodynamic limit is attained at infinite N for any number of
lattice sites and allow to quantify the deviations from volume independence at
finite large N as a function of the twist.


title: Learning to Distill: The Essence Vector Modeling Framework

abstract:
  In the context of natural language processing, representation learning has
emerged as a newly active research subject because of its excellent performance
in many applications. Learning representations of words is a pioneering study
in this school of research. However, paragraph (or sentence and document)
embedding learning is more suitable/reasonable for some tasks, such as
sentiment classification and document summarization. Nevertheless, as far as we
are aware, there is relatively less work focusing on the development of
unsupervised paragraph embedding methods. Classic paragraph embedding methods
infer the representation of a given paragraph by considering all of the words
occurring in the paragraph. Consequently, those stop or function words that
occur frequently may mislead the embedding learning process to produce a misty
paragraph representation. Motivated by these observations, our major
contributions in this paper are twofold. First, we propose a novel unsupervised
paragraph embedding method, named the essence vector (EV) model, which aims at
not only distilling the most representative information from a paragraph but
also excluding the general background information to produce a more informative
low-dimensional vector representation for the paragraph. Second, in view of the
increasing importance of spoken content processing, an extension of the EV
model, named the denoising essence vector (D-EV) model, is proposed. The D-EV
model not only inherits the advantages of the EV model but also can infer a
more robust representation for a given spoken paragraph against imperfect
speech recognition.


title:
On the strange domain of attraction to generalized Dickman distributions
  for sums of independent random variables

abstract:
  Let $\{B_k\}_{k=1}^\infty, \{X_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ all be independent random
variables. Assume that $\{B_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ are $\{0,1\}$-valued Bernoulli
random variables satisfying $B_k\stackrel{\text{dist}}{=}\text{Ber}(p_k)$, with
$\sum_{k=1}^\infty p_k=\infty$, and assume that $\{X_k\}_{k=1}^\infty$ satisfy:
  $X_k>0,\ \ \ \mu_k\equiv EX_k<\infty, \ \ \
\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{X_k}{\mu_k}\stackrel{\text{dist}}{=}1$. Let
$M_n=\sum_{k=1}^np_k\mu_k$, assume that $M_n\to\infty$ and define the
normalized sum of independent random variables
$W_n=\frac1{M_n}\sum_{k=1}^nB_kX_k$. We give a general condition under which
$W_n\stackrel{\text{dist}}{\to}c$, for some $c\in[0,1]$, and a general
condition under which $W_n$ converges in distribution to a generalized Dickman
distribution GD$(\theta)$. In particular, we obtain the following concrete
results, which reveal a strange domain of attraction to generalized Dickman
distributions. Let $J_\mu,J_p$ be nonnegative integers, let $c_\mu,c_p>0$ and
let $$ \begin{aligned} &\mu_n\sim c_\mu
n^{a_0}\prod_{j=1}^{J_\mu}(\log^{(j)}n)^{a_j}, &p_n\sim
c_p\big({n^{b_0}\prod_{j=1}^{J_p}(\log^{(j)}n)^{b_j}}\big)^{-1}, \
b_{J_p}\neq0. \end{aligned} $$ If $$ \begin{aligned} &i.\ J_p\le J_\mu; &ii.\
b_j=1, \ 0\le j\le J_p; &iii.\ a_j=0, \ 0\le j\le J_p-1,\ \text{and}\ \
a_{J_p}>0, \end{aligned} $$ then $
\lim_{n\to\infty}W_n\stackrel{\text{dist}}{=}\frac1{\theta}\text{GD}(\theta),\
\text{where}\ \theta=\frac{c_p}{a_{J_p}}. $ Otherwise,
$\lim_{n\to\infty}W_n\stackrel{\text{dist}}{=}c$, for some $c\in[0,1]$. We also
give an application to the statistics of the number of inversions in certain
shuffling schemes.


title: Electron spin dynamics of two-dimensional layered materials

abstract:
  The growing library of two-dimensional layered materials is providing
researchers with a wealth of opportunity to explore and tune physical phenomena
at the nanoscale. Here, we review the experimental and theoretical state-of-art
concerning the electron spin dynamics in graphene, silicene, phosphorene,
transition metal dichalcogenides, covalent heterostructures of organic
molecules and topological materials. The spin transport, chemical and defect
induced magnetic moments, and the effect of spin-orbit coupling and spin
relaxation, are also discussed in relation to the field of spintronics.


title:
Energy conditions and constraints on the generalized non-local gravity
  model

abstract:
  We study and derive the energy conditions in generalized non-local gravity,
which is the modified theory of general relativity (GR) obtained by adding a
term $m^{2n-2}R\Box^{-n}R$ to the Einstein-Hilbert action. Moreover, in order
to get some insight on the meaning of the energy conditions, we illustrate the
evolutions of four energy conditions with the model parameter $\varepsilon$ for
different $n$. By analysis we give the constraints on the model parameters
$\varepsilon$.


title: Spin-charge coupling effects in a two-dimensional electron gas

abstract:
  In these lecture notes we study the disordered two-dimensional electron gas
in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling, by using the Keldysh
non-equilibrium Green function technique. We describe the effects of the
spin-orbit coupling in terms of a SU(2) gauge field and derive a generalized
Boltzmann equation for the charge and spin distribution functions. We then
apply the formalism to discuss the spin Hall and the inverse spin galvanic
(Edelstein) effects. Successively we show how to include, within the
generalized Boltzmann equation, the side jump, the skew scattering and the spin
current swapping processes originating from the extrinsic spin-orbit coupling
due to impurity scattering.


title:
Effect of medium recoil and $p_T$ broadening on single inclusive jet
  suppression in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

abstract:
  Jet energy loss and single inclusive jet suppression in high-energy heavy-ion
collisions are studied within a pQCD parton model that includes both elastic
and radiative interactions between jet shower and medium partons as they
propagate through the quark-gluon plasma. The collisional energy loss of jets
with a given cone-size is found to be relatively small comparing with the
radiative energy loss. However the effect of transverse momentum broadening due
to elastic scattering is significant in the calculation of radiative energy
loss within the higher-twist formalism. The nuclear modification factors for
single inclusive jets with different cone-sizes are calculated and compared to
experimental data as measured by ALICE and ATLAS experiments in Pb+Pb
collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ TeV. Results on jet suppression in Pb+Pb
collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 5.02$ TeV are also presented.


