title: Giant Rashba Splitting in CH3NH3PbBr3 Organic-Inorganic Perovskite

abstract:
  As they combine decent mobilities with extremely long carrier lifetimes,
organic-inorganic perovskites have opened a whole new field in
opto\-electronics. Measurements of their underlying electronic structure,
however, are still lacking. Using angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, we
measure the valence band dispersion of single-crystal CH$_3$NH$_3$PbBr$_3$. The
dispersion of the highest energy band is extracted applying a modified leading
edge method, which accounts for the particular density of states of
organic-inorganic perovskites. The surface Brillouin zone is consistent with
bulk-terminated surfaces both in the low-temperature orthorhombic and the
high-temperature cubic phase. In the low-temperature phase, we find a
ring-shaped valence band maximum with a radius of 0.043 {\AA}$^{-1}$, centered
around a 0.16 eV deep local minimum in the dispersion of the valence band at
the high-symmetry point. Intense circular dichroism is observed. This
dispersion is the result of strong spin-orbit coupling. Spin-orbit coupling is
also present in the room-temperature phase. The coupling strength is one of the
largest reported so far.


title: Homogenization of hyperbolic equations with periodic coefficients

abstract:
  In $L_2(\mathbb{R}^d;\mathbb{C}^n)$ we consider selfadjoint strongly elliptic
second order differential operators ${\mathcal A}_\varepsilon$ with periodic
coefficients depending on ${\mathbf x}/ \varepsilon$, $\varepsilon>0$. We study
the behavior of the operator cosine $\cos( {\mathcal A}^{1/2}_\varepsilon
\tau)$, $\tau \in \mathbb{R}$, for small $\varepsilon$. Approximations for this
operator in the $(H^s\to L_2)$-operator norm with a suitable $s$ are obtained.
The results are used to study the behavior of the solution ${\mathbf
v}_\varepsilon$ of the Cauchy problem for the hyperbolic equation
$\partial^2_\tau {\mathbf v}_\varepsilon = - \mathcal{A}_\varepsilon {\mathbf
v}_\varepsilon +\mathbf{F}$. General results are applied to the acoustics
equation and the system of elasticity theory.


title:
Characterization of volume type ion source for $p$, $H_2^+$ and $H_3^+$
  beams

abstract:
  Recently, there is an increasing need for $H_{2}^+$ and $H_{3}^+$ ion
sources. One example are ion therapy facilities, where $C^{4+}$ and $H_{3}^+$
ion beams along the linac are of great interest. Another example is a $H_{2}^+$
test beam for linacs finally operated with intense deuteron beams. At
Frankfurt, a simple proton ion source is needed to test a new kind of beam
injection into a magnetic storage ring\cite{EPAC08}\cite{EPAC06}. This article
describes a volume type ion source which can deliver upto $3.05~mA$ beam
current at $10~keV$ in stable dc operation. It is a hot filament driven ion
source which can provide high fractions of $p$, $H_{2}^+$ or $H_{3}^+$,
depending on the operation settings.


title: Some Novel Features in 2D Non-Abelian Theory: BRST Approach

abstract:
  Within the framework of Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) formalism, we
discuss some novel features of a two (1+1)-dimensional (2D) non-Abelian 1-form
gauge theory (without any interaction with matter fields). Besides the usual
off-shell nilpotent and absolutely anticommutating (anti-)BRST symmetry
transformations, we discuss the off-shell nilpotent and absolutely
anticommutating (anti-)co-BRST symmetry transformations. Particularly, we lay
emphasis on the existence of the coupled (but equivalent) Lagrangian densities
of the 2D non-Abelian theory in view of the presence of (anti-)co-BRST symmetry
transformations where we pin-point some novel features associated with the
Curci-Ferrari (CF) type restrictions. We demonstrate that these CF-type
restrictions can be incorporated into the (anti-)co-BRST invariant Lagrangian
densities through the fermionic Lagrange multipliers which carry specific ghost
numbers. The modified versions of the Lagrangian densities (where we get rid of
the new CF-type restrictions) respect some precise symmetries as well as a
couple of symmetries with CF-type constraints. These observations are
completely novel as far as the BRST formalism, with proper (anti-)co-BRST
symmetries, is concerned.


title:
The Log term in the Bergman and Szeg\H o kernels in strictly
  pseudoconvex domains in $\mathbb C^2$

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider bounded strictly pseudoconvex domains $D\subset
\mathbb C^2$ with smooth boundary $M=M^3:=\partial D$. If we consider the
asymptotic expansion of the Bergman kernel on the diagonal $$ K_B\sim
\frac{\phi_B}{\rho^{n+1}}+\psi_B\log\rho, $$ where $\rho>0$ is a Fefferman
defining equation for $D$, then it is well known that the trace of the log term
$b\psi_B:=(\psi_B)|_M$ on $M$ does not determine the CR geometry of $M$
locally; e.g., the vanishing of $b\psi_B$ on an open subset of $M$ does not
imply that $M$ is locally spherical there. Nevertheless, the main result in
this paper is that if $D\subset \mathbb C^2$ is assumed to have transverse
symmetry, then the global vanishing of $b\psi_B$ on $M$ implies that $M$ is
locally spherical. A similar result is proved for the Szeg\H o kernel.


title: Scalar tetraquark state candidates: $X(3915)$, $X(4500)$ and $X(4700)$

abstract:
  In this article, we tentatively assign the $X(3915)$ and $X(4500)$ to be the
ground state and the first radial excited state of the
axialvector-diquark-axialvector-antidiquark type scalar $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$
tetraquark states, respectively, assign the $X(4700)$ to be the ground state
vector-diquark-vector-antidiquark type scalar $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$ tetraquark
state, and study their masses and pole residues with the QCD sum rules in
details by calculating the contributions of the vacuum condensates up to
dimension 10. The numerical results support assigning the $X(3915)$ and
$X(4500)$ to be the ground state and the first radial excited state of the
axialvector-diquark-axialvector-antidiquark type scalar $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$
tetraquark states, respectively, and assigning the $X(4700)$ to be the ground
state vector-diquark-vector-antidiquark type scalar $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$
tetraquark state.


title: Far-ultraviolet Observations of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) from FORTIS

abstract:
  We have used the unique far-UV imaging capability offered by a sounding
rocket borne instrument to acquire observations of C/2012 S1 (ISON) when its
angular separation with respect to the sun was 26.3deg, on 2013 November 20.49.
At the time of observation the comet's heliocentric distance and velocity
relative to the sun were rh = 0.43 AU and rh_dot = -62.7 km s^-1. Images
dominated by C I 1657 A and H I 1216 A were acquired over a 1e6 x 1e6 km^2
region. The water production rate implied by the Lyman alpha observations is
constrained to be Q_H2O approximately 8e29 s^-1 while the neutral carbon
production rate was Q_C approximately 4e28 s^-1. The radial profile of C I was
consistent with it being a dissociation product of a parent molecule with a
lifetime approximately 5e4 seconds, favoring a parent other than CO. We
constrain the Q_CO production rate to 5(+1.5, -7.5)e28 s^-1 with 1sigma errors
derived from photon statistics. The upper limit on the Q_CO/Q_H2O < 6%.


title:
Modal theory of modified spontaneous emission for a hybrid plasmonic
  photonic-crystal cavity system

abstract:
  We present an analytical modal description of the rich physics involved in
hybrid plasmonic-photonic devices that is confirmed by full dipole solutions of
Maxwell's equations. Strong frequency-dependence for the spontaneous emission
decay rate of a quantum dipole emitter coupled to these hybrid structures is
predicted. In particular, it is shown that the Fano-type resonances reported
experimentally in hybrid plasmonic systems, arise from a very large
interference between dominant quasinormal modes of the systems in the frequency
range of interest. The presented model forms an efficient basis for modelling
quantum light-matter interactions in these complex hybrid systems and also
enables the quantitativ prediction and understanding of non-radiative coupling
losses.


title:
Evaluating the predicted reliability of mechatronic systems: state of
  the art

abstract:
  Reliability analysis of mechatronic systems is a recent field and a dynamic
branch of research. It is addressed whenever there is a need for reliable,
available, and safe systems. The studies of reliability must be conducted
earlier during the design phase, in order to reduce costs and the number of
prototypes required in the validation of the system. The process of reliability
is then deployed throughout the full cycle of development. This process is
broken down into three major phases: the predictive reliability, the
experimental reliability and operational reliability. The main objective of
this article is a kind of portrayal of the various studies enabling a
noteworthy mastery of the predictive reliability. The weak points are
highlighted. Presenting an overview of all the quantitative and qualitative
approaches concerned with modelling and evaluating the prediction of
reliability is so important for future reliability studies and for academic
research to come up with new methods and tools. The mechatronic system is a
hybrid system, it is dynamic, reconfigurable, and interactive. The modeling
carried out of reliability prediction must take into account these criteria.
Several methodologies have been developed in this track of research. In this
regard, the aforementioned methodologies will be analytically sketched in this
paper.


title: Linking numbers in non-orientable 3-manifolds

abstract:
  The construction of integer linking numbers of closed curves in a
three-dimensional manifold usually appeals to the orientation of this manifold.
We discuss how to avoid it constructing similar homotopy invariants of links in
non-orientable manifolds.


title: A new decomposition of portfolio return

abstract:
  For a functionally generated portfolio, there is a natural decomposition of
the relative log-return into the log-change in the generating function and a
drift process. In this note, this decomposition is extended to arbitrary stock
portfolios by an application of Fisk-Stratonovich integration. With the
extended methodology, the generating function is represented by a structural
process, and the drift process is subsumed into a trading process that measures
the profit and loss to the portfolio from trading.


title:
Regularity result for a shape optimization problem under perimeter
  constraint

abstract:
  We study the problem of optimizing the eigenvalues of the Dirichlet Laplace
operator under perimeter constraint. We prove that optimal sets are analytic
outside a closed singular set of dimension at most $d-8$ by writing a general
optimality condition in the case the optimal eigenvalue is multiple. As a
consequence we find that the optimal $k$-th eigenvalue is strictly smaller than
the optimal $(k+1)$-th eigenvalue. We also provide an elliptic regularity
result for sets with positive and bounded weak curvature.


