title: Majorana fermions in charge carrier hole quantum wires

abstract:
  Luttinger holes with strong Zeemann and spin-orbit interactions in a wire
proximity-coupled to a superconductor is a promising system for observation of
Majorana fermions. Earlier treatments of confined Luttinger holes in wires
ignored a mutual transformation of heavy and light holes upon reflection from
the heteroboundaries. This effect is crucial for Zeemann and spin-orbit
coupling in the ground subband of holes with several spin-orbit terms linear in
momentum. We discuss the criterion for realizing Majorana modes in charge
carrier hole systems. GaAs or InSb hole wires shall exhibit stronger
topological superconducting pairing compared to InSb electron systems in
similar or weaker magnetic fields.


title: Conductance Quantization at zero magnetic field in InSb nanowires

abstract:
  Ballistic electron transport is a key requirement for existence of a
topological phase transition in proximitized InSb nanowires. However,
measurements of quantized conductance as direct evidence of ballistic transport
have so far been obscured due to the increased chance of backscattering in one
dimensional nanowires. We show that by improving the nanowire-metal interface
as well as the dielectric environment we can consistently achieve conductance
quantization at zero magnetic field. Additionally, studying the sub-band
evolution in a rotating magnetic field reveals an orbital degeneracy between
the second and third sub-bands for perpendicular fields above 1T.


title: Non-systemic transmission of tick-borne diseases: a network approach

abstract:
  Tick-Borne diseases can be transmitted via non-systemic (NS) transmission.
This occurs when tick gets the infection by co-feeding with infected ticks on
the same host resulting in a direct pathogen transmission between the vectors,
without infecting the host. This transmission is peculiar, as it does not
require any systemic infection of the host. The NS transmission is the main
efficient transmission for the persistence of the Tick-Borne Encephalitis virus
in nature. By describing the heterogeneous ticks aggregation on hosts through a
\hyphenation{dynamical} bipartite graphs representation, we are able to
mathematically define the NS transmission and to depict the epidemiological
conditions for the pathogen persistence. Despite the fact that the underlying
network is largely fragmented, analytical and computational results show that
the larger is the variability of the aggregation, and the easier is for the
pathogen to persist in the population.


title: An explicit Waldspurger formula for Hilbert modular forms

abstract:
  We describe a construction of preimages for the Shimura map on Hilbert
modular forms, and give an explicit Waldspurger type formula relating their
Fourier coefficients to central values of twisted L-functions. Our construction
is inspired by that of Gross and applies to any nontrivial level and arbitrary
base field, subject to certain conditions on the Atkin-Lehner eigenvalues and
on the weight.


title:
Particle-hole symmetry without particle-hole symmetry in the quantum
  Hall effect at {\nu} = 5/2

abstract:
  Numerical results suggest that the quantum Hall effect at {\nu} = 5/2 is
described by the Pfaffian or anti-Pfaffian state in the absence of disorder and
Landau level mixing. Those states are incompatible with the observed transport
properties of GaAs heterostructures, where disorder and Landau level mixing are
strong. We show that the recent proposal of a PH-Pfaffian topological order by
Son is consistent with all experiments. The absence of the particle-hole
symmetry at {\nu} = 5/2 is not an obstacle to the existence of the PH-Pfaffian
order since the order is robust to symmetry breaking.


title: Simulated Quantum Annealing with Two All-to-All Connectivity Schemes

abstract:
  Quantum annealing aims to exploit quantum mechanics to speed up the search
for the solution to optimization problems. Most problems exhibit complete
connectivity between the logical spin variables after they are mapped to the
Ising spin Hamiltonian of quantum annealing. To account for hardware
constraints of current and future physical quantum annealers, methods enabling
the embedding of fully connected graphs of logical spins into a constant-degree
graph of physical spins are therefore essential. Here, we compare the recently
proposed embedding scheme for quantum annealing with all-to-all connectivity
due to Lechner, Hauke and Zoller (LHZ) [Science Advances 1 (2015)] to the
commonly used minor embedding (ME) scheme. Using both simulated quantum
annealing and parallel tempering simulations, we find that for a set of
instances randomly chosen from a class of fully connected, random Ising
problems, the ME scheme outperforms the LHZ scheme when using identical
simulation parameters, despite the fault tolerance of the latter to weakly
correlated spin-flip noise. This result persists even after we introduce
several decoding strategies for the LHZ scheme, including a minimum-weight
decoding algorithm that results in substantially improved performance over the
original LHZ scheme. We explain the better performance of the ME scheme in
terms of more efficient spin updates, which allows it to better tolerate the
correlated spin-flip errors that arise in our model of quantum annealing. Our
results leave open the question of whether the performance of the two embedding
schemes can be improved using scheme-specific parameters and new error
correction approaches.


title: s$_\pm$ pairing near a Lifshitz transition

abstract:
  Observation of robust superconductivity in some of the iron based
superconductors in the vicinity of a Lifshitz point where a spin density wave
instability is suppressed as the {hole} band drops below the Fermi energy raise
questions for spin-fluctuation theories. Here we discuss spin-fluctuation
pairing for a bilayer Hubbard model, which goes through such a Lifshitz
transition. We find s$_\pm$ pairing with a transition temperature that peaks
beyond the Lifshitz point and a gap function that has essentially the same
magnitude but opposite sign on the incipient hole band as it does on the
electron band that has a Fermi surface.


title:
Nondeterministic quantum communication complexity: the cyclic equality
  game and iterated matrix multiplication

abstract:
  We study nondeterministic multiparty quantum communication with a quantum
generalization of broadcasts. We show that, with number-in-hand classical
inputs, the communication complexity of a Boolean function in this
communication model equals the logarithm of the support rank of the
corresponding tensor, whereas the approximation complexity in this model equals
the logarithm of the border support rank. This characterisation allows us to
prove a log-rank conjecture posed by Villagra et al. for nondeterministic
multiparty quantum communication with message-passing.
  The support rank characterization of the communication model connects quantum
communication complexity intimately to the theory of asymptotic entanglement
transformation and algebraic complexity theory. In this context, we introduce
the graphwise equality problem. For a cycle graph, the complexity of this
communication problem is closely related to the complexity of the computational
problem of multiplying matrices, or more precisely, it equals the logarithm of
the asymptotic support rank of the iterated matrix multiplication tensor. We
employ Strassen's laser method to show that asymptotically there exist
nontrivial protocols for every odd-player cyclic equality problem. We exhibit
an efficient protocol for the 5-player problem for small inputs, and we show
how Young flattenings yield nontrivial complexity lower bounds.


title: Sieve-based Coreference Resolution in the Biomedical Domain

abstract:
  We describe challenges and advantages unique to coreference resolution in the
biomedical domain, and a sieve-based architecture that leverages domain
knowledge for both entity and event coreference resolution. Domain-general
coreference resolution algorithms perform poorly on biomedical documents,
because the cues they rely on such as gender are largely absent in this domain,
and because they do not encode domain-specific knowledge such as the number and
type of participants required in chemical reactions. Moreover, it is difficult
to directly encode this knowledge into most coreference resolution algorithms
because they are not rule-based. Our rule-based architecture uses sequentially
applied hand-designed "sieves", with the output of each sieve informing and
constraining subsequent sieves. This architecture provides a 3.2% increase in
throughput to our Reach event extraction system with precision parallel to that
of the stricter system that relies solely on syntactic patterns for extraction.


title: Physics Reach of DUNE with a Light Sterile Neutrino

abstract:
  We investigate the implications of one light eV scale sterile neutrino on the
physics potential of the proposed long-baseline experiment DUNE. If the future
short-baseline experiments confirm the existence of sterile neutrinos, then it
can affect the mass hierarchy (MH) and CP-violation (CPV) searches at DUNE. The
MH sensitivity still remains above 5$\sigma$ if the three new mixing angles
($\theta_{14}, \theta_{24}, \theta_{34}$) are all close to $\theta_{13}$. In
contrast, it can decrease to 4$\sigma$ if the least constrained mixing angle
$\theta_{34}$ is close to its upper limit $\sim 30^0$. We also assess the
sensitivity to the CPV induced both by the standard CP-phase $\delta_{13}
\equiv \delta$, and the new CP-phases $\delta_{14}$ and $\delta_{34}$. In the
3+1 scheme, the discovery potential of CPV induced by $\delta_{13}$ gets
deteriorated compared to the 3$\nu$ case. In particular, the maximal
sensitivity (reached around $\delta_{13}$ $\sim$ $\pm$ $90^0$) decreases from
$5\sigma$ to $4\sigma$ if all the three new mixing angles are close to
$\theta_{13}$. It can further diminish to almost $3\sigma$ if $\theta_{34}$ is
large ($\sim 30^0$). The sensitivity to the CPV due to $\delta_{14}$ can reach
3$\sigma$ for an appreciable fraction of its true values. Interestingly,
$\theta_{34}$ and its associated phase $\delta_{34}$ can influence both the
$\nu_e$ appearance and $\nu_\mu$ disappearance channels via matter effects,
which in DUNE are pronounced. Hence, DUNE can also probe CPV induced by
$\delta_{34}$ provided $\theta_{34}$ is large. We also reconstruct the two
phases $\delta_{13}$ and $\delta_{14}$. The typical 1$\sigma$ uncertainty on
$\delta_{13}$ ($\delta_{14}$) is $\sim20^0$ ($30^0$) if $\theta_{34} =0$. The
reconstruction of $\delta_{14}$ (but not that of $\delta_{13}$) degrades if
$\theta_{34}$ is large.


title:
On conserved charges and thermodynamics of the AdS$_{4}$ dyonic black
  hole

abstract:
  Four-dimensional gravity in the presence of a dilatonic scalar field and an
Abelian gauge field is considered. This theory corresponds to the bosonic
sector of a Kaluza-Klein dimensional reduction of eleven-dimensional
supergravity which induces a determined self-interacting potential for the
scalar field. We compute the conserved charges and carry out the thermodynamics
of an anti-de Sitter (AdS) dyonic black hole solution recently proposed. The
charges coming from symmetries of the action are computed by using the
Regge-Teitelboim Hamiltonian approach. These correspond to the mass, which
acquires contributions from the scalar field, and the electric charge.
Integrability conditions are introduced because the scalar field leads to
non-integrable terms in the variation of the mass. These conditions are
generically solved by introducing boundary conditions that arbitrarily relates
the leading and subleading terms of the scalar field fall-off. The Hamiltonian
Euclidean action, computed in the grand canonical ensemble, is obtained by
demanding the action to attain an extremum. Its value is given by a radial
boundary term plus an additional polar angle boundary term due to the presence
of a magnetic monopole. Remarkably, the magnetic charge can be identified from
the variation of the additional polar angle boundary term, confirming that the
first law of black hole thermodynamics is a consequence of having a
well-defined and finite Hamiltonian action principle, even if the charge does
not come from a symmetry of the action. The temperature and electrostatic
potential are determined demanding regularity on the black hole solution,
whereas the value of the magnetic potential is already identified in the
variation of the additional polar angle boundary term. Consequently, the first
law of black hole thermodynamics is identically satisfied by construction.


