title:
Cosmological thermodynamics with Hawking temperature on the apparent
  horizon and Unruh temperature of the fluid: Some interesting consequences

abstract:
  Thermodynamics on the cosmological apparent horizon of a flat
Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric has been investigated with
Bekenstein entropy and Hawking temperature on the horizon, and Unruh
temperature for the fluid inside the horizon. This temperature is experienced
by a radial comoving observer infinitesimally close to the horizon due to the
pressure exerted by the fluid bounded by the horizon. An expression for the
entropy of the fluid has been obtained which is found to be proportional to the
volume of the thermodynamic system which implies that the Unruh temperature of
the fluid is inconsistent with the holographic principle. Further, we have been
able to find an expression for the effective entropy of the system. Finally,
assuming a barotropic equation of state $p=w\rho$ ($w$ constant) for the fluid,
it has been shown that the generalized second law holds good for a non-phantom
w, while thermodynamic equilibrium is never possible for such a scenario.


title: Vortex pinning and dynamics in the neutron star crust

abstract:
  The nature of the interaction between superfluid vortices and the neutron
star crust, conjectured by Anderson and Itoh in 1975 to be at the heart vortex
creep and the cause of glitches, has been a long-standing question in
astrophysics. Using a qualitatively new approach, we follow the dynamics as
superfluid vortices move in response to the presence of "nuclei" (nuclear
defects in the crust). The resulting motion is perpendicular to the force,
similar to the motion of a spinning top when pushed. We show that nuclei repel
vortices in the neutron star crust, and characterize the force as a function of
the vortex-nucleus separation.

categories: astro-ph.HE astro-ph.SR cond-mat.supr-con nucl-th


title:
Non-existence of polyhedral immersions of triangulated surfaces in
  $\mathbb{R}^3$

abstract:
  We present and apply a method for disproving the existence of polyhedral
immersions in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of certain triangulations on non-orientable
surfaces. In particular, it is proved that neither of the two vertex-minimal,
neighborly 9-vertex triangulations of the non-orientable surface of genus 5 are
realizable as immersed polyhedral surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$.


title:
Bio-Inspired Resource Allocation for Relay-Aided Device-to-Device
  Communications

abstract:
  The Device-to-Device (D2D) communication principle is a key enabler of direct
localized communication between mobile nodes and is expected to propel a
plethora of novel multimedia services. However, even though it offers a wide
set of capabilities mainly due to the proximity and resource reuse gains,
interference must be carefully controlled to maximize the achievable rate for
coexisting cellular and D2D users. The scope of this work is to provide an
interference-aware real-time resource allocation (RA) framework for relay-aided
D2D communications that underlay cellular networks. The main objective is to
maximize the overall network throughput by guaranteeing a minimum rate
threshold for cellular and D2D links. To this direction, genetic algorithms
(GAs) are proven to be powerful and versatile methodologies that account for
not only enhanced performance but also reduced computational complexity in
emerging wireless networks. Numerical investigations highlight the performance
gains compared to baseline RA methods and especially in highly dense scenarios
which will be the case in future 5G networks.


title: Generalized rational zeta series for $\zeta(2n)$ and $\zeta(2n+1)$

abstract:
  In this paper, we find rational zeta series with $\zeta(2n)$ in terms of
$\zeta(2k+1)$ and $\beta(2k)$, the Dirichlet beta function. We then develop a
certain family of generalized rational zeta series using the generalized
Clausen function and use those results to discover a second family of
generalized rational zeta series. As a special case of our results from Theorem
3.1, we prove a conjecture given in 2012 by F.M.S. Lima. Later, we use the same
analysis but for the digamma function $\psi(x)$ and negapolygammas
$\psi^{(-m)}(x)$. With these, we extract the same two families of generalized
rational zeta series with $\zeta(2n+1)$ on the numerator rather than
$\zeta(2n)$.


title:
Angular dependence of the facular-sunspot coverage relation as derived
  by MDI magnetograms

abstract:
  Previous studies have shown that the variation over the solar magnetic
activity cycle of the area of facular/network features identified on broad band
and narrow band imagery is positively correlated with the sunspot area and
number, the relation between the area coverages being described as either
linear or quadratic. On the other hand, the temporal variation of the spatial
distributions of faculae, network and sunspots follows patterns that are less
obviously correlated, so that we expect the relation that describes variation
of the area coverage of different types of magnetic features to vary with the
position over the disk. In this work we employ MDI full-disk magnetograms
acquired during Cycle 23 and at the beginning of Cycle 24 to investigate the
relation between the coverage of magnetic elements characterized by different
amounts of magnetic flux and located at different angular distances from disk
center with the sunspot number. In agreement with some previous studies we find
that daily data are best described by a quadratic function while data averaged
over 6-months are best described by a linear function. In both cases the
coefficients of the fits show large dependence on the position over the disk
and the magnetic flux. We also find that toward disk center 6-months averaged
data show asymmetries between the ascending and the descending phase.
Implications for solar irradiance modeling are discussed.


title:
THGEM gain calculations using Garfield++: Solving discrepancies between
  the simulation and experimental data

abstract:
  Discrepancies between the measured and simulated gain in Thick Micropatterned
gaseous detectors (MPGD), namely THGEM, have been observed by several groups.
In order to simulate the electron avalanches and the gain the community relies
on the calculations performed in Garfield++, known to produce differences of 2
orders of magnitude in comparison to the experimental data for thick MPGDs.
  In this work, simulations performed for Ne/5%CH4, Ar/5%CH4 and Ar/30%CO2
mixtures shows that Garfield++ is able to perfectly describe the experimental
data if Penning effect is included in the simulation. The comparison between
the number of excitations which may lead to a Penning transfer, is shown for
THGEM and GEM, explaining the less pronounced gain discrepancies observed in
GEM.


title: The ND-IRIS-0405 Iris Image Dataset

abstract:
  The Computer Vision Research Lab at the University of Notre Dame began
collecting iris images in the spring semester of 2004. The initial data
collections used an LG 2200 iris imaging system for image acquisition. Image
datasets acquired in 2004-2005 at Notre Dame with this LG 2200 have been used
in the ICE 2005 and ICE 2006 iris biometric evaluations. The ICE 2005 iris
image dataset has been distributed to over 100 research groups around the
world. The purpose of this document is to describe the content of the
ND-IRIS-0405 iris image dataset. This dataset is a superset of the iris image
datasets used in ICE 2005 and ICE 2006. The ND 2004-2005 iris image dataset
contains 64,980 images corresponding to 356 unique subjects, and 712 unique
irises. The age range of the subjects is 18 to 75 years old. 158 of the
subjects are female, and 198 are male. 250 of the subjects are Caucasian, 82
are Asian, and 24 are other ethnicities.


title: Disordered Field Theory in $d=0$ and Distributional Zeta-Function

abstract:
  Recently we introduced a new technique for computing the average free energy
of a system with quenched randomness. The basic tool of this technique is a
distributional zeta-function. The distributional zeta-function is a complex
function whose derivative at the origin yields the average free energy of the
system as the sum of two contributions: the first one is a series in which all
the integer moments of the partition function of the model contribute; the
second one, which can not be written as a series of the integer moments, can be
made as small as desired. In this paper we present a mathematical rigorous
proof that the average free energy of one disordered $\lambda\varphi^{4}$ model
defined in a zero-dimensional space can be obtained using the distributional
zeta-function technique. We obtain an analytic expression for the average free
energy of the model.


title:
GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary
  Black Hole Coalescence

abstract:
  We report the observation of a gravitational-wave signal produced by the
coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The signal, GW151226, was observed
by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory (LIGO) on December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC. The signal was
initially identified within 70 s by an online matched-filter search targeting
binary coalescences. Subsequent off-line analyses recovered GW151226 with a
network signal-to-noise ratio of 13 and a significance greater than 5 $\sigma$.
The signal persisted in the LIGO frequency band for approximately 1 s,
increasing in frequency and amplitude over about 55 cycles from 35 to 450 Hz,
and reached a peak gravitational strain of $3.4_{-0.9}^{+0.7} \times 10^{-22}$.
The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are $14.2_{-3.7}^{+8.3}
M_{\odot}$ and $7.5_{-2.3}^{+2.3} M_{\odot}$ and the final black hole mass is
$20.8_{-1.7}^{+6.1} M_{\odot}$. We find that at least one of the component
black holes has spin greater than 0.2. This source is located at a luminosity
distance of $440_{-190}^{+180}$ Mpc corresponding to a redshift
$0.09_{-0.04}^{+0.03}$. All uncertainties define a 90 % credible interval. This
second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar
populations and on deviations from general relativity.


title: Binary Black Hole Mergers in the first Advanced LIGO Observing Run

abstract:
  The first observational run of the Advanced LIGO detectors, from September
12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, saw the first detections of gravitational waves
from binary black hole mergers. In this paper we present full results from a
search for binary black hole merger signals with total masses up to $100
M_\odot$ and detailed implications from our observations of these systems. Our
search, based on general-relativistic models of gravitational wave signals from
binary black hole systems, unambiguously identified two signals, GW150914 and
GW151226, with a significance of greater than $5\sigma$ over the observing
period. It also identified a third possible signal, LVT151012, with
substantially lower significance, and with an 87% probability of being of
astrophysical origin. We provide detailed estimates of the parameters of the
observed systems. Both GW150914 and GW151226 provide an unprecedented
opportunity to study the two-body motion of a compact-object binary in the
large velocity, highly nonlinear regime. We do not observe any deviations from
general relativity, and place improved empirical bounds on several high-order
post-Newtonian coefficients. From our observations we infer stellar-mass binary
black hole merger rates lying in the range $9-240 \mathrm{Gpc}^{-3}
\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. These observations are beginning to inform astrophysical
predictions of binary black hole formation rates, and indicate that future
observing runs of the Advanced detector network will yield many more
gravitational wave detections.


title: A combinatorial construction of an M_{12}-invariant code

abstract:
  In this work we summarized some recent results to be included in a
forthcoming paper. A ternary [66,10,36]_3-code admitting the Mathieu group
M_{12} as a group of automorphisms has recently been constructed by N. Pace. We
give a construction of the Pace code in terms of $M_{12}$ as well as a
combinatorial description in terms of the small Witt design, the Steiner system
S(5,6,12). We also present a proof that the Pace code does indeed have minimum
distance 36.


