title: Asymptotic bounds on renewal process stopping times

abstract:
  Suppose that i.i.d. random variables $X_{1}, X_{2}, \ldots$ are chosen
uniformly from $[0,1]$, and let $f: [0,1] \rightarrow [0,1]$ be an increasing
bijection. Define $\mu_{f}$ to be the expected value of $f(X_{i})$ for each
$i$. Define the random variable $K_{f}$ be to be minimal so that $\sum_{i =
1}^{K_{f}} f(X_{i}) > t$ and let $N_{f}(t)$ be the expected value of $K_{f}$.
We prove that if $c_{f} = \frac{\int_{0}^{1} \int_{f^{-1}(u)}^{1} (f(x)-u) dx
du}{\mu_{f}}$, then $N_{f}(t) = \frac{t+c_{f}}{\mu_{f}}+o(1)$. This generalizes
a result of \'{C}urgus and Jewett (2007) on the case $f(x) = x$.


title:
Particle Smoothing for Hidden Diffusion Processes: Adaptive Path
  Integral Smoother

abstract:
  Particle smoothing methods are used for inference of stochastic processes
based on noisy observations. Typically, the estimation of the marginal
posterior distribution given all observations is cumbersome and computational
intensive. In this paper, we propose a simple algorithm based on path integral
control theory to estimate the smoothing distribution of continuous-time
diffusion processes with partial observations. In particular, we use an
adaptive importance sampling method to improve the effective sampling size of
the posterior over processes given the observations and the reliability of the
estimation of the marginals. This is achieved by estimating a feedback
controller to sample efficiently from the joint smoothing distributions. We
compare the results with estimations obtained from the standard Forward
Filter/Backward Simulator for two diffusion processes of different complexity.
We show that the proposed method gives more reliable estimations than the
standard FFBSi when the smoothing distribution is poorly represented by the
filter distribution.


title: The general dielectric tensor for bi-kappa magnetized plasmas

abstract:
  In this paper we derive the dielectric tensor for a plasma containing
particles described by an anisotropic superthermal (bi-kappa) velocity
distribution function. The tensor components are written in terms of the
two-variables kappa plasma special functions, recently defined by Gaelzer and
Ziebell [Phys. Plasmas 23, 022110 (2016)]. We also obtain various new
mathematical properties for these functions, which are useful for the
analytical treatment, numerical implementation and evaluation of the functions
and, consequently, of the dielectric tensor. The formalism developed here and
in the previous paper provides a mathematical framework for the study of
electromagnetic waves propagating at arbitrary angles and polarizations in a
superthermal plasma.


title:
From the generalized Morse potential to a unified treatment of the
  $D$-dimensional singular harmonic oscillator and singular Coulomb potentials

abstract:
  Bound-state solutions of the singular harmonic oscillator and singular
Coulomb potentials in arbitrary dimensions are generated in a simple way from
the solutions of the one-dimensional generalized Morse potential. The
nonsingular harmonic oscillator and nonsingular Coulomb potentials in arbitrary
dimensions with their additional accidental degeneracies are obtained as
particular cases. Added bonuses from these mappings are the straightforward
determination of the critical attractive singular potential, the proper
boundary condition on the radial eigenfunction at the origin and the
inexistence of bound states in a pure inversely quadratic potential.


title:
Generalized Zernike polynomials: Integral representation and Cauchy
  transform

abstract:
  The aim of this paper is two fold. We derive an integral representation for
the generalized 2D Zernike polynomials which are of independent interest and
give the explicit expression of the action of the Cauchy transform on them.


title:
Online Diversion Detection in Nuclear Fuel Cycles via Multimodal
  Observations

abstract:
  In nuclear fuel cycles, an enrichment facility typically provides low
enriched uranium (LEU) to a number of customers. We consider monitoring an
enrichment facility to timely detect a possible diversion of highly enriched
uranium (HEU). To increase the the detection accuracy it is important to
efficiently use the available information diversity. In this work, it is
assumed that the shipment times and the power consumption of the enrichment
facility are observed for each shipment of enriched uranium. We propose to
initially learn the statistical patterns of the enrichment facility through the
bimodal observations in a training period, that is known to be free of
diversions. Then, for the goal of timely diversion detection, we propose to use
an online detection algorithm which sequentially compares each set of new
observations in the test period, which possibly includes diversions, to the
learned patterns, and raises a diversion alarm when a significant statistical
deviation is detected. The efficacy of the proposed method is shown by
comparing its detection performance to those of the traditional detection
methods in the Statistics literature.


title: Differentially Private Bayesian Programming

abstract:
  We present PrivInfer, an expressive framework for writing and verifying
differentially private Bayesian machine learning algorithms. Programs in
PrivInfer are written in a rich functional probabilistic programming language
with constructs for performing Bayesian inference. Then, differential privacy
of programs is established using a relational refinement type system, in which
refinements on probability types are indexed by a metric on distributions. Our
framework leverages recent developments in Bayesian inference, probabilistic
programming languages, and in relational refinement types. We demonstrate the
expressiveness of PrivInfer by verifying privacy for several examples of
private Bayesian inference.


title: MagBoard: Magnetic-based Ubiquitous Homomorphic Off-the-shelf Keyboard

abstract:
  One of the main methods for interacting with mobile devices today is the
error-prone and inflexible touch-screen keyboard. This paper proposes MagBoard:
a homomorphic ubiquitous keyboard for mobile devices. MagBoard allows
application developers and users to design and print different custom keyboards
for the same applications to fit different user's needs. The core idea is to
leverage the triaxial magnetometer embedded in standard mobile phones to
accurately localize the location of a magnet on a virtual grid superimposed on
the printed keyboard. This is achieved through a once in a lifetime
fingerprint. MagBoard also provides a number of modules that allow it to cope
with background magnetic noise, heterogeneous devices, different magnet shapes,
sizes, and strengths, as well as changes in magnet polarity. Our implementation
of MagBoard on Android phones with extensive evaluation in different scenarios
demonstrates that it can achieve a key detection accuracy of more than 91% for
keys as small as 2cm*2cm, reaching 100% for 4cm*4cm keys. This accuracy is
robust with different phones and magnets, highlighting MagBoard promise as a
homomorphic ubiquitous keyboard for mobile devices.


title: The Borell-Ehrhard Game

abstract:
  A precise description of the convexity of Gaussian measures is provided by
sharp Brunn-Minkowski type inequalities due to Ehrhard and Borell. We show that
these are manifestations of a game-theoretic mechanism: a minimax variational
principle for Brownian motion. As an application, we obtain a Gaussian
improvement of Barthe's reverse Brascamp-Lieb inequality.


title: Multidimensional Scaling on Multiple Input Distance Matrices

abstract:
  Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) is a classic technique that seeks vectorial
representations for data points, given the pairwise distances between them.
However, in recent years, data are usually collected from diverse sources or
have multiple heterogeneous representations. How to do multidimensional scaling
on multiple input distance matrices is still unsolved to our best knowledge. In
this paper, we first define this new task formally. Then, we propose a new
algorithm called Multi-View Multidimensional Scaling (MVMDS) by considering
each input distance matrix as one view. Our algorithm is able to learn the
weights of views (i.e., distance matrices) automatically by exploring the
consensus information and complementary nature of views. Experimental results
on synthetic as well as real datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of MVMDS.
We hope that our work encourages a wider consideration in many domains where
MDS is needed.