title:
Estimating the coherence of noise in quantum control of a solid-state
  qubit

abstract:
  To exploit a given physical system for quantum information processing, it is
critical to understand the different types of noise affecting quantum control.
Distinguishing coherent and incoherent errors is extremely useful as they can
be reduced in different ways. Coherent errors are generally easier to reduce at
the hardware level, e.g. by improving calibration, whereas some sources of
incoherent errors, e.g. T2* processes, can be reduced by engineering robust
pulses. In this work, we illustrate how purity benchmarking and randomized
benchmarking can be used together to distinguish between coherent and
incoherent errors and to quantify the reduction in both of them due to using
optimal control pulses and accounting for the transfer function in an electron
spin resonance system. We also prove that purity benchmarking provides bounds
on the optimal fidelity and diamond norm that can be achieved by correcting the
coherent errors through improving calibration.


title: Monotonicity of Zeros of Jacobi-Angelesco polynomials

abstract:
  We study the monotonic behaviour of the zeros of the multiple
Jacobi-Angelesco orthogonal polynomials, in the diagonal case, with respect to
the parameters $\alpha,\beta$ and $\gamma$. We prove that the zeros are
monotonic functions of $\alpha$ and $\gamma$ and consider some special cases of
how the zeros depend on $\beta$, especially in the presence of symmetry. As a
consequence we obtain results about monotonicity of zeros of Jacobi-Laguerre
and Laguerre-Hermite multiple orthogonal polynomials too.


title:
Superuniversality of topological quantum phase transition and global
  phase diagram of dirty topological systems in three dimensions

abstract:
  The quantum phase transition between two clean, non interacting topologically
distinct gapped states in three dimensions is governed by a massless Dirac
fermion fixed point, irrespective of the underlying symmetry class, and this
constitutes a remarkably simple example of superuniversality. For a
sufficiently weak disorder strength, we show that the massless Dirac fixed
point is at the heart of the robustness of superuniversality. We establish this
by considering both perturbative and nonperturbative effects of disorder. The
superuniversality breaks down at a critical strength of disorder, beyond which
the topologically distinct localized phases become separated by a delocalized
diffusive phase. In the global phase diagram, the disorder controlled fixed
point where superuniversality is lost, serves as a multicritical point, where
the delocalized diffusive and two topologically distinct localized phases meet
and the nature of the localization-delocalization transition depends on the
underlying symmetry class. Based on these features we construct the global
phase diagrams of noninteracting, dirty topological systems in three
dimensions. We also establish a similar structure of the phase diagram and the
superuniversality for weak disorder in higher spatial dimensions. By noting
that $1/r^2$ power-law correlated disorder acts as a marginal perturbation for
massless Dirac fermion in any spatial dimension $d$, we have established a
general renormalization group framework for addressing disorder driven critical
phenomena for fixed spatial dimension $d > 2$.


title: Fundamental Physics

abstract:
  This book includes my lectures, together with their problem sets and
solutions, on 1) classical mechanics (one semester), 2) thermodynamics and
statistical mechanics (one semester), and 3) quantum mechanics (one semester),
which I have been giving to graduate students of theoretical physics at Annaba
University since 2010 .


title: Infinite Series Involving Fibonacci Numbers Via Ap\'ery-Like Formulae

abstract:
  In this note, infinite series involving Fibonacci and Lucas numbers are
derived by employing formulae similar to that which Roger Ap\'ery utilized in
his seminal paper proving the irrationality of $\zeta(3)$.


title:
Gaining confidence on general relativity with cosmic polarization
  rotation

abstract:
  The theory of general relativity, for which we celebrate the centennial at
this Symposium, is based on the Einstein equivalence principle. This principle
could be violated through a pseudoscalar-photon interaction, which would also
produce a rotation of the polarization angle for radiation traveling over very
long distances. Therefore, if we could show that this cosmic polarization
rotation does not exist, our confindence in general relativity would be greatly
increased. We review here the astrophysical searches for cosmic polarization
rotation, which have been made in the past 26 years using the polarization of
radio galaxies and of the cosmic microwave background. So far no rotation has
been detected within about 1 degree. We discuss current problems and future
prospects for cosmic polarization rotation measurements.


title: Intervality and coherence in complex networks

abstract:
  Food webs -- networks of predators and prey -- have long been known to
exhibit "intervality": species can generally be ordered along a single axis in
such a way that the prey of any given predator tend to lie on unbroken compact
intervals. Although the meaning of this axis -- identified with a "niche"
dimension -- has remained a mystery, it is assumed to lie at the basis of the
highly non-trivial structure of food webs. With this in mind, most trophic
network modelling has for decades been based on assigning species a niche value
by hand. However, we argue here that intervality should not be considered the
cause but rather a consequence of food-web structure. First, analysing a set of
$46$ empirical food webs, we find that they also exhibit {\it predator}
intervality: the predators of any given species are as likely to be contiguous
as the prey are, but in a different ordering. Furthermore, this property is not
exclusive of trophic networks: several networks of genes, neurons, metabolites,
cellular machines, airports, and words are found to be approximately as
interval as food webs. We go on to show that a simple model of food-web
assembly which does not make use of a niche axis can nevertheless generate
significant intervality. Therefore, the niche dimension (in the sense used for
food-web modelling) could in fact be the consequence of other, more fundamental
structural traits, such as trophic coherence. We conclude that a new approach
to food-web modelling is required for a deeper understanding of ecosystem
assembly, structure and function, and propose that certain topological features
thought to be specific of food webs are in fact common to many complex
networks.


title: A Recursive Born Approach to Nonlinear Inverse Scattering

abstract:
  The Iterative Born Approximation (IBA) is a well-known method for describing
waves scattered by semi-transparent objects. In this paper, we present a novel
nonlinear inverse scattering method that combines IBA with an edge-preserving
total variation (TV) regularizer. The proposed method is obtained by relating
iterations of IBA to layers of a feedforward neural network and developing a
corresponding error backpropagation algorithm for efficiently estimating the
permittivity of the object. Simulations illustrate that, by accounting for
multiple scattering, the method successfully recovers the permittivity
distribution where the traditional linear inverse scattering fails.


title:
Numerical modeling of photon migration in human neck based on the
  radiative transport equation

abstract:
  Biomedical optical imaging has a possibility of a comprehensive diagnosis of
thyroid cancer in conjunction with ultrasound imaging. For improvement of the
optical imaging, this study develops a higher order scheme for solving the
time-dependent radiative transport equation (RTE) by use of the
finite-difference and discrete-ordinate methods. The accuracy and efficiency of
the developed scheme are examined by comparison with the analytical solutions
of the RTE in homogeneous media. Then, the developed scheme is applied to
describing photon migration in the human neck model. The numerical simulations
show complex behaviors of photon migration in the human neck model due to
multiple diffusive reflection near the trachea.


title: Embedding of the rank 1 DAHA into Mat(2,Tq) and its automorphisms

abstract:
  In this review paper we show how the Cherednik algebra of type
$\check{C_1}C_1$ appears naturally as quantisation of the group algebra of the
monodromy group associated to the sixth Painlev\'e equation. This fact
naturally leads to an embedding of the Cherednik algebra of type
$\check{C_1}C_1$ into $Mat(2,\mathbb T_q)$, i.e. $2\times 2$ matrices with
entries in the quantum torus. For $q=1$ this result is equivalent to say that
the Cherednik algebra of type $\check{C_1}C_1$ is Azumaya of degree $2$
\cite{O}. By quantising the action of the braid group and of the Okamoto
transformations on the monodromy group associated to the sixth Painlev\'e
equation we study the automorphisms of the Cherednik algebra of type
$\check{C_1}C_1$ and conjecture the existence of a new automorphism. Inspired
by the confluences of the Painlev\'e equations, we produce similar embeddings
for the confluent Cherednik algebras $\mathcal H_V,\mathcal H_{IV},\mathcal
H_{III},\mathcal H_{II}$ and $\mathcal H_{I},$ defined in arXiv:1307.6140.


title: A Proof of the Conformal Collider Bounds

abstract:
  In this paper, we prove that the "conformal collider bounds" originally
proposed by Hofman and Maldacena hold for any unitary parity-preserving
conformal field theory (CFT) with a unique stress tensor in spacetime
dimensions larger than 2. In particular this implies that the ratio of central
charges for a unitary 4d CFT lies in the interval $\frac{31}{18} \geq
\frac{a}{c} \geq \frac{1}{3}$. For superconformal theories this is further
reduced to $\frac{3}{2} \geq \frac{a}{c} \geq \frac{1}{2}$. The proof relies
only on CFT first principles - in particular, bootstrap methods - and thus
constitutes the first complete field theory proof of these bounds. We further
elaborate on similar bounds for non-conserved currents and relate them to
results obtained recently from deep inelastic scattering.

categories: hep-th cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.str-el hep-ph


title: Tadpole-Induced Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and pNGB Higgs Models

abstract:
  We investigate induced electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) in models in
which the Higgs is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB). In pNGB Higgs models,
Higgs properties and precision electroweak measurements imply a hierarchy
between the EWSB and global symmetry-breaking scales, $v_H \ll f_H$. When the
pNGB potential is generated radiatively, this hierarchy requires fine-tuning to
a degree of at least $\sim v_H^2/f_H^2$. We show that if Higgs EWSB is induced
by a tadpole arising from an auxiliary sector at scale $f_\Sigma \ll v_H$, this
tuning is significantly ameliorated or can even be removed. We present explicit
examples both in Twin Higgs models and in Composite Higgs models based on
$SO(5)/SO(4)$. For the Twin case, the result is a fully natural model with $f_H
\sim 1$ TeV and the lightest colored top partners at 2 TeV. These models also
have an appealing mechanism to generate the scales of the auxiliary sector and
Higgs EWSB directly from the scale $f_H$, with a natural hierarchy $f_\Sigma
\ll v_H \ll f_H \sim{\rm TeV}$. The framework predicts modified Higgs coupling
as well as new Higgs and vector states at LHC13.