title: On two pencils of cubic curves

abstract:
  We give two examples of plane curve arrangements of pencil type which are
very close to line arrangements, though the action of the monodromy operator on
the first cohomology group of the Milnor Fiber has eigenvalues of order 5 and
6, showing that surprising situations can occur for larger classes of curve
arrangements than for line arrangements. Our computations rely on the algorithm
given by A. Dimca and G. Sticlaru which detects the non trivial monodromy
eigenspaces of free curves.


title: Reducibility in Sasakian Geometry

abstract:
  The purpose of this paper is to study reducibility properties in Sasakian
geometry. First we give the Sasaki version of the de Rham Decomposition
Theorem; however, we need a mild technical assumption on the Sasaki
automorphism group which includes the toric case. Next we introduce the concept
of {\it cone reducible} and consider $S^3$ bundles over a smooth projective
algebraic variety where we give a classification result concerning contact
structures admitting the action of a 2-torus of Reeb type. In particular, we
can classify all such Sasakian structures up to contact isotopy on $S^3$
bundles over a Riemann surface of genus greater than zero. Finally, we show
that in the toric case an extremal Sasaki metric on a Sasaki join always
splits.


title:
Rise times of voltage pulses in NbN superconducting single-photon
  detectors

abstract:
  We have found experimentally that the rise times of voltage pulses in NbN
superconducting single photon detectors increase nonlinearly with increasing
detector length. We fabricated superconducting single photon detectors based on
NbN thin films with a meander-like sensitive region of area from 2x2um2 to
11x11um2. The effect is connected with the dependence of the detector
resistance, which appears after photon absorption, on its kinetic inductance
and hence on detector length. This conclusion is confirmed by our calculations
in the framework of the two-temperature model.


title:
A necessary and sufficient condition for minimum phase and implications
  for phase retrieval

abstract:
  We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a function $E(t)$ being of
minimum phase, and hence for its phase being univocally determined by its
intensity $|E(t)|^2$. This condition is based on the knowledge of $E(t)$ alone
and not of its analytic continuation in the complex plane, thus greatly
simplifying its practical applicability. We apply these results to find the
class of all band-limited signals that correspond to distinct receiver states
when the detector is sensitive to the field intensity only and insensitive to
the field phase, and discuss the performance of a recently proposed
transmission scheme able to linearly detect all distinguishable states.


title: Stellar counter-rotation in lenticular galaxy NGC 448

abstract:
  The counter-rotation phenomenon in disc galaxies directly indicates a complex
galaxy assembly history which is crucial for our understanding of galaxy
physics. Here we present the complex data analysis for a lenticular galaxy NGC
448, which has been recently suspected to host a counter-rotating stellar
component. We collected deep long-slit spectroscopic observations using the
Russian 6-m telescope and performed the photometric decomposition of Sloan
Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archival images. We exploited (i) a non-parametric
approach in order to recover stellar line-of-sight velocity distributions and
(ii) a parametric spectral decomposition technique in order to disentangle
stellar population properties of both main and counter-rotating stellar discs.
Our spectral decomposition stays in perfect agreement with the photometric
analysis. The counter-rotating component contributes $\approx$30 per cent to
the total galaxy light. We estimated its stellar mass to be
$9.0^{+2.7}_{-1.8}\cdot10^{9}M_\odot$. The radial scale length of
counter-rotating disc is $\approx$3 times smaller than that of the main disc.
Both discs harbour old stars but the counter-rotating components reveals a
detectable negative age gradient that might suggest an extended inside-out
formation during $3\dots4$ Gyrs. The counter-rotating disc hosts more
metal-rich stars and possesses a shallower metallicity gradient with respect to
the main disc. Our findings rule out cosmological filaments as a source of
external accretion which is considered as a potential mechanism of the
counter-rotating component formation in NGC 448, and favour the satellite
merger event with the consequent slow gas accretion.


title: Cosmic signatures in earth's seismic tremor?

abstract:
  Even in absence of earthquakes, each site on earth experiences continuous
elastic vibrations which are mostly traced to the non-linear interactions of
sea waves. However, the fine structure of the spectrum at mHz frequencies shows
hundreds of highly significant narrow bandwidth peaks, with a persistence and a
coincidence with solar acoustic eigenmodes which are incompatible with any
geophysical origin. The feasibility of a common cosmic origin is evaluated
through an estimate of the gravitational wave cross-section of the earth,
combined with its elastic response and with the stochastic amplification
produced by the interference of the cosmic signal with tremor of oceanic
origin. The measured spectral peaks appear compatible with a gravitational
monochromatic illumination at strains $h \gtrsim 10^{-20} $. We analize in
detail the band around 2.614 mHz, where the binary white dwarf J0651+2844 -
which is the second strongest known gravitational stellar source - is expected
to emit. Compatible spectral tremor peaks are found for both the earth and the
sun, but their amplitude is 3 o.m. larger than independent estimates, so that a
gravitational source attribution would call for a variety of unknown
non-luminous sources with definite mass-distance ratios.


title: Photoinduced Chern insulating states in semi-Dirac materials

abstract:
  Two-dimensional (2D) semi-Dirac materials are characterized by a quadratic
dispersion in one direction and a linear dispersion along the orthogonal
direction. We study the topological phase transition in such 2D systems in the
presence of an electromagnetic field. We show that a Chern insulating state
emerges in a semi-Dirac system with two gapless Dirac nodes in the presence of
light. In particular, we show that the intensity of a circularly polarized
light can be used as a knob to generate topological states with nonzero Chern
number. In addition, for fixed intensity and frequency of the light, a
semi-Dirac system with two gapped Dirac nodes with trivial band topology can
reveal the topological transition as a function of polarization of the light.


title:
Investigation of potential fluctuating intra-unit cell magnetic order in
  cuprates by muon spin relaxation

abstract:
  We report low temperature muon spin relaxation (muSR) measurements of the
high-transition-temperature (Tc) cuprate superconductors
Bi{2+x}Sr{2-x}CaCu2O{8+\delta} and YBa2Cu3O6.57, aimed at detecting the
mysterious intra-unit cell (IUC) magnetic order that has been observed by spin
polarized neutron scattering in the pseudogap phase of four different cuprate
families. A lack of confirmation by local magnetic probe methods has raised the
possibility that the magnetic order fluctuates slowly enough to appear static
on the time scale of neutron scattering, but too fast to affect $\mu$SR or
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals. The IUC magnetic order has been
linked to a theoretical model for the cuprates, which predicts a long-range
ordered phase of electron-current loop order that terminates at a quantum
crictical point (QCP). Our study suggests that lowering the temperature to T ~
25 mK and moving far below the purported QCP does not cause enough of a slowing
down of fluctuations for the IUC magnetic order to become detectable on the
time scale of muSR. Our measurements place narrow limits on the fluctuation
rate of this unidentified magnetic order.


title: Infinite-Dimensional Measure Spaces and Frame Analysis

abstract:
  We study certain infinite-dimensional probability measures in connection with
frame analysis. Earlier work on frame-measures has so far focused on the case
of finite-dimensional frames. We point out that there are good reasons for a
sharp distinction between stochastic analysis involving frames in finite vs
infinite dimensions. For the case of infinite-dimensional Hilbert space
$\mathcal{H}$, we study three cases of measures. We first show that, for
$\mathcal{H}$ infinite dimensional, 1 one must resort to infinite dimensional
measure spaces which properly contain $\mathcal{H}$. The three cases we
consider are: (i) Gaussian frame measures, (ii) Markov path-space measures, and
(iii) determinantal measures.


title:
The dustier early-type galaxies deviate from late-type galaxies' scaling
  relations

abstract:
  Several dedicated surveys focusing on early-type galaxies (ETGs) reveal that
significant fractions of them are detectable in all interstellar medium phases
studied to date. We select ETGs from the Herschel Reference Survey that have
both far-infrared Herschel and either HI or CO detection (or both). We derive
their star formation rates (SFR), stellar masses and dust masses via modelling
their spectral energy distributions. We combine these with literature
information on their atomic and molecular gas properties, in order to relate
their star formation, total gas mass and dust mass on global scales. The ETGs
deviate from the dust mass-SFR relation and the Schmidt-Kennicutt relation that
SDSS star forming galaxies define: compared to SDSS galaxies, ETGs have more
dust at the same SFR, or less SFR at the same dust mass. When placing them in
the M*-SFR plane, ETGs show a much lower specific SFR as compared to normal
star-forming galaxies. ETGs show a large scatter compared to the
Schmidt-Kennicutt relation found locally within our Galaxy, extending to lower
SFRs and gas mass surface densities. Using an ETG's SFR and the
Schmidt-Kennicutt law to predict its gas mass leads to an underestimate. ETGs
have similar observed-gas-to-modelled-dust mass ratios to star forming-galaxies
of the same stellar mass, as well as they exhibit a similar scatter.


title: Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space vs. Frame Estimates

abstract:
  We consider conditions on a given system $\mathcal{F}$ of vectors in Hilbert
space $\mathcal{H}$, forming a frame, which turn $\mathcal{H}$ into a
reproducing kernel Hilbert space. It is assumed that the vectors in
$\mathcal{F}$ are functions on some set $\Omega$. We then identify conditions
on these functions which automatically give $\mathcal{H}$ the structure of a
reproducing kernel Hilbert space of functions on $\Omega$. We further give an
explicit formula for the kernel, and for the corresponding isometric
isomorphism. Applications are given to Hilbert spaces associated to families of
Gaussian processes.


title:
Generating Functions for Inverted Semistandard Young Tableaux and
  Generalized Ballot Numbers

abstract:
  An inverted semistandard Young tableau is a row-standard tableau along with a
collection of inversion pairs that quantify how far the tableau is from being
column semistandard. Such a tableau with precisely $k$ inversion pairs is said
to be a $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableau. Building upon earlier work by
Fresse and the author, this paper develops generating functions for the numbers
of $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableau of various shapes $\lambda$ and
contents $\mu$. An easily-calculable generating function is given for the
number of $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableau that "standardize" to a fixed
semistandard Young tableau. For $m$-row shapes $\lambda$ and standard content
$\mu$, the total number of $k$-inverted standard Young tableau of shape
$\lambda$ are then enumerated by relating such tableaux to $m$-dimensional
generalizations of Dyck paths and counting the numbers of "returns to ground"
in those paths. In the rectangular specialization of $\lambda = n^m$ this
yields a generating function that involves $m$-dimensional analogues of the
famed Ballot numbers. Our various results are then used to directly enumerate
all $k$-inverted semistandard Young tableaux with arbitrary content and two-row
shape $\lambda = a^1 b^1$, as well as all $k$-inverted standard Young tableaux
with two-column shape $\lambda=2^n$.