title: Recurrent Attention Models for Depth-Based Person Identification

abstract:
  We present an attention-based model that reasons on human body shape and
motion dynamics to identify individuals in the absence of RGB information,
hence in the dark. Our approach leverages unique 4D spatio-temporal signatures
to address the identification problem across days. Formulated as a
reinforcement learning task, our model is based on a combination of
convolutional and recurrent neural networks with the goal of identifying small,
discriminative regions indicative of human identity. We demonstrate that our
model produces state-of-the-art results on several published datasets given
only depth images. We further study the robustness of our model towards
viewpoint, appearance, and volumetric changes. Finally, we share insights
gleaned from interpretable 2D, 3D, and 4D visualizations of our model's
spatio-temporal attention.


title:
On a connection between layer-adapted exponentially graded and S-type
  meshes

abstract:
  In this short note we analyse a connection between the exponentially graded
and the class of S-type meshes for singularly perturbed problems. As a
by-product we obtain a slightly modified and more general class of
layer-adapted meshes.


title: Comparing entropy rates on finite and infinite rooted trees

abstract:
  We consider stochastic processes with (or without) memory whose evolution is
encoded by a finite or infinite rooted tree. The main goal is to compare the
entropy rates of a given base process and a second one, to be considered as a
perturbation of the former. The processes are described by probability measures
on the boundary of the given tree, and by corresponding forward transition
probabilities at the inner nodes. The comparison is in terms of
Kullback-Leibler divergence. We elaborate and extend ideas and results of
B\"ocherer and Amjad. Our extensions involve length functions on the edges of
the tree as well as nodes with countably many successors. In particular, in the
last part, we consider trees with infinite geodesic rays and random
perturbations of a given process.


title: Heavy neutrino searches from MeV to TeV

abstract:
  The Standard Model (SM) describes particle physics with great precision.
However, it does not account for the generation of neutrino masses, whose
nature we do not understand. Both a Dirac and a Majorana mass term could
intervene, leading to the existence of heavy partners of the SM neutrinos,
presumably more massive and nearly sterile. For suitable choices of parameters,
heavy neutrinos can also provide dark matter candidates, and generate the
observed baryon asymmetry of the universe. Heavy neutrinos can be searched for
at beam dump facilities such as the proposed SHiP experiment if their mass is
of the order of few GeV, or at high energy lepton colliders, such as the Future
$e^+e^-$ Circular Collider, FCC-ee, presently under study at CERN, for higher
masses. This contribution presents a review of the sensitivities for heavy
neutrino searches at SHiP and FCC-ee.


title: What to Expect When You Are Expecting on the Grassmannian

abstract:
  Consider an incoming sequence of vectors, all belonging to an unknown
subspace $\operatorname{S}$, and each with many missing entries. In order to
estimate $\operatorname{S}$, it is common to partition the data into blocks and
iteratively update the estimate of $\operatorname{S}$ with each new incoming
measurement block.
  In this paper, we investigate a rather basic question: Is it possible to
identify $\operatorname{S}$ by averaging the column span of the partially
observed incoming measurement blocks on the Grassmannian?
  We show that in general the span of the incoming blocks is in fact a biased
estimator of $\operatorname{S}$ when data suffers from erasures, and we find an
upper bound for this bias. We reach this conclusion by examining the defining
optimization program for the Fr\'{e}chet expectation on the Grassmannian, and
with the aid of a sharp perturbation bound and standard large deviation
results.


title: Topology induced anomalous plasmon modes in metallic Mobius nanorings

abstract:
  We report on the investigation of plasmonic resonances in metallic M\"obius
nanorings. Half-integer numbers of resonant modes are observed due to the
presence of an extra phase {\pi} provided by the topology of the M\"obius
nanostrip. Anomalous plasmon modes located at the non-orientable surface of the
M\"obius nanoring break the symmetry that exist in conventional ring cavities,
thus enable far-field excitation and emission as bright modes. The far-field
resonant wavelength as well as the feature of half-integer mode numbers is
invariant to the change of charge distribution on the M\"obius nanoring due to
the nontrivial topology. Owing to the ultra-small mode volume induced by the
remaining dark feature, an extremely high sensitivity as well as a remarkable
figure of merit is obtained in sensing performance. The topological metallic
nanostructure provides a novel platform for the investigation of localized
surface plasmon modes exhibiting unique phenomena in plasmonic applications
such as high sensitive detection and plasmonic nanolasers.


title:
Deep neural networks can be improved using human-derived contextual
  expectations

abstract:
  Real-world objects occur in specific contexts. Such context has been shown to
facilitate detection by constraining the locations to search. But can context
directly benefit object detection? To do so, context needs to be learned
independently from target features. This is impossible in traditional object
detection where classifiers are trained on images containing both target
features and surrounding context. In contrast, humans can learn context and
target features separately, such as when we see highways without cars. Here we
show for the first time that human-derived scene expectations can be used to
improve object detection performance in machines. To measure contextual
expectations, we asked human subjects to indicate the scale, location and
likelihood at which cars or people might occur in scenes without these objects.
Humans showed highly systematic expectations that we could accurately predict
using scene features. This allowed us to predict human expectations on novel
scenes without requiring manual annotation. On augmenting deep neural networks
with predicted human expectations, we obtained substantial gains in accuracy
for detecting cars and people (1-3%) as well as on detecting associated objects
(3-20%). In contrast, augmenting deep networks with other conventional features
yielded far smaller gains. This improvement was due to relatively poor matches
at highly likely locations being correctly labelled as target and conversely
strong matches at unlikely locations being correctly rejected as false alarms.
Taken together, our results show that augmenting deep neural networks with
human-derived context features improves their performance, suggesting that
humans learn scene context separately unlike deep networks.