title: Microlensing by Kuiper, Oort, and Free-Floating Planets

abstract:
  Microlensing is generally thought to probe planetary systems only out to a
few Einstein radii. Microlensing events generated by bound planets beyond about
10 Einstein radii generally do not yield any trace of their hosts, and so would
be classified as free floating planets (FFPs). I show that it is already
possible, using adaptive optics (AO), to constrain the presence of potential
hosts to FFP candidates at separations comparable to the Oort Cloud. With
next-generation telescopes, planets at Kuiper-Belt separations can be probed.
Next generation telescopes will also permit routine vetting for all FFP
candidates, simply by obtaining second epochs 4-8 years after the event. At
present, the search for such hosts is restricted to within the "confusion
limit" of theta_confus ~ 250 mas, but future WFIRST observations will allow one
to probe beyond this confusion limit as well.


title: The structure and evolution of a forming galaxy cluster at z = 1.62

abstract:
  We present a comprehensive picture of the Cl0218.3-0510 protocluster at
$z=1.623$ across 10 co-moving Mpc. Using filters that tightly bracket the
Balmer and 4000 Angstrom breaks of the protocluster galaxies we obtain precise
photometric redshifts resulting in a protocluster galaxy sample that is 89+/-5%
complete and has a contamination of only 12+/-5%. Both star forming and
quiescent protocluster galaxies are located allowing us to map the structure of
the forming cluster for the first time. The protocluster contains 6 galaxy
groups, the largest of which is the nascent cluster. Only a small minority of
the protocluster galaxies are in the nascent cluster (11%) or in the other
galaxy groups (22%), as most protocluster galaxies reside between the groups.
Unobscured star forming galaxies predominantly reside between the
protocluster's groups, whereas red galaxies make up a large fraction of the
groups' galactic content, so observing the protocluster through only one of
these types of galaxies results in a biased view of the protocluster's
structure. The structure of the protocluster reveals how much mass is available
for the future growth of the cluster and we use the Millennium Simulation,
scaled to a Planck cosmology, to predict that Cl0218.3-0510 will evolve into a
2.7x 10^14 Msun cluster by the present day.


title: Predicting Coronal Mass Ejections Using Machine Learning Methods

abstract:
  Of all the activity observed on the Sun, two of the most energetic events are
flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). Usually, solar active regions that
produce large flares will also produce a CME, but this is not always true
(Yashiro et al., 2005). Despite advances in numerical modeling, it is still
unclear which circumstances will produce a CME (Webb & Howard, 2012).
Therefore, it is worthwhile to empirically determine which features distinguish
flares associated with CMEs from flares that are not. At this time, no
extensive study has used physically meaningful features of active regions to
distinguish between these two populations. As such, we attempt to do so by
using features derived from [1] photospheric vector magnetic field data taken
by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager instrument
and [2] X-ray flux data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellite's X-ray Flux instrument. We build a catalog of active regions that
either produced both a flare and a CME (the positive class) or simply a flare
(the negative class). We then use machine-learning algorithms to [1] determine
which features distinguish these two populations, and [2] forecast whether an
active region that produces an M- or X-class flare will also produce a CME. We
compute the True Skill Statistic, a forecast verification metric, and find that
it is a relatively high value of approximately 0.8 plus or minus 0.2. We
conclude that a combination of six parameters, which are all intensive in
nature, will capture most of the relevant information contained in the
photospheric magnetic field.


title:
The Carnegie Chicago Hubble Program: The Mid-Infrared Colours of
  Cepheids and the Effect of Metallicity on the CO Band-head at $4.6\mu$m

abstract:
  We compare mid-infrared 3.6 and 4.5 $\mu$m Warm Spitzer observations for
Cepheids in the Milky Way and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Using
models, we explore in detail the effect of the CO rotation-vibration band-head
at 4.6 $\mu$m on the mid-infrared photometry. We confirm the temperature
sensitivity of the CO band-head at 4.6 $\mu$m and find no evidence for an
effect at 3.6 $\mu$m. We compare the ([3.6]-[4.5]) period-colour relations in
the MW, LMC, and SMC. The slopes of the period-colour relations for the three
galaxies are in good agreement, but there is a trend in zero-point with
metallicity, with the lowest metallicity Cepheids having redder mid-IR colours.
Finally, we present a colour-[Fe/H] relation based on published spectroscopic
metallicities. This empirical relation, calibrated to the metallicity system of
Genovali et al. (2014), demonstrates that the ([3.6]-[4.5]) colour provides a
reliable metallicity indicator for Cepheids, with a precision comparable to
current spectroscopic determinations.


title:
NuSTAR and Swift observations of the very high state in GX 339-4:
  Weighing the black hole with X-rays

abstract:
  We present results from spectral fitting of the very high state of GX~339-4
with NuSTAR and Swift. We use relativistic reflection modelling to measure the
spin of the black hole and inclination of the inner disk, and find a spin of
$a=0.95^{+0.02}_{-0.08}$ and inclination of $30${\deg}$\pm1$ (statistical
errors). These values agree well with previous results from reflection
modelling. With the exceptional sensitivity of NuSTAR at the high-energy side
of the disk spectrum, we are able to constrain multiple physical parameters
simultaneously using continuum fitting. By using the constraints from
reflection as input for the continuum fitting method, we invert the
conventional fitting procedure to estimate the mass and distance of GX~339-4
using just the X-ray spectrum, finding a mass of $9.0^{+1.6}_{-1.2}M_\odot$ and
distance of $8.4\pm0.9$ kpc (statistical errors).


title:
Giant clumps in the FIRE simulations: a case study of a massive
  high-redshift galaxy

abstract:
  The morphology of massive star-forming galaxies at high redshift is often
dominated by giant clumps of mass ~10^8-10^9 Msun and size ~100-1000 pc.
Previous studies have proposed that giant clumps might have an important role
in the evolution of their host galaxy, particularly in building the central
bulge. However, this depends on whether clumps live long enough to migrate from
their original location in the disc or whether they get disrupted by their own
stellar feedback before reaching the centre of the galaxy. We use cosmological
hydrodynamical simulations from the FIRE (Feedback in Realistic Environments)
project that implement explicit treatments of stellar feedback and ISM physics
to study the properties of these clumps. We follow the evolution of giant
clumps in a massive (stellar mass ~10^10.8 Msun at z=1), discy, gas-rich galaxy
from redshift z>2 to z=1. Even though the clumpy phase of this galaxy lasts
over a gigayear, individual gas clumps are short-lived, with mean lifetime of
massive clumps of ~20 Myr. During that time, they turn between 0.1% and 20% of
their gas into stars before being disrupted, similar to local GMCs. Clumps with
M>10^7 Msun account for ~20% of the total star formation in the galaxy during
the clumpy phase, producing ~10^10 Msun of stars. We do not find evidence for
net inward migration of clumps within the galaxy. The number of giant clumps
and their mass decrease at lower redshifts, following the decrease in the
overall gas fraction and star-formation rate.


title: Is there really a $W \to \tau\nu$ puzzle?

abstract:
  According to the Particle Data Group, the measurements of ${\cal B}(W^+ \to
\tau^+ \nu_\tau)$ and ${\cal B}(W^+ \to \ell^+ \nu_\ell)$ ($\ell = e,\mu$)
disagree with one another at the $2.3\sigma$ level. In this paper, we search
for a new-physics (NP) explanation of this $W \to \tau\nu$ puzzle. We consider
two NP scenarios: (i) the $W$ mixes with a $W'$ boson that couples
preferentially to the third generation, (ii) $\tau_{L,R}$ and $\nu_{\tau L}$
mix with isospin-triplet leptons. Unfortunately, once other experimental
constraints are taken into account, neither scenario can explain the above
experimental result. Our conclusion is that the $W \to \tau\nu$ puzzle is
almost certainly just a statistical fluctuation.


title:
Proximity effect and Majorana bound states in clean semiconductor
  nanowires coupled to disordered superconductors

abstract:
  We study a semiconductor wire with strong spin-orbit coupling, which is
proximity-coupled to a superconductor with chemical potential disorder. When
tunneling at the semiconductor- superconductor interface is very weak, it is
known that disorder in the superconductor does not affect the induced
superconductivity nor, therefore, the effective topological superconductivity
that emerges above a critical magnetic field. We demonstrate nonperturbatively
how this result breaks down with stronger proximity coupling by obtaining the
low-energy (i.e., subgap) excitation spectrum through direct numerical
diagonalization of an appropriate BdG hamiltonian. With strong proximity
coupling, we find that disorder in the parent superconductor suppresses the
(non- topological) induced gap at zero magnetic field by disordering the
induced pair potential. In the topological superconducting phase at large
magnetic field, strong proximity coupling reduces the localization length of
Majorana bound states, such that the induced disorder eliminates the
topological gap while bulk Majorana zero modes emerge, even for short wires.


title: Quantum Critical Behavior in a Concentrated Ternary Solid Solution

abstract:
  Quantum critical behavior has been associated with some of the most exotic
emergent states of matter including high-temperature superconductivity. Much of
the research into quantum critical point (QCP) physics has been hampered by the
lack of model systems simple enough to be analyzed by theory. Here, we show
that the concentrated solid solution fcc alloys, including the so-called
high-entropy alloys, are ideal model systems to study the effects of chemical
disorder on emergent properties near a quantum critical region. The face
centered cubic (fcc) alloy NiCoCrx with x near 1 is found to be close to the Cr
concentration where the ferromagnetic transition temperature, Tc, goes to 0.
Near this composition these alloys exhibit a resistivity linear in temperature
to 2 K, a linear magnetoresistance, an excess -TlnT contribution to the low
temperature heat capacity and excess low temperature entropy. All of the low
temperature electrical, magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the alloys
with compositions near x near 1 are not typical of a Fermi liquid and suggest
strong magnetic fluctuations associated with a quantum critical region. The
limit of extreme chemical disorder in these simple fcc materials thus provides
a novel and unique platform to study quantum critical behavior in a highly
tunable system.


title: Comments on SUSY Exact Action in 3D Supergravity

abstract:
  We consider 2+1 dimensional off-shell N = 1 pure supergravity that is
constructed from graviton, gravitino and auxiliary field. We show that the
$R^2$ supersymmetric invariant and $R^2_{\mu \nu}$ supersymmetric invariant are
expressed as local supersymmetric exact terms up to mass terms for gravitino.
In both cases, the mass parameter is proportional to the off-shell
supersymmetric cosmological constant.