title:
Detecting Burnscar from Hyperspectral Imagery via Sparse Representation
  with Low-Rank Interference

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a burnscar detection model for hyperspectral
imaging (HSI) data. The proposed model contains two-processing steps in which
the first step separate and then suppress the cloud information presenting in
the data set using an RPCA algorithm and the second step detect the burnscar
area in the low-rank component output of the first step. Experiments are
conducted on the public MODIS dataset available at NASA official website.


title: $*$-Freeness in Finite Tensor Products

abstract:
  In this paper, we consider the following question and variants thereof: given
$\mathbf D:=\big(a_{1;i}\otimes\cdots\otimes a_{K;i}:i\in I\big)$, a collection
of elementary tensor non-commutative random variables in the tensor product of
probability spaces $(\mathcal A_1\otimes\cdots\otimes\mathcal
A_K,\phi_1\otimes\cdots\otimes\phi_K)$, when is $\mathbf D$ $*$-free? (See
Section 1.2 for a precise formulation of this problem.)
  Settling whether or not freeness occurs in tensor products is a recurring
problem in operator algebras, and the following two examples provide a natural
motivation for the above question:
  (A) If $(a_{1;i}:i\in I)$ is a $*$-free family of Haar unitary variables and
$a_{k,i}$ are arbitrary unitary variables for $k\geq2$, then the $*$-freeness
persists at the level of the tensor product $\mathbf D$.
  (B) A converse of (A) holds true if all variables $a_{k;i}$ are group-like
elements (see Corollary 1.7 of Proposition 1.6).
  It is therefore natural to seek to understand the extent to which such simple
characterizations hold true in more general cases. While our results fall short
of a complete characterization, we make notable steps toward identifying
necessary and sufficient conditions for the freeness of $\mathbf D$. For
example, we show that under evident assumptions, if more than one family
$(a_{k,i}:i\in I)$ contains non-unitary variables, then the tensor family fails
to be $*$-free (see Theorem 1.8 (1)).


title:
A Gap with a Deficit of Large Grains in the protoplanetary disk around
  TW Hya

abstract:
  We report $\sim$3 au resolution imaging observations of the protoplanetary
disk around TW Hya at 145 and 233 GHz with the Atacama Large
Millimeter/Submillimeter Array. Our observations revealed two deep gaps
($\sim$25--50 \%) at 22 and 37~au and shallower gaps (a few \%) at 6, 28, and
44~au, as recently reported by Andrews et al. (2016). The central hole with a
radius of $\sim3$~au was also marginally resolved. The most remarkable finding
is that the spectral index $\alpha (R)$ between bands 4 and 6 peaks at the
22~au gap. The derived power-law index of the dust opacity $\beta (R)$ is
$\sim1.7$ at the 22~au gap and decreases toward the disk center to $\sim0$. The
most prominent gap at 22~au could be caused by the gravitational interaction
between the disk and an unseen planet with a mass of $\lesssim$1.5
$M_\mathrm{Neptune}$ although other origins may be possible. The planet-induced
gap is supported by the fact that $\beta (R)$ is enhanced at the 22~au gap,
indicating a deficit of $\sim$mm-sized grains within the gap due to dust
filtration by a planet.


title: Uniform hyperbolicity in nonflat billiards

abstract:
  Uniform hyperbolicity is a strong chaotic property which holds, in
particular, for Sinai billiards. In this paper, we consider the case of a
nonflat billiard, that is, a Riemannian manifold with boundary. Each trajectory
follows the geodesic flow in the interior of the billiard, and bounces when it
meets the boundary. We give a sufficient condition for a nonflat billiard to be
uniformly hyperbolic. As a particular case, we obtain a new criterion to show
that a closed surface has an Anosov geodesic flow.


title: Variation on a theme of Nathan Fine. New weighted partition identities

abstract:
  We utilize false theta function results of Nathan Fine to discover three new
partition identities involving weights. These relations connect
G\"ollnitz--Gordon type partitions and partitions with distinct odd parts,
partitions into distinct parts and ordinary partitions, and partitions with
distinct odd parts where the smallest positive integer that is not a part of
the partition is odd and ordinary partitions subject to some initial
conditions, respectively. Some of our weights involve new partition statistics,
one is defined as the number of different odd parts of a partition larger than
or equal to a given value and another one is defined as the number of different
even parts larger than the first integer that is not a part of the partition.
  Dedicated to our friend, Krishna Alladi, on his 60th birthday.


title: Collective Dipole-Dipole Interactions in an Atomic Array

abstract:
  The coherent dipole-dipole interactions of atoms in an atomic array are
studied. It is found that the excitation probability of an atom in an array
parallel to the direction of laser propagation ($\boldsymbol{\hat{k}}$) will
either grow or decay logarithmically along $\boldsymbol{\hat{k}}$, depending on
the detuning of the laser. The symmetry of the system for atomic separations of
$\delta r = j\lambda/2$, where $j$ is an integer, causes the excitation
distribution and scattered radiation to abruptly become symmetric about the
center of the array. For atomic separations of $\delta r < \lambda/2$, the
appearance of a collection of extremely subradiant states ($\Gamma\sim 0$),
disrupts the described trend. In order to interpret the results from a finite
array of atoms, a band structure calculation in the $N\rightarrow \infty$ limit
is conducted where the decay rates and the Collective Lamb Shifts of the
eigenmodes along the Brillouin zone are shown. Finally, the band structure of
an array strongly affects its scattered radiation, allowing one to manipulate
the Collective Lamb Shift as well as the decay rate (from superradiant to
subradiant) by changing the angle of the driving laser.


title:
Surface-state spin textures in strained bulk HgTe: strain-induced
  topological phase transitions

abstract:
  The opening of a band gap due to compressive uniaxial strain renders bulk
HgTe a strong three-dimensional topological insulators with protected gapless
surface states at any surface. By employing a six-band k.p model, we determine
the spin textures of the topological surface states of strained HgTe using
their close relations with the mirror Chern numbers of the system and the
orbital composition of the surface states. We show that at surfaces with C2v
point group symmetry an increase in the strain magnitude triggers a topological
phase transition where the winding number of the surface state spin texture is
flipped while the four topological invariants characterizing the bulk band
structure of the material are unchanged.


title: Entropic information of dynamical AdS/QCD holographic models

abstract:
  The Shannon based conditional entropy that underlies five-dimensional
Einstein-Hilbert gravity coupled to a dilaton field is investigated in the
context of dynamical holographic AdS/QCD models. Considering the UV and IR
dominance limits of such AdS/QCD models, the conditional entropy is shown to
shed some light onto the meson classification schemes, which corroborate with
the existence of light-flavour mesons of lower spins in Nature. Our analysis is
supported by a correspondence between statistical mechanics and information
entropy which establishes the physical grounds to the Shannon information
entropy, also in the context of statistical mechanics, and provides some
specificities for accurately extending the entropic discussion to continuous
modes of physical systems. From entropic informational grounds, the conditional
entropy allows one to identify the lower experimental/phenomenological
occurrence of higher spin mesons in Nature. Moreover, it introduces a
quantitative theoretical apparatus for studying the instability of high spin
light-flavour mesons.