title:
Bohnenblust--Hille inequality for polynomials whose monomials have
  uniformly bounded number of variables

abstract:
  In 2015, using an innovative technique, Carando, Defant and Sevilla-Peris
succeeded in proving a Bohnenblust--Hille type inequality with constants of
polynomial growth in $m$ for a certain family of complex $m$-homogeneous
polynomials. In the present paper, using a completely different approach, we
prove that the constants of this inequality are uniformly bounded
irrespectively of the value of $m$.


title: Pile-up corrections in laser-driven pulsed x-ray sources

abstract:
  A formalism for treating the pile-up produced in solid-state detectors by
laser-driven pulsed x-ray sources has been developed. It allows the direct use
of x-ray spectroscopy without artificially decreasing the number of counts in
the detector, assuming the duration of a pulse is much shorter than the
detector response time and the loss of counts from the energy window of the
detector can be modeled or neglected. Experimental application shows that
having a small amount of pile-up subsequently corrected improves the
signal-to-noise ratio, which would be more beneficial than the strict
single-hit condition usually imposed on this detectors.


title:
Perturbative running of the twisted Yang-Mills coupling in the gradient
  flow scheme

abstract:
  We report on our ongoing computation of the perturbative running of the
Yang-Mills coupling using gradient flow techniques. In particular, we use the
gradient flow method with twisted boundary conditions to perform a perturbative
expansion of the expectation value of the Yang-Mills energy density up to
fourth order in the coupling at finite flow time. We regularise the resulting
integrals using dimensional regularisation, and reproduce the universal
coefficient of the 1/{\epsilon} term in the relation between bare and
renormalised couplings. The computation of the finite part leading to a
determination of the {\Lambda} parameter in this scheme is underway.


title: Asymptotics for the expected shortfall

abstract:
  We derive the joint asymptotic distribution of empirical quantiles and
expected shortfalls under general conditions on the distribution of the
underlying observations. In particular, we do not assume that the distribution
function is differentiable at the quantile with strictly positive derivative.
Hence the rate of convergence and the asymptotic distribution for the quantile
can be non-standard, but our results show that the expected shortfall remains
asymptotically normal with a $\sqrt{n}$-rate, and we even give the joint
distribution in such non-standard cases. In the derivation we use the bivariate
scoring functions for quantile and expected shortfall as recently introduced by
Fissler and Ziegel (2016). The main technical issue is to deal with the
distinct rates for quantile and expected shortfall when applying the
argmax-continuity theorem. We also consider spectral risk measures with
finitely-supported spectral measures, and illustrate our results in a
simulation study.


title:
On Limiting Behavior of Stationary Measures for Stochastic Evolution
  Systems with Small Noise Intensity

abstract:
  The limiting behavior of stochastic evolution processes with small noise
intensity $\epsilon$ is investigated in distribution-based approach. Let
$\mu^{\epsilon}$ be stationary measure for stochastic process $X^{\epsilon}$
with small $\epsilon$ and $X^{0}$ be a semiflow on a Polish space. Assume that
$\{\mu^{\epsilon}: 0<\epsilon\leq\epsilon_0\}$ is tight. Then all their limits
in weak sense are $X^0-$invariant and their supports are contained in Birkhoff
center of $X^0$. Applications are made to various stochastic evolution systems,
including stochastic ordinary differential equations, stochastic partial
differential equations, stochastic functional differential equations driven by
Brownian motion or L\'{e}vy process.


title:
Efficient Feedback Mechanisms for FDD Massive MIMO under User-level
  Cooperation

abstract:
  Channel state information (CSI) feedback is a challenging issue in frequency
division multiplexing (FDD) massive MIMO systems. This paper studies a
cooperative feedback scheme, where the users first exchange their CSI with each
other by exploiting device-to-device (D2D) communications, then compute the
precoder by themselves, and feed back the precoder to the base station (BS).
Analytical results are derived to show that the cooperative precoder feedback
is more efficient than the CSI feedback in terms of interference mitigation.
Under the constraint of limited D2D communication capacity, we develop an
adaptive CSI exchange strategy based on signal subspace projection and optimal
bit partition. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed cooperative
precoder feedback scheme with adaptive CSI exchange significantly outperforms
the CSI feedback scheme, even when the CSI is exchanged via rate-limited D2D
communications.


title: On hyperbolicity and Gevrey well-posedness. Part one: the elliptic case

abstract:
  In this paper we prove that the Cauchy problem for first-order quasi-linear
systems of partial differential equations is ill-posed in Gevrey spaces, under
the assumption of an initial ellipticity. The assumption bears on the principal
symbol of the first-order operator. Ill-posedness means instability in the
sense of Hadamard, specifically an instantaneous defect of H\"older continuity
of the flow from $G^{\sigma}$ to $L^2$, where $\sigma\in(0,1)$ depends on the
initial spectrum. Building on the analysis carried out by G. M\'etivier
[\textit{Remarks on the well-posedness of the nonlinear Cauchy problem},
Contemp. Math. 2005], we show that ill-posedness follows from a long-time
Cauchy-Kovalevskaya construction of a family of exact, highly oscillating,
analytical solutions which are initially close to the null solution, and which
grow exponentially fast in time. A specific difficulty resides in the
observation time of instability. While in Sobolev spaces, this time is
logarithmic in the frequency, in Gevrey spaces it is a power of the frequency.
In particular, in Gevrey spaces the instability is recorded much later than in
Sobolev spaces.


title: A practical guide to event generation for prompt photon production

abstract:
  The production of prompt photons is one of the most relevant scattering
processes studied at hadron-hadron colliders in recent years. This article will
give an overview of the different approaches used to simulate prompt photon
production in the Sherpa event generator framework. Special emphasis is placed
on a complete simulation of this process including fragmentation
configurations. As a novel application a merged simulation of $\gamma\gamma$
and $\gamma\gamma+$jet production at NLO accuracy is presented and compared to
measurements from the ATLAS experiment.


title:
Enhancement in absorption of amorphous Si solar cell by using conducting
  anti-reflection coating and plasmonic nano-structured back reflector

abstract:
  In this work is comprising of simulation results of amorphous Si (a-Si) solar
cell, in which ITO was used as an anti-reflection coating (ARC). The thickness
of ITO was optimized (65 nm) to achieve better performance for spectral region
of 350-800 nm. The reflectivity of the solar cell using ITO and SiNx as an ARC
were compared. The result is found similar. Further to enhance the light
absorption in a-Si, silver nano hemispherical back reflector was used. And it
was found that the average absorption by the a-Si has been improved to ~80% by
using ITO and hemi spherical nano structured back reflector.