title:
Region Graph Based Method for Multi-Object Detection and Tracking using
  Depth Cameras

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a multi-object detection and tracking method using
depth cameras. Depth maps are very noisy and obscure in object detection. We
first propose a region-based method to suppress high magnitude noise which
cannot be filtered using spatial filters. Second, the proposed method detect
Region of Interests by temporal learning which are then tracked using weighted
graph-based approach. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed method on
standard depth camera datasets with and without object occlusions. Experimental
results show that the proposed method is able to suppress high magnitude noise
in depth maps and detect/track the objects (with and without occlusion).


title:
Towards using social media to identify individuals at risk for
  preventable chronic illness

abstract:
  We describe a strategy for the acquisition of training data necessary to
build a social-media-driven early detection system for individuals at risk for
(preventable) type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The strategy uses a game-like
quiz with data and questions acquired semi-automatically from Twitter. The
questions are designed to inspire participant engagement and collect relevant
data to train a public-health model applied to individuals. Prior systems
designed to use social media such as Twitter to predict obesity (a risk factor
for T2DM) operate on entire communities such as states, counties, or cities,
based on statistics gathered by government agencies. Because there is
considerable variation among individuals within these groups, training data on
the individual level would be more effective, but this data is difficult to
acquire. The approach proposed here aims to address this issue. Our strategy
has two steps. First, we trained a random forest classifier on data gathered
from (public) Twitter statuses and state-level statistics with state-of-the-art
accuracy. We then converted this classifier into a 20-questions-style quiz and
made it available online. In doing so, we achieved high engagement with
individuals that took the quiz, while also building a training set of
voluntarily supplied individual-level data for future classification.


title:
Nonlinear and time-resolved optical study of the 112-type iron-based
  superconductor parent Ca$_{1-x}$La$_{x}$FeAs$_{2}$ across its structural
  phase transition

abstract:
  The newly discovered 112-type ferropnictide superconductors contain chains of
As atoms that break the tetragonal symmetry between the $a$ and $b$ axes. This
feature eliminates the need for uniaxial strain that is usually required to
stabilize large single domains in the electronic nematic state that exists in
the vicinity of magnetic order in the iron-based superconductors. We report
detailed structural symmetry measurements of 112-type
Ca$_{0.73}$La$_{0.27}$FeAs$_{2}$ using rotational anisotropy optical second
harmonic generation. This technique is complementary to diffraction experiments
and enables a precise determination of the point group symmetry of a crystal.
By combining our measurements with density functional theory calculations, we
uncover a strong optical second harmonic response of bulk electric dipole
origin from the Fe and Ca $3d$-derived states that enables us to assign $C_2$
as the crystallographic point group. This makes the 112-type materials
high-temperature superconductors without a center of inversion, allowing for
the possible mixing of singlet and triplet Cooper pairs in the superconducting
state. We also perform pump-probe transient reflectivity experiments that
reveal a 4.6 THz phonon mode associated with the out-of-plane motion of As
atoms in the FeAs layers. We do not observe any suppression of the optical
second harmonic response or shift in the phonon frequency upon cooling through
the reported monoclinic-to-triclinic transition at 58 K. This allows us to
identify $C_1$ as the low-temperature crystallographic point group but suggests
that structural changes induced by long-range magnetic order are subtle and do
not significantly affect electronic states near the Fermi level.


title: Large deviation theory to model systems under an external feedback

abstract:
  In this paper we address the problem of systems under an external feedback.
This is performed using a large deviation approach and rate distortion from
information theory. In particular we define a lower boundary for the maximum
entropy reduction that can be obtained using a feedback apparatus with a well
defined accuracy in terms of measurement of the state of the system. The large
deviation approach allows also to define a new set of potentials, including
information, which similarly to more conventional thermodynamic potentials can
define the state with optimal use of the information given the accuracy of the
feedback apparatus.


title:
High-order harmonic generation driven by chirped laser pulses induced by
  linear and non linear phenomena

abstract:
  We present a theoretical study of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) driven
by ultrashort optical pulses with different kind of chirps. The goal of the
present work is perform a detailed study to clarify the relevant parameters in
the chirped pulses to achieve a noticeable cut-off extensions in HHG. These
chirped pulses are generated using both linear and nonlinear dispersive
media.The description of the origin of the physical mechanisms responsible of
this extension is, however, not usually reported with enough detail in the
literature. The study of the behaviour of the harmonic cut-off with these kind
of pulses is carried out in the classical context, by the integration of the
Newton-Lorentz equation complemented with the quantum approach, based on the
integration of the time dependent Schr\"odinger equation in full dimensions
(TDSE-3D), we are able to understand the underlying physics.


title: A Primer on the Signature Method in Machine Learning

abstract:
  In these notes, we wish to provide an introduction to the signature method,
focusing on its basic theoretical properties and recent numerical applications.
  The notes are split into two parts. The first part focuses on the definition
and fundamental properties of the signature of a path, or the path signature.
We have aimed for a minimalistic approach, assuming only familiarity with
classical real analysis and integration theory, and supplementing theory with
straightforward examples. We have chosen to focus in detail on the principle
properties of the signature which we believe are fundamental to understanding
its role in applications. We also present an informal discussion on some of its
deeper properties and briefly mention the role of the signature in rough paths
theory, which we hope could serve as a light introduction to rough paths for
the interested reader.
  The second part of these notes discusses practical applications of the path
signature to the area of machine learning. The signature approach represents a
non-parametric way for extraction of characteristic features from data. The
data are converted into a multi-dimensional path by means of various embedding
algorithms and then processed for computation of individual terms of the
signature which summarise certain information contained in the data. The
signature thus transforms raw data into a set of features which are used in
machine learning tasks. We will review current progress in applications of
signatures to machine learning problems.


title: Finiteness of local torsion for abelian t-modules

abstract:
  Let $C/\mathbb{F}_q$ be a regular projective curve, $\infty \in C$ a closed
point, $A := \Gamma(C - \{\infty\}, \mathcal{O}_C)$, and $K := K(C)$ the
fraction field of $A$. Consider a finite extension $L/K$, a place $v$ of $L$,
and an abelian $A$-module $M$ (in the sense of Anderson) over $L_v$. We prove
that the $L_v$-rational torsion submodule $M(L_v)_{\mathrm{tors}}$ of $M$ is a
finite $A$-module.


title: Congested aggregation via Newtonian interaction

abstract:
  We consider a congested aggregation model that describes the evolution of a
density through the competing effects of nonlocal Newtonian attraction and a
hard height constraint. This provides a counterpoint to existing literature on
repulsive-attractive nonlocal interaction models, where the repulsive effects
instead arise from an interaction kernel or the addition of diffusion. We
formulate our model as the Wasserstein gradient flow of an interaction energy,
with a penalization to enforce the constraint on the height of the density.
From this perspective, the problem can be seen as a singular limit of the
Keller-Segel equation with degenerate diffusion. Two key properties distinguish
our problem from previous work on height constrained equations: nonconvexity of
the interaction kernel (which places the model outside the scope of classical
gradient flow theory) and nonlocal dependence of the velocity field on the
density (which causes the problem to lack a comparison principle). To overcome
these obstacles, we combine recent results on gradient flows of nonconvex
energies with viscosity solution theory. We characterize the dynamics of patch
solutions in terms of a Hele-Shaw type free boundary problem and, using this
characterization, show that in two dimensions patch solutions converge to a
characteristic function of a disk in the long-time limit, with explicit rate of
convergence. We believe that a key contribution of the present work is our
blended approach, combining energy methods with viscosity solution theory.


title:
A Jacobian Separable 2-D Finite-Element Method for Electromagnetic
  Waveguide Problems

abstract:
  We propose an efficient finite-element analysis of the vector wave equation
in a class of relatively general curved polygons. The proposed method is
suitable for an accurate and efficient calculation of the propagation constants
of waveguides filled with pieces of homogeneous materials. To apply the method,
we first decompose the 2-D problem domain into a set of curved polygons of a
specific characteristic. Then we divide every polygon into a set of triangular
elements with two straight edges. Finally, we introduce a set of hierarchical
mixed-order curl-conforming vector basis functions inside every triangular
element to discretize the vector wave equation. The advantages of the method
are as follows. The curved boundaries of the elements are modeled exactly and
hence there is no approximation in the geometrical modeling. 2-D integrals of
the matrix elements are reduced to 1-D integrals. Therefore, the matrix filling
can be performed very fast. Total number of elements due to the discretization
of a given domain is very small, and hence the discretization of the problem
domain takes up a very small percentage of the total computational time. We
validate the method by comparing the results with those of Ansoft HFSS
simulator and investigate the accuracy and efficiency of the method through
some numerical examples.


title: The scientific impact of Einstein's visit to Argentina, in 1925

abstract:
  The arrival of Albert Einstein in Argentina in 1925 had an impact, equally
relevant, on the scientific community and on the general public. In this paper
we discuss that visit from three different perspectives. Firstly, we consider
the conditions that allowed for such visit to be possible. Then we focus on the
institutional actors that facilitated it, as well as on the expertise and
written references on topics related to relativity theory circulating at the
time in the local community. In the last section we consider the implications
of that visit for the local scientific environment.


title: Training with Exploration Improves a Greedy Stack-LSTM Parser

abstract:
  We adapt the greedy Stack-LSTM dependency parser of Dyer et al. (2015) to
support a training-with-exploration procedure using dynamic oracles(Goldberg
and Nivre, 2013) instead of cross-entropy minimization. This form of training,
which accounts for model predictions at training time rather than assuming an
error-free action history, improves parsing accuracies for both English and
Chinese, obtaining very strong results for both languages. We discuss some
modifications needed in order to get training with exploration to work well for
a probabilistic neural-network.


title:
Atomic-scale control of magnetic anisotropy via novel spin-orbit
  coupling effect in La2/3Sr1/3MnO3/SrIrO3 superlattices

abstract:
  Magnetic anisotropy (MA) is one of the most important material properties for
modern spintronic devices. Conventional manipulation of the intrinsic MA, i.e.
magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA), typically depends upon crystal symmetry.
Extrinsic control over the MA is usually achieved by introducing shape
anisotropy or exchange bias from another magnetically ordered material. Here we
demonstrate a pathway to manipulate MA of 3d transition metal oxides (TMOs) by
digitally inserting non-magnetic 5d TMOs with pronounced spin-orbit coupling
(SOC). High quality superlattices comprised of ferromagnetic La2/3Sr1/3MnO3
(LSMO) and paramagnetic SrIrO3 (SIO) are synthesized with the precise control
of thickness at atomic scale. Magnetic easy axis reorientation is observed by
controlling the dimensionality of SIO, mediated through the emergence of a
novel spin-orbit state within the nominally paramagnetic SIO.