title: Smart Reply: Automated Response Suggestion for Email

abstract:
  In this paper we propose and investigate a novel end-to-end method for
automatically generating short email responses, called Smart Reply. It
generates semantically diverse suggestions that can be used as complete email
responses with just one tap on mobile. The system is currently used in Inbox by
Gmail and is responsible for assisting with 10% of all mobile responses. It is
designed to work at very high throughput and process hundreds of millions of
messages daily. The system exploits state-of-the-art, large-scale deep
learning.
  We describe the architecture of the system as well as the challenges that we
faced while building it, like response diversity and scalability. We also
introduce a new method for semantic clustering of user-generated content that
requires only a modest amount of explicitly labeled data.


title: Actor of a crossed module of Leibniz algebras

abstract:
  We extend to the category of crossed modules of Leibniz algebras the notion
of biderivation via the action of a Leibniz algebra. This results into a pair
of Leibniz algebras which allow us to construct an object which is the actor
under certain circumstances. Additionally, we give a description of an action
in the category of crossed modules of Leibniz algebras in terms of equations.
Finally, we check that, under the aforementioned conditions, the kernel of the
canonical map from a crossed module to its actor coincides with the center and
we introduce the notions of crossed module of inner and outer biderivations.


title: The multiplex dependency structure of financial markets

abstract:
  We propose here a multiplex network approach to investigate simultaneously
different types of dependency in complex data sets. In particular, we consider
multiplex networks made of four layers corresponding respectively to linear,
non-linear, tail, and partial correlations among a set of financial time
series. We construct the sparse graph on each layer using a standard network
filtering procedure, and we then analyse the structural properties of the
obtained multiplex networks. The study of the time evolution of the multiplex
constructed from financial data uncovers important changes in intrinsically
multiplex properties of the network, and such changes are associated with
periods of financial stress. We observe that some features are unique to the
multiplex structure and would not be visible otherwise by the separate analysis
of the single-layer networks corresponding to each dependency measure.


title: The width of the Roper resonance in baryon chiral perturbation theory

abstract:
  We calculate the width of the Roper resonance at next-to-leading order in a
systematic expansion of baryon chiral perturbation theory with pions, nucleons,
and the delta and Roper resonances as dynamical degrees of freedom. Three
unknown low-energy constants contribute up to the given order. One of them can
be fixed by reproducing the empirical value for the width of the Roper decay
into a pion and a nucleon. Assuming that the remaining two couplings of the
Roper interaction take values equal to those of the nucleon, the result for the
width of the Roper decaying into a nucleon and two pions is consistent with the
experimental value.


title: On certain product of Banach modules

abstract:
  Let $A$ and $B$ be Banach algebras and let $B$ be an algebraic Banach
$A-$bimodule. Then the $\ell^1-$direct sum $A\times B$ equipped with the
multiplication $$(a_1,b_1)(a_2,b_2)=(a_1a_2,a_1\cdot b_2+b_1\cdot
a_2+b_1b_2),~~ (a_1, a_2\in A, b_1, b_2\in B)$$ is a Banach algebra denoted by
$A\bowtie B$. Module extension algebras, Lau product and also the direct sum of
Banach algebras are the main examples satisfying this framework. We obtain
characterizations of bounded approximate identities, spectrum, and topological
center of this product. This provides a unified approach for obtaining some
known results of both module extensions and Lau product of Banach algebras.


title:
Effect of NaCl on Pseudomonas biofilm viscosity by continuous,
  non-intrusive microfluidic-based approach

abstract:
  A method combining video imaging in parallel microchannels with a
semi-empirical mathematical model provides non-intrusive, high-throughput
measurements of time-varying biofilm viscosity. The approach is demonstrated
for early growth Pseudomonas sp. biofilms exposed to constant flow streams of
nutrient solutions with different ionic strengths. The ability to measure
viscosities at early growth stages, without inducing a shear-thickening
response, enabled measurements that are among the lowest reported to date. In
addition, good time resolution enabled the detection of a rapid thickening
phase, which occurred at different times after the exponential growth phase
finished, depending on the ionic strength. The technique opens the way for a
combinatorial approach to beter understand the complex dynamical response of
biofilm mechanical properties under well-controlled physical, chemical and
biological growth conditions and time-limited perturbations.


title: On the optimality of grid cells

abstract:
  Grid cells, discovered more than a decade ago [5], are neurons in the brain
of mammals that fire when the animal is located near certain specific points in
its familiar terrain. Intriguingly, these points form, for a single cell, a
two-dimensional triangular grid, not unlike our Figure 3. Grid cells are widely
believed to be involved in path integration, that is, the maintenance of a
location state through the summation of small displacements. We provide
theoretical evidence for this assertion by showing that cells with grid-like
tuning curves are indeed well adapted for the path integration task. In
particular we prove that, in one dimension under Gaussian noise, the
sensitivity of measuring small displacements is maximized by a population of
neurons whose tuning curves are near-sinusoids -- that is to say, with peaks
forming a one-dimensional grid. We also show that effective computation of the
displacement is possible through a second population of cells whose sinusoid
tuning curves are in phase difference from the first. In two dimensions, under
additional assumptions it can be shown that measurement sensitivity is
optimized by the product of two sinusoids, again yielding a grid-like pattern.
We discuss the connection of our results to the triangular grid pattern
observed in animals.


title: Chebyshev's bias for products of $k$ primes

abstract:
  For any $k\geq 1$, we study the distribution of the difference between the
number of integers $n\leq x$ with $\omega(n)=k$ or $\Omega(n)=k$ in two
different arithmetic progressions, where $\omega(n)$ is the number of distinct
prime factors of $n$ and $\Omega(n)$ is the number of prime factors of $n$
counted with multiplicity . Under some reasonable assumptions, we show that, if
$k$ is odd, the integers with $\Omega(n)=k$ have preference for quadratic
non-residue classes; and if $k$ is even, such integers have preference for
quadratic residue classes. This result confirms a conjecture of Richard Hudson.
However, the integers with $\omega(n)=k$ always have preference for quadratic
residue classes. Moreover, as $k$ increases, the biases become smaller and
smaller for both of the two cases.


title: Quivers with subadditive labelings: classification and integrability

abstract:
  Strictly subadditive, subadditive and weakly subadditive labelings of quivers
were introduced by the second author, generalizing Vinberg's definition for
undirected graphs. In our previous work we have shown that quivers with
strictly subadditive labelings are exactly the quivers exhibiting Zamolodchikov
periodicity. In this paper, we classify all quivers with subadditive labelings.
We conjecture them to exhibit a certain form of integrability, namely, as the
$T$-system dynamics proceeds, the values at each vertex satisfy a linear
recurrence. Conversely, we show that every quiver integrable in this sense is
necessarily one of the $19$ items in our classification. For the quivers of
type $\hat A \otimes A$ we express the coefficients of the recurrences in terms
of the partition functions for domino tilings of a cylinder, called
\emph{Goncharov-Kenyon Hamiltonians}. We also consider tropical $T$-systems of
type $\hat A \otimes A$ and explain how affine slices exhibit solitonic
behavior, i.e. soliton resolution and speed conservation. Throughout, we
conjecture how the results in the paper are expected to generalize from $\hat A
\otimes A$ to all other quivers in our classification.


title: Ring wormholes via duality rotations

abstract:
  We apply duality rotations and complex transformations to the Schwarzschild
metric to obtain wormhole geometries with two asymptotically flat regions
connected by a throat. In the simplest case these are the well-known wormholes
supported by phantom scalar field. Further duality rotations remove the scalar
field to yield less well known vacuum metrics of the oblate Zipoy-Voorhees-Weyl
class, which describe ring wormholes. The ring encircles the wormhole throat
and can have any radius, whereas its tension is always negative and should be
less than $-c^4/4G$. If the tension reaches the maximal value, the geometry
becomes exactly flat, but the topology remains non-trivial and corresponds to
two copies of Minkowski space glued together along the disk encircled by the
ring. The geodesics are straight lines, and those which traverse the ring get
to the other universe. The ring therefore literally produces a hole in space.
Such wormholes could perhaps be created by negative energies concentrated in
toroidal volumes, for example by vacuum fluctuations.


title: Tropical Geometry and Mechanism Design

abstract:
  We develop a novel framework to construct and analyze finite valued,
multidimensional mechanisms using tropical convex geometry. We geometrically
characterize incentive compatibility using cells in the tropical convex hull of
the type set. These cells are the sets of incentive compatible payments and
form tropical simplices, spanned by generating payments whose number equals the
dimension of the simplex. The analysis of the collection of incentive
compatible mechanisms via tropical simplices and their generating payments
facilitates the use of geometric techniques. We use this view to derive a new
geometric characterization of revenue equivalence but also show how to handle
multidimensional mechanisms in the absence of revenue equivalence.


title: Bowen-York Type Initial Data for Binaries with Neutron Stars

abstract:
  A new approach to construct initial data for binary systems with neutron star
components is introduced. The approach is a generalization of the puncture
initial data method for binary black holes based on Bowen-York solutions to the
momentum constraint. As with binary black holes, the method allows setting
orbital configurations with direct input from post-Newtonian approximations and
involves solving only the Hamiltonian constraint. The effectiveness of the
method is demonstrated with evolutions of double neutron star and black hole --
neutron star binaries in quasi-circular orbits.


title:
Probing proton intrinsic charm in photon or Z boson production
  accompanied by heavy jets at LHC

abstract:
  We consider an observable very sensitive to the non-zero intrinsic charm (IC)
contribution to the proton density. It is the ratio between the differential
cross sections of the photon or $Z$-boson and $c$-jet production in the $pp$
collision, $\gamma(Z) + c$, and the $\gamma(Z)$ and the $b$-jet production. It
is shown that this ratio can be approximately flat or increasing at large
$\gamma(Z)$ transverse momenta $p_T$ and their pseudo-rapidities $1.5 < \eta <
2.4$ if the IC contribution is taken into account. On the contrary, in the
absence of the IC this ratio decreases as $p_T$ grows. We also present the
ratios of the cross sections integrated over $p_T$ as a function of the IC
probability $w$. It is shown that these ratios are mostly independent on the
theoretical uncertainties, and such predictions could therefore be much more
promising for the search for the intrinsic charm signal at the LHC compared to
the predictions for $p_T$-spectra, which significantly depend on these
uncertainties.