title:
Precision Predictions for the Primordial Power Spectra from f(R) Models
  of Inflation

abstract:
  We study the power spectra of f(R) inflation using a new technique in which
the norm-squared of the mode functions is evolved. Our technique results in
excellent analytic approximations for how the spectra depend upon the function
$f(R)$. Although the spectra are numerically the same in the Jordan and
Einstein frames for the same wave number $k$, they depend upon the geometries
of these frames in quite different ways. For example, the power spectra in the
two frames are different functions of the number of e-foldings until end of
inflation. We discuss how future data on reheating can be used to distinguish
f(R) inflation from scalar-driven inflation.


title:
Spatial statistics for lattice points on the sphere I: Individual
  results

abstract:
  We study the spatial distribution of point sets on the sphere obtained from
the representation of a large integer as a sum of three integer squares. We
examine several statistics of these point sets, such as the electrostatic
potential, Ripley's function, the variance of the number of points in random
spherical caps, and the covering radius. Some of the results are conditional on
the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis.


title:
Control of energy density inside disordered medium by coupling to open
  or closed channels

abstract:
  We demonstrate experimentally an efficient control of light intensity
distribution inside a random scattering system. The adaptive wavefront shaping
technique is applied to a silicon waveguide containing scattering
nanostructures, and the on-chip coupling scheme enables access to all input
spatial modes. By selectively coupling the incident light to open or closed
channels of the disordered system, we not only vary the total energy stored
inside the system by 7.4 times, but also change the energy density distribution
from an exponential decay to a linear decay and to a profile peaked near the
center. This work provides an on-chip platform for controlling light-matter
interactions in turbid media.


title: Vortical susceptibility of finite-density QCD matter

abstract:
  The susceptibility of finite-density QCD matter to vorticity is introduced,
as an analog of magnetic susceptibility. It describes the spin polarization of
quarks and antiquarks in finite-density QCD matter induced by rotation. We
estimate this quantity in the chirally broken phase using the mixed
gauge-gravity anomaly at finite baryon density. It is proposed that the
vortical susceptibility of QCD matter is responsible for the polarization of
$\Lambda$ and ${\bar \Lambda}$ hyperons observed recently in heavy ion
collisions at RHIC by the STAR Collaboration.


title:
Full molecular dynamics simulations of liquid water and carbon
  tetrachloride for two-dimensional Raman spectroscopy in the frequency domain

abstract:
  Frequency-domain two-dimensional Raman signals, which are equivalent to
coherent two-dimensional Raman scattering (COTRAS) signals, for liquid water
and carbon tetrachloride were calculated using an equilibrium-nonequilibrium
hybrid MD simulation algorithm. We elucidate mechanisms governing the 2D signal
profiles involving anharmonic mode-mode coupling and the nonlinearities of the
polarizability for the intermolecular and intramolecular vibrational modes. The
predicted signal profiles and intensities can be utilized to analyze recently
developed single-beam 2D spectra, whose signals are generated from a coherently
controlled pulse, allowing the single-beam measurement to be carried out more
efficiently.


title: The augmentation category map induced by exact Lagrangian cobordisms

abstract:
  To a Legendrian knot, one can associate an $\mathcal{A}_{\infty}$ category,
the augmentation category. An exact Lagrangian cobordism between two Legendrian
knots gives a functor of the augmentation categories of the two knots. We study
the functor and establish a long exact sequence relating the corresponding
cohomology of morphisms of the two ends. As applications, we prove that the
functor between augmentation categories is injective on the level of
equivalence classes of objects and find new obstructions to the existence of
exact Lagrangian cobordisms in terms of linearized contact homology and ruling
polynomials.


title:
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - XI. A new method for
  measuring the influence of the closest companion out to wide separations

abstract:
  We describe a statistical approach for measuring the influence that a
galaxy's closest companion has on the galaxy's properties out to arbitrarily
wide separations. We begin by identifying the closest companion for every
galaxy in a large spectroscopic sample of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies. We
then characterize the local environment of each galaxy by using the number of
galaxies within 2 Mpc and by determining the isolation of the galaxy pair from
other neighbouring galaxies. We introduce a sophisticated algorithm for
creating a statistical control sample for each galaxy, matching on stellar
mass, redshift, local density and isolation. Unlike traditional studies of
close galaxy pairs, this approach is effective in a wide range of environments,
regardless of how far away the closest companion is (although a very distant
closest companion is unlikely to have a measurable influence on the galaxy in
question). We apply this methodology to measurements of galaxy asymmetry, and
find that the presence of nearby companions drives a clear enhancement in
galaxy asymmetries. The asymmetry excess peaks at the smallest projected
separations (< 10 kpc), where the mean asymmetry is enhanced by a factor of 2.0
$\pm$ 0.2. Enhancements in mean asymmetry decline as pair separation increases,
but remain statistically significant (1-2$\sigma$) out to projected separations
of at least 50 kpc.


title: Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian fibrations

abstract:
  Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian submanifolds (HSLAG) are a natural
generalization of special Lagrangian manifolds (SLAG). The latter only make
sense on Calabi-Yau manifolds whereas the former are defined for any almost
K\"ahler manifold. Special Lagrangians, and, more specificaly, fibrations by
special Lagrangians play an important role in the context of the geometric
mirror symmetry conjecture. However, these objects are rather scarce in nature.
On the contrary, we show that HSLAG submanifolds, or fibrations, arise quite
often. Many examples of HSLAG fibrations are provided by toric K\"ah-ler
geometry. In this paper, we obtain a large class of examples by deforming the
toric metrics into non toric almost K\"ahler metrics, together with HSLAG
submanifolds.


title: An Efficient Cluster-based Routing Protocol in Cognitive Radio Net-work

abstract:
  Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) are being studied intensively and gaining
importance as spectrum is the heavily underutilized. CRN has the capability to
exploit smartly the unutilized frequency spectrum. Recently, the research
community started to work in the area of cognitive radio routing. In a flat
topology, all nodes are of the same level and functionality, thus making it
simple and efficient for smaller networks. However, when the network is large
with sparse nodes, the routing information becomes more complex making
cluster-based techniques really relevant to tackle such situations. In a
cluster-based routing, all nodes in the network are dynamically organized into
partitions called groups or clusters. In each cluster, a cluster head is chosen
to help in the data transmission management and to maintain cluster membership
information. This paper proposes a novel routing protocol for cognitive radio
ad hoc networks (CRAHNs) based on clustering model which amends swiftly to the
topological changes and establishes the routing efficiently. Our proposed
approach is thoroughly evaluated through simulation study. The results state
the suitability of the proposed protocol for cognitive radio ad hoc networks
and demonstrate that it has better performance in terms of finding the
source-destination route, reducing the amount of messages that are transmitted
all over the network and minimizing the routing delay.


title: Archaeoastronomy and the chronology of the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek

abstract:
  One of the most complex architectural feats ever conceived is the magnificent
temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, Lebanon. Several issues remain unsolved about
this site, and in particular the chronology and dating of the two podia and the
true nature of the cult. We present here some hints coming from orientation and
from other features of the temple, which seem to point to a unified project of
both podia, originally conceived under Herod the Great.


title:
Tight Performance Bounds for Compressed Sensing With Conventional and
  Group Sparsity

abstract:
  In this paper, we study the problem of recovering a group sparse vector from
a small number of linear measurements. In the past the common approach has been
to use various "group sparsity-inducing" norms such as the Group LASSO norm for
this purpose. By using the theory of convex relaxations, we show that it is
also possible to use $\ell_1$-norm minimization for group sparse recovery. We
introduce a new concept called group robust null space property (GRNSP), and
show that, under suitable conditions, a group version of the restricted
isometry property (GRIP) implies the GRNSP, and thus leads to group sparse
recovery. When all groups are of equal size, our bounds are less conservative
than known bounds. Moreover, our results apply even to situations where where
the groups have different sizes. When specialized to conventional sparsity, our
bounds reduce to one of the well-known "best possible" conditions for sparse
recovery. This relationship between GRNSP and GRIP is new even for conventional
sparsity, and substantially streamlines the proofs of some known results. Using
this relationship, we derive bounds on the $\ell_p$-norm of the residual error
vector for all $p \in [1,2]$, and not just when $p = 2$. When the measurement
matrix consists of random samples of a sub-Gaussian random variable, we present
bounds on the number of measurements, which are less conservative than
currently known bounds.


title: Geodesic Paths for Quantum Many-Body Systems

abstract:
  We propose a method to obtain optimal protocols for adiabatic ground-state
preparation near the adiabatic limit, extending earlier ideas from [D. A. Sivak
and G. E. Crooks, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 190602 (2012)] to quantum
non-dissipative systems. The space of controllable parameters of isolated
quantum many-body systems is endowed with a Riemannian quantum metric
structure, which can be exploited when such systems are driven adiabatically.
Here, we use this metric structure to construct optimal protocols in order to
accomplish the task of adiabatic ground-state preparation in a fixed amount of
time. Such optimal protocols are shown to be geodesics on the parameter
manifold, maximizing the local fidelity. Physically, such protocols minimize
the average energy fluctuations along the path. Our findings are illustrated on
the Landau-Zener model and the anisotropic XY spin chain. In both cases we show
that geodesic protocols drastically improve the final fidelity. Moreover, this
happens even if one crosses a critical point, where the adiabatic perturbation
theory fails.


title: Multigraded regularity, reduction vectors and postulation vectors

abstract:
  We relate the set of complete reduction vectors of a $\mathbb{Z}^s$-graded
admissible filtration of ideals $\mathcal{F}$ with the set of multigraded
regularities of $G(\mathcal{F}).$ We prove
reg$(G(\mathcal{F}))$=reg$(\mathcal{R}(\mathcal{F})).$ We establish a relation
between the sets of complete reduction vectors of $\mathcal{F}$ and postulation
vectors of $\mathcal{F}$ under some cohomological conditions.


title:
Bayesian design of experiments for generalised linear models and
  dimensional analysis with industrial and scientific application

abstract:
  The design of an experiment can be always be considered at least implicitly
Bayesian, with prior knowledge used informally to aid decisions such as the
variables to be studied and the choice of a plausible relationship between the
explanatory variables and measured responses. Bayesian methods allow
uncertainty in these decisions to be incorporated into design selection through
prior distributions that encapsulate information available from scientific
knowledge or previous experimentation. Further, a design may be explicitly
tailored to the aim of the experiment through a decision-theoretic approach
using an appropriate loss function. We review the area of decision-theoretic
Bayesian design, with particular emphasis on recent advances in computational
methods. For many problems arising in industry and science, experiments result
in a discrete response that is well described by a member of the class of
generalised linear models. We describe how Gaussian process emulation, commonly
used in computer experiments, can play an important role in facilitating
Bayesian design for realistic problems. A main focus is the combination of
Gaussian process regression to approximate the expected loss with cyclic
descent (coordinate exchange) optimisation algorithms to allow optimal designs
to be found for previously infeasible problems. We also present the first
optimal design results for statistical models formed from dimensional analysis,
a methodology widely employed in the engineering and physical sciences to
produce parsimonious and interpretable models. Using the famous paper
helicopter experiment, we show the potential for the combination of Bayesian
design, generalised linear models and dimensional analysis to produce small but
informative experiments.