title: Demonstrating the Feasibility of Automatic Game Balancing

abstract:
  Game balancing is an important part of the (computer) game design process, in
which designers adapt a game prototype so that the resulting gameplay is as
entertaining as possible. In industry, the evaluation of a game is often based
on costly playtests with human players. It suggests itself to automate this
process using surrogate models for the prediction of gameplay and outcome. In
this paper, the feasibility of automatic balancing using simulation- and
deck-based objectives is investigated for the card game top trumps.
Additionally, the necessity of a multi-objective approach is asserted by a
comparison with the only known (single-objective) method. We apply a
multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to obtain decks that optimise
objectives, e.g. win rate and average number of tricks, developed to express
the fairness and the excitement of a game of top trumps. The results are
compared with decks from published top trumps decks using simulation-based
objectives. The possibility to generate decks better or at least as good as
decks from published top trumps decks in terms of these objectives is
demonstrated. Our results indicate that automatic balancing with the presented
approach is feasible even for more complex games such as real-time strategy
games.


title:
Adjoint Multi-Start Based Estimation of Cardiac Hyperelastic Material
  Parameters using Shear Data

abstract:
  Cardiac muscle tissue during relaxation is commonly modelled as a
hyperelastic material with strongly nonlinear and anisotropic stress response.
Adapting the behavior of such a model to experimental or patient data gives
rise to a parameter estimation problem which involves a significant number of
parameters. Gradient-based optimization algorithms provide a way to solve such
nonlinear parameter estimation problems with relatively few iterations, but
require the gradient of the objective functional with respect to the model
parameters. This gradient has traditionally been obtained using finite
differences, the calculation of which scales linearly with the number of model
parameters, and introduces a differencing error. By using an automatically
derived adjoint equation, we are able to calculate this gradient more
efficiently, and with minimal implementation effort. We test this adjoint
framework on a least squares fitting problem involving data from simple shear
tests on cardiac tissue samples. A second challenge which arises in
gradient-based optimization is the dependency of the algorithm on a suitable
initial guess. We show how a multi-start procedure can alleviate this
dependency. Finally, we provide estimates for the material parameters of the
Holzapfel and Ogden strain energy law using finite element models together with
experimental shear data.


title: Lectures on Dark Matter Physics

abstract:
  Rotation curve measurements provided the first strong indication that a
significant fraction of matter in the Universe is non-baryonic. Since then, a
tremendous amount of progress has been made on both the theoretical and
experimental fronts in the search for this missing matter, which we now know
constitutes nearly 85% of the Universe's matter density. These series of
lectures, first given at the TASI 2015 summer school, provide an introduction
to the basics of dark matter physics. They are geared for the advanced
undergraduate or graduate student interested in pursuing research in
high-energy physics. The primary goal is to build an understanding of how
observations constrain the assumptions that can be made about the astro- and
particle physics properties of dark matter. The lectures begin by delineating
the basic assumptions that can be inferred about dark matter from rotation
curves. A detailed discussion of thermal dark matter follows, motivating Weakly
Interacting Massive Particles, as well as lighter-mass alternatives. As an
application of these concepts, the phenomenology of direct and indirect
detection experiments is discussed in detail.


title:
ALFALFA Discovery of the Most Metal-Poor Gas-Rich Galaxy Known: AGC
  198691

abstract:
  We present spectroscopic observations of the nearby dwarf galaxy AGC 198691.
This object is part of the Survey of HI in Extremely Low-Mass Dwarfs (SHIELD)
project, which is a multi-wavelength study of galaxies with HI masses in the
range of 10$^{6}$-10$^{7.2}$~M$_{\odot}$ discovered by the ALFALFA survey. We
have obtained spectra of the lone HII region in AGC 198691 with the new
high-throughput KPNO Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (KOSMOS) on the
Mayall 4-m as well as with the Blue Channel spectrograph on the MMT 6.5-m
telescope. These observations enable the measurement of the
temperature-sensitive [OIII]$\lambda$4363 line and hence the determination of a
"direct" oxygen abundance for AGC 198691. We find this system to be an
extremely metal-deficient (XMD) system with an oxygen abundance of 12+log(O/H)
= 7.02 $\pm$ 0.03, making AGC 198691 the lowest-abundance star-forming galaxy
known in the local universe. Two of the five lowest-abundance galaxies known
have been discovered by the ALFALFA blind HI survey; this high yield of XMD
galaxies represents a paradigm shift in the search for extremely metal-poor
galaxies.


title: $\ell_1$ Adaptive Trend Filter via Fast Coordinate Descent

abstract:
  Identifying the unknown underlying trend of a given noisy signal is extremely
useful for a wide range of applications. The number of potential trends might
be exponential, which can be computationally exhaustive even for short signals.
Another challenge, is the presence of abrupt changes and outliers at unknown
times which impart resourceful information regarding the signal's
characteristics. In this paper, we present the $\ell_1$ Adaptive Trend Filter,
which can consistently identify the components in the underlying trend and
multiple level-shifts, even in the presence of outliers. Additionally, an
enhanced coordinate descent algorithm which exploit the filter design is
presented. Some implementation details are discussed and a version in the Julia
language is presented along with two distinct applications to illustrate the
filter's potential.


title: Diophantine approximation on matrices and Lie groups

abstract:
  We study the general problem of extremality for metric Diophantine
approximation on submanifolds of matrices. We formulate a criterion for
extremality in terms of a certain family of algebraic obstructions and show
that it is sharp. In general, the almost sure diophantine exponent of a
submanifold is shown to depend only on its Zariski closure, and when the latter
is defined over the rational numbers, we prove that the exponent is rational
and give a method to effectively compute it. This method is applied to a number
of cases of interest, in particular, we manage to determine the diophantine
exponent of random subgroups of certain nilpotent Lie groups in terms of
representation theoretic data.


title: Thermal Pressures in the Interstellar Medium of the Magellanic Clouds

abstract:
  We discuss the thermal pressures ($n_H T$) in predominantly cold, neutral
interstellar gas in the Magellanic Clouds, derived from analyses of the
fine-structure excitation of neutral carbon, as seen in high-resolution
HST/STIS spectra of seven diverse sight lines in the LMC and SMC. Detailed fits
to the line profiles of the absorption from C I, C I*, and C I** yield
consistent column densities for the 3--6 C I multiplets detected in each sight
line. In the LMC and SMC, $N$(C I$_{\rm tot}$) is consistent with Galactic
trends versus $N$(Na I) and $N$(CH), but is slightly lower versus $N$(K I) and
$N$(H$_2$). As for $N$(Na I) and $N$(K I), $N$(C I$_{\rm tot}$) is generally
significantly lower, for a given $N$(H$_{\rm tot}$), in the LMC and
(especially) in the SMC, compared to the local Galactic relationship. For the
LMC and SMC components with well determined column densities for C I, C I*, and
C I**, the derived thermal pressures are typically factors of a few higher than
the values found for most cold, neutral clouds in the Galactic ISM. Such
differences are consistent with the predictions of models for clouds in systems
(like the LMC and SMC) that are characterized by lower metallicities, lower
dust-to-gas ratios, and enhanced radiation fields -- where higher pressures are
required for stable cold, neutral clouds. The pressures may be further enhanced
by energetic activity (e.g., due to stellar winds, star formation, and/or
supernova remnants) in several of the regions probed by these sight lines.
Comparisons are made with the C I observed in some quasar absorption-line
systems.


title: Direct-Digital-Drive Microring Modulator

abstract:
  The method of Direct Digital Drive is applied to a microring resonator. The
microring resonator is thus controlled by a segmented set of electrodes each of
which is driven by binary (digital) signal. Digital linearization is performed
with the aid of digital memory lookup table. The method is applied to a single
microring modulator to provide an M-bit digital-toanalog converter (DAC), which
may also be viewed as an M-level pulse amplitude modulator (M-PAM). It is
shown, by means of simulation, that a 4-bit DAC can achieve an effective number
of bits (ENOB) of 3.74bits. Applying the same method for two rings, enables the
generation of two-dimensional optical M-QAM signals. It is shown, by means of
simulation, that a 16-QAM modulator achieves an EVM better than -30dB.


title: Many intermingled basins in dimension 3

abstract:
  We construct a diffeomorphism of $\mathbb{T}^3$ admitting any finite or
countable number of physical measures with intermingled basins. The examples
are partially hyperbolic with splitting $T\mathbb{T}^3 = E^{cs} \oplus E^u$ and
can be made volume hyperbolic and topologically mixing.


title: Optomechanical Quantum Control of a Nitrogen Vacancy Center in Diamond

abstract:
  We demonstrate optomechanical quantum control of the internal electronic
states of a diamond nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in the resolved-sideband
regime by coupling the NV to both optical fields and surface acoustic waves via
a phonon-assisted optical transition and by taking advantage of the strong
excited-state electron-phonon coupling of a NV center. Optomechanically-driven
Rabi oscillations as well as quantum interferences between the optomechanical
sideband and the direct dipole-optical transitions have been realized. These
studies open the door to using resolved-sideband optomechanical coupling for
quantum control of both the atom-like internal states and the motional states
of a coupled NV-nanomechanical system, leading to the development of a
solid-state analog of trapped ions.


title: Median-Truncated Nonconvex Approach for Phase Retrieval with Outliers

abstract:
  This paper investigates the phase retrieval problem, which aims to recover a
signal from the magnitudes of its linear measurements. We develop statistically
and computationally efficient algorithms for the situation when the
measurements are corrupted by sparse outliers that can take arbitrary values.
We propose a novel approach to robustify the gradient descent algorithm by
using the sample median as a guide for pruning spurious samples in
initialization and local search. Adopting the Poisson loss and the reshaped
quadratic loss respectively, we obtain two algorithms termed median-TWF and
median-RWF, both of which provably recover the signal from a near-optimal
number of measurements when the measurement vectors are composed of i.i.d.
Gaussian entries, up to a logarithmic factor, even when a constant fraction of
the measurements are adversarially corrupted. We further show that both
algorithms are stable in the presence of additional dense bounded noise. Our
analysis is accomplished by developing non-trivial concentration results of
median-related quantities, which may be of independent interest. We provide
numerical experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.