title:
Molecular dynamics simulation of a binary mixture near the lower
  critical point

abstract:
  2,6-lutidine molecules mix with water at high and low temperatures but in a
wide intermediate temperature range a 2,6-lutidine/water mixture exhibits a
miscibility gap. We constructed and validated an atomistic model for
2,6-lutidine and performed molecular dynamics simulations of 2,6-lutidine/water
mixture at different temperatures. We determined the part of demixing curve
with the lower critical point. The lower critical point extracted from our data
is located close to the experimental one. The estimates for critical exponents
obtained from our simulations are in a good agreement with the values
corresponding to the $3D$ Ising universality class.


title:
cltorch: a Hardware-Agnostic Backend for the Torch Deep Neural Network
  Library, Based on OpenCL

abstract:
  This paper presents cltorch, a hardware-agnostic backend for the Torch neural
network framework. cltorch enables training of deep neural networks on GPUs
from diverse hardware vendors, including AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. cltorch
contains sufficient implementation to run models such as AlexNet, VGG,
Overfeat, and GoogleNet. It is written using the OpenCL language, a portable
compute language, governed by the Khronos Group. cltorch is the top-ranked
hardware-agnostic machine learning framework on Chintala's convnet-benchmarks
page.
  This paper presents the technical challenges encountered whilst creating the
cltorch backend for Torch, and looks in detail at the challenges related to
obtaining a fast hardware-agnostic implementation.
  The convolutional layers are identified as the key area of focus for
accelerating hardware-agnostic frameworks. Possible approaches to accelerating
the convolutional implementation are identified including: implementation of
the convolutions using the implicitgemm or winograd algorithm, using a GEMM
implementation adapted to the geometries associated with the convolutional
algorithm, or using a pluggable hardware-specific convolutional implementation.


title:
Analysis of pattern forming instabilities in an ensemble of two-level
  atoms optically excited by counter-propagating fields

abstract:
  We explore various models for the pattern forming instability in a
laser-driven cloud of cold two-level atoms with a plane feedback mirror. Focus
is on the combined treatment of nonlinear propagation in a diffractively thick
medium and the boundary condition given by feedback. The combined presence of
purely transverse transmission gratings and reflection gratings on wavelength
scale is addressed. Different truncation levels of the Fourier expansion of the
dielectric susceptibility in terms of these gratings are discussed and compared
to literature. A formalism to calculate the exact solution for the homogenous
state in presence of absorption is presented. The relationship between the
counterpropagating beam instability and the feedback instability is discussed.
Feedback reduces the threshold by a factor of two under optimal conditions.
Envelope curves which bound all possible threshold curves for varying mirror
distances are calculated. The results are comparing well to experimental
results regarding the observed length scales and threshold conditions. It is
clarified where the assumption of a diffractively thin medium is justified.


title:
Majorana Neutrino Masses from Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decays and
  Lepton-Number-Violating Meson Decays

abstract:
  The Schechter-Valle theorem states that a positive observation of
neutrinoless double-beta ($0\nu \beta \beta$) decays implies a finite Majorana
mass term for neutrinos when any unlikely fine-tuning or cancellation is
absent. In this note, we reexamine the quantitative impact of the
Schechter-Valle theorem, and find that current experimental lower limits on the
half-lives of $0\nu \beta \beta$-decaying nuclei have placed a restrictive
upper bound on the Majorana neutrino mass $|\delta m^{ee}_\nu| < 7.43 \times
10^{-29}~{\rm eV}$ radiatively generated at the four-loop level. Furthermore,
we generalize this quantitative analysis of $0\nu \beta \beta$ decays to that
of the lepton-number-violating (LNV) meson decays $M^- \to {M^\prime}^+ +
\ell^-_\alpha + \ell^-_\beta$ (for $\alpha$, $\beta$ = $e$ or $\mu$). Given the
present upper limits on these rare LNV decays, we have derived the loop-induced
Majorana neutrino masses $|\delta m^{ee}_\nu| < 9.7 \times 10^{-18}~{\rm eV}$,
$|\delta m^{e\mu}_\nu| < 1.6 \times 10^{-15}~{\rm eV}$ and $|\delta m^{\mu
\mu}_\nu| < 1.0 \times 10^{-12}~{\rm eV}$ from $K^- \to \pi^+ + e^- + e^-$,
$K^- \to \pi^+ + e^- + \mu^-$ and $K^- \to \pi^+ + \mu^- + \mu^-$,
respectively. A partial list of radiative neutrino masses from the LNV decays
of $D$, $D_s^{}$ and $B$ mesons is also given.


title:
Colorful vortex intersections in SU(2) lattice gauge theory and their
  influencs on chiral properties

abstract:
  We introduce topological non-trivial colorful regions around intersection
points of two perpendicular vortex pairs and investigate their influence on
topological charge density and eigenmodes of the Dirac operator. With
increasing distance between the vortices the eigenvalues of the lowest modes
decrease. We show that the maxima and minima of the chiral densities of the low
modes follow mainly the distributions of the topological charge densities. The
topological non-trivial color structures lead in some low modes to distinct
peaks in the chiral densities. The other low modes reflect the topological
charge densities of the intersection points.


title:
Natural Inflation on the brane with a TeV-scale gravity: Parameter
  constraints after Planck 2015

abstract:
  In the present work we have studied Natural Inflation in the framework of the
Randall-Sundrum II brane model (RS-II) in the light of the latest Planck
results. Adopting the Randall-Sundrum fine-tuning, the model is characterized
by 3 parameters in total, namely the 5-dimensional Planck mass $M_5$ and the
two mass scales of the inflaton potential $f$ and $\Lambda$. We show in the
$n_s-r$ plane the theoretical predictions of the model together with the
allowed contour plots, and we conclude that the model is viable. By using the
Planck results only it is possible to determine the two mass scales of the
inflaton potential in terms of $M_5$, which remains undetermined. However,
there are several good theoretical reasons to consider a higher-dimensional
Planck mass of the order of $10 TeV$, which is compatible with primordial
nucleosynthesis. If we insist on considering a $M_5$ of this order of magnitude
all parameters are known and a sub-Planckian excursion of the inflaton scalar
field is achieved.


title:
Merging black hole binaries in galactic nuclei: implications for
  advanced-LIGO detections

abstract:
  Motivated by the recent detection of gravitational waves from the black hole
binary merger GW150914, we study the dynamical evolution of black holes in
galactic nuclei where massive star clusters reside. With masses of ~10^7M_Sun
and sizes of only a few parsecs, nuclear star clusters are the densest stellar
systems observed in the local universe and represent a robust environment where
(stellar mass) black hole binaries can dynamically form, harden and merge. We
show that due to their large escape speeds, nuclear star clusters can keep a
large fraction of their merger remnants while also evolving rapidly enough that
the holes can sink back to the central regions where they can swap in new
binaries that can subsequently harden and merge. This process can repeat
several times and produce black hole mergers of several tens of solar masses
similar to GW150914 and up to a few hundreds of solar masses, without the need
of invoking extremely low metallicity environments or implausible initial
conditions. We use a semi-analytical approach to describe the formation and
dynamics of black holes in massive star clusters. We find a black hole binary
merger rate per volume from nuclear star clusters of ~1.5 Gpc^-3 yr^-1,
implying up to a few tens of possible detections per year with Advanced LIGO.
Our models suggest a local merger rate of 0.3- 1 Gpc^-3 yr^-1 for high mass
black hole binaries similar to GW150914 (total mass >~ 50 M_Sun, redshift z<
0.3); a merger rate comparable to that of high mass black hole binaries that
are dynamically assembled in globular clusters. Finally, we show that if all
black holes receive high natal kicks, >~50km s^-1, then nuclear star clusters
could dominate the local merger rate of binary black holes compared to the
merger rate of similar binaries produced in either globular clusters or through
isolated binary evolution.


title: Einstein's Approach to Statistical Mechanics: The 1902-04 Papers

abstract:
  We summarize the papers published by Einstein in the Annalen der Physik in
the years 1902-04 on the derivation of the properties of thermal equilibrium on
the basis of the mechanical equations of motion and of the calculus of
probabilities. We point out the line of thought that led Einstein to an
especially economical foundation of the discipline, and to focus on
fluctuations of the energy as a possible tool for establishing the validity of
this foundation. We also sketch a comparison of Einstein's approach with that
of Gibbs, suggesting that although they obtained similar results, they had
different motivations and interpreted them in very different ways.


title: Calculating Method of Moments Uniform Bin Width Histograms

abstract:
  A clear articulation of Method of Moments (MOM) Histograms is instructive and
has waited 121 years since 1895. Also of interest are enabling uniform bin
width (UBW) shape level sets. Mean-variance MOM uniform bin width frequency and
density histograms are not unique, however ranking them by histogram skewness
compared to data skewness helps. Although theoretical issues rarely take second
place to calculations, here calculations based on shape level sets are central
and challenge uncritically accepted practice. Complete understanding requires
familiarity with histogram shape level sets and arithmetic progressions in the
data.


title:
Semilinear elliptic equations with the pseudo-relativistic operator on a
  bounded domain

abstract:
  We study the Dirichlet problem for the semilinear equations involving the
pseudo-relativistic operator on a bounded domain, (\sqrt{-\Delta + m^2} - m)u
=|u|^{p-1}u \quad \textrm{in}~\Omega, with the Dirichlet boundary condition
$u=0$ on $\partial \Omega$. Here, $p \in (1,\infty)$ and the operator
$(\sqrt{-\Delta + m^2} - m)$ is defined in terms of spectral decomposition. In
this paper, we investigate existence and nonexistence of a nontrivial solution,
depending on the choice of $p$, $m$ and $\Omega$. Precisely, we show that $(i)$
if $p$ is not $H^1$ subcritical ($p \geq \frac{n+2}{n-2}$) and $\Omega$ is
star-shaped, the equation has no nontrivial solution for all $m > 0$; $(ii)$ if
$p$ is not $H^{1/2}$ supercritical ($1 <p \leq \frac{n+1}{n-1}$), then there
exists a least energy solution for all $m>0$ and any bounded domain $\Omega$;
$(iii)$ finally, in the intermediate range
($\frac{n+1}{n-1}<p<\frac{n+2}{n-2}$), the problem has a nontrivial solution,
provided that $m$ is sufficiently large and the problem -\Delta u = |u|^{p-1}u
\quad \textrm{in}~\Omega, \qquad u =0\quad \textrm{on}~\partial \Omega admits a
non-degenerate nontrivial solution, for example, when $\Omega$ is a ball or an
annulus.