title:
Chemical history of isolated dwarf galaxies of the Local Group: I.
  dSphs: Cetus and Tucana

abstract:
  For the first time, we obtain chemical evolution models (CEMs) for Tucana and
Cetus, two isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) of the Local Group. The
CEMs have been built from the star formation histories (SFHs) and the
metallicity histories, both obtained independently by the LCID project from
deep color-magnitude dia- grams. Based on our models, we find that the chemical
histories were complex and can be divided into different epochs and scenarios.
In particular, during 75 percent of the SFH, the galaxies behaved as closed
boxes and, during the remaining 25 percent, either received a lot of primordial
gas by accretion or they lost metals through metal-rich winds. In order to
discriminate between these two scenarios, abundances ratios in old stars are
needed. At t approximately 4.5 Gyr, the galaxies lost most of their gas due to
a short-strong, well-mixed wind. We obtain very similar CEMs for both galaxies,
although Cetus is twice as massive as Tucana. We conclude that the star
formation in both galaxies began with only 1.5 percent of the baryonic mass
fraction predicted by lambda CDM.


title: Chang's Conjecture and semiproperness of nonreasonable posets

abstract:
  Let $\mathbb{Q}$ denote the poset which adds a Cohen real then shoots a club
through the complement of $\big( [\omega_2]^\omega \big)^V$ with countable
conditions. We prove that the version of Strong Chang's Conjecture from
\cite{MR2965421} implies semiproperness of $\mathbb{Q}$, and that
semiproperness of $\mathbb{Q}$---in fact semiproperness of any poset which is
sufficiently \emph{nonreasonable} in the sense of
Foreman-Magidor~\cite{MR1359154}---implies the version of Strong Chang's
Conjecture from \cite{MR2723878} and \cite{MR1261218}. In particular,
semiproperness of $\mathbb{Q}$ has large cardinal strength, which answers a
question of Friedman-Krueger~\cite{MR2276627}. One corollary of our work is
that the version of Strong Chang's Conjecture from \cite{MR2965421} does not
imply the existence of a precipitous ideal on $\omega_1$.


title:
Irreducibility and components rigid in moduli of the Hilbert scheme of
  smooth curves

abstract:
  Denote by $\mathcal{H}_{d,g,r}$ the Hilbert scheme of smooth curves, that is
the union of components whose general point corresponds to a smooth irreducible
and non-degenerate curve of degree $d$ and genus $g$ in $\mathbb P^r$. A
component of $\mathcal{H}_{d,g,r}$ is rigid in moduli if its image under the
natural map $\pi:\mathcal{H}_{d,g,r} \dashrightarrow \mathcal{M}_{g}$ is a one
point set. In this note, we provide a proof of the fact that
$\mathcal{H}_{d,g,r}$ has no components rigid in moduli for $g > 0$ and $r=3$,
from which it follows that the only smooth projective curves embedded in
$\mathbb P^3$ whose only deformations are given by projective transformations
are the twisted cubic curves. In case $r \geq 4$, we also prove the
non-existence of a component of $\mathcal{H}_{d,g,r}$ rigid in moduli in a
certain restricted range of $d$, $g>0$ and $r$. In the course of the proofs, we
establish the irreducibility of $\mathcal{H}_{d,g,3}$ beyond the range which
has been known before.


title:
III-V semiconductor nano-resonators-a new strategy for passive, active,
  and nonlinear all-dielectric metamaterials

abstract:
  Metamaterials comprising assemblies of dielectric resonators have attracted
much attention due to their low intrinsic loss and isotropic optical response.
In particular, metasurfaces made from silicon dielectric resonators have shown
desirable behaviors such as efficient nonlinear optical conversion, spectral
filtering and advanced wave-front engineering. To further explore the potential
of dielectric metamaterials, we present all-dielectric metamaterials fabricated
from epitaxially grown III-V semiconductors that can exploit the high
second-order optical susceptibilities of III-V semiconductors, as well as the
ease of monolithically integrating active/gain media. Specifically, we create
GaAs nano-resonators using a selective wet oxidation process that forms a low
refractive index AlGaO (n~1.6) under layer similar to silicon dielectric
resonators formed using silicon-on-insulator wafers. We further use the same
fabrication processes to demonstrate multilayer III-V dielectric resonator
arrays that provide us with new degrees of freedom in device engineering. For
these arrays, we experimentally measure ~100% reflectivity over a broad
spectral range. We envision that all-dielectric III-V semiconductor
metamaterials will open up new avenues for passive, active and nonlinear all
dielectric metamaterials


title: Nernst effect in Dirac and inversion-asymmetric Weyl semimetals

abstract:
  Dirac semimetals are three dimensional analog of graphene with massless Dirac
fermions as low energy electronic excitations. In contrast to Weyl semimetals,
the point nodes in the bulk spectrum of topological Dirac semimetals have a
vanishing Chern number, but can yet be stable due to the existence of
crystalline symmetries such as uniaxial (discrete) rotation symmetry. We
consider a model low-energy Hamiltonian appropriate for the recently discovered
topological Dirac semimetal Cd$_3$As$_2$, and calculate the Nernst response
within semiclassical Boltzmann dynamics in the relaxation time approximation.
We show that, for small chemical potentials near the Dirac points, the low
temperature, low magnetic field, Nernst response is dominated by
\textit{anomalous} Nernst effect, arising from a non-trivial profile of Berry
curvature on the Fermi surface. Although the Nernst coefficient (both anomalous
as well as conventional) vanish in the limit of zero magnetic field, the low
temperature, low magnetic field, Nernst response, which has an almost step like
profile near $\mathbf{B}=0$, serves as an effective experimental probe of
anomalous Nernst effect in topological Dirac semimetals protected by
crystalline symmetries. Additionally, we also calculate the Nernst response for
a lattice model of an inversion asymmetric Weyl semimetal for which, in
contrast to the case of Dirac semimetal, we find that the conventional Nernst
response dominates over the anomalous. Our calculations in this paper on Nernst
response of Dirac semimetal and inversion broken Weyl semimetal are directly
relevant to recent experiments on Cd$_3$As$_2$ (Dirac semimetal) and NbP
(inversion broken Weyl semimetal) respectively.