title: Mechanism Design for Subadditive Agents via an Ex-Ante Relaxation

abstract:
  We consider the problem of maximizing revenue for a monopolist offering
multiple items to multiple heterogeneous buyers. We develop a simple mechanism
that obtains a constant factor approximation under the assumption that the
buyers' values are additive subject to a feasibility constraint and independent
across items. Importantly, different buyers in our setting can have different
constraints on the sets of items they desire. Our mechanism is a sequential
variant of two-part tariffs. Prior to our work, simple approximation mechanisms
for such multi-buyer problems were known only for the special cases of all
unit-demand or all additive value buyers.
  Our work expands upon and unifies long lines of work on unit-demand settings
and additive settings. We employ the ex ante relaxation approach developed by
Alaei (2011) for reducing a multiple-buyer mechanism design problem with an ex
post supply constraint into single-buyer ones with ex ante supply constraints.
Solving the single-agent problems requires us to significantly extend
techniques developed in the context of additive values by Li and Yao (2013) and
their extension to subadditive values by Rubinstein and Weinberg (2015).


title:
Separating hyperfine from spin-orbit interactions in organic
  semiconductors by multi-octave magnetic resonance using coplanar waveguide
  microresonators

abstract:
  Separating the influence of hyperfine from spin-orbit interactions in
spin-dependent carrier recombination and dissociation processes necessitates
magnetic resonance spectroscopy over a wide range of frequencies. We have
designed compact and versatile coplanar waveguide resonators for
continuous-wave electrically detected magnetic resonance, and tested these on
organic light-emitting diodes. By exploiting both the fundamental and
higher-harmonic modes of the resonators we cover almost five octaves in
resonance frequency within a single setup. The measurements with a common
pi-conjugated polymer as the active material reveal small but non-negligible
effects of spin-orbit interactions, which give rise to a broadening of the
magnetic resonance spectrum with increasing frequency.


title:
Tangle Insertion Invariants for Pseudoknots, Singular Knots, and Rigid
  Vertex Spatial Graphs

abstract:
  The notion of a pseudoknot is defined as an equivalence class of knot
diagrams that may be missing some crossing information. We provide here a
topological invariant schema for pseudoknots and their relatives, 4-valent
rigid vertex spatial graphs and singular knots, that is obtained by replacing
unknown crossings or vertices by rational tangles.


title: Gold Standard for Expert Ranking: A Survey on the XWiki Dataset

abstract:
  We are designing an automated technique to find and recommend experts for
helping in Requirements Engineering tasks, which can be done by ranking the
available people by level of expertise. For evaluating the correctness of the
rankings produced by the automated technique, we want to compare them to a gold
standard. In this work, we ask external people to look at a set of discussions
and to rank their participants, before to evaluate the reliability of these
rankings to serve as a gold standard. We describe the setting and running of
this survey, the method used to build the gold standard from the rankings of
the subjects, and the analysis of the results to obtain and validate this gold
standard. Through the analysis of the results, we conclude that we obtained a
reasonable gold standard although we lack evidences to support its total
correctness. We also made the interesting observation that the most reliable
subjects build the least ordered rankings (i.e. has few ranks with several
people per rank), which goes against the usual assumptions of Information
Retrieval measures.


title:
Critical temperature of two-dimensional hydrogenated multilayer
  graphene-based diluted ferromagnet

abstract:
  In the paper a theoretical study of critical (Curie) temperature of diluted
ferromagnet based on multilayer graphene (or graphite) with hydrogen adatoms
deposited over carbon atoms belonging to single sublattice is presented. The
calculations are performed within Pair Approximation (PA) for diluted
ferromagnetic system with long-range interactions. The method is able to take
into account the spin-space anisotropy of coupling. The results obtained within
Mean Field Approximation (MFA) are also presented for comparison. The assumed
interaction between hydrogen adatom spins is inversely proportional to their
mutual distance, with the additional exponential attenuation reflecting the
presence of disorder in the system. The results obtained for a wide range of
impurity concentrations and interaction decay length are discussed. The
strongly non-linear behaviour of critical temperature as a function of dilution
is predicted, at variance with MFA predictions. Moreover, MFA tends to
overestimate heavily the critical temperature values compared to PA. An
universal dependence of critical temperature on impurity concentration and
interaction decay length is found for strong dilution regime.


title: Double roots of random polynomials with integer coefficients

abstract:
  We consider random polynomials whose coefficients are independent and
identically distributed on the integers. We prove that if the coefficient
distribution has bounded support and its probability to take any particular
value is at most $\tfrac12$, then the probability of the polynomial to have a
double root is dominated by the probability that either $0$, $1$, or $-1$ is a
double root up to an error of $o(n^{-2})$. We also show that if the support of
coefficient distribution excludes $0$ then the double root probability is
$O(n^{-2})$. Our result generalizes a similar result of Peled, Sen and Zeitouni
for Littlewood polynomials.


title: BMS Modules in Three Dimensions

abstract:
  We build unitary representations of the BMS algebra and its higher-spin
extensions in three dimensions, using induced representations as a guide. Our
prescription naturally emerges from an ultrarelativistic limit of
highest-weight representations of Virasoro and W algebras, which is to be
contrasted with non-relativistic limits that typically give non-unitary
representations. To support this dichotomy, we also point out that the
ultrarelativistic and non-relativistic limits of generic W algebras differ in
the structure of their non-linear terms.


title: Multiplicative Function Mean Values: Asymptotic Estimates

abstract:
  Classical mean-value results of Wirsing type in analytic number theory are
established under weaker than classical conditions.


title: Solving MaxSAT by Successive Calls to a SAT Solver

abstract:
  The Maximum Satisfiability (MaxSAT) problem is the problem of finding a truth
assignment that maximizes the number of satisfied clauses of a given Boolean
formula in Conjunctive Normal Form (CNF). Many exact solvers for MaxSAT have
been developed during recent years, and many of them were presented in the
well-known SAT conference. Algorithms for MaxSAT generally fall into two
categories: (1) branch and bound algorithms and (2) algorithms that use
successive calls to a SAT solver (SAT- based), which this paper in on. In
practical problems, SAT-based algorithms have been shown to be more efficient.
This paper provides an experimental investigation to compare the performance of
recent SAT-based and branch and bound algorithms on the benchmarks of the
MaxSAT Evaluations.


title:
Initial validation for the estimation of resting-state fMRI effective
  connectivity by a generalization of the correlation approach

abstract:
  Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) is widely used to noninvasively study
human brain networks. Network functional connectivity is often estimated by
calculating the timeseries correlation between blood-oxygen-level dependent
(BOLD) signal from different regions of interest. However, standard correlation
cannot characterize the direction of information flow between regions. In this
paper, we introduce and test a new concept, prediction correlation, to estimate
effective connectivity in functional brain networks from rs-fMRI. In this
approach, the correlation between two BOLD signals is replaced by a correlation
between one BOLD signal and a prediction of this signal via a causal system
driven by another BOLD signal. Three validations are described: (1) Prediction
correlation performed well on simulated data where the ground truth was known,
and outperformed four other methods. (2) On simulated data designed to display
the "common driver" problem, prediction correlation did not introduce false
connections between non-interacting driven ROIs. (3) On experimental data,
prediction correlation recovered the previously identified network organization
of human brain. Prediction correlation scales well to work with hundreds of
ROIs, enabling it to assess whole brain interregional connectivity at the
single subject level. These results provide an initial validation that
prediction correlation can capture the direction of information flow and
estimate the duration of extended temporal delays in information flow between
regions of interest based on BOLD signal. This approach not only maintains the
high sensitivity to network connectivity provided by the correlation analysis,
but also performs well in the estimation of causal information flow in the
brain.


title:
Fluid flow vorticity measurement using laser beams with orbital angular
  momentum

abstract:
  We report on the direct measurements of fluid flow vorticity using a
spatially shaped beam with a superposition of Laguerre-Gaussian modes that
reports on the rotational Doppler shift from microparticles intersecting the
beam focus. Experiments are carried out on fluid flows with well-characterized
vorticity and the experimental results are found to be in excellent agreement
with the expected values even for 200 ms integration times. This method allows
for localized real-time determination of vorticity in a fluid flow.


title:
Eigenvalue vs perimeter in a shape theorem for self-interacting random
  walks

abstract:
  We study paths of time-length $t$ of a continuous-time random walk on
$\mathbb Z^2$ subject to self-interaction that depends on the geometry of the
walk range and a collection of random, uniformly positive and finite edge
weights. The interaction enters through a Gibbs weight at inverse temperature
$\beta$; the "energy" is the total sum of the edge weights for edges on the
outer boundary of the range. For edge weights sampled from a
translation-invariant, ergodic law, we prove that the range boundary
condensates around an asymptotic shape in the limit $t\to\infty$ followed by
$\beta\to\infty$. The limit shape is a minimizer (unique, modulo translates) of
the sum of the principal harmonic frequency of the domain and the perimeter
with respect to the first-passage percolation norm derived from (the law of)
the edge weights. A dense subset of all norms in $\mathbb R^2$, and thus a
large variety of shapes, arise from the class of weight distributions to which
our proofs apply.


title: Degree Four Plane Spanners: Simpler and Better

abstract:
  Let ${\cal P}$ be a set of $n$ points embedded in the plane, and let ${\cal
C}$ be the complete Euclidean graph whose point-set is ${\cal P}$. Each edge in
${\cal C}$ between two points $p, q$ is realized as the line segment $[pq]$,
and is assigned a weight equal to the Euclidean distance $|pq|$. In this paper,
we show how to construct in $O(n\lg{n})$ time a plane spanner of ${\cal C}$ of
maximum degree at most 4 and stretch factor at most 20. This improves a long
sequence of results on the construction of plane spanners of ${\cal C}$. Our
result matches the smallest known upper bound of 4 by Bonichon et al. on the
maximum degree of plane spanners of ${\cal C}$, while significantly improving
their stretch factor upper bound from 156.82 to 20. The construction of our
spanner is based on Delaunay triangulations defined with respect to the
equilateral-triangle distance, and uses a different approach than that used by
Bonichon et al. Our approach leads to a simple and intuitive construction of a
well-structured spanner, and reveals useful structural properties of the
Delaunay triangulations defined with respect to the equilateral-triangle
distance.
  The structure of the constructed spanner implies that when ${\cal P}$ is in
convex position, the maximum degree of this spanner is at most 3. Combining the
above degree upper bound with the fact that 3 is a lower bound on the maximum
degree of any plane spanner of ${\cal C}$ when the point-set ${\cal P}$ is in
convex position, the results in this paper give a tight bound of 3 on the
maximum degree of plane spanners of ${\cal C}$ for point-sets in convex
position.