title:
On the optimality of stripes in a variational model with non-local
  interactions

abstract:
  We study pattern formation for a variational model displaying competition
between a local term penalizing interfaces and a non-local term favoring
oscillations. By means of a $\Gamma$--convergence analysis, we show that as the
parameter J converges to a critical value J c, the minimizers converge to
periodic one-dimensional stripes. A similar analysis has been previously
performed by other authors for related discrete systems. In that context, a
central point is that each " angle " comes with a strictly positive
contribution to the energy. Since this is not anymore the case in the
continuous setting, we need to overcome this difficulty by slicing arguments
and a rigidity result.


title:
Controlling the s-wave scattering length with non-resonant light:
  Predictions of an asymptotic model

abstract:
  A pair of atoms interacts with non-resonant light via its anisotropic
polarizability. This effect can be used to tune the scattering properties of
the atoms. Although the light-atom interaction varies with interatomic
separation as $1/R^{3}$, the effective s-wave potential decreases more rapidly,
as $1/R^{4}$ such that the field-dressed scattering length can be determined
without any formal difficulty. The scattering dynamics are essentially governed
by the long-range part of the interatomic interaction and can thus be
accurately described by an asymptotic model [Crubellier et al., New J. Phys.
17, 045020 (2015)]. Here we use the asymptotic model to determine the
field-dressed scattering length from the s-wave radial component of a
particular threshold wave function. Applying our theory to the scattering of
two strontium isotopes, we calculate the variation of the scattering length
with the intensity of the non-resonant light. Moreover, we predict the
intensities at which the scattering length becomes infinite for any pair of
atoms.


title:
Nonparametric adaptive estimation of order 1 Sobol indices in stochastic
  models, with an application to Epidemiology

abstract:
  Global sensitivity analysis is a set of methods aiming at quantifying the
contribution of an uncertain input parameter of the model (or combination of
parameters) on the variability of the response. We consider here the estimation
of the Sobol indices of order 1 which are commonly-used indicators based on a
decomposition of the output's variance. In a deterministic framework, when the
same inputs always give the same outputs, these indices are usually estimated
by replicated simulations of the model. In a stochastic framework, when the
response given a set of input parameters is not unique due to randomness in the
model, metamodels are often used to approximate the mean and dispersion of the
response by deterministic functions. We propose a new non-parametric estimator
without the need of defining a metamodel to estimate the Sobol indices of order
1. The estimator is based on warped wavelets and is adaptive in the regularity
of the model. The convergence of the mean square error to zero, when the number
of simulations of the model tend to infinity, is computed and an elbow effect
is shown, depending on the regularity of the model. Applications in
Epidemiology are carried to illustrate the use of non-parametric estimators.


title: A Spatial and Temporal Non-Local Filter Based Data Fusion

abstract:
  The trade-off in remote sensing instruments that balances the spatial
resolution and temporal frequency limits our capacity to monitor spatial and
temporal dynamics effectively. The spatiotemporal data fusion technique is
considered as a cost-effective way to obtain remote sensing data with both high
spatial resolution and high temporal frequency, by blending observations from
multiple sensors with different advantages or characteristics. In this paper,
we develop the spatial and temporal non-local filter based fusion model
(STNLFFM) to enhance the prediction capacity and accuracy, especially for
complex changed landscapes. The STNLFFM method provides a new transformation
relationship between the fine-resolution reflectance images acquired from the
same sensor at different dates with the help of coarse-resolution reflectance
data, and makes full use of the high degree of spatiotemporal redundancy in the
remote sensing image sequence to produce the final prediction. The proposed
method was tested over both the Coleambally Irrigation Area study site and the
Lower Gwydir Catchment study site. The results show that the proposed method
can provide a more accurate and robust prediction, especially for heterogeneous
landscapes and temporally dynamic areas.


title:
Compositional Learning of Relation Path Embedding for Knowledge Base
  Completion

abstract:
  Large-scale knowledge bases have currently reached impressive sizes; however,
these knowledge bases are still far from complete. In addition, most of the
existing methods for knowledge base completion only consider the direct links
between entities, ignoring the vital impact of the consistent semantics of
relation paths. In this paper, we study the problem of how to better embed
entities and relations of knowledge bases into different low-dimensional spaces
by taking full advantage of the additional semantics of relation paths, and we
propose a compositional learning model of relation path embedding (RPE).
Specifically, with the corresponding relation and path projections, RPE can
simultaneously embed each entity into two types of latent spaces. It is also
proposed that type constraints could be extended from traditional
relation-specific constraints to the new proposed path-specific constraints.
The results of experiments show that the proposed model achieves significant
and consistent improvements compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms.


title:
CAS-CNN: A Deep Convolutional Neural Network for Image Compression
  Artifact Suppression

abstract:
  Lossy image compression algorithms are pervasively used to reduce the size of
images transmitted over the web and recorded on data storage media. However, we
pay for their high compression rate with visual artifacts degrading the user
experience. Deep convolutional neural networks have become a widespread tool to
address high-level computer vision tasks very successfully. Recently, they have
found their way into the areas of low-level computer vision and image
processing to solve regression problems mostly with relatively shallow
networks.
  We present a novel 12-layer deep convolutional network for image compression
artifact suppression with hierarchical skip connections and a multi-scale loss
function. We achieve a boost of up to 1.79 dB in PSNR over ordinary JPEG and an
improvement of up to 0.36 dB over the best previous ConvNet result. We show
that a network trained for a specific quality factor (QF) is resilient to the
QF used to compress the input image - a single network trained for QF 60
provides a PSNR gain of more than 1.5 dB over the wide QF range from 40 to 76.


title: Backward charmonium production in $\pi N$ collisions

abstract:
  The QCD collinear factorization framework allows to describe exclusive
backward production of a $J/\psi$ meson in pion-nucleon collisions in terms of
pion-to-nucleon transition distribution amplitudes. We calculate the scattering
amplitude at the leading order in the strong coupling constant and estimate the
cross section of this reaction in the backward kinematical region for a medium
energy pion beam available at the J-Parc experimental facility.