title:
Response of Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Ply Subjected to a Pulsed Magnetic
  Field

abstract:
  In this study, the possible deformation of a single Carbon Nanotube (CNT) ply
subjected to a pulsed magnetic field was investigated. In all tests the
capacitor bank was charged to 6kJ of energy. A Photon Doppler Velocimetry (PDV)
system was used to measure velocity or displacement of the CNT ply during the
experiments. The resistance of the CNT ply was measured using four-point probe
technique before and after the experiments. Preliminary results show that the
single CNT plies do not permanently deform in response to the pulsed magnetic
fields. However, they can be displaced, either by themselves a small amount
(0.6mm) or by a large amount using a driver material. Also, the resistance of
the CNT plies may increase or decrease depends on the lay-out (i.e., yarn) and
current flow directions.


title: The Cosmological Memory Effect

abstract:
  The "memory effect" is the permanent change in the relative separation of
test particles resulting from the passage of gravitational radiation. We
investigate the memory effect for a general, spatially flat FLRW cosmology by
considering the radiation associated with emission events involving
particle-like sources. We find that if the resulting perturbation is decomposed
into scalar, vector, and tensor parts, only the tensor part contributes to
memory. Furthermore, the tensor contribution to memory depends only on the
cosmological scale factor at the source and observation events, not on the
detailed expansion history of the universe. In particular, for sources at the
same luminosity distance, the memory effect in a spatially flat FLRW spacetime
is enhanced over the Minkowski case by a factor of $(1 + z)$.


title: Magnetar Outbursts from Avalanches of Hall Waves and Crustal Failures

abstract:
  We explore the interaction between Hall waves and mechanical failures inside
a magnetar crust, using detailed one-dimentional models that consider
temperature-sensitive plastic flow, heat transport and cooling by neutrino
emission, as well as the coupling of the crustal motion to the magnetosphere.
We find that the dynamics is enriched and accelerated by the fast,
short-wavelength Hall waves that are emitted by each failure. The waves
propagate and cause failures elsewhere, triggering avalanches. We argue that
these avalanches are the likely sources of outbursts in transient magnetars.


title:
Using instrumental variables to disentangle treatment and placebo
  effects in blinded and unblinded randomized clinical trials influenced by
  unmeasured confounders

abstract:
  Clinical trials traditionally employ blinding as a design mechanism to reduce
the influence of placebo effects. In practice, however, it can be difficult or
impossible to blind study participants and unblinded trials are common in
medical research. Here we show how instrumental variables can be used to
quantify and disentangle treatment and placebo effects in randomized clinical
trials comparing control and active treatments in the presence of confounders.
The key idea is to use randomization to separately manipulate treatment
assignment and psychological encouragement messages that increase the
participants' desire for improved symptoms. The proposed approach is able to
improve the estimation of treatment effects in blinded studies and, most
importantly, opens the doors to account for placebo effects in unblinded
trials.


title: Plasmon polaritons in cubic lattices of spherical metallic nanoparticles

abstract:
  We theoretically investigate plasmon polaritons in cubic lattices of
spherical metallic nanoparticles. The nanoparticles, each supporting
triply-degenerate localized surface plasmons, couple through the Coulomb
dipole-dipole interaction, giving rise to collective plasmons that extend over
the whole metamaterial. The latter hybridize with photons forming plasmon
polaritons, which are the hybrid light-matter eigenmodes of the system. We
derive general analytical expressions to evaluate both plasmon and
plasmon-polariton dispersions, and the corresponding eigenstates. These are
obtained within a Hamiltonian formalism, which takes into account retardation
effects in the dipolar interaction between the nanoparticles and considers the
dielectric properties of the nanoparticles as well as their surrounding. Within
this model we predict polaritonic splittings in the near-infrared to the
visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum that depend on polarization,
lattice symmetry and wavevector direction. Finally, we show that the
predictions of our model are in excellent quantitative agreement with
conventional finite-difference frequency-domain simulations, but with the
advantages of analytical insight and significantly reduced computational cost.


title:
Dark matter substructure modelling and sensitivity of the Cherenkov
  Telescope Array to Galactic dark halos

abstract:
  Hierarchical structure formation leads to a clumpy distribution of dark
matter in the Milky Way. These clumps are possible targets to search for dark
matter annihilation with present and future $\gamma$-ray instruments. Many
uncertainties exist on the clump distribution, leading to disputed conclusions
about the expected number of detectable clumps and the ensuing limits that can
be obtained from non-detection. In this paper, we use the CLUMPY code to
simulate thousands of skymaps for several clump distributions. This allows us
to statistically assess the typical properties (mass, distance, angular size,
luminosity) of the detectable clumps. Varying parameters of the clump
distributions allows us to identify the key quantities to which the number of
detectable clumps is the most sensitive. Focusing our analysis on two extreme
clump configurations, yet consistent with results from numerical simulations,
we revisit and compare various calculations made for the Fermi-LAT instrument,
in terms of number of dark clumps expected and the angular power spectrum for
the Galactic signal. We then focus on the prospects of detecting dark clumps
with the future CTA instrument, for which we make a detailed sensitivity
analysis using open-source CTA software. Based on a realistic scenario for the
foreseen CTA extragalactic survey, and accounting for a post-trial sensitivity
in the survey, we show that we obtain competitive and complementary limits to
those based on long observation of a single bright dwarf spheroidal galaxy.


title:
A Maximum Principle for hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with an
  Ideal Contact at Infinity and Bounded Mean Curvature

abstract:
  We will generalize a Maximum Principle at Infinity in the parabolic case
given by De Lima [Ann. Global Anal. Geom. ${\bf 20}$, 325-343 2001] and De Lima
and Meeks [Indiana Univ. Math. Journal ${\bf 53}$ 5, 1211-1223 2004], for
disjoints hypersurfaces of $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with bounded mean curvature
without restrictions on the Gaussian curvature. We will also extend for
hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ a generalization of Hopf's Maximum
Principle for hypersurfaces that get close asymptotically.


title:
Gender differences in altruism: Expectations, actual behaviour and
  accuracy of beliefs

abstract:
  Previous research shows that women are more altruist than men in dictator
game experiments. Yet, little is known whether women are expected to be more
altruist than men. Here we elicit third-parties' beliefs about dictators'
donations conditional on knowing the gender of the dictator. Our data provide
evidence of three main findings: (i) women are expected to be more altruist
than men; (ii) both men and women have correct beliefs about the level of
altruism among men; and (iii) both men and women overestimate the level of
altruism among women. In doing so, our results uncover a perception gap
according to which, although women are more altruist than men, they are
expected to be even more altruist than they actually are.


title:
Searching the Gamma-ray Sky for Counterparts to Gravitational Wave
  Sources: Fermi GBM and LAT Observations of LVT151012 and GW151226

abstract:
  We present the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope
(LAT) observations of the LIGO binary black hole merger event GW151226 and
candi- date LVT151012. No candidate electromagnetic counterparts were detected
by either the GBM or LAT. We present a detailed analysis of the GBM and LAT
data over a range of timescales from seconds to years, using automated
pipelines and new techniques for char- acterizing the upper limits across a
large area of the sky. Due to the partial GBM and LAT coverage of the large
LIGO localization regions at the trigger times for both events, dif- ferences
in source distances and masses, as well as the uncertain degree to which
emission from these sources could be beamed, these non-detections cannot be
used to constrain the variety of theoretical models recently applied to explain
the candidate GBM counterpart to GW150914.


title: Jet activity as a probe of high-mass resonance production

abstract:
  We explore the method of using the measured jet activity associated with a
high mass resonance state to determine the corresponding production modes. To
demonstrate the potential of the approach, we consider the case of a resonance
of mass $M_R$ decaying to a diphoton final state. We perform a Monte Carlo
study, considering three mass points $M_R=0.75,\,1.5\,,2.5$ TeV, and show that
the $\gamma\gamma$, $WW$, $gg$ and light and heavy $q\overline{q}$ initiated
cases lead to distinct predictions for the jet multiplicity distributions. As
an example, we apply this result to the ATLAS search for resonances in diphoton
events, using the 2015 data set of $3.2\,{\rm fb}^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV.
Taking the spin-0 selection, we demonstrate that a dominantly $gg$-initiated
signal hypothesis is mildly disfavoured, while the $\gamma\gamma$ and light
quark cases give good descriptions within the limited statistics, and a
dominantly $WW$-initiated hypothesis is found to be in strong tension with the
data. We also comment on the $b\overline{b}$ initial state, which can already
be constrained by the measured $b$-jet multiplicity. Finally, we present
expected exclusion limits with integrated luminosity, and demonstrate that with
just a few 10's of ${\rm fb}^{-1}$ we can expect to constrain the production
modes of such a resonance.


title: The winter day as a constraint for human activity in Western Europe

abstract:
  Time use surveys in Denmark, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy and United Kingdom
are analyzed to provide start, noon and end times for the main activities of a
society: labor (the focus of this preprint), sleeping and eating. Also, the
location at home is analyzed. Local times are converted into mean solar times
and compared to latitude. Observed trends allow to unveil the winter day as a
restriction for the human activity. Alternatively, apparently large time
differences set forth by clocks, becomes smaller when observed as a time
distance to winter sunrise or sunset.


title: Topological Magnon Bands in Ferromagnetic Star Lattice

abstract:
  The experimental observation of topological magnon bands and thermal Hall
effect in a kagom\'e lattice ferromagnet Cu(1-3, bdc) has inspired the search
for topological magnon effects in various insulating ferromagnets that lack an
inversion center allowing a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) spin-orbit interaction.
The star lattice (also known as the decorated honeycomb lattice) ferromagnets
is an ideal candidate for this purpose because it is a variant of the kagom\'e
lattice with additional links that connect the up-pointing and down-pointing
triangles. This gives rise to twice the unit cell of the kagom\'e lattice,
hence a more interesting topological magnon effects. In particular, the
triangular bridges on the star lattice can be coupled either ferromagnetically
or antiferromagnetically which is not possible on the kagome lattice
ferromagnets. Here, we study DM-induced topological magnon bands, chiral edge
modes, and thermal magnon Hall effect on the star lattice ferromagnet in
different parameter regimes. The star lattice can also be visualized as the
parent material from which topological magnon bands can be realized for the
kagom\'e and honeycomb lattices in some limiting cases.