title: CheapSMC: A Framework to Minimize SMC Cost in Cloud

abstract:
  Secure multi-party computation (SMC) techniques are increasingly becoming
more efficient and practical thanks to many recent novel improvements. The
recent work have shown that different protocols that are implemented using
different sharing mechanisms (e.g., boolean, arithmetic sharings, etc.) may
have different computational and communication costs. Although there are some
works that automatically mix protocols of different sharing schemes to fasten
execution, none of them provide a generic optimization framework to find the
cheapest mixed-protocol SMC execution for cloud deployment.
  In this work, we propose a generic SMC optimization framework CheapSMC that
can use any mixed-protocol SMC circuit evaluation tool as a black-box to find
the cheapest SMC cloud deployment option. To find the cheapest SMC protocol,
CheapSMC runs one time benchmarks for the target cloud service and gathers
performance statistics for basic circuit components. Using these performance
statistics, optimization layer of CheapSMC runs multiple heuristics to find the
cheapest mix-protocol circuit evaluation. Later on, the optimized circuit is
passed to a mix-protocol SMC tool for actual executable generation. Our
empirical results gathered by running different cases studies show that
significant cost savings could be achieved using our optimization framework.


title:
Backward transfer entropy: Informational measure for detecting hidden
  Markov models and its interpretations in thermodynamics, gambling and
  causality

abstract:
  The transfer entropy is a well-established measure of information flow, which
quantifies directed influence between two stochastic time series and has been
shown to be useful in a variety fields of science. Here we introduce the
transfer entropy of the backward time series called the backward transfer
entropy, and show that the backward transfer entropy quantifies how far it is
from dynamics to a hidden Markov model. Furthermore, we discuss physical
interpretations of the backward transfer entropy in completely different
settings of thermodynamics for information processing and the gambling with
side information. In both settings of thermodynamics and the gambling, the
backward transfer entropy characterizes a possible loss of some benefit, where
the conventional transfer entropy characterizes a possible benefit. Our result
implies the deep connection between thermodynamics and the gambling in the
presence of information flow, and that the backward transfer entropy would be
useful as a novel measure of information flow in nonequilibrium thermodynamics,
biochemical sciences, economics and statistics.


title:
On Landau-Ginzburg systems and $\mathcal{D}^b(X)$ of various toric Fano
  manifolds with small picard group

abstract:
  For a toric Fano manifold $X$ denote by $Crit(X) \subset
(\mathbb{C}^{\ast})^n$ the solution scheme of the Landau-Ginzburg system of
equations of $X$. Examples of toric Fano manifolds with $rk(Pic(X)) \leq 3$
which admit full strongly exceptional collections of line bundles were recently
found by various authors. For these examples we construct a map $E : Crit(X)
\rightarrow Pic(X)$ whose image $\mathcal{E}=\left \{ E(z) \vert z \in Crit(X)
\right \}$ is a full strongly exceptional collection satisfying the M-aligned
property. That is, under this map, the groups $Hom(E(z),E(w))$ for $z,w \in
Crit(X)$ are naturally related to the structure of the monodromy group acting
on $Crit(X)$.


title:
A Self-Taught Artificial Agent for Multi-Physics Computational Model
  Personalization

abstract:
  Personalization is the process of fitting a model to patient data, a critical
step towards application of multi-physics computational models in clinical
practice. Designing robust personalization algorithms is often a tedious,
time-consuming, model- and data-specific process. We propose to use artificial
intelligence concepts to learn this task, inspired by how human experts
manually perform it. The problem is reformulated in terms of reinforcement
learning. In an off-line phase, Vito, our self-taught artificial agent, learns
a representative decision process model through exploration of the
computational model: it learns how the model behaves under change of
parameters. The agent then automatically learns an optimal strategy for on-line
personalization. The algorithm is model-independent; applying it to a new model
requires only adjusting few hyper-parameters of the agent and defining the
observations to match. The full knowledge of the model itself is not required.
Vito was tested in a synthetic scenario, showing that it could learn how to
optimize cost functions generically. Then Vito was applied to the inverse
problem of cardiac electrophysiology and the personalization of a whole-body
circulation model. The obtained results suggested that Vito could achieve
equivalent, if not better goodness of fit than standard methods, while being
more robust (up to 11% higher success rates) and with faster (up to seven
times) convergence rate. Our artificial intelligence approach could thus make
personalization algorithms generalizable and self-adaptable to any patient and
any model.


title:
Gravitational-wave phasing for low-eccentricity inspiralling compact
  binaries to 3PN order

abstract:
  [abridged] Although gravitational radiation causes inspiralling compact
binaries to circularize, a variety of astrophysical scenarios suggest that
binaries might have small but nonnegligible orbital eccentricities when they
enter the low-frequency bands of ground and space-based gravitational-wave
detectors. If not accounted for, even a small orbital eccentricity can cause a
potentially significant systematic error in the mass parameters of an
inspiralling binary. Gravitational-wave search templates typically rely on the
quasi-circular approximation, which provides relatively simple expressions for
the gravitational-wave phase to 3.5 post-Newtonian (PN) order. The
quasi-Keplerian formalism provides an elegant but complex description of the
post-Newtonian corrections to the orbits and waveforms of inspiralling binaries
with any eccentricity. Here we specialize the quasi-Keplerian formalism to
binaries with low eccentricity. In this limit the non-periodic contribution to
the gravitational-wave phasing can be expressed explicitly as simple functions
of frequency or time, with little additional complexity beyond the well-known
formulas for circular binaries. These eccentric phase corrections are computed
to 3PN order and to leading order in the eccentricity for the standard PN
approximants. For a variety of systems these eccentricity corrections cause
significant corrections to the number of gravitational wave cycles that sweep
through a detector's frequency band. This is evaluated using several measures,
including a modification of the useful cycles. We also evaluate the role of
periodic terms that enter the phasing and discuss how they can be incorporated
into some of the PN approximants. While the eccentric extension of the PN
approximants is our main objective, this work collects a variety of results
that may be of interest to others modeling eccentric relativistic binaries.


title:
A Cloud Platform-as-a-Service for Multimedia Conferencing Service
  Provisioning

abstract:
  Multimedia conferencing is the real-time exchange of multimedia content
between multiple parties. It is the basis of a wide range of applications
(e.g., multimedia multiplayer game). Cloud-based provisioning of the
conferencing services on which these applications rely will bring benefits,
such as easy service provisioning and elastic scalability. However, it remains
a big challenge. This paper proposes a PaaS for conferencing service
provisioning. The proposed PaaS is based on a business model from the state of
the art. It relies on conferencing IaaSs that, instead of VMs, offer
conferencing substrates (e.g., dial-in signaling, video mixer and audio mixer).
The PaaS enables composition of new conferences from substrates on the fly.
This has been prototyped in this paper and, in order to evaluate it, a
conferencing IaaS is also implemented. Performance measurements are also made.


title:
BLMA: A Blind Matching Algorithm with Application to Cognitive Radio
  Networks

abstract:
  We consider a two-sided matching problem with a defined notion of pairwise
stability. We propose a distributed blind matching algorithm (BLMA) to solve
the problem. We prove the solution produced by BLMA will converge to an
$\epsilon$-pairwise stable outcome with probability one. We then consider a
matching problem in cognitive radio networks. Secondary users (SUs) are allowed
access time to the spectrum belonging to the primary users (PUs) provided that
they relay primary messages. We propose a realization of the BLMA to produce an
$\epsilon$-pairwise stable solution assuming quasi-convex and quasi-concave
utilities. In the case of more general utility forms, we show another BLMA
realization to provide a stable solution. Furthermore, we propose negotiation
mechanism to bias the algorithm towards one side of the market. We use this
mechanism to protect the exclusive rights of the PUs to the spectrum. In all
such implementations of the BLMA, we impose a limited information exchange in
the network so that agents can only calculate their own utilities, but no
information is available about the utilities of any other users in the network.