title: Identity Testing for +-Regular Noncommutative Arithmetic Circuits

abstract:
  An efficient randomized polynomial identity test for noncommutative
polynomials given by noncommutative arithmetic circuits remains an open
problem. The main bottleneck to applying known techniques is that a
noncommutative circuit of size $s$ can compute a polynomial of degree
exponential in $s$ with a double-exponential number of nonzero monomials. In
this paper, we report some progress by dealing with two natural subcases (both
allow for polynomials of exponential degree and a double exponential number of
monomials): (1) We consider \emph{$+$-regular} noncommutative circuits: these
are homogeneous noncommutative circuits with the additional property that all
the $+$-gates are layered, and in each $+$-layer all gates have the same
syntactic degree. We give a \emph{white-box} polynomial-time deterministic
polynomial identity test for such circuits. Our algorithm combines some new
structural results for $+$-regular circuits with known results for
noncommutative ABP identity testing [RS05PIT], rank bound of commutative depth
three identities [SS13], and equivalence testing problem for words [Loh15,
MSU97, Pla94]. (2) Next, we consider $\Sigma\Pi^*\Sigma$ noncommutative
circuits: these are noncommutative circuits with layered $+$-gates such that
there are only two layers of $+$-gates. These $+$-layers are the output
$+$-gate and linear forms at the bottom layer; between the $+$-layers the
circuit could have any number of $\times$ gates. We given an efficient
randomized \emph{black-box} identity testing problem for $\Sigma\Pi^*\Sigma$
circuits. In particular, we show if $f\in F<Z>$ is a nonzero noncommutative
polynomial computed by a $\Sigma\Pi^*\Sigma$ circuit of size $s$, then $f$
cannot be a polynomial identity for the matrix algebra $\mathbb{M}_s(F)$, where
the field $F$ is a sufficiently large extension of $F$ depending on the degree
of $f$.


title: Markov Chain Approximation of Pure Jump Processes

abstract:
  In this paper we discuss weak convergence of continuous-time Markov chains to
a non-symmetric pure jump process. We approach this problem using Dirichlet
forms as well as semimartingales. As an application, we discuss how to
approximate a given Markov process by Markov chains.


title: Multivariate Intensity Estimation via Hyperbolic Wavelet Selection

abstract:
  We propose a new statistical procedure able in some way to overcome the curse
of dimensionality without structural assumptions on the function to estimate.
It relies on a least-squares type penalized criterion and a new collection of
models built from hyperbolic biorthogonal wavelet bases. We study its
properties in a unifying intensity estimation framework, where an oracle-type
inequality and adaptation to mixed smoothness are shown to hold. Besides, we
describe an algorithm for implementing the estimator with a quite reasonable
complexity.


title: Time and Space Optimal Counting in Population Protocols

abstract:
  This work concerns the general issue of combined optimality in terms of time
and space complexity. In this context, we study the problem of (exact) counting
resource-limited and passively mobile nodes in the model of population
protocols, in which the space complexity is crucial. The counted nodes are
memory-limited anonymous devices (called agents) communicating asynchronously
in pairs (according to a fairness condition). Moreover, we assume that these
agents are prone to failures so that they cannot be correctly initialized. This
study considers two classical fairness conditions, and for each we investigate
the issue of time optimality of counting given the optimal space per agent. In
the case of randomly interacting agents (probabilistic fairness), as usual, the
convergence time is measured in terms of parallel time (or parallel
interactions), which is defined as the number of pairwise interactions until
convergence, divided by n (the number of agents). In case of weak fairness,
where it is only required that every pair of agents interacts infinitely often,
the convergence time is defined in terms of non-null transitions, i.e, the
transitions that affect the states of the interacting agents.First, assuming
probabilistic fairness, we present a "non-guessing" time optimal protocol of
O(n log n) expected time given an optimal space of only one bit, and we prove
the time optimality of this protocol. Then, for weak fairness, we show that a
space optimal (semi-uniform) solution cannot converge faster than in
$\Omega$(2^n) time (non-null transitions). This result, together with the time
complexity analysis of an already known space optimal protocol, shows that it
is also optimal in time (given the optimal space constrains).


title:
Convergence of Sparse Collocation for Functions of Countably Many
  Gaussian Random Variables (with Application to Elliptic PDEs)

abstract:
  We give a convergence proof for the approximation by sparse collocation of
Hilbert-space-valued functions depending on countably many Gaussian random
variables. Such functions appear as solutions of elliptic PDEs with lognormal
diffusion coefficients. We outline a general $L^2$-convergence theory based on
previous work by Bachmayr et al. (2016) and Chen (2016) and establish an
algebraic convergence rate for sufficiently smooth functions assuming a mild
growth bound for the univariate hierarchical surpluses of the interpolation
scheme applied to Hermite polynomials. We verify specifically for Gauss-Hermite
nodes that this assumption holds and also show algebraic convergence w.r.t. the
resulting number of sparse grid points for this case. Numerical experiments
illustrate the dimension-independent convergence rate.


title: New results for a two-loop massless propagator-type Feynman diagram

abstract:
  We consider the two-loop massless propagator-type Feynman diagram with an
arbitrary (non-integer) index on the central line. We analytically prove the
equality of the two well-known results existing in the literature which express
this diagram in terms of ${}_3F_2$-hypergeometric functions of argument $-1$
and $1$, respectively. We also derive new representations for this diagram
which may be of importance in practical calculations.

categories: hep-th cond-mat.mes-hall hep-ph math-ph math.MP


title: $\lambda$-stability of periodic billiard orbits

abstract:
  We introduce a new notion of stability for periodic orbits in polygonal
billiards. We say that a periodic orbit of a polygonal billiard is
$\lambda$-stable if there is a periodic orbit for the corresponding pinball
billiard which converges to it as $\lambda$ $\rightarrow$ 1. This notion of
stability is unrelated to the notion introduced by Galperin, Stepin and
Vorobets. We give sufficient and necessary conditions for a periodic orbit to
be $\lambda$-stable and prove that the set of d-gons having at most finite
number of $\lambda$-stable periodic orbits is dense is the space of d-gons.
Moreover, we also determine completely the $\lambda$-stable periodic orbits in
integrable polygons.