title:
Fermi Large Area Telescope Detection of Extended Gamma-Ray Emission from
  the Radio Galaxy Fornax A

abstract:
  We report the Fermi Large Area Telescope detection of extended gamma-ray
emission from the lobes of the radio galaxy Fornax A using 6.1 years of Pass 8
data. After Centaurus A, this is now the second example of an extended
gamma-ray source attributed to a radio galaxy. Both an extended flat disk
morphology and a morphology following the extended radio lobes were preferred
over a point-source description, and the core contribution was constrained to
be < 14% of the total gamma-ray flux. A preferred alignment of the gamma-ray
elongation with the radio lobes was demonstrated by rotating the radio lobes
template. We found no significant evidence for variability on ~0.5 year
timescales. Taken together, these results strongly suggest a lobe origin for
the gamma rays. With the extended nature of the > 100 MeV gamma-ray emission
established, we model the source broadband emission considering currently
available total lobe radio and millimeter flux measurements, as well as X-ray
detections attributed to inverse Compton (IC) emission off the cosmic microwave
background (CMB). Unlike the Centaurus A case, we find that a leptonic model
involving IC scattering of CMB and extragalactic background light (EBL) photons
underpredicts the gamma-ray fluxes by factors of about ~ 2 - 3, depending on
the EBL model adopted. An additional gamma-ray spectral component is thus
required, and could be due to hadronic emission arising from proton-proton
collisions of cosmic rays with thermal plasma within the radio lobes.


title: Global adiabaticity and non-Gaussianity consistency condition

abstract:
  In the context of single-field inflation, the conservation of the curvature
perturbation on comoving slices, $\R_c$, on super-horizon scales is one of the
assumptions necessary to derive the consistency condition between the squeezed
limit of the bispectrum and the spectrum of the primordial curvature
perturbation. However, the conservation of $\R_c$ holds only after the
perturbation has reached the adiabatic limit where the constant mode of $\R_c$
dominates over the other (usually decaying) mode. In this case, the
non-adiabatic pressure perturbation defined in the thermodynamic sense, $\delta
P_{nad}\equiv\delta P-c_w^2\delta\rho$ where $c_w^2=\dot P/\dot\rho$, usually
becomes also negligible on superhorizon scales. Therefore one might think that
the adiabatic limit is the same as thermodynamic adiabaticity. This is in fact
not true. In other words, thermodynamic adiabaticity is not a sufficient
condition for the conservation of $\R_c$ on super-horizon scales. In this
paper, we consider models that satisfy $\delta P_{nad}=0$ on all scales, which
we call global adiabaticity (GA), which is guaranteed if $c_w^2=c_s^2$, where
$c_s$ is the phase velocity of the propagation of the perturbation. A known
example is the case of ultra-slow-roll(USR) inflation in which $c_w^2=c_s^2=1$.
In order to generalize USR we develop a method to find the Lagrangian of GA
K-inflation models from the behavior of background quantities as functions of
the scale factor. Applying this method we show that there indeed exists a wide
class of GA models with $c_w^2=c_s^2$, which allows $\R_c$ to grow on
superhorizon scales, and hence violates the non-Gaussianity consistency
condition.


title:
Does the truth come naturally? Time pressure increases honesty in
  one-shot deception games

abstract:
  Many situations require people to act quickly and are characterized by
asymmetric information. Since asymmetric information makes people tempted to
misreport their private information for their own benefit, it is of primary
importance to understand whether time pressure affects honest behavior. A
theory of social heuristics (the Social Heuristics Hypothesis, SHH), predicts
that, in case of one-shot interactions, such an effect exists and it is
positive. The SHH proposes that when people have no time to evaluate all
available alternatives, they tend to rely on heuristics, choices that are
optimal in everyday, repeated interactions and that have been internalized over
time; and then, after deliberation, people shift their behavior towards the one
that is optimal in the given interaction. Thus, the SHH predicts that time
pressure increases honesty in one-shot interactions (because honesty may be
optimal in repeated interactions, while dishonesty is always optimal in the
short run). However, to the best of our knowledge, no experimental studies have
tested this prediction. Here, I report a large (N=1,013) study aimed at filling
this gap. In this study, participants were given a private information and were
asked to report it within 5 seconds vs after 30 seconds. The interaction was
one-shot, and payoffs were such that subjects had an incentive to lie. As
predicted by the SHH, I find that time pressure increases honest behavior. In
doing so, these results provide new insights on the role of time pressure on
honesty, and provide one more piece of evidence in support of the Social
Heuristics Hypothesis.


title: Limits of stability in supported graphene nanoribbons subject to bending

abstract:
  Graphene nanoribbons are prone to in-plane bending even when supported on
flat substrates. However, the amount of bending that ribbons can stably
withstand remains poorly known. Here, by using molecular dynamics simulations,
we study the stability limits of 0.5-1.9 nm wide armchair and zigzag graphene
nanoribbons subject to bending. We observe that the limits for maximum stable
curvatures are below ~10 deg/nm, in case the bending is externally forced and
the limit is caused by buckling instability. Furthermore, it turns out that the
limits for maximum stable curvatures are also below ~10 deg/nm, in case the
bending is not forced and the limit arises only from the corrugated potential
energy landscape due to the substrate. Both of the stability limits lower
rapidly when ribbons widen. These results agree with recent experiments and can
be understood by means of transparent elasticity models.


title:
On algorithmization of Janashia-Lagvilava matrix spectral factorization
  method

abstract:
  We consider three different ways of algorithmization of the
Janashia-Lagvilava spectral factorization method. The first algorithm is faster
than the second one, however, it is only suitable for matrices of low
dimension. The second algorithm, on the other hand, can be applied to matrices
of substantially larger dimension. The third algorithm is a superfast
implementation of the method, but only works in the polynomial case under the
additional restriction that the zeros of the determinant are not too close to
the boundary. All three algorithms fully utilize the advantage of the method
which carries out spectral factorization of leading principal submatrices
step-by-step. The corresponding results of numerical simulations are reported
in order to describe the characteristic features of each algorithm and compare
them to other existing algorithms.


title: Reversible part of a quantum dynamical system

abstract:
  In this work a quantum dynamical system $(\mathfrak M,\Phi, \varphi)$ is
constituted by a von Neumann algebra $\mathfrak M$, by a unital Schwartz map
$\Phi:\mathfrak{M\rightarrow M}$ and by a $\Phi$-invariant normal faithful
state $\varphi$ on $\mathfrak M$. The ergodic properties of a quantum dynamical
system, depends on its reversible part $(\mathfrak{D}_\infty,\Phi_\infty,
\varphi_\infty)$. It is constituted by a von Neumann sub-algebra
$\mathfrak{D}_\infty$ of $\mathfrak M$ by an automorphism $\Phi_\infty$ and a
normal state $\varphi_\infty$, the restrictions of $\Phi$ and $\varphi$ on
$\mathfrak{D}_\infty$ respectively. Moreover, if $\mathfrak{D}_\infty$ is a
trivial algebra the quantum dynamical system is ergodic. Furthermore we will
give some properties of the reversible part of quantum dynamical system, in
particular, we will study its relationships with the canonical decomposition of
Nagy-Fojas of linear contraction related to the quantum dynamical system.


title: Nonequilibrium Tuning of the Thermal Casimir Effect

abstract:
  In net-neutral systems correlations between charge fluctuations generate
strong attractive thermal Casimir forces and engineering these forces to
optimize nanodevice performance is an important challenge. We show how the
normal and lateral thermal Casimir forces between two plates containing
Brownian charges can be modulated by decorrelating the system through the
application of an electric field, which generates a nonequilibrium steady state
with a constant current in one or both plates, reducing the ensuing
fluctuation-generated normal force while at the same time generating a lateral
drag force. This hypothesis is confirmed by detailed numerical simulations as
well as an analytical approach based on stochastic density functional theory.

categories: cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.soft physics.chem-ph


title:
Wellposedness and regularity of steady-state two-sided
  variable-coefficient conservative space-fractional diffusion equations

abstract:
  We study the Dirichlet boundary-value problem of steady-state two-sided
variable-coefficient conservative space-fractional diffusion equations. We show
that the Galerkin weak formulation, which was proved to be coercive and
continuous for a constant-coefficient analogue of the problem, loses its
coercivity. We characterize the solution to the variable-coefficient problem in
terms of the solutions of second-order diffusion equations along with a
two-sided fractional integral equation. We then derive a Petrov-Galerkin
formulation for this problem and prove that the weak formulation is weakly
coercive and so the problem is well posed. We then prove high-order regularity
estimates of the true solution in a properly chosen norm of Riemann-Liouville
derivatives.


title:
Analytic solutions for links and triangles distributions in finite
  Barab\'asi-Albert networks

abstract:
  Barab\'asi-Albert model describes many different natural networks, often
yielding sensible explanations to the subjacent dynamics. However, finite size
effects may prevent from discerning among different underlying physical
mechanisms and from determining whether a particular finite system is driven by
Barab\'asi-Albert dynamics. Here we propose master equations for the evolution
of the degrees, links and triangles distributions, solve them both analytically
and by numerical iteration, and compare with numerical simulations. The
analytic solutions for all these distributions predict the network evolution
for systems as small as 100 nodes. The analytic method we developed is
applicable for other classes of networks, representing a powerful tool to
investigate the evolution of natural networks.


title:
Suppression of lattice thermal conductivity by mass-conserving cation
  mutation in multi-component semiconductors

abstract:
  In semiconductors almost all heat is conducted by phonons (lattice
vibrations), which is limited by their quasi-particle lifetimes. Phonon-phonon
interactions represent scattering mechanisms that produce thermal resistance.
In thermoelectric materials, this resistance due to anharmonicity should be
maximised for optimal performance. We use a first-principles lattice-dynamics
approach to explore the changes in lattice dynamics across an isostructural
series where the average atomic mass is conserved: ZnS to CuGaS$_2$ to
Cu$_2$ZnGeS$_4$. Our results demonstrate an enhancement of phonon interactions
in the multernary materials, and confirm that lattice thermal conductivity can
be controlled independently of the average mass and local coordination
environments.


title:
Presupernova neutrino events relating to the final evolution of massive
  stars

abstract:
  When a supernova explosion occurs in neighbors around hundreds pc, current
and future neutrino detectors are expected to observe neutrinos from the
presupernova star before the explosion. We show a possibility for obtaining the
evidence for burning processes in the central region of presupernova stars
though the observations of neutrino signals by current and future neutrino
detectors such as KamLAND, JUNO, and Hyper-Kamiokande. We also investigate
supernova alarms using neutrinos from presupernova stars in neighbors. If a
supernova explodes at ~ 200 pc, future 20 kton size liquid scintillation
detectors are expected to observe hundreds neutrino events. We also propose a
possibility of the detection of neutrino events by Gd-loaded Hyper-Kamiokande
using delayed $\gamma$-ray signals. These detectors could observe detailed time
variation of neutrino events. The neutrino emission rate increases by the core
contraction in the final evolution stage. However, the O and Si shell burnings
suppress the neutrino emission for a moment. The observed decrease in the
neutrino event rate before hours to the explosion is possibly evidence for the
shell burnings. The observations of detailed time evolution of presupernova
neutrino events could reveal properties of burning processes in the central
region of presupernova stars.