title:
Semi-analytic path integral solution of SABR and Heston equations:
  pricing Vanilla and Asian options

abstract:
  We discuss a semi-analytical method for solving SABR-type equations based on
path integrals. In this approach, one set of variables is integrated
analytically while the second set is integrated numerically via Monte-Carlo.
This method, known in the literature as Conditional Monte-Carlo, leads to
compact expressions functional on three correlated stochastic variables. The
methodology is practical and efficient when solving Vanilla pricing in the
SABR, Heston and Bates models with time depending parameters. Further, it can
also be practically applied to pricing Asian options in the $\beta=0$ SABR
model and to other $\beta=0$ type models.


title:
Enhanced circular photogalvanic effect in HgTe quantum wells in the
  heavily inverted regime

abstract:
  Thanks to the strong spin-orbit interaction (SOI), HgTe-based quantum wells
(QWs) exhibit very rich spin-related properties. But the full descriptions of
them are beyond the simple parabolic band models and conventional Rashba and
Dresselhaus SOI terms, as a result of the strong interband coupling of the
narrow gap band structures. Here, we develop a theoretical method to calculate
the circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE) in
Hg$_{0.3}$Cd$_{0.7}$Te/HgTe/Hg$_{0.3}$Cd$_{0.7}$Te quantum wells (HgTe QWs)
based on the realistic eight-band $\mathbf{k}\cdot\mathbf{p}$ model with
density matrix formalism. Our method could take account of the unusual band
structures and SOIs of HgTe QWs, therefore can be used to calculate the CPGE
currents in HgTe QWs with non-parabolic, Dirac-like and inverted energy
dispersions. The microscopic origin of CPGE and the interplay effect of
structure inversion asymmetry (SIA) and bulk inversion asymmetry (BIA) is also
investigated. In addition, this method is extended to study the pure spin
currents (PSCs) in HgTe QWs injected by linearly polarized light at normal
incidence. Our calculation results support the following findings: (i) In the
inverted phase regime, the energy dispersion of heavily inverted HgTe QWs could
be strongly distorted, lead to a significant enhancement of CPGE at a certain
range of energy spectrum. (ii) The interplay of SIA and BIA could lead to the
CPGE currents anisotropically dependent on the azimuth angle of oblique
incident light. (iii) The PSC $j_{y'}^{x'}$ ($x'\parallel[110]$ and
$y'\parallel[\bar{1}10]$) produced by [110]-linearly-polarized light could
change sign with HgTe QW transformed from normal phase to inverted phase. These
findings might be utilized in developing the HgTe-based infrared/terahertz
optoelectronic and spintronic devices.


title:
Connecting every bit of knowledge: The structure of Wikipedia's First
  Link Network

abstract:
  Apples, porcupines, and the most obscure Bob Dylan song---is every topic a
few clicks from Philosophy? Within Wikipedia, the surprising answer is yes:
nearly all paths lead to Philosophy. Wikipedia is the largest, most
meticulously indexed collection of human knowledge ever amassed. More than
information about a topic, Wikipedia is a web of naturally emerging
relationships. By following the first link in each article, we algorithmically
construct a directed network of all 4.7 million articles: Wikipedia's First
Link Network. Here, we study the English edition of Wikipedia's First Link
Network for insight into how the many articles on inventions, places, people,
objects, and events are related and organized.
  By traversing every path, we measure the accumulation of first links, path
lengths, groups of path-connected articles, and cycles. We also develop a new
method, traversal funnels, to measure the influence each article exerts in
shaping the network. Traversal funnels provides a new measure of influence for
directed networks without spill-over into cycles, in contrast to traditional
network centrality measures. Within Wikipedia's First Link Network, we find
scale-free distributions describe path length, accumulation, and influence. Far
from dispersed, first links disproportionately accumulate at a few
articles---flowing from specific to general and culminating around fundamental
notions such as Community, State, and Science. Philosophy directs more paths
than any other article by two orders of magnitude. We also observe a
gravitation towards topical articles such as Health Care and Fossil Fuel. These
findings enrich our view of the connections and structure of Wikipedia's ever
growing store of knowledge.


title: Agreement dynamics on directed random graphs

abstract:
  We examine some agreement-dynamics models that are placed on directed random
graphs. In such systems a fraction of sites $\exp(-z)$, where $z$ is the
average degree, becomes permanently fixed or flickering. In the Voter model,
which has no surface tension, such zealots or flickers freely spread their
opinions and that makes the system disordered. For models with a surface
tension, like the Ising model or the Naming Game model, their role is limited
and such systems are ordered at large~$z$. However, when $z$ decreases, the
density of zealots or flickers increases, and below a certain threshold ($z\sim
1.9-2.0$) the system becomes disordered. On undirected random graphs agreement
dynamics is much different and ordering appears as soon the graph is above the
percolation threshold at $z=1$.


title: Central limit theorems for simultaneous Diophantine approximations

abstract:
  We study the distribution modulo $1$ of the values taken on the integers of
$r$ linear forms in $d$ variables with random coefficients. We obtain quenched
and annealed central limit theorems for the number of simultaneous hits into
shrinking targets of radii $n^{-\frac{r}{d}}$. By the Khintchine-Groshev
theorem on Diophantine approximations, $\frac{r}{d}$ is the critical exponent
for the infinite number of hits.


title:
Coherent blue emission induced by a combination of diode and femtosecond
  lasers

abstract:
  We report the investigation of a collimated blue light generated in rubidium
vapor due to the combined action of an ultrashort pulse train and a cw diode
laser. Each step of the two-photon transition 5S - 5P$_{3/2}$ - 5D is excited
by one of the lasers, and the induced coherence between the 5S and 6P$_{3/2}$
states is responsible for generating the blue beam. Measurements of the
excitation spectrum reveal the frequency comb structure, indicating that each
individual mode is responsible for inducing a nonlinear process. The strong
signal dependency on the atomic density is characterized by a sharp growth and
rapid saturation.