title:
You are Who You Know and How You Behave: Attribute Inference Attacks via
  Users' Social Friends and Behaviors

abstract:
  We propose new privacy attacks to infer attributes (e.g., locations,
occupations, and interests) of online social network users. Our attacks
leverage seemingly innocent user information that is publicly available in
online social networks to infer missing attributes of targeted users. Given the
increasing availability of (seemingly innocent) user information online, our
results have serious implications for Internet privacy -- private attributes
can be inferred from users' publicly available data unless we take steps to
protect users from such inference attacks.
  To infer attributes of a targeted user, existing inference attacks leverage
either the user's publicly available social friends or the user's behavioral
records (e.g., the webpages that the user has liked on Facebook, the apps that
the user has reviewed on Google Play), but not both. As we will show, such
inference attacks achieve limited success rates. However, the problem becomes
qualitatively different if we consider both social friends and behavioral
records. To address this challenge, we develop a novel model to integrate
social friends and behavioral records and design new attacks based on our
model. We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of our
attacks. For instance, we observe that, in a real-world large-scale dataset
with 1.1 million users, our attack can correctly infer the cities a user lived
in for 57% of the users, via confidence estimation, we are able to increase the
attack success rate to over 90% if the attacker selectively attacks a half of
the users. Moreover, we show that our attack can correctly infer attributes for
significantly more users than previous attacks.


title: Hubble multi-scalar inflation

abstract:
  Multiple field models of inflation exhibit new features than single field
models. In this work, we study the hierarchy of parameters based on Hubble
expansion rate in curved field space and derive the system of flow equations
that describe their evolution. Then we focus on obtaining derivatives of number
of $e$-folds with respect to scalar fields during inflation and at hypersurface
of the end of inflation.


title:
Spectrum of Weighted Composition Operators Part IV: Spectrum and
  essential spectra of weighted composition operators in spaces of smooth
  functions on $[0,1]$

abstract:
  We provide a description of the spectrum and essential spectra of invertible
weighted composition operators acting in some algebras of smooth functions on
the interval.


title:
Clustering with a Reject Option: Interactive Clustering as Bayesian
  Prior Elicitation

abstract:
  A good clustering can help a data analyst to explore and understand a data
set, but what constitutes a good clustering may depend on domain-specific and
application-specific criteria. These criteria can be difficult to formalize,
even when it is easy for an analyst to know a good clustering when they see
one. We present a new approach to interactive clustering for data exploration
called TINDER, based on a particularly simple feedback mechanism, in which an
analyst can reject a given clustering and request a new one, which is chosen to
be different from the previous clustering while fitting the data well. We
formalize this interaction in a Bayesian framework as a method for prior
elicitation, in which each different clustering is produced by a prior
distribution that is modified to discourage previously rejected clusterings. We
show that TINDER successfully produces a diverse set of clusterings, each of
equivalent quality, that are much more diverse than would be obtained by
randomized restarts.


title: Preserving Color in Neural Artistic Style Transfer

abstract:
  This note presents an extension to the neural artistic style transfer
algorithm (Gatys et al.). The original algorithm transforms an image to have
the style of another given image. For example, a photograph can be transformed
to have the style of a famous painting. Here we address a potential shortcoming
of the original method: the algorithm transfers the colors of the original
painting, which can alter the appearance of the scene in undesirable ways. We
describe simple linear methods for transferring style while preserving colors.


title:
A Switching for all Strongly Regular Collinearity Graphs From Polar
  Spaces

abstract:
  We describe a general construction of strongly regular graphs from the
collinearity graph of a finite classical polar spaces of rank at least $3$ over
a finite field of order $q$. We show that these graphs are non-isomorphic to
the collinearity graphs and have the same parameters. To our knowledge for most
of these parameters these graphs are new as the collinearity graphs were the
only known examples.


title:
Production of cosmogenic isotopes 7Be, 10Be, 14C, 22Na and 36Cl in the
  atmosphere: Altitudinal profiles of yield functions

abstract:
  New consistent and precise computations of the production of five cosmogenic
radio-isotopes, 7Be, 10Be, 14C, 22Na and 36Cl, in the Earth's atmosphere by
cosmic rays are presented in the form of tabulated yield functions. For the
first time, a detailed set of the the altitude profiles of the production
functions is provided which makes it possible to apply the results directly as
input for atmospheric transport models. Good agreement with most of the earlier
published works for columnar and global isotopic production rates is shown.
Altitude profiles of the production are important, in particular for such tasks
as studies of strong solar particle events in the past, precise reconstructions
of solar activity on long-term scale, tracing air-mass dynamics using
cosmogenic radio-isotopes, etc. As an example, computations of the $^{10}$Be
deposition flux in the polar region are shown for the last decades and also for
a period around 780 AD and confronted with the actual measurements in Greenland
and Antarctic ice cores.


title: Asymmetric, Closed-Form, Finite-Parameter Models of Multinomial Choice

abstract:
  In transportation, the number of observations associated with one discrete
outcome is often greatly different from the number of observations associated
with another discrete outcome. This situation is known as class-imbalance. In
statistics, one hypothesized explanation for class imbalance is the existence
of data generating processes that are characterized by asymmetric (as opposed
to typically symmetric) probability functions. Despite being a valid hypothesis
for class-imbalanced choice situations, few simple models exist for testing
this explanation in transportation settings---settings that are inherently
multinomial. Our paper fills this gap. As such, it should be of interest to
transportation scholars and practitioners alike.
  Overall, we addressed the following questions: "how can one construct
asymmetric, closed-form, finite-parameter models of multinomial choice" and
"how do such models compare against commonly used symmetric models?" To do so,
we (1) introduced a new class of closed-form, finite-parameter, multinomial
choice models that we call "logit-type models," (2) introduced a procedure for
using our logit-type models to extend existing binary choice models to the
multinomial setting, and (3) introduced a procedure for creating new binary
choice models (both symmetric and asymmetric). Together, our contributions
allow us to create new asymmetric, multinomial choice models by creating
multinomial extensions of asymmetric, binary choice models that already exist
or that we create ourselves. We demonstrated our methods by developing four new
asymmetric, multinomial choice models. We found that most of our asymmetric
models dominated the multinomial logit (MNL) model in terms of in-sample and
out-of-sample log-likelihoods. Moreover, on our two empirical applications, we
also found practical differences between the MNL model and our new asymmetric
models.


title: Coexistence of competing metabolic pathways in well-mixed populations

abstract:
  Understanding why strains with different metabolic pathways that compete for
a single limiting resource coexist is a challenging issue within a theoretical
perspective. Previous investigations rely on mechanisms such as group or
spatial structuring to achieve a stable coexistence between competing metabolic
strategies. Nevertheless, coexistence has been experimentally reported even in
situations where it cannot be attributed to spatial effects [Heredity {\bf
100}, 471 (2008)]. According to that study a toxin expelled by one of the
strains can be responsible for the stable maintenance of the two strain types.
We propose a resource-based model in which an efficient strain with a slow
metabolic rate competes with a second strain type which presents a fast but
inefficient metabolism. Moreover, the model assumes that the inefficient strain
produces a toxin as a byproduct. This toxin affects the growth rate of both
strains with different strength. Through an extensive exploration of the
parameter space we determine the situations at which the coexistence of the two
strains is possible. Interestingly, we observe that the resource influx rate
plays a key role in the maintenance of the two strain types. In a scenario of
resource scarcity the inefficient is favored, though as the resource influx
rate is augmented the coexistence becomes possible and its domain is enlarged.


title: On the Inheritance of Orbifold Substructures

abstract:
  In a previous article, we defined a very flexible notion of suborbifold and
characterized those suborbifolds which can arise as the images of orbifold
embeddings. In particular, suborbifolds are images of orbifold embeddings
precisely when they are saturated and split. This article addresses the problem
of orbifold structure inheritance for three orbifolds
$\mathcal{Q}\subset\mathcal{P}\subset\mathcal{O}$. We identify an appealing but
ultimately inadequate notion of an inherited canonical orbifold substructure.
In particular, we give a concrete example where the orbifold structure of
$\mathcal{Q}$ is canonically inherited from $\mathcal{P}$, and the orbifold
structure of $\mathcal{P}$ is canonically inherited from $\mathcal{O}$, but the
orbifold structure of $\mathcal{Q}$ is not canonically inherited from
$\mathcal{O}$. On the other hand, it is easy to see that when $\mathcal{Q}$ is
embedded in $\mathcal{P}$, and $\mathcal{P}$ is embedded in $\mathcal{O}$, all
of the canonical inherited orbifold substructures will agree. We also
investigate the property of saturation in this context, and give an example of
a suborbifold with the canonical orbifold substructure that is not saturated.


title: Digital Calibration Method for High Resolution in Analog/RF Designs

abstract:
  Transistor random mismatch continuously poses challenges for analog/RF
circuit design for achieving high accuracy and high yield as the process
technology advances. Existing statistical element selection (SES) design method
can improve transistor matching property, but it falls short of being a general
calibration method due to its limited calibration range. In this dissertation,
we propose a high resolution digital calibration method, called extended
statistical element selection (ESES). As compared to the SES method, the ESES
method not only provides wider calibration range, but also it results in higher
calibration yield with same calibration resolution target. Two types of ESES
based calibration application in analog/RF circuits are also proposed. One is
current source calibration and the other is phase/delay calibration. To verify
this proposed digital calibration method in circuit implementation, we
designed, fabricated and tested a wideband harmonic rejection receiver design.
The receiver utilizes ESES-based gain and phase error calibration for improving
harmonic rejection ratios. With the high calibration resolution provided by the
ESES method, after calibration, we achieved best-in-class harmonic rejection
ratios. To extend the application of the proposed method, we further designed a
current-steering D/A data converter (CS-DAC). The CS-DAC utilizes ESES-based
amplitude and timing error calibration for improving linearity performance.
Simulation results showed that we can achieve more than one order of magnitude
linearity improvement after performing ESES-based calibration in the CS-DAC.