title: Giant amplification of noise in fluctuation-induced pattern formation

abstract:
  The amplitude of fluctuation-induced patterns might be expected to be
proportional to the strength of the driving noise, suggesting that such
patterns would be difficult to observe in nature. Here, we show that a large
class of spatially-extended dynamical systems driven by intrinsic noise can
exhibit giant amplification, yielding patterns whose amplitude is comparable to
that of deterministic Turing instabilities. The giant amplification results
from the interplay between noise and non-orthogonal eigenvectors of the linear
stability matrix, yielding transients that grow with time, and which, when
driven by the ever-present intrinsic noise, lead to persistent large amplitude
patterns. This mechanism provides a robust basis for fluctuation-induced
biological pattern formation based on the Turing mechanism, without requiring
fine tuning of diffusion constants.

categories: cond-mat.stat-mech nlin.AO nlin.PS q-bio.PE


title: Performance studies of MRPC prototypes for CBM

abstract:
  Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs) with multi-strip readout are
considered to be the optimal detector candidate for the Time-of-Flight (ToF)
wall in the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment. In the R&D phase MRPCs
with different granularities, low-resistive materials and high voltage stack
configurations were developed and tested. Here, we focus on two prototypes
called HD-P2 and THU-strip, both with strips of 27 cm$^2$ length and
low-resistive glass electrodes. The HD-P2 prototype has a single-stack
configuration with 8 gaps while the THU-strip prototype is constructed in a
double-stack configuration with 2 $\times$ 4 gaps. The performance results of
these counters in terms of efficiency and time resolution carried out in a test
beam time with heavy-ion beam at GSI in 2014 are presented in this proceeding.


title: Spherical Accretion of Matter by Charged Black Holes on f(T) Gravity

abstract:
  We studied the spherical accretion of matter by charged black holes on $f(T)$
Gravity. Considering the accretion model of a isentropic perfect fluid we
obtain the general form of the Hamiltonian and the dynamic system for the
fluid. We have analysed the movements of an isothermal fluid model with
$p=\omega e$ and where $p$ is the pressure and $e$ the total energy density.
The analysis of the cases shows the possibility of spherical accretion of fluid
by black holes, revealing new phenomena as cyclical movement inside the event
horizon.


title:
Laptop-assisted Helium Liquefier: software for tailored monitoring and
  control

abstract:
  Computer running human machine interfaces are fast supplanting conventional
hardware dedicated to monitoring and supervising tasks. This kind of approach
was successfully employed to develop a new monitoring and control software,
running on a conventional laptop computer, for a small size helium liquefier.
This software was realized with a SCADA development package and hallowed to
manage all the liquefier functionalities. Being conceived as an open structure
suitable for further upgrades, this liquefier HMI can be tailored on demand to
satisfy specific needs of the end-user, even if not provided by the original
manufacturer project.


title: Particle models with self sustained current

abstract:
  We present some computer simulations run on a stochastic CA (cellular
automaton). The CA simulates a gas of particles which are in a channel, the
interval $[1,L]$ in $\mathbb Z$, but also in "reservoirs" $\mathcal R_1$ and
$\mathcal R_2$. The evolution in the channel simulates a lattice gas with
Kawasaki dynamics with attractive Kac interactions, the temperature is chosen
smaller than the mean field critical one. There are also exchanges of particles
between the channel and the reservoirs and among reservoirs. When the rate of
exchanges among reservoirs is in a suitable interval the CA reaches an
apparently stationary state with a non zero current, for different choices of
the initial condition the current changes sign. We have a quite satisfactory
theory of the phenomenon but we miss a full mathematical proof.


title:
Stability of mass transfer from massive giants: double black-hole binary
  formation and ultra-luminous X-ray sources

abstract:
  The mass transfer in binaries with massive donors and compact companions,
when the donors rapidly evolve after their main sequence, is one of the
dominant formation channels of merging double stellar-mass black hole binaries.
This mass transfer was previously postulated to be unstable and was expected to
lead to a common envelope event. The common envelope event then would end with
either double black hole formation, or with the merger of the two stars. We
re-visit the stability of this mass transfer, and find that for a large range
of the binary orbital separations this mass transfer is stable. This newly
found stability allows us to reconcile the theoretical rate for double black
hole binary mergers predicted by population synthesis studies, and the
empirical rate obtained by LIGO. Futhermore, the stability of the mass transfer
leads to the formation of ultra-luminous X-ray sources. The theoretically
predicted formation rates of ultra-luminous X-ray sources powered by a
stellar-mass BH, as well as the range of produced X-ray luminosity, can explain
the observed bright ultra-luminous X-ray sources.


title:
Common envelope events with low-mass giants: understanding the energy
  budget

abstract:
  Common envelope events are important interactions between two binary stars
that lead to the formation of close binary systems. We present here a
systematic three-dimensional study in which we model common envelope events
with low-mass giant donors. The results allow us to revise the energy formalism
that is usually used to determine common envelope event outcomes. We show that
the energy budget for this type of system should include the recombination
energy, and that it also must take into account that a significant fraction of
the released orbital energy is taken away by the ejecta. We provide three ways
in which our results can be used by binary population synthesis studies: a
relation that links the observed post-common envelope binary with the initial
binary parameters, a fitting formula for the $\alpha_{\rm ce}\lambda$ parameter
of the standard energy formalism, and a revised energy formalism that takes
into account both the recombination energy and the energy that is taken away by
the ejecta.


title:
Common envelope events with low-mass giants: understanding the
  transition to the slow spiral-in

abstract:
  We present a three-dimensional (3D) study of common envelope events (CEEs) to
provide a foundation for future one-dimensional (1D) methods to model the
self-regulated phase of a CEE. The considered CEEs with a low-mass red giant
end with one of three different outcomes -- merger, slow spiral-in, or prompt
formation of a binary. To understand which physical processes determine
different outcomes, and to evaluate how well 1D simulations model the
self-regulated phase of a CEE, we introduce tools that map our 3D models to 1D
profiles. We discuss the differences in the angular momentum and energy
redistribution in 1D and 3D codes. We identified four types of ejection
processes: the pre-plunge-in ejection, the outflow during the plunge-in, the
outflow driven by recombination, and the ejection triggered by a contraction of
the circumbinary envelope. Significant mass is lost in all cases, including the
mergers. Therefore a self-regulated spiral-in can start only with a strongly
reduced envelope mass. We derive the condition to start a recombination
outflow, which can proceed either as a runaway or a stationary outflow. We show
that the way the energy of the inspiraling companion is added to the envelope
in 1D studies intensifies the envelope's entropy increase, alters the start of
the recombination outflow, and leads to different outcomes in 1D and 3D
studies. The steady recombination outflow may dispel most of the envelope in
all slow spiral-in cases, making the existence of a long-term self-regulated
phase debatable, at least for low-mass giant donors.


title:
From Frazier-Jawerth characterizations of Besov spaces to Wavelets and
  Decomposition spaces

abstract:
  This article describes how the ideas promoted by the fundamental papers
published by M. Frazier and B. Jawerth in the eighties have influenced
subsequent developments related to the theory of atomic decompositions and
Banach frames for function spaces such as the modulation spaces and
Besov-Triebel-Lizorkin spaces.
  Both of these classes of spaces arise as special cases of two different,
general constructions of function spaces: coorbit spaces and decomposition
spaces. Coorbit spaces are defined by imposing certain decay conditions on the
so-called voice transform of the function/distribution under consideration. As
a concrete example, one might think of the wavelet transform, leading to the
theory of Besov-Triebel-Lizorkin spaces.
  Decomposition spaces, on the other hand, are defined using certain
decompositions in the Fourier domain. For Besov-Triebel-Lizorkin spaces, one
uses a dyadic decomposition, while a uniform decomposition yields modulation
spaces.
  Only recently, the second author has established a fruitful connection
between modern variants of wavelet theory with respect to general dilation
groups (which can be treated in the context of coorbit theory) and a particular
family of decomposition spaces. In this way, optimal inclusion results and
invariance properties for a variety of smoothness spaces can be established. We
will present an outline of these connections and comment on the basic results
arising in this context.


title:
The distribution of minimum-weight cliques and other subgraphs in graphs
  with random edge weights

abstract:
  We determine, asymptotically in $n$, the distribution and mean of the weight
of a minimum-weight $k$-clique (or any strictly balanced graph $H$) in a
complete graph $K_n$ whose edge weights are independent random values drawn
from the uniform distribution or other continuous distributions. For the
clique, we also provide explicit (non-asymptotic) bounds on the distribution's
CDF in a form obtained directly from the Stein-Chen method, and in a looser but
simpler form. The direct form extends to other subgraphs and other edge-weight
distributions. We illustrate the clique results for various values of $k$ and
$n$. The results may be applied to evaluate whether an observed minimum-weight
copy of a graph $H$ in a network provides statistical evidence that the
network's edge weights are not independently distributed but have some
structure.


title:
Towards Geometric D6-Brane Model Building on non-Factorisable Toroidal
  $\mathbb{Z}_4$-Orbifolds

abstract:
  We present a geometric approach to D-brane model building on the
non-factorisable torus backgrounds of $T^6/\mathbb{Z}_4$, which are $A_3 \times
A_3$ and $A_3 \times A_1 \times B_2$. Based on the counting of `short'
supersymmetric three-cycles per complex structure {\it vev}, the number of
physically inequivalent lattice orientations with respect to the
anti-holomorphic involution ${\cal R}$ of the Type IIA/$\Omega\cal{R}$
orientifold can be reduced to three for the $A_3 \times A_3$ lattice and four
for the $A_3 \times A_1 \times B_2$ lattice. While four independent
three-cycles on $A_3 \times A_3$ cannot accommodate phenomenologically
interesting global models with a chiral spectrum, the eight-dimensional space
of three-cycles on $A_3 \times A_1 \times B_2$ is rich enough to provide for
particle physics models, with several globally consistent two- and
four-generation Pati-Salam models presented here.
  We further show that for fractional {\it sLag} three-cycles, the compact
geometry can be rewritten in a $(T^2)^3$ factorised form, paving the way for a
generalisation of known CFT methods to determine the vector-like spectrum and
to derive the low-energy effective action for open string states.