title:
Laplace copulas of multifactor gamma distributions are new generalized
  Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern copulas

abstract:
  This paper provides bifactor gamma distribution, trivariate gamma
distribution and two copula families on [0, 1] n obtained from the Laplace
transforms of the multivariate gamma distribution and the multi-factor gamma
distribution given by [P ($\theta$)] --$\lambda$ and [P ($\theta$)] --$\lambda$
n i=1 (1 + pi$\theta$i) --($\lambda$ i --$\lambda$) respectively, where P is an
affine polynomial with respect to the n variables $\theta$1,. .. , $\theta$n.
These copulas are new generalized Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern copulas and allow
in particular to obtain multivariate gamma distributions for which the
cumulative distribution functions and the probability distribution functions
are known.


title: Pomeron-Odderon Interactions: A Functional RG Flow Analysis

abstract:
  In the quest for an effective field theory which could help to understand
some non perturbative feature of the QCD in the Regge limit, we consider a
Reggeon Field Theory (RFT) for both Pomeron and Odderon interactions and
perform an analysys of the critical theory using functional renormalization
group techniques, unveiling a novel symmetry structure.


title:
Electron Track Reconstruction and Improved Modulation for Photoelectric
  X-ray Polarimetry

abstract:
  The key to photoelectric X-ray polarimetry is the determination of the
emission direction of photoelectrons. Because of the low mass of an electron,
the ionisation trajectory is not straight and the useful information needed for
polarimetry is stored mostly in the initial part of the track where less energy
is deposited. We present a new algorithm, based on the shortest path problem in
graph theory, to reconstruct the 2D electron track from the measured image that
is blurred due to transversal diffusion along drift and multiplication in the
gas chamber. Compared with previous methods based on moment analysis, this
algorithm allows us to identify the photoelectric interaction point more
accurately and precisely for complicated tracks resulting from high energy
photons or low pressure chambers. This leads to a better position resolution
and a higher degree of modulation toward high energy X-rays. The new algorithm
is justified using simulations and measurements with the gas pixel detector
(GPD), and it should also work for other polarimetric techniques such as a time
projection chamber (TPC). As the improvement is restricted in the high energy
band, this new algorithm shows limited improvement for the sensitivity of GPD
polarimeters, but it may have a larger potential for low-pressure TPC
polarimeters.


title: Single-View and Multi-View Depth Fusion

abstract:
  Dense and accurate 3D mapping from a monocular sequence is a key technology
for several applications and still an open research area. This paper leverages
recent results on single-view CNN-based depth estimation and fuses them with
multi-view depth estimation. Both approaches present complementary strengths.
Multi-view depth is highly accurate but only in high-texture areas and
high-parallax cases. Single-view depth captures the local structure of
mid-level regions, including texture-less areas, but the estimated depth lacks
global coherence. The single and multi-view fusion we propose is challenging in
several aspects. First, both depths are related by a deformation that depends
on the image content. Second, the selection of multi-view points of high
accuracy might be difficult for low-parallax configurations. We present
contributions for both problems. Our results in the public datasets of NYUv2
and TUM shows that our algorithm outperforms the individual single and
multi-view approaches. A video showing the key aspects of mapping in our Single
and Multi-view depth proposal is available at https://youtu.be/ipc5HukTb4k


title: A topos associated with a colored category

abstract:
  We show that a functor category whose domain is a colored category is a
topos.The topos structure enables us to introduce cohomology of colored
categories including quasi-schemoids. If the given colored category arises from
an association scheme, then the cohomology coincides with the group cohomology
of the factor scheme by the thin residue. Moreover, it is shown that the
cohomology of a colored category relates to the standard representation of an
association scheme via the Leray spectral sequence.


title:
Estimation of parametric and semiparametric mixture models using
  phi-divergences

abstract:
  The study of mixture models constitutes a large domain of research in
statistics. In the first part of this work, we present phi-divergences and the
existing methods which produce robust estimators. We are more particularly
interested in the so-called dual formula of phi-divergences. We build a new
robust estimator based on this formula. We study its asymptotic properties and
give a numerical comparison with existing methods on simulated data. We also
introduce a proximal-point algorithm whose aim is to calculate divergence-based
estimators. We give some of the convergence properties of this algorithm and
illustrate them on theoretical and simulated examples. In the second part of
this thesis, we build a new structure for two-component mixture models where
one component is unknown. The new approach permits to incorporate a prior
linear information about the unknown component such as moment-type and
L-moments constraints. We study the asymptotic properties of the proposed
estimators. Several experimental results on simulated data are illustrated
showing the advantage of the novel approach and the gain from using the prior
information in comparison to existing methods which do not incorporate any
prior information except for a symmetry assumption over the unknown component.


title: Random interval diffeomorphisms

abstract:
  We consider a class of step skew product systems of interval diffeomorphisms
over shift operators, as a means to study random compositions of interval
diffeomorphisms. The class is chosen to present in a simplified setting
intriguing phenomena of intermingled basins, master-slave synchronization and
on-off intermittency. We provide a self-contained discussion of these
phenomena.


title: The Generalized Scheme-Independent Crewther Relation in QCD

abstract:
  The Principle of Maximal Conformality (PMC) provides a systematic way to set
the renormalization scales order-by-order for any perturbative QCD process. The
resulting predictions are independent of the choice of renormalization scheme,
a requirement of renormalization group invariance. The Crewther relation, which
was originally derived for conformal theory, provides a remarkable connection
between two observables when the $\beta$ function vanishes. The "Generalized
Crewther Relation" relates these two observables for physical QCD with nonzero
$\beta$ function; specifically, it connects the non-singlet Adler function
($D^{\rm ns}$) to the Bjorken sum rule coefficient for polarized deep-inelastic
electron scattering ($C_{\rm Bjp}$) at leading twist. A scheme-dependent
$\Delta_{\rm CSB}$-term appears in the analysis in order to compensate for the
conformal symmetry breaking (CSB) terms from perturbative QCD. In conventional
analyses, this normally leads to unphysical dependence in both the choice of
the renormalization scheme and the choice of the initial scale at any finite
order. However, by applying PMC scale-setting, we can fix the scales of the QCD
coupling unambiguously at every order of pQCD. ...... Thus one obtains a new
generalized Crewther relation for QCD which connects two effective charges,
$\widehat{\alpha}_d(Q)= \sum_{i\geq1} \widehat{\alpha}^{i}_{g_1}(Q_i)$, at
their respective physical scales. This identity is independent of the choice of
the renormalization scheme at any finite order, and the dependence on the
choice of the initial scale is negligible. Similar scale-fixed commensurate
scale relations also connect other physical observables at their physical
momentum scales, thus providing convention-independent, fundamental precision
tests of QCD.