title: On the Message Dimensions of Vector Linearly Solvable Networks

abstract:
  It is known that there exists a network which does not have a scalar linear
solution over any finite field but has a vector linear solution when message
dimension is $2$ [3]. It is not known whether this result can be generalized
for an arbitrary message dimension. In this paper, we show that there exists a
network which admits an $m$ dimensional vector linear solution, where $m$ is a
positive integer greater than or equal to $2$, but does not have a vector
linear solution over any finite field when the message dimension is less than
$m$.


title: Can Scientific Impact Be Predicted?

abstract:
  A widely used measure of scientific impact is citations. However, due to
their heavy-tailed distribution, citations are fundamentally difficult to
predict. Instead, to characterize scientific impact, we address two analogous
questions asked by many scientific researchers: "How will my h-index evolve
over time, and which of my previously or newly published papers will contribute
to it?" To answer these questions, we perform two related tasks. First, we
develop a model to predict authors' future h-indices based on their current
scientific impact. Second, we examine the factors that drive papers---either
previously or newly published---to increase their authors' predicted future
h-indices. By leveraging relevant factors, we can predict an author's h-index
in five years with an R2 value of 0.92 and whether a previously (newly)
published paper will contribute to this future h-index with an F1 score of 0.99
(0.77). We find that topical authority and publication venue are crucial to
these effective predictions, while topic popularity is surprisingly
inconsequential. Further, we develop an online tool that allows users to
generate informed h-index predictions. Our work demonstrates the predictability
of scientific impact, and can help scholars to effectively leverage their
position of "standing on the shoulders of giants."


title: Partial sums of the normalized Dini functions

abstract:
  Let $\left( w_{\alpha ,v}\right) _{m}(z)=z+\sum\limits_{n=1}^{m}a_{n}z^{n+1}
$ be the sequence of partial sums of normalized Dini functions $w_{\alpha
,v}(z)=z+\sum\limits_{n=1}^{\infty }a_{n}z^{n+1}$ where $a_{n}=\frac{\left(
-1\right) ^{n}\left( 2n+\alpha \right) }{\alpha 4^{n}n!\left( v+1\right) _{n}%
}$. The aim of the present paper is to obtain lower bounds for $\mathcal{R}
\left\{ \frac{w_{\alpha ,v}(z)}{\left( w_{\alpha ,v}\right) _{m}(z)}\right\} ,$
$\mathcal{R}\left\{ \frac{\left( w_{\alpha ,v}\right) _{m}(z)}{w_{\alpha
,v}(z)}\right\} ,$ $\mathcal{R}\left\{ \frac{w_{\alpha ,v}^{^{\prime }}(z)}{
\left( w_{\alpha ,v}\right) _{m}^{^{\prime }}(z)}\right\}$ and $\mathcal{R}
\left\{ \frac{\left( w_{\alpha ,v}\right) _{m}^{^{\prime }}(z)}{w_{\alpha
,v}^{^{\prime }}(z)}\right\}$ . Also we give a few geometric description
regarding image domains of some functions.


title:
Spectral model selection in the electronic measurement of the Boltzmann
  constant by Johnson noise thermometry

abstract:
  In the electronic measurement of the Boltzmann constant based on Johnson
noise thermometry, the ratio of the power spectral densities of thermal noise
across a resistor at the triple point of water, and pseudo-random noise
synthetically generated by a quantum-accurate voltage-noise source is constant
to within 1 part in a billion for frequencies up to 1 GHz. Given this ratio,
and the values of other known or measured parameters, one can determine the
Boltzmann constant. Due, in part, to mismatch between transmission lines, the
experimental ratio spectrum varies with frequency. We model this spectrum as an
even polynomial function of frequency where the constant term in the polynomial
determines the Boltzmann constant. When determining this constant (offset) from
experimental data, the assumed complexity of the ratio spectrum model and the
maximum frequency analyzed (fitting bandwidth) dramatically affects results. We
select the complexity of the model by cross-validation. For each of many
fitting bandwidths, we determine the component of uncertainty of the offset
term that accounts for random and systematic effects associated with imperfect
knowledge of model complexity. We select the fitting bandwidth that minimizes
this uncertainty. In the most recent measurement of the Boltzmann constant,
results were determined, in part, by application of an earlier version of the
method described here. Here, we extend the earlier analysis by considering a
broader range of fitting bandwidths and quantify an additional component of
uncertainty that accounts for imperfect performance of our fitting bandwidth
selection method. For idealized simulated data our method correctly selects the
true complexity of the ratio spectrum model for all cases considered. A new
analysis of data from the recent experiment yields evidence for a temporal
trend in the offset parameters.


title: Tutorial on Variational Autoencoders

abstract:
  In just three years, Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) have emerged as one of
the most popular approaches to unsupervised learning of complicated
distributions. VAEs are appealing because they are built on top of standard
function approximators (neural networks), and can be trained with stochastic
gradient descent. VAEs have already shown promise in generating many kinds of
complicated data, including handwritten digits, faces, house numbers, CIFAR
images, physical models of scenes, segmentation, and predicting the future from
static images. This tutorial introduces the intuitions behind VAEs, explains
the mathematics behind them, and describes some empirical behavior. No prior
knowledge of variational Bayesian methods is assumed.


title:
Beta decay of deformed r-process nuclei near A = 80 and A= 160,
  including odd-A and odd-odd nuclei, with the Skyrme finite-amplitude method

abstract:
  After identifying the nuclei in the regions near A =80 and A = 160 for which
beta-decay rates have the greatest effect on weak and main r-process abundance
patterns, we apply the finite-amplitude method (FAM) with Skyrme energy-density
functionals (EDFs) to calculate beta-decay half-lives of those nuclei in the
quasiparticle random-phase approximation (QRPA). We use the equal filling
approximation to extend our implementation of the charge-changing FAM, which
incorporates pairing correlations and allows axially symmetric deformation, to
odd-A and odd-odd nuclei. Within this framework we find differences of up to a
factor of seven between our calculated beta-decay half-lives and those of
previous efforts. Repeated calculations with nuclei near A = 160 and multiple
EDFs show a spread of two to four in beta-decay half-lives, with differences in
calculated Q values playing an important role. We investigate the implications
of these results for r-process simulations.


title: The gene family-free median of three

abstract:
  The gene family-free framework for comparative genomics aims at developing
methods for gene order analysis that do not require prior gene family
assignment, but work directly on a sequence similarity multipartite graph. We
present a model for constructing a median of three genomes in this family-free
setting, based on maximizing an objective function that generalizes the
classical breakpoint distance by integrating sequence similarity in the score
of a gene adjacency. We show that the corresponding computational problem is
MAX SNP-hard and we present a 0-1 linear program for its exact solution. The
result of our FF-median program is a median genome with median genes associated
to extant genes, in which median adjacencies are assumed to define positional
orthologs. We demonstrate through simulations and comparison with the OMA
orthology database that the herein presented method is able compute accurate
medians and positional orthologs for genomes comparable in size of bacterial
genomes.


title:
Existence of rigid actions for finitely-generated non-amenable linear
  groups

abstract:
  We show that every finitely-generated non-amenable linear group over a field
of characteristic zero admits an ergodic action which is rigid in the sense of
Popa. If this group has trivial solvable radical, we prove that these actions
can be chosen to be free. Moreover, we give a positive answer to a question
raised by Ioana and Shalom concerning the existence of such a free action for
$\mathbb{F}_2\times\Z$. More generally, we show that for groups $\Gamma$
considered by Fernos in \cite{Fer}, e.g. Zariski-dense subgroups in
PSL$_n(\R)$, the product group $\Gamma\times \Z$ admit a free ergodic rigid
action. Also, we investigate how rigidity of an action behaves under
restriction and co-induction. In particular, we show that rigidity passes to
co-amenable subgroups.


title:
Seasonality can induce coexistence of multiple bet-hedging strategies in
  Dictyostelium discoideum via storage effect

abstract:
  D. discoideum has been recently suggested as an example of bet-hedging. Upon
starvation a population of unicellular amoebae splits between aggregators,
which form a fruiting body made of a stalk and resistant spores, and
non-aggregators. Spores are favored by long starvation periods, but vegetative
cells can exploit resources in fast-recovering environments. This partition can
be understood as a bet-hedging strategy that evolves in response to stochastic
starvation times. A genotype is defined by a different balance between each
type of cells. In this framework, if the ecological conditions are defined in
terms of the mean starvation time (i.e. time between onset of starvation and
the arrival of a new food pulse), a single genotype dominates each environment,
which is inconsistent with the huge genetic diversity observed in nature. We
investigate whether seasonality, represented by a periodic alternation in the
mean starvation times, allows the coexistence of several strategies. We use a
non-spatial (well-mixed) setting where different strains compete for a pulse of
resources. We find that seasonality, which we model via two seasons, induces a
temporal storage effect that can promote the stable coexistence of multiple
genotypes. Two conditions need to be met. First, the distributions of
starvation times in each season cannot overlap in order to create two well
differentiated habitats within the year. Second, numerous growth-starvation
cycles have to occur during each season to allow well-adapted strains to grow
and survive the subsequent unfavorable period. Additional tradeoffs among
life-history traits can expand the range of coexistence and increase the number
of coexisting strategies, contributing towards explaining the genetic diversity
observed in D. discoideum


title:
Lack of ecological context can create the illusion of social success in
  Dictyostelium discoideum

abstract:
  Studies of cooperation in microbes often focus on one fitness component, with
little information about or attention to the ecological context, and this can
lead to paradoxical results. The life cycle of the social amoeba Dictyostelium
discoideum includes a multicellular stage in which not necessarily clonal
amoebae aggregate upon starvation to form a possibly chimeric (genetically
heterogeneous) fruiting body made of dead stalk and spores. The lab-measured
reproductive skew in the spores of chimeras indicates strong social antagonism;
this should result in low genotypic diversity, which is inconsistent with
observations from nature. Two studies have suggested that this inconsistency
stems from the one-dimensional assessment of fitness (spore production) and
that the solution lies in tradeoffs between multiple traits, e.g.: spore size
versus viability; and staying vegetative versus becoming dormant. We
theoretically explore different tradeoff-implementing mechanisms and provide a
unifying ecological framework in which the two tradeoffs above, as well as
novel ones, arise collectively in response to characteristics of the
environment. We find that spore production comes at the expense of vegetative
cell production, time to development, and, depending on the experimental setup,
spore size and viability. Furthermore, we find that all existing experimental
results regarding chimeric mixes can be qualitatively recapitulated without
needing to invoke social interactions, which allows for simple resolutions to
previously paradoxical results. We conclude that the complexities of life
histories, including social behavior and multicellularity, can only be
understood in the appropriate multidimensional ecological context.