title:
Quantum phase transitions in a generalized compass chain with three-site
  interactions

abstract:
  We consider a class of one-dimensional compass models with XYZ$-$YZX-type of
three-site exchange interaction in an external magnetic field. We present the
exact solution derived by means of Jordan-Wigner transformation, and study the
excitation gap, spin correlations, and establish the phase diagram. Besides the
canted antiferromagnetic and polarized phases, the three-site interactions
induce two distinct chiral phases, corresponding to gapless spinless-fermion
systems having two or four Fermi points. We find that the $z$ component of
scalar chirality operator can act as an order parameter for these chiral
phases. We also find that the thermodynamic quantities including the Wilson
ratio can characterize the liquid phases. Finally, a nontrivial magnetoelectric
effect is explored, and we show that the polarization can be manipulated by the
magnetic field in the absence of electric field.


title: Locality based Core Selection for Multicore Shared Tree Multicasting

abstract:
  Multicasting can be done in two different ways: source based tree approach
and shared tree approach. Protocols such as Core Based Tree (CBT), Protocol
Independent Multicasting Sparse Mode (PIM-SM) use shared tree approach. Shared
tree approach is preferred over source-based tree approach because in the later
construction of minimum cost tree per source is needed unlike a single shared
tree in the former approach. In this paper, we present a candidate core
selection approach for shared tree multicasting so that in a multicast session
different senders can select different cores from the candidate core set based
on the senders' physical locations to allow an efficient multicore multicasting
approach.


title:
Designing a Human-Machine Hybrid Computing System for Unstructured Data
  Analytics

abstract:
  Current machine algorithms for analysis of unstructured data typically show
low accuracies due to the need for human-like intelligence. Conversely, though
humans are much better than machine algorithms on analyzing unstructured data,
they are unpredictable, slower and can be erroneous or even malicious as
computing agents. Therefore, a hybrid platform that can intelligently
orchestrate machine and human computing resources would potentially be capable
of providing significantly better benefits compared to either type of computing
agent in isolation. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid human-machine
computing platform with integrated service level objectives (SLO) management
for complex tasks that can be decomposed into a dependency graph where nodes
represent subtasks. Initial experimental results are highly encouraging. To the
best of our knowledge, ours is the first work that attempts to design such a
hybrid human-machine computing platform with support for addressing the three
SLO parameters of accuracy, budget and completion time.


title: Deep Learning for Music

abstract:
  Our goal is to be able to build a generative model from a deep neural network
architecture to try to create music that has both harmony and melody and is
passable as music composed by humans. Previous work in music generation has
mainly been focused on creating a single melody. More recent work on polyphonic
music modeling, centered around time series probability density estimation, has
met some partial success. In particular, there has been a lot of work based off
of Recurrent Neural Networks combined with Restricted Boltzmann Machines
(RNN-RBM) and other similar recurrent energy based models. Our approach,
however, is to perform end-to-end learning and generation with deep neural nets
alone.


title: Improved limit on the $^{225}$Ra electric dipole moment

abstract:
  Background: Octupole-deformed nuclei, such as that of $^{225}$Ra, are
expected to amplify observable atomic electric dipole moments (EDMs) that arise
from time-reversal and parity-violating interactions in the nuclear medium. In
2015, we reported the first "proof-of-principle" measurement of the $^{225}$Ra
atomic EDM. Purpose: This work reports on the first of several experimental
upgrades to improve the statistical sensitivity of our $^{225}$Ra EDM
measurements by orders of magnitude and evaluates systematic effects that
contribute to current and future levels of experimental sensitivity. Method:
Laser-cooled and trapped $^{225}$Ra atoms are held between two high voltage
electrodes in an ultra high vacuum chamber at the center of a magnetically
shielded environment. We observe Larmor precession in a uniform magnetic field
using nuclear-spin-dependent laser light scattering and look for a phase shift
proportional to the applied electric field, which indicates the existence of an
EDM. The main improvement to our measurement technique is an order of magnitude
increase in spin precession time, which is enabled by an improved vacuum system
and a reduction in trap-induced heating. Results: We have measured the
$^{225}$Ra atomic EDM to be less than $1.4\times10^{-23}$ $e$ cm (95%
confidence upper limit), which is a factor of 36 improvement over our previous
result. Conclusions: Our evaluation of systematic effects shows that this
measurement is completely limited by statistical uncertainty. Combining this
measurement technique with planned experimental upgrades we project a
statistical sensitivity at the $1\times10^{-28}$ $e$ cm level and a total
systematic uncertainty at the $4\times10^{-29}$ $e$ cm level.


title:
Geodesic completeness and the lack of strong singularities in effective
  loop quantum Kantowski-Sachs spacetime

abstract:
  Resolution of singularities in the Kantowski-Sachs model due to
non-perturbative quantum gravity effects is investigated. Using the effective
spacetime description for the improved dynamics version of loop quantum
Kantowski-Sachs spacetimes, we show that even though expansion and shear
scalars are universally bounded, there can exist events where curvature
invariants can diverge. However, such events can occur only for very exotic
equations of state when pressure or derivatives of energy density with respect
to triads become infinite at a finite energy density. In all other cases
curvature invariants are proved to remain finite for any evolution in finite
proper time. We find the novel result that all strong singularities are
resolved for arbitrary matter. Weak singularities pertaining to above potential
curvature divergence events can exist. The effective spacetime is found to be
geodesically complete for particle and null geodesics in finite time evolution.
Our results add to a growing evidence for generic resolution of strong
singularities using effective dynamics in loop quantum cosmology by
generalizing earlier results on isotropic and Bianchi-I spacetimes.


title:
Rapid, Robust, and Reliable Blind Deconvolution via Nonconvex
  Optimization

abstract:
  We study the question of reconstructing two signals $f$ and $g$ from their
convolution $y = f\ast g$. This problem, known as {\em blind deconvolution},
pervades many areas of science and technology, including astronomy, medical
imaging, optics, and wireless communications. A key challenge of this intricate
non-convex optimization problem is that it might exhibit many local minima. We
present an efficient numerical algorithm that is guaranteed to recover the
exact solution, when the number of measurements is (up to log-factors) slightly
larger than the information-theoretical minimum, and under reasonable
conditions on $f$ and $g$. The proposed regularized gradient descent algorithm
converges at a geometric rate and is provably robust in the presence of noise.
To the best of our knowledge, our algorithm is the first blind deconvolution
algorithm that is numerically efficient, robust against noise, and comes with
rigorous recovery guarantees under certain subspace conditions. Moreover,
numerical experiments do not only provide empirical verification of our theory,
but they also demonstrate that our method yields excellent performance even in
situations beyond our theoretical framework.


title: Improving Variational Inference with Inverse Autoregressive Flow

abstract:
  The framework of normalizing flows provides a general strategy for flexible
variational inference of posteriors over latent variables. We propose a new
type of normalizing flow, inverse autoregressive flow (IAF), that, in contrast
to earlier published flows, scales well to high-dimensional latent spaces. The
proposed flow consists of a chain of invertible transformations, where each
transformation is based on an autoregressive neural network. In experiments, we
show that IAF significantly improves upon diagonal Gaussian approximate
posteriors. In addition, we demonstrate that a novel type of variational
autoencoder, coupled with IAF, is competitive with neural autoregressive models
in terms of attained log-likelihood on natural images, while allowing
significantly faster synthesis.


title:
A New Energy Efficient MAC Protocol based on Redundant Radix for
  Wireless Networks

abstract:
  In this paper, we first propose a redundant radix based number (RBN)
representation for encoding the data to be transmitted in a wireless network.
This RBN encoding uses three possible values - 0, 1 and $\bar 1$, for each
digit to be transmitted. We then propose to use silent periods (zero energy
transmission) for transmitting the 0's in the RBN encoded data thus obtained.
This is in contrast to most conventional communication strategies that utilize
energy based transmission (EbT) schemes, where energy expenditure occurs for
transmitting both 0 and 1 bit values. The binary to RBN conversion algorithm
presented here offers a significant reduction in the number of non-zero bits in
the resulting RBN encoded data. As a result, it provides a highly
energy-efficient technique for data transmission with silent periods for
transmitting 0's. We simulated our proposed technique with ideal radio device
characteristics and also with parameters of various commercially available
radio devices. Experimental results on various benchmark suites show that with
ideal as well as some commercial device characteristics, our proposed
transmission scheme requires 69% less energy on an average, compared to the
energy based transmission schemes. This makes it very attractive for
application scenarios where the devices are highly energy constrained. Finally,
based on this transmission strategy, we have designed a MAC protocol that would
support the communication of such RBN encoded data frames.


title: Vertical line nodes in the superconducting gap structure of Sr2RuO4

abstract:
  There is strong experimental evidence that the superconductor Sr2RuO4 has a
chiral p-wave order parameter. This symmetry does not require that the
associated gap has nodes, yet specific heat, ultrasound and thermal
conductivity measurements indicate the presence of nodes in the superconducting
gap structure of Sr2RuO4. Theoretical scenarios have been proposed to account
for the existence of accidental nodes or deep accidental minima within a p-wave
state. To elucidate the nodal structure of the gap, it is essential to know
whether the lines of nodes (or minima) are vertical (parallel to the tetragonal
c axis) or horizontal (perpendicular to the c axis). Here, we report thermal
conductivity measurements on single crystals of Sr2RuO4 down to 50 mK for
currents parallel and perpendicular to the c axis. We find that there is
substantial quasiparticle transport in the T = 0 limit for both current
directions. A magnetic field H immediately excites quasiparticles with
velocities both in the basal plane and in the c direction. Our data down to
Tc/30 and down to Hc/100 show no evidence that the nodes are in fact deep
minima. Relative to the normal state, the thermal conductivity of the
superconducting state is found to be very similar for the two current
directions, from H = 0 to H = Hc2. These findings show that the gap structure
of Sr2RuO4 consists of vertical line nodes. Given that the c-axis dispersion
(warping) of the Fermi surface in Sr2RuO4 varies strongly from surface to
surface, the small a-c anisotropy suggests that the line nodes are present on
all three sheets of the Fermi surface. If imposed by symmetry, vertical line
nodes would be inconsistent with a p-wave order parameter for Sr2RuO4. To
reconcile the gap structure revealed by our data with a p-wave state, a
mechanism must be found that produces accidental line nodes in Sr2RuO4.