title: The legacy of the experimental hadron physics programme at COSY

abstract:
  The experimental hadronic physics programme at the COoler SYnchrotron of the
Forschungszentrum Juelich terminated at the end of 2014. After describing the
accelerator and the associated facilities, a review is presented of the major
achievements in the field realized over the twenty years of intense research
activity.


title: Explicit Estimates in the Theory of Prime Numbers

abstract:
  It is the purpose of this thesis to enunciate and prove a collection of
explicit results in the theory of prime numbers.
  First, the problem of primes in short intervals is considered. We prove that
there is a prime between consecutive cubes $n^3$ and $(n+1)^3$ for all $n \geq
\exp(\exp(33.3))$. To prove this, we first derive an explicit version of the
Riemann--von Mangoldt explicit formula. We then assume the Riemann hypothesis
and show that there will be a prime in the interval $(x-4/ \pi \sqrt{x} \log x,
x]$ for all $x > 2$. Moreover, we show that the constant $4/\pi$ can be reduced
to $(1+\epsilon)$ for all sufficiently large values of $x$.
  Using explicit results on primes in arithmetic progressions, we prove two new
results in additive number theory. First, we prove that every integer greater
than 2 can be written as the sum of a prime and a square-free number. We then
work similarly to prove that every integer greater than 10 and not congruent to
$1$ modulo $4$ can be written as the sum of the square of a prime and a
square-free number.
  Finally, we provide new explicit results on an arcane inequality of
Ramanujan.


title: Interpretable Recurrent Neural Networks Using Sequential Sparse Recovery

abstract:
  Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are powerful and effective for processing
sequential data. However, RNNs are usually considered "black box" models whose
internal structure and learned parameters are not interpretable. In this paper,
we propose an interpretable RNN based on the sequential iterative
soft-thresholding algorithm (SISTA) for solving the sequential sparse recovery
problem, which models a sequence of correlated observations with a sequence of
sparse latent vectors. The architecture of the resulting SISTA-RNN is
implicitly defined by the computational structure of SISTA, which results in a
novel stacked RNN architecture. Furthermore, the weights of the SISTA-RNN are
perfectly interpretable as the parameters of a principled statistical model,
which in this case include a sparsifying dictionary, iterative step size, and
regularization parameters. In addition, on a particular sequential compressive
sensing task, the SISTA-RNN trains faster and achieves better performance than
conventional state-of-the-art black box RNNs, including long-short term memory
(LSTM) RNNs.


title:
On Wigner-Ville Spectra and the Unicity of Time-Varying Quantile-Based
  Spectral Densities

abstract:
  The unicity of the time-varying quantile-based spectrum proposed in Birr et
al. (2016) is established via an asymptotic representation result involving
Wigner-Ville spectra.


title:
Role of interactions and correlations on collective dynamics of
  molecular motors along parallel filaments

abstract:
  Cytoskeletal motors known as motor proteins are molecules that drive cellular
transport along several parallel cytoskeletal filaments and support many
biological processes. Experimental evidences suggest that they interact with
the nearest molecules of their filament while performing mechanical work. To
understand such mechanism theoretically, a new version of two-channel totally
asymmetric simple exclusion process which incorporates interactions in a
thermodynamically consistent way, is introduced. As the existing approaches for
multi-channel systems deviate from analyzing the effect of inter and intra
channel interactions, a new approach known as modified vertical cluster mean
field is developed. The approach along with monte-carlo simulations
successfully encounters some correlations and computes all complex dynamic
properties of the system. Role of symmetry of interactions and inter-channel
coupling is observed on triple points and particle maximal current.
Surprisingly, for each coupling rate and most of the interaction splittings,
there corresponds an optimal interaction strength for the maximal current which
belongs to the case of weak repulsive interactions. Moreover, for a fixed
interaction splitting, as coupling rate increases, the optimal strength
decreases and tends towards the experimental predictions. Correlations are
found to be short-range and weaker for repulsive and weak attractive
interactions, while for stronger attractions they are long-range and stronger.
All these findings are also discussed in the context of experimental
observations.


title:
Standardization and Conservativity of a Refined Call-by-Value
  lambda-Calculus

abstract:
  We study an extension of Plotkin's call-by-value lambda-calculus via two
commutation rules (sigma-reductions). These commutation rules are sufficient to
remove harmful call-by-value normal forms from the calculus, so that it enjoys
elegant characterizations of many semantic properties. We prove that this
extended calculus is a conservative refinement of Plotkin's one. In particular,
the notions of solvability and potential valuability for this calculus coincide
with those for Plotkin's call-by-value lambda-calculus. The proof rests on a
standardization theorem proved by generalizing Takahashi's approach of parallel
reductions to our set of reduction rules. The standardization is weak (i.e.
redexes are not fully sequentialized) because of overlapping interferences
between reductions.


title:
Adaptive Design of Experiments for Conservative Estimation of Excursion
  Sets

abstract:
  We consider the problem of estimating the set of all inputs that leads a
system to some particular behavior. The system is modeled by an
expensive-to-evaluate function, such as a computer experiment, and we are
interested in its excursion set, i.e. the set of points where the function
takes values above or below some prescribed threshold. The objective function
is emulated with a Gaussian Process (GP) model based on an initial design of
experiments enriched with evaluation results at (batch-)sequentially determined
input points. The GP model provides conservative estimates for the excursion
set, which control false positives while minimizing false negatives. We
introduce adaptive strategies that sequentially select new evaluations of the
function by reducing the uncertainty on conservative estimates. Following the
Stepwise Uncertainty Reduction approach we obtain new evaluations by minimizing
adapted criteria. Tractable formulae for the conservative criteria are derived,
which allow more convenient optimization. The method is benchmarked on random
functions generated under the model assumptions in different scenarios of noise
and batch size. We then apply it to a reliability engineering test case.
Overall, the proposed strategy of minimizing false negatives in conservative
estimation achieves competitive performance both in terms of model-based and
model-free indicators.