title: Explosion of relativistic electron vortices in laser plasmas

abstract:
  The interaction of high intensity laser radiation with underdense plasma may
lead to the formation of electron vortices. Though being quasistationary on an
electron timescales, these structures tend to expand on a proton timescale due
to Coloumb repulsion of ions. Using a simple analytical model of a stationary
vortex as initial condition, 2D PIC simulations are performed. A number of
effects are observed such as vortex boundary field intensification, multistream
instabilities at the vortex boundary, and bending of the vortex boundary with
the subsequent transformation into smaller electron vortices.


title:
Fansmitter: Acoustic Data Exfiltration from (Speakerless) Air-Gapped
  Computers

abstract:
  Because computers may contain or interact with sensitive information, they
are often air-gapped and in this way kept isolated and disconnected from the
Internet. In recent years the ability of malware to communicate over an air-gap
by transmitting sonic and ultrasonic signals from a computer speaker to a
nearby receiver has been shown. In order to eliminate such acoustic channels,
current best practice recommends the elimination of speakers (internal or
external) in secure computers, thereby creating a so-called 'audio-gap'. In
this paper, we present Fansmitter, a malware that can acoustically exfiltrate
data from air-gapped computers, even when audio hardware and speakers are not
present. Our method utilizes the noise emitted from the CPU and chassis fans
which are present in virtually every computer today. We show that a software
can regulate the internal fans' speed in order to control the acoustic waveform
emitted from a computer. Binary data can be modulated and transmitted over
these audio signals to a remote microphone (e.g., on a nearby mobile phone). We
present Fansmitter's design considerations, including acoustic signature
analysis, data modulation, and data transmission. We also evaluate the acoustic
channel, present our results, and discuss countermeasures. Using our method we
successfully transmitted data from air-gapped computer without audio hardware,
to a smartphone receiver in the same room. We demonstrated the effective
transmission of encryption keys and passwords from a distance of zero to eight
meters, with bit rate of up to 900 bits/hour. We show that our method can also
be used to leak data from different types of IT equipment, embedded systems,
and IoT devices that have no audio hardware, but contain fans of various types
and sizes.


title: On the homotopy groups of spheres in homotopy type theory

abstract:
  The goal of this thesis is to prove that $\pi_4(S^3) \simeq
\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ in homotopy type theory. In particular it is a
constructive and purely homotopy-theoretic proof. We first recall the basic
concepts of homotopy type theory, and we prove some well-known results about
the homotopy groups of spheres: the computation of the homotopy groups of the
circle, the triviality of those of the form $\pi_k(S^n)$ with $k < n$, and the
construction of the Hopf fibration. We then move to more advanced tools. In
particular, we define the James construction which allows us to prove the
Freudenthal suspension theorem and the fact that there exists a natural number
$n$ such that $\pi_4(S^3) \simeq \mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}$. Then we study the
smash product of spheres, we construct the cohomology ring of a space, and we
introduce the Hopf invariant, allowing us to narrow down the $n$ to either $1$
or $2$. The Hopf invariant also allows us to prove that all the groups of the
form $\pi_{4n-1}(S^{2n})$ are infinite. Finally we construct the Gysin exact
sequence, allowing us to compute the cohomology of $\mathbb{C}P^2$ and to prove
that $\pi_4(S^3) \simeq \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ and that more generally
$\pi_{n+1}(S^n) \simeq \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ for every $n \ge 3$.


title: How to verify computation with a rational network

abstract:
  The present paper introduces a practical protocol for provably secure,
outsourced computation. Our protocol minimizes overhead for verification by
requiring solutions to withstand an interactive game between a prover and
challenger. For optimization problems, the best or nearly best of all submitted
solutions is expected to be accepted by this approach. Financial incentives and
deposits are used in order to overcome the problem of fake participants.


title:
Slack and Margin Rescaling as Convex Extensions of Supermodular
  Functions

abstract:
  Slack and margin rescaling are variants of the structured output SVM, which
is frequently applied to problems in computer vision such as image
segmentation, object localization, and learning parts based object models. They
define convex surrogates to task specific loss functions, which, when
specialized to non-additive loss functions for multi-label problems, yield
extensions to increasing set functions. We demonstrate in this paper that we
may use these concepts to define polynomial time convex extensions of arbitrary
supermodular functions, providing an analysis framework for the tightness of
these surrogates. This analysis framework shows that, while neither margin nor
slack rescaling dominate the other, known bounds on supermodular functions can
be used to derive extensions that dominate both of these, indicating possible
directions for defining novel structured output prediction surrogates. In
addition to the analysis of structured prediction loss functions, these results
imply an approach to supermodular minimization in which margin rescaling is
combined with non-polynomial time convex extensions to compute a sequence of LP
relaxations reminiscent of a cutting plane method. This approach is applied to
the problem of selecting representative exemplars from a set of images,
validating our theoretical contributions.


title: Multilayer Silicene: a clear evidence

abstract:
  One year after the publication of the seminal paper on monolayer 3 by 3
reconstructed silicene grown on a silver (111) substrate, evidence of the
synthesis of epitaxial root3 by root3 reconstructed multilayer silicene hosting
Dirac fermions was presented. Although a general consensus was immediately
reached in the former case, in the latter one, the mere existence of multilayer
silicene was questioned and strongly debated. Here, we demonstrate by means of
a comprehensive x-ray crystallographic study, that multilayer silicene is
effectively realized upon growth at rather low growth temperatures
(~200{\deg}C), while, instead, 3D growth of silicon crystallites takes place at
higher temperatures, (~300{\deg}C). This transition to bulk like silicon
perfectly explains the various data presented and discussed in the literature
and solves their conflicting interpretations.


title:
Gleason parts and point derivations for uniform algebras with dense
  invertible group

abstract:
  It is shown that there exists a compact set $X$ in ${\bf C}^N$ ($N\geq 2$)
such that $\widehat X\setminus X$ is nonempty and the uniform algebra $P(X)$
has a dense set of invertible elements, a large Gleason part, and an abundance
of nonzero bounded point derivations. The existence of a Swiss cheese $X$ such
that $R(X)$ has a Gleason part of full planar measure and a nonzero bounded
point derivation at almost every point is established. An analogous result in
${\bf C}^N$ is presented. The analogue for rational hulls of a result of Duval
and Levenberg on polynomial hulls containing no analytic discs is established.
The results presented address questions raised by Dales and Feinstein.


title: Matter localization on brane-worlds generated by deformed defects

abstract:
  Localization and mass spectrum of bosonic and fermionic matter fields of some
novel families of asymmetric thick brane configurations generated by deformed
defects are investigated. The localization profiles of spin 0, spin 1/2 and
spin 1 bulk fields are identified for novel matter field potentials supported
by thick branes with internal structures. The condition for localization is
constrained by the brane thickness of each model such that thickest branes
strongly induces matter localization. The bulk mass terms for both fermion and
boson fields are included in the global action as to produce some imprints on
mass-independent potentials of the Kaluza-Klein modes associated to the
corresponding Schr\"odinger equations. In particular, for spin 1/2 fermions, a
complete analytical profile of localization is obtained for the four classes of
superpotentials here discussed. Regarding the localization of fermion fields,
our overall conclusion indicates that thick branes produce a left-right
asymmetric chiral localization of spin 1/2 particles.


title:
Quantum Capacitance Modifies Interionic Interactions in Semiconducting
  Nanopores

abstract:
  Nanopores made with low dimensional semiconducting materials, such as carbon
nanotubes and graphene slit pores, are used in supercapacitors. In theories and
simulations of their operation, it is often assumed that such pores screen
ion-ion interactions like metallic pores, i.e. that screening leads to an
exponential decay of the interaction potential with ion separation. By
introducing a quantum capacitance that accounts for the density of states in
the material, we show that ion-ion interactions in carbon nanotubes and
graphene slit pores actually decay algebraically with ion separation. This
result suggests a new avenue of capacitance optimization based on tuning the
electronic structure of a pore: a marked enhancement in capacitance might be
achieved by developing nanopores made with metallic materials or bulk
semimetallic materials.

categories: cond-mat.mtrl-sci cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.soft physics.chem-ph


title: Embedding large graphs into a random graph

abstract:
  In this paper we consider the problem of embedding almost-spanning, bounded
degree graphs in a random graph. In particular, let $\Delta\geq 5$,
$\varepsilon > 0$ and let $H$ be a graph on $(1-\varepsilon)n$ vertices and
with maximum degree $\Delta$. We show that a random graph $G_{n,p}$ with high
probability contains a copy of $H$, provided that $p\gg
(n^{-1}\log^{1/\Delta}n)^{2/(\Delta+1)}$. Our assumption on $p$ is optimal up
to the $polylog$ factor. We note that this $polylog$ term matches the
conjectured threshold for the spanning case.


title: Engineering design optimisation using tabu search

abstract:
  This paper describes an optimisation methodology that has been specifically
developed for engineering design problems. The methodology is based on a Tabu
search (TS) algorithm that has been shown to find high quality solutions with a
relatively low number of objective function evaluations. Whilst the methodology
was originally intended for a small range of design problems it has since been
successfully applied to problems from different domains with no alteration to
the underlying method. This paper describes the method and its application to
three different problems. The first is from the field of structural design, the
second relates to the design of electromagnetic pole shapes and the third
involves the design of turbomachinery blades.