title:
Birth/birth-death processes and their computable transition
  probabilities with biological applications

abstract:
  Birth-death processes track the size of a univariate population, but many
biological systems involve interaction between populations, necessitating
models for two or more populations simultaneously. A lack of efficient methods
for evaluating finite-time transition probabilities of bivariate processes,
however, has restricted statistical inference in these models. Researchers rely
on computationally expensive methods such as matrix exponentiation or Monte
Carlo approximation, restricting likelihood-based inference to small systems,
or indirect methods such as approximate Bayesian computation. In this paper, we
introduce the birth(death)/birth-death process, a tractable bivariate extension
of the birth-death process. We develop an efficient and robust algorithm to
calculate the transition probabilities of birth(death)/birth-death processes
using a continued fraction representation of their Laplace transforms. Next, we
identify several exemplary models arising in molecular epidemiology,
macro-parasite evolution, and infectious disease modeling that fall within this
class, and demonstrate advantages of our proposed method over existing
approaches to inference in these models. Notably, the ubiquitous stochastic
susceptible-infectious-removed (SIR) model falls within this class, and we
emphasize that computable transition probabilities newly enable direct
inference of parameters in the SIR model. We also propose a very fast method
for approximating the transition probabilities under the SIR model via a novel
branching process simplification, and compare it to the continued fraction
representation method with application to the 17th century plague in Eyam.
Although the two methods produce similar maximum a posteriori estimates, the
branching process approximation fails to capture the correlation structure in
the joint posterior distribution.


title:
Faster and Cheaper: Parallelizing Large-Scale Matrix Factorization on
  GPUs

abstract:
  Matrix factorization (MF) is employed by many popular algorithms, e.g.,
collaborative filtering. The emerging GPU technology, with massively multicore
and high intra-chip memory bandwidth but limited memory capacity, presents an
opportunity for accelerating MF much further when appropriately exploiting the
GPU architectural characteristics.
  This paper presents cuMF, a CUDA-based matrix factorization library that
implements memory-optimized alternate least square (ALS) method to solve very
large-scale MF. CuMF uses a variety set of techniques to maximize the
performance on either single or multiple GPUs. These techniques include smart
access of sparse data leveraging GPU memory hierarchy, using data parallelism
in conjunction with model parallelism, minimizing the communication overhead
between computing units, and utilizing a novel topology-aware parallel
reduction scheme.
  With only a single machine with four Nvidia GPU cards, cuMF can be 6-10 times
as fast, and 33-100 times as cost-efficient, compared with the state-of-art
distributed CPU solutions. Moreover, this cuMF can solve the largest matrix
factorization problem ever reported yet in current literature, while
maintaining impressively good performance.


title:
Geometric back-reaction in pre-inflation from relativistic quantum
  geometry

abstract:
  The pre-inflationary evolution of the universe describes the beginning of the
expansion from a static initial state, such that the Hubble parameter is
initially zero, but increases to an asymptotic constant value, in which it
could achieve a de Sitter (inflationary) expansion. The expansion is driven by
a background phantom field. The back-reaction effects at this moment should
describe vacuum geometrical excitations, which are studied with detail in this
work using Relativistic Quantum Geometry.


title: On Thurston's Euler class one conjecture

abstract:
  In 1976, Thurston proved that taut foliations on closed hyperbolic
3-manifolds have Euler class of norm at most one, and conjectured that
conversely, any integral second cohomology class with norm equal to one is the
Euler class of a taut foliation. This is the first from a series of two papers
that together give a negative answer to Thurston's conjecture. Here
counterexamples have been constructed conditional on the fully marked surface
theorem. In the second paper, joint with David Gabai, a proof of the fully
marked surface theorem is given.


title: Light Curves of 213 Type Ia Supernovae from the ESSENCE Survey

abstract:
  The ESSENCE survey discovered 213 Type Ia supernovae at redshifts 0.1 < z <
0.81 between 2002 and 2008. We present their R and I-band photometry, measured
from images obtained using the MOSAIC II camera at the CTIO 4 m Blanco
telescope, along with rapid-response spectroscopy for each object. We use our
spectroscopic follow-up observations to determine an accurate, quantitative
classification and a precise redshift. Through an extensive calibration program
we have improved the precision of the CTIO Blanco natural photometric system.
We use several empirical metrics to measure our internal photometric
consistency and our absolute calibration of the survey. We assess the effect of
various potential sources of systematic bias on our measured fluxes, and we
estimate that the dominant term in the systematic error budget from the
photometric calibration on our absolute fluxes is ~1%.


title: Automating the Horae: Boundary-work in the age of computers

abstract:
  This paper describes the intense software filtering that has allowed the
arXiv eprint repository to sort and process large numbers of submissions with
minimal human intervention, making it one of the most important and influential
cases of open access repositories to date. The paper narrates arXiv's
transformation, using sophisticated sorting-filtering algorithms to decrease
human workload, from a small mailing list used by a few hundred researchers to
a site that processes thousands of papers per month. However there are
significant negative consequences for authors who have been filtered out of the
main categories. There is thus a continued need to check and balance arXiv's
boundaries, based in the essential tension between stability and innovation.


title:
Towards a Network of Faint DA White Dwarfs as High-Precision
  Spectrophotometric Standards

abstract:
  We present initial results from a program aimed at establishing a network of
hot DA white dwarfs to serve as spectrophotometric standards for present and
future wide-field surveys. These stars span the equatorial zone and are faint
enough to be conveniently observed throughout the year with large-aperture
telescopes. Spectra of these white dwarfs are analyzed to generate a
non-local-thermodynamic-equilibrium (NLTE) model atmosphere normalized to HST
colors, including adjustments for wavelength-dependent interstellar extinction.
Once established, this standard star network will serve ground-based
observatories in both hemispheres as well as space-based instrumentation from
the UV to the near IR. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this concept and
show how two different approaches to the problem using somewhat different
assumptions produce equivalent results. We discuss lessons learned and the
resulting corrective actions applied to our program.


title: Mapping EU fishing activities using ship tracking data

abstract:
  Information and understanding of fishing activities at sea are fundamental
components of marine knowledge and maritime situational awareness. Such
information is important to fisheries science, public authorities and policy
makers. In this paper we introduce a first map at European scale of EU fishing
activities extracted using Automatic Identification System (AIS) ship tracking
data. The resulting map is a density of points that identify fishing
activities. A measure of the reliability of such information is also presented
as a map of coverage reception capabilities.


title:
Sequential Short-Text Classification with Recurrent and Convolutional
  Neural Networks

abstract:
  Recent approaches based on artificial neural networks (ANNs) have shown
promising results for short-text classification. However, many short texts
occur in sequences (e.g., sentences in a document or utterances in a dialog),
and most existing ANN-based systems do not leverage the preceding short texts
when classifying a subsequent one. In this work, we present a model based on
recurrent neural networks and convolutional neural networks that incorporates
the preceding short texts. Our model achieves state-of-the-art results on three
different datasets for dialog act prediction.


title:
Assessing Executive Function Using a Computer Game: Computational
  Modeling of Cognitive Processes

abstract:
  Early and reliable detection of cognitive decline is one of the most
important challenges of current healthcare. In this project we developed an
approach whereby a frequently played computer game can be used to assess a
variety of cognitive processes and estimate the results of the pen-and-paper
Trail-Making Test (TMT) - known to measure executive function, as well as
visual pattern recognition, speed of processing, working memory, and
set-switching ability. We developed a computational model of the TMT based on a
decomposition of the test into several independent processes, each
characterized by a set of parameters that can be estimated from play of a
computer game designed to resemble the TMT. An empirical evaluation of the
model suggests that it is possible to use the game data to estimate the
parameters of the underlying cognitive processes and using the values of the
parameters to estimate the TMT performance. Cognitive measures and trends in
these measures can be used to identify individuals for further assessment, to
provide a mechanism for improving the early detection of neurological problems,
and to provide feedback and monitoring for cognitive interventions in the home.


title:
Quantum criticality and global phase diagram of an Ising-anisotropic
  Kondo lattice

abstract:
  Recent studies of heavy-fermion systems with tunable quantum fluctuations
have focused on a variety of zero-temperature phase transitions that involve
not only the onset of magnetic order but also the destruction of Kondo
entanglement. Motivated by these developments, we investigate the effect of
enhanced quantum fluctuations induced by a transverse magnetic field in an
Ising-anisotropic Kondo lattice model, solved within an extended dynamical mean
field theory using the numerical renormalization group. A line of locally
critical points describes a direct transition from a Kondo-screened
paramagnetic heavy-fermion state to a Kondo-destroyed antiferromagnetic phase.
Along the line, the extracted critical exponents remain unchanged. By probing
the the interplay between quantum fluctuations of the local moments, the Kondo
effect, and magnetic order, this study provides significant new insight into
the global phase diagram of heavy-fermion systems.


title:
Homoscedasticity tests for both low and high-dimensional fixed design
  regressions

abstract:
  This paper is to prove the asymptotic normality of a statistic for detecting
the existence of heteroscedasticity for linear regression models without
assuming randomness of covariates when the sample size $n$ tends to infinity
and the number of covariates $p$ is either fixed or tends to infinity. Moreover
our approach indicates that its asymptotic normality holds even without
homoscedasticity.


title:
Non-monotonic anisotropy in charge conduction induced by
  antiferrodistortive transition in metallic SrTiO$_{3}$

abstract:
  Cubic SrTiO$_{3}$ becomes tetragonal below 105 K. The antiferrodistortive
(AFD) distortion leads to clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation of adjacent
TiO$_{6}$ octahedra. This insulator becomes a metal upon the introduction of
extremely low concentration of n-type dopants. However, signatures of the
structural phase transition in charge conduction have remained elusive.
Employing the Montgomery technique, we succeed in resolving the anisotropy of
charge conductivity induced by the AFD transition, in the presence of different
types of dopants. We find that the slight lattice distortion ($<6 \times
10^{-4}$) gives rise to a twenty percent anisotropy in charge conductivity, in
agreement with the expectations of band calculations. Application of uniaxial
strain amplifies the detectable anisotropy by disfavoring one of the three
possible tetragonal domains. In contrast with all other known anisotropic Fermi
liquids, the anisotropy has opposite signs for elastic and inelastic
scattering. Increasing the concentration of dopants leads to a drastic shift in
the temperature of the AFD transition either upward or downward. The latter
result puts strong constraints on any hypothetical role played by the AFD soft
mode in the formation of Cooper pairs and the emergence of superconductivity in
SrTiO$_3$.