title:
Stabbing line segments with disks: complexity and approximation
  algorithms

abstract:
  Computational complexity and approximation algorithms are reported for a
problem of stabbing a set of straight line segments with the least cardinality
set of disks of fixed radii $r>0$ where the set of segments forms a straight
line drawing $G=(V,E)$ of a planar graph without edge crossings. Close
geometric problems arise in network security applications. We give strong
NP-hardness of the problem for edge sets of Delaunay triangulations, Gabriel
graphs and other subgraphs (which are often used in network design) for $r\in
[d_{\min},\eta d_{\max}]$ and some constant $\eta$ where $d_{\max}$ and
$d_{\min}$ are Euclidean lengths of the longest and shortest graph edges
respectively. Fast $O(|E|\log|E|)$-time $O(1)$-approximation algorithm is
proposed within the class of straight line drawings of planar graphs for which
the inequality $r\geq \eta d_{\max}$ holds uniformly for some constant
$\eta>0,$ i.e. when lengths of edges of $G$ are uniformly bounded from above by
some linear function of $r.$


title: Graph Connectivity and Binomial Edge Ideals

abstract:
  We relate homological properties of a binomial edge ideal $\mathcal{J}_G$ to
invariants that measure the connectivity of a simple graph $G$. Specifically,
we show if $R/\mathcal{J}_G$ is a Cohen-Macaulay ring, then graph toughness of
$G$ is exactly $\frac{1}{2}$. We also give an inequality between the depth of
$R/\mathcal{J}_G$ and the vertex-connectivity of $G$. In addition, we study the
Hilbert-Samuel multiplicity, and the Hilbert-Kunz multiplicity of
$R/\mathcal{J}_G$.


title: Universal Preparability of States and Asymptotic Completeness

abstract:
  We introduce a notion of universal preparability for a state of a system,
more precisely: for a normal state on a von Neumann algebra. It describes a
situation where from an arbitrary initial state it is possible to prepare a
target state with arbitrary precision by a repeated interaction with a sequence
of copies of another system. For $\mathcal{B}(\mathcal{H})$ we give criteria
sufficient to ensure that all normal states are universally preparable which
can be verified for a class of non-commutative birth and death processes
realized, in particular, by the interaction of a micromaser with a stream of
atoms. As a tool the theory of tight sequences of states and of stationary
states is further developed and we show that in the presence of stationary
faithful normal states universal preparability of all normal states is
equivalent to asymptotic completeness, a notion studied earlier in connection
with the scattering theory of non-commutative Markov processes.


title: Directional Statistics in Machine Learning: a Brief Review

abstract:
  The modern data analyst must cope with data encoded in various forms,
vectors, matrices, strings, graphs, or more. Consequently, statistical and
machine learning models tailored to different data encodings are important. We
focus on data encoded as normalized vectors, so that their "direction" is more
important than their magnitude. Specifically, we consider high-dimensional
vectors that lie either on the surface of the unit hypersphere or on the real
projective plane. For such data, we briefly review common mathematical models
prevalent in machine learning, while also outlining some technical aspects,
software, applications, and open mathematical challenges.


title: Performance of LDPC Decoders with Missing Connections

abstract:
  Due to process variation in nanoscale manufacturing, there may be permanently
missing connections in information processing hardware. Due to timing errors in
circuits, there may be missed messages in intra-chip communications, equivalent
to transiently missing connections. In this work, we investigate the
performance of message-passing LDPC decoders in the presence of missing
connections. We prove concentration and convergence theorems that validate the
use of density evolution performance analysis. Arbitrarily small error
probability is not possible with missing connections, but we find suitably
defined decoding thresholds for communication systems with binary erasure
channels under peeling decoding, as well as binary symmetric channels under
Gallager A and B decoding. We see that decoding is robust to missing wires, as
decoding thresholds degrade smoothly. Moreover, there is a stochastic
facilitation effect in Gallager B decoders with missing connections. We also
compare the decoding sensitivity with respect to channel noise and missing
wiring.


title: The Weyl product on quasi-Banach modulation spaces

abstract:
  We study the bilinear Weyl product acting on quasi-Banach modulation spaces.
We find sufficient conditions for continuity of the Weyl product and we derive
necessary conditions. The results extend known results for Banach modulation
spaces.


title: Edge Caching for Coverage and Capacity-aided Heterogeneous Networks

abstract:
  A two-tier heterogeneous cellular network (HCN) with intra-tier and
inter-tier dependence is studied. The macro cell deployment follows a Poisson
point process (PPP) and two different clustered point processes are used to
model the cache-enabled small cells. Under this model, we derive approximate
expressions in terms of finite integrals for the average delivery rate
considering inter-tier and intra-tier dependence. On top of the fact that cache
size drastically improves the performance of small cells in terms of average
delivery rate, we show that rate splitting of limited-backhaul induces
non-linear performance variations, and therefore has to be adjusted for rate
fairness among users of different tiers.


title:
A unified convergence bound for conjugate gradient and accelerated
  gradient

abstract:
  Nesterov's accelerated gradient method for minimizing a smooth strongly
convex function $f$ is known to reduce $f(\x_k)-f(\x^*)$ by a factor of
$\eps\in(0,1)$ after $k\ge O(\sqrt{L/\ell}\log(1/\eps))$ iterations, where
$\ell,L$ are the two parameters of smooth strong convexity. Furthermore, it is
known that this is the best possible complexity in the function-gradient oracle
model of computation. The method of linear conjugate gradients (CG) also
satisfies the same complexity bound in the special case of strongly convex
quadratic functions, but in this special case it is faster than the accelerated
gradient method.
  Despite similarities in the algorithms and their asymptotic convergence
rates, the conventional analyses of the two methods are nearly disjoint. The
purpose of this note is provide a single quantity that decreases on every step
at the correct rate for both algorithms. Our unified bound is based on a
potential similar to the potential in Nesterov's original analysis.
  As a side benefit of this analysis, we provide a direct proof that conjugate
gradient converges in $O(\sqrt{L/\ell}\log(1/\eps))$ iterations. In contrast,
the traditional indirect proof first establishes this result for the Chebyshev
algorithm, and then relies on optimality of conjugate gradient to show that its
iterates are at least as good as Chebyshev iterates. To the best of our
knowledge, ours is the first direct proof of the convergence rate of linear
conjugate gradient in the literature.


title: Compressed Teleportation

abstract:
  In a previous paper we introduced holographic software for quantum networks,
inspired by work on planar para algebras. This software suggests the definition
of a compressed transformation. Here we utilize the software to find a CT
protocol to teleport compressed transformations. This protocol serves multiple
parties with multiple persons.

categories: quant-ph hep-th math-ph math.MP math.OA math.QA


title:
Adaptive Modulation in Network-coded Two-way Relay Channel: A
  Supermodular Game Approach

abstract:
  We study the adaptive modulation (AM) problem in a network-coded two-way
relay channel (NC-TWRC), where each of the two users controls its own bit rate
in the $m$-ary quadrature amplitude modulation ($m$-QAM) to minimize the
transmission error rate and enhance the spectral efficiency. We show that there
exists a strategic complementarity, one user tends to transmit while the other
decides to do so in order to enhance the overall spectral efficiency, which is
beyond the scope of the conventional single-agent AM scheduling method. We
propose a two-player game model parameterized by the signal-to-noise ratios
(SNRs) of two user-to-user channels and prove that it is a supermodular game
where there always exist the extremal pure strategy Nash equilibria (PSNEs),
the largest and smallest PSNEs. We show by simulation results that the extremal
PSNEs incur a similar bit error rate (BER) as the conventional single-agent AM
scheme, but significantly improve the spectral efficiency in the NC-TWRC
system. The study also reveals the Pareto order of the extremal PSNEs: The
largest and smallest PSNEs are Pareto worst and best PSNEs, respectively.
Finally, we derive the sufficient conditions for the extremal PSNEs to be
symmetric and monotonic in channel SNRs. We also discuss how to utilize the
symmetry and monotonicity to relieve the complexity in the PSNE learning
process.