title:
Graph based manifold regularized deep neural networks for automatic
  speech recognition

abstract:
  Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been successfully applied to a wide variety
of acoustic modeling tasks in recent years. These include the applications of
DNNs either in a discriminative feature extraction or in a hybrid acoustic
modeling scenario. Despite the rapid progress in this area, a number of
challenges remain in training DNNs. This paper presents an effective way of
training DNNs using a manifold learning based regularization framework. In this
framework, the parameters of the network are optimized to preserve underlying
manifold based relationships between speech feature vectors while minimizing a
measure of loss between network outputs and targets. This is achieved by
incorporating manifold based locality constraints in the objective criterion of
DNNs. Empirical evidence is provided to demonstrate that training a network
with manifold constraints preserves structural compactness in the hidden layers
of the network. Manifold regularization is applied to train bottleneck DNNs for
feature extraction in hidden Markov model (HMM) based speech recognition. The
experiments in this work are conducted on the Aurora-2 spoken digits and the
Aurora-4 read news large vocabulary continuous speech recognition tasks. The
performance is measured in terms of word error rate (WER) on these tasks. It is
shown that the manifold regularized DNNs result in up to 37% reduction in WER
relative to standard DNNs.


title: Probabilistic estimation of software project duration

abstract:
  This paper presents a framework for the representation of uncertainty in the
estimates for software design projects for use throughout the entire project
lifecycle. The framework is flexible in order to accommodate uncertainty in the
project and utilises Monte Carlo simulation to compute the propagation of
uncertainty in effort estimates towards the total project uncertainty and
therefore gives a project manager the means to make informed decisions
throughout the project life. The framework also provides a mechanism for
accumulating project knowledge through the use of a historical database,
allowing effort estimates to be informed by, or indeed based upon, the outcome
of previous projects. Initial results using simulated data are presented and
avenues for further work are discussed.


title: Minimum cost polygon overlay with rectangular shape stock panels

abstract:
  Minimum Cost Polygon Overlay (MCPO) is a unique two-dimensional optimization
problem that involves the task of covering a polygon shaped area with a series
of rectangular shaped panels. This has a number of applications in the
construction industry. This work examines the MCPO problem in order to
construct a model that captures essential parameters of the problem to be
solved automatically using numerical optimization algorithms. Three algorithms
have been implemented of the actual optimization task: the greedy search, the
Monte Carlo (MC) method, and the Genetic Algorithm (GA). Results are presented
to show the relative effectiveness of the algorithms. This is followed by
critical analysis of various findings of this research.


title: Tamm-Langmuir surface waves

abstract:
  In this work we develop a theory of surface electromagnetic waves localized
at the interface of periodic metal-dielectric structures. We have shown that
the anisotropy of plasma frequency in metal layers lifts the degeneracy of
plasma oscillations and opens a series of photonic band gaps. This results in
appearance of surface waves with singular density of states - we refer to them
as Tamm-Langmuir waves. Such naming is natural since we have found that their
properties are very similar to the properties of both bulk Langmuir and surface
Tamm waves. Depending on the anisotropy parameters, Tamm-Langmuir waves can be
either forward or backward waves. Singular density of states and high
sensitivity of the dispersion to the anisotropy of the structure makes
Tamm-Langmuir waves very promising for potential applications in nanophotonics
and biosensing.


title:
Learning Convolutional Neural Networks using Hybrid Orthogonal
  Projection and Estimation

abstract:
  Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have yielded the excellent performance
in a variety of computer vision tasks, where CNNs typically adopt a similar
structure consisting of convolution layers, pooling layers and fully connected
layers. In this paper, we propose to apply a novel method, namely Hybrid
Orthogonal Projection and Estimation (HOPE), to CNNs in order to introduce
orthogonality into the CNN structure. The HOPE model can be viewed as a hybrid
model to combine feature extraction using orthogonal linear projection with
mixture models. It is an effective model to extract useful information from the
original high-dimension feature vectors and meanwhile filter out irrelevant
noises. In this work, we present three different ways to apply the HOPE models
to CNNs, i.e., {\em HOPE-Input}, {\em single-HOPE-Block} and {\em
multi-HOPE-Blocks}. For {\em HOPE-Input} CNNs, a HOPE layer is directly used
right after the input to de-correlate high-dimension input feature vectors.
Alternatively, in {\em single-HOPE-Block} and {\em multi-HOPE-Blocks} CNNs, we
consider to use HOPE layers to replace one or more blocks in the CNNs, where
one block may include several convolutional layers and one pooling layer. The
experimental results on both Cifar-10 and Cifar-100 data sets have shown that
the orthogonal constraints imposed by the HOPE layers can significantly improve
the performance of CNNs in these image classification tasks (we have achieved
one of the best performance when image augmentation has not been applied, and
top 5 performance with image augmentation).


title:
Constraint on Matter Power Spectrum on $10^6-10^9M_\odot$ Scales from
  ${\large\tau_e}$

abstract:
  An analysis of the physics-rich endgame of reionization at $z=5.7$ is
performed, utilizing jointly the observations of the Ly$\alpha$ forest, the
mean free path of ionizing photons, the luminosity function of galaxies and new
physical insight. We find that an upper limit on ${\rm \tau_e}$ provides a
constraint on the minimum mean free path (of ionizing photons) that is
primarily due to dwarf galaxies, which in turn yields a new and yet the
strongest constraint on the matter power spectrum on $10^6-10^9M_\odot$ scales.
With the latest Planck measurements of ${\rm \tau_e = 0.055 \pm 0.009}$, we can
place an upper limit of $(8.9\times 10^6, 3.8\times 10^7, 4.2\times
10^8)M_\odot$ on the lower cutoff mass of the halo mass function, or equivalent
a lower limit on warm dark matter particle mass ${\rm m_x \ge (15.1, 9.8,
4.6)keV}$ or on sterile neutrino mass ${\rm m_s \ge (161, 90, 33)keV}$, at $(1,
1.4, 2.2)\sigma$ confidence level, respectively.


title:
Analytical Coverage Probability of a Typical User In Heterogeneous
  Cellular Networks

abstract:
  In a Poisson Point Process (PPP) network model, in which the locations of
Base Stations (BSs) are randomly distributed according to a Spatial Poisson
Process, has been recently used as a tractable stochastic model to analyse the
performance of downlink Heterogeneous Cellular Networks (HCNs). The HCN is
modelled as a multi-tier cellular network where each tier is characterised by
the transmission power level, propagation path loss exponent and density of
BSs. The current works on HCN enabling Intercell Interference Coordination
(ICIC) technique usually deal with Strict Frequency Reuse (FR) or Soft FR with
a reuse factor of $\Delta=1$ in a Rayleigh fading channel. It has been assumed
that all Base Stations (BSs) transmit continuously which leads to a reduction
on the impact of number of users and RBs on network performance. In this paper,
the performance of Soft FR with a reuse factor of $\Delta>1$ in
Rayleigh-Lognormal fading channel is evaluated. The impact of the number of
users and Resource Blocks (RBs) on Intercell Interference (ICI) are presented
for Round Robin scheduling and indicator functions. The results show that there
are opposite trends between coverage probability of Cell-Center User (CCU) and
Cell-Edge User (CEU).


title: Surfaces with $\chi=5, K^{2}=9$ and a canonical involution

abstract:
  In this paper, we classify the minimal surfaces of general type with
$\chi=5$, $K^{2}=9$ whose canonical map is composed with an involution. We
obtain 6 families, whose dimensions in the moduli space are 28, 27, 33, 32, 31
and 32 respectively. Among them, the family of surfaces having a genus 2
fibration forms an irreducible component of $\mathfrak{M}_{\chi=5, K^{2}=9}$.


title: Criticality Aware Multiprocessors

abstract:
  Typically, a memory request from a processor may need to go through many
intermediate interconnect routers, directory node, owner node, etc before it is
finally serviced. Current multiprocessors do not give preference to any
particular memory request. But certain memory requests are more critical to
multiprocessor's performance than other requests. Example: memory requests from
critical sections, load request feeding into multiple dependent instructions,
etc. This knowledge can be used to improve the performance of current
multiprocessors by letting the ordering point and the interconnect routers
prioritize critical requests over non-critical ones. In this paper, we evaluate
using SIMICS/GEMS infrastructure. For lock-intensive microbenchmarks,
criticality-aware multiprocessors showed 5-15% performance improvement over
baseline multiprocessor. Criticality aware multiprocessor provides a new
direction for tapping performance in a shared memory multiprocessor and can
provide substantial speedup in lock intensive benchmarks.


title:
Adapting ELM to Time Series Classification: A Novel Diversified Top-k
  Shapelets Extraction Method

abstract:
  ELM (Extreme Learning Machine) is a single hidden layer feed-forward network,
where the weights between input and hidden layer are initialized randomly. ELM
is efficient due to its utilization of the analytical approach to compute
weights between hidden and output layer. However, ELM still fails to output the
semantic classification outcome. To address such limitation, in this paper, we
propose a diversified top-k shapelets transform framework, where the shapelets
are the subsequences i.e., the best representative and interpretative features
of each class. As we identified, the most challenge problems are how to extract
the best k shapelets in original candidate sets and how to automatically
determine the k value. Specifically, we first define the similar shapelets and
diversified top-k shapelets to construct diversity shapelets graph. Then, a
novel diversity graph based top-k shapelets extraction algorithm named as
\textbf{DivTopkshapelets}\ is proposed to search top-k diversified shapelets.
Finally, we propose a shapelets transformed ELM algorithm named as
\textbf{DivShapELM} to automatically determine the k value, which is further
utilized for time series classification. The experimental results over public
data sets demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly outperforms
traditional ELM algorithm in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.


title: Nanostructured intense-laser cleaner

abstract:
  A nanostructured target is proposed to enhance an intense-laser contrast:
when a laser prepulse irradiates a nanostructured solid target surface, the
prepulse is absorbed effectively by the nanostructured surface. The
nanostructure size should be less than the laser wavelength. After the prepulse
absorption, the front part of the main pulse destroys the microstructure and
makes the surface a flat plasma mirror. The body of the main pulse is reflected
almost perfectly. Compared with conventional plasma mirrors, the nanostructured
surface is effective for the absorption of the intense laser prepulse, whose
intensity is higher than 10^14 W/cm2. The nanostructured laser cleaner improves
the laser pulse contrast by about a hundredfold. The nanostructured laser
cleaner works well for next-generation intense lasers.


title: Secure Multiparty Sessions with Topics

abstract:
  Multiparty session calculi have been recently equipped with security
requirements, in order to guarantee properties such as access control and leak
freedom. However, the proposed security requirements seem to be overly
restrictive in some cases. In particular, a party is not allowed to communicate
any kind of public information after receiving a secret information. This does
not seem justified in case the two pieces of information are totally unrelated.
The aim of the present paper is to overcome this restriction, by designing a
type discipline for a simple multiparty session calculus, which classifies
messages according to their topics and allows unrestricted sequencing of
messages on independent topics.