title: Constructing genus 3 hyperelliptic Jacobians with CM

abstract:
  Given a sextic CM field $K$, we give an explicit method for finding all genus
3 hyperelliptic curves defined over $\mathbb{C}$ whose Jacobians are simple and
have complex multiplication by the maximal order of this field, via an
approximation of their Rosenhain invariants. Building on the work of Weng, we
give an algorithm which works in complete generality, for any CM sextic field
$K$, and computes minimal polynomials of the Rosenhain invariants for any
period matrix of the Jacobian. This algorithm can be used to generate genus 3
hyperelliptic curves over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_p$ with a given zeta
function by finding roots of the Rosenhain minimal polynomials modulo $p$.


title: From virtual demonstration to real-world manipulation using LSTM and MDN

abstract:
  Robots assisting the disabled or elderly must perform complex manipulation
tasks and must adapt to the home environment and preferences of their user.
Learning from demonstration is a promising choice, that would allow the
non-technical user to teach the robot different tasks. However, collecting
demonstrations in the home environment of a disabled user is time consuming,
disruptive to the comfort of the user, and presents safety challenges. It would
be desirable to perform the demonstrations in a virtual environment. In this
paper we describe a solution to the challenging problem of behavior transfer
from virtual demonstration to a physical robot. The virtual demonstrations are
used to train a deep neural network based controller, which is using a Long
Short Term Memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network to generate trajectories. The
training process uses a Mixture Density Network (MDN) to calculate an error
signal suitable for the multimodal nature of demonstrations. The controller
learned in the virtual environment is transferred to a physical robot (a
Rethink Robotics Baxter). An off-the-shelf vision component is used to
substitute for geometric knowledge available in the simulation and an inverse
kinematics module is used to allow the Baxter to enact the trajectory. Our
experimental studies validate the three contributions of the paper: (1) the
controller learned from virtual demonstrations can be used to successfully
perform the manipulation tasks on a physical robot, (2) the LSTM+MDN
architectural choice outperforms other choices, such as the use of feedforward
networks and mean-squared error based training signals and (3) allowing
imperfect demonstrations in the training set also allows the controller to
learn how to correct its manipulation mistakes.


title:
Comparative Advantage Driven Resource Allocation for Virtual Network
  Functions

abstract:
  As Communication Service Providers (CSPs) adopt the Network Function
Virtualization (NFV) paradigm, they need to transition their network function
capacity to a virtualized infrastructure with different Network Functions
running on a set of heterogeneous servers. This abstract describes a novel
technique for allocating server resources (compute, storage and network) for a
given set of Virtual Network Function (VNF) requirements. Our approach helps
the telco providers decide the most effective way to run several VNFs on
servers with different performance characteristics. Our analysis of prior VNF
performance characterization on heterogeneous/different server resource
allocations shows that the ability to arbitrarily create many VNFs among
different servers' resource allocations leads to a comparative advantage among
servers. We propose a VNF resource allocation method called COMPARE that
maximizes the total throughput of the system by formulating this resource
allocation problem as a comparative advantage problem among heterogeneous
servers. There several applications for using the VNF resource allocation from
COMPARE including transitioning current Telco deployments to NFV based
solutions and providing initial VNF placement for Service Function Chain (SFC)
provisioning.


title:
Distinctive ultraviolet structure of extra-dimensional Yang-Mills
  theories by integration of heavy Kaluza-Klein modes

abstract:
  One-loop Standard Model observables produced by virtual heavy Kaluza-Klein
fields play a prominent role in the minimal model of universal extra
dimensions. Motivated by this aspect, we integrate out all the Kaluza-Klein
heavy modes coming from the Yang-Mills theory set on a spacetime with an
arbitrary number, $n$, of compact extra dimensions. After fixing the gauge with
respect to the Kaluza-Klein heavy gauge modes in a covariant manner, we
calculate a gauge independent effective Lagrangian expansion containing
multiple Kaluza-Klein sums that entail a bad divergent behavior. We use the
Epstein-zeta function to regularize and characterize discrete divergences
within such multiple sums, and then we discuss the interplay between the number
of extra dimensions and the degree of accuracy of effective Lagrangians to
generate or not divergent terms of discrete origin. We find that
nonrenormalizable terms with mass dimension $k$ are finite as long as $k>4+n$.
Multiple Kaluza-Klein sums of nondecoupling logarithmic terms, not treatable by
Epstein-zeta regularization, are produced by four-dimensional momentum
integration. On the grounds of standard renormalization, we argue that such
effects are unobservable.


title: Near-Isometric Binary Hashing for Large-scale Datasets

abstract:
  We develop a scalable algorithm to learn binary hash codes for indexing
large-scale datasets. Near-isometric binary hashing (NIBH) is a data-dependent
hashing scheme that quantizes the output of a learned low-dimensional embedding
to obtain a binary hash code. In contrast to conventional hashing schemes,
which typically rely on an $\ell_2$-norm (i.e., average distortion)
minimization, NIBH is based on a $\ell_{\infty}$-norm (i.e., worst-case
distortion) minimization that provides several benefits, including superior
distance, ranking, and near-neighbor preservation performance. We develop a
practical and efficient algorithm for NIBH based on column generation that
scales well to large datasets. A range of experimental evaluations demonstrate
the superiority of NIBH over ten state-of-the-art binary hashing schemes.


title: Intrusion Detection A Text Mining Based Approach

abstract:
  Intrusion Detection is one of major threats for organization. The approach of
intrusion detection using text processing has been one of research interests
which is gaining significant importance from researchers. In text mining based
approach for intrusion detection, system calls serve as source for mining and
predicting possibility of intrusion or attack. When an application runs, there
might be several system calls which are initiated in the background. These
system calls form the strong basis and the deciding factor for intrusion
detection. In this paper, we mainly discuss the approach for intrusion
detection by designing a distance measure which is designed by taking into
consideration the conventional Gaussian function and modified to suit the need
for similarity function. A Framework for intrusion detection is also discussed
as part of this research.


title: A note on smoothing properties of the Bergman projection

abstract:
  Recently Herbig, McNeal, and Straube have showed that the Bergman projection
of conjugate holomorphic functions is smooth up to the boundary on a class of
pseudoconvex domains. We show that a further smoothing property holds on a
family of Reinhardt domains; namely, the Bergman projection of conjugate
holomorphic functions is holomorphic past the boundary.


title: On a drift-diffusion system for semiconductor devices

abstract:
  In this note we study a fractional Poisson-Nernst-Planck equation modeling a
semiconductor device. We prove several decay estimates for the Lebesgue and
Sobolev norms in one, two and three dimensions. We also provide the first term
of the asymptotic expansion as $t\rightarrow\infty$.


title: Turner doubles and generalized Schur algebras

abstract:
  Turner's Conjecture describes all blocks of symmetric groups and Hecke
algebras up to derived equivalence in terms of certain double algebras. With a
view towards a proof of this conjecture, we develop a general theory of Turner
doubles. In particular, we describe doubles as explicit maximal symmetric
subalgebras of certain generalized Schur algebras and establish a Schur-Weyl
duality with wreath product algebras.


title:
Effects of interface oxygen vacancies on electronic bands of
  FeSe/SrTiO3(001)

abstract:
  Modifications of the electronic bands of thin FeSe films due to oxygen
vacancies in the supporting SrTiO 3 (001) substrate - and the interplay with
spin-orbit coupling, magnetism, and epitaxy - are investigated by
first-principles supercell calculations. Unfolded (k-projected) bands show that
the oxygen vacancies both provide electron doping to the interface FeSe layer
and also have notable effects on the details of the bands around the Fermi
level, including renormalizing the width of the Fe-3d band near the Fermi level
by a factor of about 0.6, and causing a splitting of ~40 meV at the M point for
the checkerboard antiferromagnetic configuration. For an FeSe bilayer, the
modifications to the bands are mainly limited to the interface FeSe layer.
While spin-orbit-coupling induced band splittings of ~30 meV at M for the ideal
FeSe/SrTiO3 (001) interfaces are comparable to the splitting due to oxygen
vacancies, the effects are not simply additive. Calculations and comparison to
our scanning tunneling microscopy images of MBE-grown FeSe films on SrTiO3
(001) suggest that a common defect may be Se bound to an oxygen vacancy at the
interface


title: On hereditary properties of quantum group amenability

abstract:
  Given a locally compact quantum group $\mathbb{G}$ and a closed quantum
subgroup $\mathbb{H}$, we show that $\mathbb{G}$ is amenable if and only if
$\mathbb{H}$ is amenable and $\mathbb{G}$ acts amenably on the quantum
homogenous space $\mathbb{G}/\mathbb{H}$. We also study the existence of
$L^1(\widehat{\mathbb{G}})$-module projections from
$L^{\infty}(\widehat{\mathbb{G}})$ onto $L^{\infty}(\widehat{\mathbb{H}})$.


title:
Blocks of symmetric groups, semicuspidal KLR algebras and zigzag
  Schur-Weyl duality

abstract:
  We prove Turner's conjecture, which describes the blocks of the Hecke
algebras of the symmetric groups up to derived equivalence as certain explicit
Turner double algebras. Turner doubles are Schur-algebra-like `local' objects,
which replace wreath products of Brauer tree algebras in the context of the
Brou\'e abelian defect group conjecture for blocks of symmetric groups with
non-abelian defect groups. The main tools used in the proof are generalized
Schur algebras corresponding to wreath products of zigzag algebras and
imaginary semicuspidal quotients of affine KLR algebras.


title:
Identification of the oscillation period of chemical reactors by chaotic
  sampling of the conversion degree

abstract:
  To stabilize the periodic operation of a chemical reactor the oscillation
period should be determined precisely in real time. The method discussed in the
paper is based on adaptive sampling of the state variable with the use of
chaotic mapping to itself. It enables precise determination of the oscillation
period in real time and could be used for a proper control system, that can
successfully control the process and maintain the oscillation period at a set
level. The method was applied to a tank reactor and tubular reactor with
recycle.