title:
The Pan-Pacific Planet Search V. Fundamental Parameters for 164 Evolved
  Stars

abstract:
  We present spectroscopic stellar parameters for the complete target list of
164 evolved stars from the Pan-Pacific Planet Search, a five-year radial
velocity campaign using the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope. For 87 of these
bright giants, our work represents the first determination of their fundamental
parameters. Our results carry typical uncertainties of 100 K, 0.15 dex, and 0.1
dex in $T_{\rm eff}$, $\log g$, and [Fe/H] and are consistent with literature
values where available. The derived stellar masses have a mean of
$1.31^{+0.28}_{-0.25}$ Msun, with a tail extending to $\sim$2 Msun, consistent
with the interpretation of these targets as "retired" A-F type stars.


title: Dominant Codewords Selection with Topic Model for Action Recognition

abstract:
  In this paper, we propose a framework for recognizing human activities that
uses only in-topic dominant codewords and a mixture of intertopic vectors.
Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is used to develop approximations of human
motion primitives; these are mid-level representations, and they adaptively
integrate dominant vectors when classifying human activities. In LDA topic
modeling, action videos (documents) are represented by a bag-of-words (input
from a dictionary), and these are based on improved dense trajectories. The
output topics correspond to human motion primitives, such as finger moving or
subtle leg motion. We eliminate the impurities, such as missed tracking or
changing light conditions, in each motion primitive. The assembled vector of
motion primitives is an improved representation of the action. We demonstrate
our method on four different datasets.


title: Einstein-Hilbert action with cosmological term from Chern-Simons gravity

abstract:
  We propose a modification to the Lie algebra $S$-expansion method. The
modification is carried out by imposing a condition on the $S$-expansion
procedure, when the semigroup is given by a cyclic group of even order. The
$S$-expanded algebras are called $S_{H}$-expanded algebras where $S=Z_{2n}$.
The invariant tensors for $S_{H}$-expanded algebras are calculated and the dual
formulation of $S_{H}$-expansion procedure is proposed. We consider the
$S_{H}$-expansion of the five-dimensional $AdS$ algebra and its corresponding
invariants tensors are found. Then a Chern-Simons Lagrangian invariant under
the five-dimensional $AdS$ algebra $S_{H}$-expanded is constructed and its
relationship to the general relativity is studied.


title: Brans-Dicke Galileon and the Variational Principle

abstract:
  This paper is aimed at a (mostly) pedagogical exposition of the derivation of
the motion equations of certain modifications of general relativity. Here we
derive in all detail the motion equations in the Brans-Dicke theory with the
cubic self-interaction. This is a modification of the Brans-dicke theory by the
addition of a term in the Lagrangian which is non-linear in the derivatives of
the scalar field: it contains second-order derivatives. This is the basis of
the so-called Brans-Dicke Galileon. We pay special attention to the variational
principle and to the algebraic details of the derivation. It is shown how
higher order derivatives of the fields appearing in the intermediate
computations cancel out leading to second order motion equations. The reader
will find useful tips for the derivation of the field equations of
modifications of general relativity such as the scalar-tensor theories and
$f(R)$ theories, by means of the (stationary action) variational principle. The
content of this paper is specially recommended to those graduate and
postgraduate students who are interested in the study of the mentioned
modifications of general relativity.


title: On Divergence in Radiation Fields

abstract:
  Three thought experiments demonstrate that under certain circumstances
electromagnetic fields have to be attenuated or amplified multiplicatively in
order not to violate the conservation of energy. Modulation of radiation by
means other than superposition is theoretically made possible by plugging
additional terms into the source slots of the Maxwell equations. Thus modulated
radiation would enable the well focused stimulation of neurons for diagnostic
and therapeutic purposes and for HCI applications.


title: Core Course Analysis for Undergraduate Students in Mathematics

abstract:
  In this work, we develop statistical tools to understand core courses at the
university level. Traditionally, professors and administrators label courses as
"core" when the courses contain foundational material. Such courses are often
required to complete a major, and, in some cases, allocated additional
educational resources. We identify two key attributes which we expect core
courses to have. Namely, we expect core courses to be highly correlated with
and highly impactful on a student's overall mathematics GPA. We use two
statistical procedures to measure the strength of these attributes across
courses. The first of these procedures fashions a metric out of standard
correlation measures. The second utilizes sparse regression. We apply these
methods on student data coming from the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) department of mathematics to compare core and non-core coursework.


title: Some Insights into the Geometry and Training of Neural Networks

abstract:
  Neural networks have been successfully used for classification tasks in a
rapidly growing number of practical applications. Despite their popularity and
widespread use, there are still many aspects of training and classification
that are not well understood. In this paper we aim to provide some new insights
into training and classification by analyzing neural networks from a
feature-space perspective. We review and explain the formation of decision
regions and study some of their combinatorial aspects. We place a particular
emphasis on the connections between the neural network weight and bias terms
and properties of decision boundaries and other regions that exhibit varying
levels of classification confidence. We show how the error backpropagates in
these regions and emphasize the important role they have in the formation of
gradients. These findings expose the connections between scaling of the weight
parameters and the density of the training samples. This sheds more light on
the vanishing gradient problem, explains the need for regularization, and
suggests an approach for subsampling training data to improve performance.


title: Analysis of spatially deconvolved polar faculae

abstract:
  Polar faculae are bright features that can be detected in solar limb
observations and they are related to magnetic field concentrations. Although
there is a large number of works studying them, some questions about their
nature as their magnetic properties at different heights are still open. Thus,
we aim to improve the understanding of solar polar faculae. In that sense, we
infer the vertical stratification of the temperature, gas pressure, line of
sight velocity and magnetic field vector of polar faculae regions. We performed
inversions of the Stokes profiles observed with Hinode/SP after removing the
stray light contamination produced by the spatial point spread function of the
telescope. Moreover, after solving the azimuth ambiguity, we transform the
magnetic field vector to local solar coordinates. The obtained results reveal
that the polar faculae are constituted by hot plasma with low line of sight
velocities and single polarity magnetic fields in the kilogauss range that are
nearly perpendicular to the solar surface. We also found that the spatial
location of these magnetic fields is slightly shifted respect to the continuum
observations towards the disc centre. We believe that this is due to the hot
wall effect that allows detecting photons that come from deeper layers located
closer to the solar limb.


title: A Remark on $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivariant Floer homology

abstract:
  In this remark, we show how the monopole Fr{\o}yshov invariant, as well as
the analogues of the Involutive Heegaard Floer correction terms
$\underline{d},\overline{d}$, are related to the $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivariant
Floer homology $\mathit{SWFH}^G_*$. We show that the only interesting
correction terms of a $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-space are those coming from the
subgroups $\mathbb{Z}/4$, $S^1$, and $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$ itself.