title: Formalization of Phase Ordering

abstract:
  Phasers pose an interesting synchronization mechanism that generalizes many
collective synchronization patterns seen in parallel programming languages,
including barriers, clocks, and point-to-point synchronization using latches or
semaphores. This work characterizes scheduling constraints on phaser
operations, by relating the execution state of two tasks that operate on the
same phaser. We propose a formalization of Habanero phasers,
May-Happen-In-Parallel, and Happens-Before relations for phaser operations, and
show that these relations conform with the semantics. Our formalization and
proofs are fully mechanized using the Coq proof assistant, and are available
online.


title: Parallel Monitors for Self-adaptive Sessions

abstract:
  The paper presents a data-driven model of self-adaptivity for multiparty
sessions. System choreography is prescribed by a global type. Participants are
incarnated by processes associated with monitors, which control their
behaviour. Each participant can access and modify a set of global data, which
are able to trigger adaptations in the presence of critical changes of values.
  The use of the parallel composition for building global types, monitors and
processes enables a significant degree of flexibility: an adaptation step can
dynamically reconfigure a set of participants only, without altering the
remaining participants, even if the two groups communicate.


title: Event-driven Adaptation in COP

abstract:
  Context-Oriented Programming languages provide us with primitive constructs
to adapt program behaviour depending on the evolution of their operational
environment, namely the context. In previous work we proposed ML_CoDa, a
context-oriented language with two-components: a declarative constituent for
programming the context and a functional one for computing. This paper
describes an extension of ML_CoDa to deal with adaptation to unpredictable
context changes notified by asynchronous events.


title: From Events to Reactions: A Progress Report

abstract:
  Syndicate is a new coordinated, concurrent programming language. It occupies
a novel point on the spectrum between the shared-everything paradigm of threads
and the shared-nothing approach of actors. Syndicate actors exchange messages
and share common knowledge via a carefully controlled database that clearly
scopes conversations. This approach clearly simplifies coordination of
concurrent activities. Experience in programming with Syndicate, however,
suggests a need to raise the level of linguistic abstraction. In addition to
writing event handlers and managing event subscriptions directly, the language
will have to support a reactive style of programming. This paper presents
event-oriented Syndicate programming and then describes a preliminary design
for augmenting it with new reactive programming constructs.


title: Reversible Sessions Using Monitors

abstract:
  Much research has studied foundations for correct and reliable
communication-centric systems. A salient approach to correctness uses session
types to enforce structured communications; a recent approach to reliability
uses reversible actions as a way of reacting to unanticipated events or
failures. This note develops a simple observation: the machinery required to
define asynchronous semantics and monitoring can also support reversible
protocols. We propose a process framework of session communication in which
monitors support reversibility. A key novelty in our approach are session types
with present and past, which allow us to streamline the semantics of reversible
actions.


title: Future-based Static Analysis of Message Passing Programs

abstract:
  Message passing is widely used in industry to develop programs consisting of
several distributed communicating components. Developing functionally correct
message passing software is very challenging due to the concurrent nature of
message exchanges. Nonetheless, many safety-critical applications rely on the
message passing paradigm, including air traffic control systems and emergency
services, which makes proving their correctness crucial. We focus on the
modular verification of MPI programs by statically verifying concrete Java
code. We use separation logic to reason about local correctness and define
abstractions of the communication protocol in the process algebra used by
mCRL2. We call these abstractions futures as they predict how components will
interact during program execution. We establish a provable link between futures
and program code and analyse the abstract futures via model checking to prove
global correctness. Finally, we verify a leader election protocol to
demonstrate our approach.


title: Multiparty Compatibility for Concurrent Objects

abstract:
  Objects and actors are communicating state machines, offering and consuming
different services at different points in their lifecycle. Two complementary
challenges arise when programming such systems. When objects interact, their
state machines must be "compatible", so that services are requested only when
they are available. Dually, when objects refine other objects, their state
machines must be "compliant", so that services are honoured whenever they are
promised.
  In this paper we show how the idea of multiparty compatibility from the
session types literature can be applied to both of these problems. We present
an untyped language in which concurrent objects are checked automatically for
compatibility and compliance. For simple objects, checking can be exhaustive
and has the feel of a type system. More complex objects can be partially
validated via test cases, leading to a methodology closer to continuous
testing. Our proof-of-concept implementation is limited in some important
respects, but demonstrates the potential value of the approach and the
relationship to existing software development practices.


title: Program Execution on Reconfigurable Multicore Architectures

abstract:
  Based on the two observations that diverse applications perform better on
different multicore architectures, and that different phases of an application
may have vastly different resource requirements, Pal et al. proposed a novel
reconfigurable hardware approach for executing multithreaded programs. Instead
of mapping a concurrent program to a fixed architecture, the architecture
adaptively reconfigures itself to meet the application's concurrency and
communication requirements, yielding significant improvements in performance.
Based on our earlier abstract operational framework for multicore execution
with hierarchical memory structures, we describe execution of multithreaded
programs on reconfigurable architectures that support a variety of clustered
configurations. Such reconfiguration may not preserve the semantics of programs
due to the possible introduction of race conditions arising from concurrent
accesses to shared memory by threads running on the different cores. We present
an intuitive partial ordering notion on the cluster configurations, and show
that the semantics of multithreaded programs is always preserved for
reconfigurations "upward" in that ordering, whereas semantics preservation for
arbitrary reconfigurations can be guaranteed for well-synchronised programs. We
further show that a simple approximate notion of efficiency of execution on the
different configurations can be obtained using the notion of amortised
bisimulations, and extend it to dynamic reconfiguration.


title: Extending Nunchaku to Dependent Type Theory

abstract:
  Nunchaku is a new higher-order counterexample generator based on a sequence
of transformations from polymorphic higher-order logic to first-order logic.
Unlike its predecessor Nitpick for Isabelle, it is designed as a stand-alone
tool, with frontends for various proof assistants. In this short paper, we
present some ideas to extend Nunchaku with partial support for dependent types
and type classes, to make frontends for Coq and other systems based on
dependent type theory more useful.


title: Goal Translation for a Hammer for Coq (Extended Abstract)

abstract:
  Hammers are tools that provide general purpose automation for formal proof
assistants. Despite the gaining popularity of the more advanced versions of
type theory, there are no hammers for such systems. We present an extension of
the various hammer components to type theory: (i) a translation of a
significant part of the Coq logic into the format of automated proof systems;
(ii) a proof reconstruction mechanism based on a Ben-Yelles-type algorithm
combined with limited rewriting, congruence closure and a first-order
generalization of the left rules of Dyckhoff's system LJT.


title: Extending SMTCoq, a Certified Checker for SMT (Extended Abstract)

abstract:
  This extended abstract reports on current progress of SMTCoq, a communication
tool between the Coq proof assistant and external SAT and SMT solvers. Based on
a checker for generic first-order certificates implemented and proved correct
in Coq, SMTCoq offers facilities both to check external SAT and SMT answers and
to improve Coq's automation using such solvers, in a safe way. Currently
supporting the SAT solver zChaff, and the SMT solver veriT for the combination
of the theories of congruence closure and linear integer arithmetic, SMTCoq is
meant to be extendable with a reasonable amount of effort: we present work in
progress to support the SMT solver CVC4 and the theory of bit vectors.


title: Towards the Integration of an Intuitionistic First-Order Prover into Coq

abstract:
  An efficient intuitionistic first-order prover integrated into Coq is useful
to replay proofs found by external automated theorem provers. We propose a
two-phase approach: An intuitionistic prover generates a certificate based on
the matrix characterization of intuitionistic first-order logic; the
certificate is then translated into a sequent-style proof.


title: The Outer Envelopes of Globular Clusters. I. NGC 7089 (M2)

abstract:
  We present the results of a wide-field imaging survey of the periphery of the
Milky Way globular cluster NGC 7089 (M2). Data were obtained with MegaCam on
the Magellan Clay Telescope, and the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco
Telescope. We find that M2 is embedded in a diffuse stellar envelope extending
to a radial distance of at least $\sim 60^{\prime}$ ($\sim 210$ pc) -- five
times the nominal tidal radius of the cluster. The envelope appears nearly
circular in shape, has a radial density decline well described by a power law
of index $\gamma = -2.2 \pm 0.2$, and contains approximately $1.6\%$ of the
luminosity of the entire system. While the origin of the envelope cannot be
robustly identified using the presently available data, the fact that M2 also
hosts stellar populations exhibiting a broad dispersion in the abundances of
both iron and a variety of neutron capture elements suggests that this object
might plausibly constitute the stripped nucleus of a dwarf Galaxy that was long
ago accreted and destroyed by the Milky Way.


title:
The quotients between the (revised) Szeged index and Wiener index of
  graphs

abstract:
  Let $Sz(G),Sz^*(G)$ and $W(G)$ be the Szeged index, revised Szeged index and
Wiener index of a graph $G.$ In this paper, the graphs with the fourth, fifth,
sixth and seventh largest Wiener indices among all unicyclic graphs of order
$n\geqslant 10$ are characterized; as well the graphs with the first, second,
third, and fourth largest Wiener indices among all bicyclic graphs are
identified. Based on these results, further relation on the quotients between
the (revised) Szeged index and the Wiener index are studied. Sharp lower bound
on $Sz(G)/W(G)$ is determined for all connected graphs each of which contains
at least one non-complete block. As well the connected graph with the second
smallest value on $Sz^*(G)/W(G)$ is identified for $G$ containing at least one
cycle.


title: Inflection point in running kinetic term inflation

abstract:
  In this work, we consider inflection point inflation in the framework of
running kinetic term inflation in supergravity. We study the inflationary
dynamics and show that the predicted value of the scalar spectral index and
tensor-to-scalar ratio can lie within the $1\sigma$ confidence region allowed
by the result of Planck 2015.


title: On the Detection of Non-Transiting Exoplanets with Dusty Tails

abstract:
  We present a way of searching for non-transiting exoplanets with dusty tails.
In the transiting case, the extinction by dust during the transit removes more
light from the beam than is scattered into it. Thus, the forward scattering
component of the light is best seen either just prior to ingress, or just after
egress, but with reduced amplitude over the larger peak that is obscured by the
transit. This picture suggests that it should be equally productive to search
for positive-going peaks in the flux from non-transiting exoplanets with dusty
tails. We discuss what amplitudes are expected for different orbital
inclination angles. The signature of such objects should be distinct from
normal transits, starspots, and most - but not all - types of stellar
pulsations.