title:
Evolutionary status of the Of?p star HD148937 and of its surrounding
  nebula NGC6164/5

abstract:
  Aims. The magnetic star HD148937 is the only Galactic Of?p star surrounded by
a nebula. The structure of this nebula is particularly complex and is composed,
from the center out outwards, of a close bipolar ejecta nebula (NGC6164/5), an
ellipsoidal wind-blown shell, and a spherically symmetric Stromgren sphere. The
exact formation process of this nebula and its precise relation to the star's
evolution remain unknown. Methods. We analyzed infrared Spitzer IRS and
far-infrared Herschel/PACS observations of the NGC6164/5 nebula. The Herschel
imaging allowed us to constrain the global morphology of the nebula. We also
combined the infrared spectra with optical spectra of the central star to
constrain its evolutionary status. We used these data to derive the abundances
in the ejected material. To relate this information to the evolutionary status
of the star, we also determined the fundamental parameters of HD148937 using
the CMFGEN atmosphere code. Results. The H$\alpha$ image displays a bipolar or
"8"-shaped ionized nebula, whilst the infrared images show dust to be more
concentrated around the central object. We determine nebular abundance ratios
of N/O = 1.06 close to the star, and N/O = 1.54 in the bright lobe constituting
NGC6164. Interestingly, the parts of the nebula located further from HD148937
appear more enriched in stellar material than the part located closer to the
star. Evolutionary tracks suggest that these ejecta have occured $\sim$1.2-1.3
and $\sim$0.6 Myrs ago, respectively. In addition, we derive abundances of
argon for the nebula compatible with the solar values and we find a depletion
of neon and sulfur. The combined analyses of the known kinematics and of the
new abundances of the nebula suggest either a helical morphology for the
nebula, possibly linked to the magnetic geometry, or the occurrence of a binary
merger.


title: Uniform s-cross-intersecting families

abstract:
  In this paper we study a question related to the classical Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado
theorem, which states that any family of $k$-element subsets of the set $[n] =
\{1,\ldots,n\}$ in which any two sets intersect, has cardinality at most
${n-1\choose k-1}$.
  We say that two non-empty families are $\mathcal A, \mathcal B\subset
{[n]\choose k}$ are {\it $s$-cross-intersecting}, if for any $A\in\mathcal
A,B\in \mathcal B$ we have $|A\cap B|\ge s$. In this paper we determine the
maximum of $|\mathcal A|+|\mathcal B|$ for all $n$. This generalizes a result
of Hilton and Milner, who determined the maximum of $|\mathcal A|+|\mathcal B|$
for nonempty $1$-cross-intersecting families.


title:
Constraints on Scalar-Pseudoscalar and Tensorial Non-Standard
  Interaction and Tensorial Unparticle Couplings from Neutrino-Electron
  Scattering

abstract:
  Neutrino-electron scattering is a purely leptonic fundamental interaction and
therefore provides an important channel to test the Standard Model, especially
at the low energy-momentum transfer regime. We derived constraints on neutrino
nonstardard interaction couplings depending on model-independent approaches
which are described by a four-Fermi pointlike interaction and unparticle
physics model with tensorial components. Data on $\bar{\nu}_{e}-e$ and
$\nu_{e}-e$ scattering from the TEXONO and LSND experiments, respectively, are
used. The upper limits and the allowed regions of scalar, pseudoscalar, and
tensorial nonstandard interaction couplings of neutrinos are derived at 90\%
confidence level in both one-parameter and two-parameter analysis. New upper
limits for tensorial unparticle physics coupling constants and mass parameters
are also placed.


title: Short monadic second order sentences about sparse random graphs

abstract:
  In this paper, we study zero-one laws for the Erd\H{o}s--R\'{e}nyi random
graph model $G(n,p)$ in the case when $p = n^{-\alpha}$ for $\alpha>0$. For a
given class $\mathcal{K}$ of logical sentences about graphs and a given
function $p=p(n)$, we say that $G(n,p)$ obeys the zero-one law (w.r.t. the
class $\mathcal{K}$) if each sentence $\varphi\in\mathcal{K}$ either a.a.s.
true or a.a.s. false for $G(n,p)$. In this paper, we consider first order
properties and monadic second order properties of bounded \textit{quantifier
depth} $k$, that is, the length of the longest chain of nested quantifiers in
the formula expressing the property. Zero-one laws for properties of quantifier
depth $k$ we call the \textit{zero-one $k$-laws}.
  The main results of this paper concern the zero-one $k$-laws for monadic
second order properties (MSO properties). We determine all values $\alpha>0$,
for which the zero-one $3$-law for MSO properties does not hold. We also show
that, in contrast to the case of the $3$-law, there are infinitely many values
of $\alpha$ for which the zero-one $4$-law for MSO properties does not hold. To
this end, we analyze the evolution of certain properties of $G(n,p)$ that may
be of independent interest.


title: Asymptotic freedom in the Hamiltonian approach to binding of color

abstract:
  We derive asymptotic freedom and the $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills $\beta$-function
using the renormalization group procedure for effective particles. In this
procedure, the concept of effective particles of size $s$ is introduced.
Effective particles in the Fock space build eigenstates of the effective
Hamiltonian $H_s$, which is a matrix written in a basis that depend on the
scale (or size) parameter $s$. The effective Hamiltonians $H_s$ and the
(regularized) canonical Hamiltonian $H_{0}$ are related by a similarity
transformation. We calculate the effective Hamiltonian by solving its
renormalization-group equation perturbatively up to third order and calculate
the running coupling from the three-gluon-vertex function in the effective
Hamiltonian operator.