title: Radio variability in the Phoenix Deep Survey at 1.4GHz

abstract:
  We use archival data from the Phoenix Deep Survey to investigate the variable
radio source population above 1mJy/beam at 1.4GHz. Given the similarity of this
survey to other such surveys we take the opportunity to investigate the
conflicting results which have appeared in the literature. Two previous surveys
for variability conducted with the Very Large Array (VLA) achieved a
sensitivity of 1mJy/beam. However, one survey found an areal density of radio
variables on timescales of decades that is a factor of ~4 times greater than a
second survey which was conducted on timescales of less than a few years. In
the Phoenix deep field we measure the density of variable radio sources to be
$\rho =0.98\mathrm{deg}^{-2}$ on timescales of 6 months to 8 years. We make use
of WISE infrared cross-ids, and identify all variable sources as an AGN of some
description. We suggest that the discrepancy between previous VLA results is
due to the different time scales probed by each of the surveys, and that radio
variability at 1.4 GHz is greatest on timescales of 2 - 5 years.


title: The Wiretapped Diamond-Relay Channel

abstract:
  In this paper, we study a diamond-relay channel where the source is connected
to $M$ relays through orthogonal links and the relays transmit to the
destination over a wireless multiple-access channel in the presence of an
eavesdropper. The eavesdropper not only observes the relay transmissions
through another multiple-access channel, but also observes a certain number of
source-relay links. The legitimate terminals know neither the eavesdropper's
channel state information nor the location of source-relay links revealed to
the eavesdropper except the total number of such links.
  For this wiretapped diamond-relay channel, we establish the optimal secure
degrees of freedom. In the achievability part, our proposed scheme uses the
source-relay links to transmit a judiciously constructed combination of message
symbols, artificial noise symbols as well as fictitious message symbols
associated with secure network coding. The relays use a combination of
beamforming and interference alignment in their transmission scheme. For the
converse part, we take a genie-aided approach assuming that the location of
wiretapped links is known.


title:
Galaxy candidates at z ~ 10 in archival data from the Brightest of
  Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG[z8]) survey

abstract:
  The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) enabled
the search for the first galaxies observed at z ~ 8 - 11 (500 - 700 Myr after
the Big Bang). To continue quantifying the number density of the most luminous
galaxies (M_AB ~ -22.0) at the earliest epoch observable with HST, we search
for z ~ 10 galaxies (F125W-dropouts) in archival data from the Brightest of
Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG[z8]) survey, originally designed for detection of z ~
8 galaxies (F098M-dropouts). By focusing on the deepest 293 arcmin^2 of the
data along 62 independent lines of sight, we identify six z ~ 10 candidates
satisfying the color selection criteria, detected at S/N > 8 in F160W with M_AB
= -22.8 to -21.1 if at z = 10. Three of the six sources, including the two
brightest, are in a single WFC3 pointing (~ 4 arcmin^2), suggestive of
significant clustering, which is expected from bright galaxies at z ~ 10.
However, the two brightest galaxies are too extended to be likely at z ~ 10,
and one additional source is unresolved and possibly a brown dwarf. The
remaining three candidates have m_AB ~ 26, and given the area and completeness
of our search, our best estimate is a number density of sources that is
marginally higher but consistent at 2{\sigma} with searches in legacy fields.
Our study highlights that z ~ 10 searches can yield a small number of
candidates, making tailored follow-ups of HST pure-parallel observations viable
and effective.


title: QCD and a New Paradigm for Nuclear Structure

abstract:
  We review the reasons why one might choose to seriously re-examine the
traditional approach to nuclear theory where nucleons are treated as immutable.
This examination leads us to argue that the modification of the structure of
the nucleon when immersed in a nuclear medium is fundamental to how atomic
nuclei are built. Consistent with this approach we suggest key experiments
which should tell us unambiguously whether there is such a change in the
structure of a bound nucleon. We also briefly report on extremely promising
recent calculations of the structure of nuclei across the periodic table based
upon this idea.


title: On the f-vectors of Gelfand-Cetlin polytopes

abstract:
  A Gelfand-Cetlin polytope is a convex polytope obtained as an image of
certain completely integrable system on a partial flag variety. In this paper,
we give an equivalent description of the face structure of a GC-polytope in
terms of so called the face structure of a ladder diagram. Using our
description, we obtain a partial differential equation whose solution is the
exponential generating function of f-vectors of GC-polytopes. This solves the
open problem (2) posed by Gusev, Kritchenko, and Timorin in [GKT].


title: Goldbach for Gaussian, Hurwitz, Octavian and Eisenstein primes

abstract:
  We formulate Goldbach type questions for Gaussian, Hurwitz, Octavian and
Eisenstein primes. They are different from Goldbach type statements by
Takayoshi Mitsui from 1960 for number fields or C.A. Holben and James Jordan
from 1968 for Gaussian integers. Here is what we meeasure: 1) Every even
Gaussian integer a+ib satisfying a>2, b>2 is a sum of two Gaussian primes with
positive coefficients. 2) Every Eisenstein integer a+bw with a>3,b>3 and
w=(1+sqrt(-3))/2 is the sum of two Eisenstein primes with positive
coefficients. Note that no evenness condition is asked in the Eisenstein case.
3) Every Lipschitz integer quaternion with positive entries is the sum of two
Hurwitz primes. 4) There exists a constant K such that every Octavian integer
with coefficients larger than K is the sum of two Octavian primes. Except in
the Octonion case, where the fewest experiments were done, the statements can
be linked to difficult questions like Landau or Bunyakovsky conjectures. We
therefore look also more closely and numerically at some Hardy-Littlewood
constants following early computations from Daniel Shanks and Marvin Wunderlich
from the 50ies and 70ies.


title:
Hyperscaling violating black hole solutions and Magneto-thermoelectric
  DC conductivities in holography

abstract:
  We derive new black hole solutions in Einstein-Maxwell-Axion-Dilaton theory
with a hyperscaling violation exponent. We then examine the corresponding
anomalous transport exhibited by cuprate strange metals in the normal phase of
high-temperature superconductors via gauge/gravity duality. Linear temperature
dependence resistivity and quadratic temperature dependence inverse Hall angle
can be achieved. In the high temperature regime, the heat conductivity and Hall
Lorenz ratio are proportional to the temperature. The Nernst signal first
increases as temperature goes up but it then decreases with increasing
temperature in the high temperature regime.


title: Three-generation neutrino oscillations in curved spacetime

abstract:
  Three-generation MSW effect in curved spacetime is studied and a brief
discussion on the gravitational correction to the neutrino self-energy is
given. The modified mixing parameters and corresponding conversion
probabilities of neutrinos after traveling through celestial objects of
constant densities are obtained. The method to distinguish between the normal
hierarchy and inverted hierarchy is discussed in this framework. Due to the
gravitational redshift of energy, in some extreme situations, the resonance
energy of neutrinos might be shifted noticeably and the gravitational effect on
the self-energy of neutrino becomes significant at the vicinities of spacetime
singularities.


title:
$\Z_3$-orbifold construction of the Moonshine vertex operator algebra
  and some maximal $3$-local subgroups of the Monster

abstract:
  In this article, we describe some maximal $3$-local subgroups of the Monster
simple group using vertex operator algebras (VOA). We first study the
holomorphic vertex operator algebra obtained by applying the orbifold
construction to the Leech lattice vertex operator algebra and a lift of a
fixed-point free isometry of order $3$ of the Leech lattice. We also consider
some of its special subVOAs and study their stabilizer subgroups using the
symmetries of the subVOAs. It turns out that these stabilizer subgroups are
$3$-local subgroups of its full automorphism group. As one of our main results,
we show that its full automorphism group is isomorphic to the Monster simple
group by using a $3$-local characterization and that the holomorphic VOA is
isomorphic to the Moonshine VOA. This approach allows us to obtain relatively
explicit descriptions of two maximal $3$-local subgroups of the shape
$3^{1+12}.2.\Suz{:}2$ and $3^8.\Omega^-(8,3).2$ in the Monster simple group.


title: Efficient Timestamps for Capturing Causality

abstract:
  Consider an asynchronous system consisting of processes that communicate via
message-passing. The processes communicate over a potentially {\em incomplete}
communication network consisting of reliable bidirectional communication
channels. Thus, not every pair of processes is necessarily able to communicate
with each other directly. % For instance, when the communication network is a
{\em star} graph, there is a {\em central} process % that can communicate with
all the remaining processes (which are called {\em radial} processes), % but
the radial processes cannot communicate with each other directly.
  The goal of the algorithms discussed in this paper is to assign timestamps to
the events at all the processes such that (a) distinct events are assigned
distinct timestamps, and (b) the happened-before relationship between the
events can be inferred from the timestamps. We consider three types of
algorithms for assigning timestamps to events: (i) Online algorithms that must
(greedily) assign a timestamp to each event when the event occurs. (ii) Offline
algorithms that assign timestamps to event after a finite execution is
complete. (iii) Inline algorithms that assign a timestamp to each event when it
occurs, but may modify some elements of a timestamp again at a later time.
  For specific classes of graphs, particularly {\em star} graphs and graphs
with connectivity $\geq 1$, the paper presents bounds on the length of vector
timestamps assigned by an {\em online} algorithm. The paper then presents an
{\em inline} algorithm, which typically assigns substantially smaller
timestamps than the optimal-length {\em online} vector timestamps. In
particular, the inline algorithm assigns timestamp in the form of a tuple
containing $2c+2$ integer elements, where $c$ is the size of the vertex cover
for the underlying communication graph.


title: Debugging OpenStack Problems Using a State Graph Approach

abstract:
  It is hard to operate and debug systems like OpenStack that integrate many
independently developed modules with multiple levels of abstractions. A major
challenge is to navigate through the complex dependencies and relationships of
the states in different modules or subsystems, to ensure the correctness and
consistency of these states. We present a system that captures the runtime
states and events from the entire OpenStack-Ceph stack, and automatically
organizes these data into a graph that we call system operation state graph
(SOSG).With SOSG we can use intuitive graph traversal techniques to solve
problems like reasoning about the state of a virtual machine. Also, using
graph-based anomaly detection, we can automatically discover hidden problems in
OpenStack. We have a scalable implementation of SOSG, and evaluate the approach
on a 125-node production OpenStack cluster, finding a number of interesting
problems.