title: Trapping atoms in the evanescent field of laser written wave guides

abstract:
  We analyze evanescent fields of laser written waveguides and show that they
can be used to trap atoms close to the surface of an integrated optical atom
chip. In contrast to subwavelength nanofibres it is generally not possible to
create a stable trapping potential using only the fundamental modes. This is
why we create a stable trapping potential by using two different laser colors,
such that the waveguide supports two modes for the blue detuned laser, while
for the red detuned light the waveguide has only a single mode. In particular,
we study such a two-color trap for Cesium atoms, and calculate both the
potential and losses for the set of parameters that are within experimental
reach. We also optimize system parameters in order to minimize trap losses due
to photon scattering and tunneling to the surface.


title:
Quantum simulation of $(1+1)$-dimensional U(1) gauge-Higgs model on a
  lattice by cold Bose gases

abstract:
  We present a theoretical study of quantum simulations of $(1+1)$-dimensional
U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs models, which contain a compact U(1) gauge field and a
Higgs matter field, by using ultra-cold bosonic gases on a one-dimensional
optical lattice. Starting from the extended Bose-Hubbard model with on-site and
nearest-neighbor interactions, we derive the U(1) lattice gauge-Higgs model as
a low-energy effective theory. The derived gauge-Higgs model exhibits
nontrivial phase transitions between confinement and Higgs phases, and we
discuss the relation with the phase transition in the extended Bose-Hubbard
model. Finally, we study real-time dynamics of an electric flux by the
Gross-Pitaevskii equations and the truncated Wigner approximation. The dynamics
is governed by a bosonic analog of the Schwinger mechanism, i.e., shielding of
an electric flux by a condensation of Higgs fields, which occurs differently in
the Higgs and the confinement phase. These results, together with the obtained
phase diagrams, shall guide experimentalists in designing quantum simulations
of the gauge-Higgs models by cold gases.


title: Bulk Local States and Crosscaps in Holographic CFT

abstract:
  In a weakly coupled gravity theory in the anti-de Sitter space, local states
in the bulk are linear superpositions of Ishibashi states for a crosscap in the
dual conformal field theory. The superposition structure can be constrained
either by the microscopic causality in the bulk gravity or the bootstrap
condition in the boundary conformal field theory. We show, contrary to some
expectation, that these two conditions are not compatible to each other in the
weak gravity regime. We also present an evidence to show that bulk local states
in three dimensions are not organized by the Virasoro symmetry.


title:
Gaussian Process Autonomous Mapping and Exploration for Range Sensing
  Mobile Robots

abstract:
  Most of the existing robotic exploration schemes use occupancy grid
representations and geometric targets known as frontiers. The occupancy grid
representation relies on the assumption of independence between grid cells and
ignores structural correlations present in the environment. We develop a
Gaussian Processes (GPs) occupancy mapping technique that is computationally
tractable for online map building due to its incremental formulation and
provides a continuous model of uncertainty over the map spatial coordinates.
The standard way to represent geometric frontiers extracted from occupancy maps
is to assign binary values to each grid cell. We extend this notion to novel
probabilistic frontier maps computed efficiently using the gradient of the GP
occupancy map. We also propose a mutual information-based greedy exploration
technique built on that representation that takes into account all possible
future observations. A major advantage of high-dimensional map inference is the
fact that such techniques require fewer observations, leading to a faster map
entropy reduction during exploration for map building scenarios. Evaluations
using the publicly available datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed
framework for robotic mapping and exploration tasks.


title:
A Monte-Carlo Method for Estimating Stellar Photometric Metallicity
  Distributions

abstract:
  Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we develop a new monte-carlo
based method to estimate the photometric metallicity distribution function
(MDF) for stars in the Milky Way. Compared with other photometric calibration
methods, this method enables a more reliable determination of the MDF, in
particular at the metal-poor and metal-rich ends. We present a comparison of
our new method with a previous polynomial-based approach, and demonstrate its
superiority. As an example, we apply this method to main-sequence stars with
$0.2<g-r<0.6$, $6$ kpc$<R<9$ kpc, and in different intervals in height above
the plane, $|Z|$. The MDFs for the selected stars within two relatively local
intervals ($0.8$ kpc$<|Z|<1.2$ kpc, $1.5$ kpc$<|Z|<2.5$ kpc) can be well-fit by
two Gaussians, with peaks at [Fe/H] $\approx-0.6$ and $-1.2$ respectively, one
associated with the disk system, the other with the halo. The MDFs for the
selected stars within two more distant intervals ($3$ kpc$<|Z|<5$ kpc, $6$
kpc$<|Z|<9$ kpc) can be decomposed into three Gaussians, with peaks at [Fe/H]
$\approx-0.6$, $-1.4$ and $-1.9$ respectively, where the two lower peaks may
provide evidence for a two-component model of the halo: the inner halo and the
outer halo. The number ratio between the disk component and halo component(s)
decreases with vertical distance from the Galactic plane, consistent with the
previous literature.


title: The non-local repercussions of partial jamming in dense granular flows

abstract:
  This paper establishes a link between the non-local behaviour of granular
materials and the presence of transient clusters of jammed particles within the
flow. These clusters are first evidenced in simulated dense granular flows
subjected to plane shear, and are found to originate from a mechanism of
multiple orthogonal shear banding. A continuum non-local model, similar in form
to the non-local Cooperative model, is then derived by considering the spatial
redistribution of vorticity induced by these clusters. The non-locality length
scale is thus expressed in terms of the cluster size. The purely kinematic
nature of this derivation indicates that non-local behaviour should be expected
in all glassy materials, regardless of their local constitutive law, as long as
they partially jam during flow.


title:
A precaution for the hybrid density functional calculation of open-shell
  systems

abstract:
  We show that a naive treatment of open-shell systems in hybrid density
functional calculations ignoring the spin dependence causes significant errors
due to a kind of self interaction that is not emerged in spin-dependent
calculations. As numerical examples, we compare the results of the LDA, GGA,
and PBE0 calculations on the ionization potential and electron affinity of
C$_{60}$ molecule and the GGA and HSE calculations on the singly charged
monovacancy in crystalline Si.


title:
A unified pricing of variable annuity guarantees under the optimal
  stochastic control framework

abstract:
  In this paper, we review pricing of variable annuity living and death
guarantees offered to retail investors in many countries. Investors purchase
these products to take advantage of market growth and protect savings. We
present pricing of these products via an optimal stochastic control framework,
and review the existing numerical methods. For numerical valuation of these
contracts, we develop a direct integration method based on Gauss-Hermite
quadrature with a one-dimensional cubic spline for calculation of the expected
contract value, and a bi-cubic spline interpolation for applying the jump
conditions across the contract cashflow event times. This method is very
efficient when compared to the partial differential equation methods if the
transition density (or its moments) of the risky asset underlying the contract
is known in closed form between the event times. We also present accurate
numerical results for pricing of a Guaranteed Minimum Accumulation Benefit
(GMAB) guarantee available on the market that can serve as a benchmark for
practitioners and researchers developing pricing of variable annuity
guarantees.


title:
Infalling-Rotating Motion and Associated Chemical Change in the Envelope
  of IRAS 16293-2422 Source A Studied with ALMA

abstract:
  We have analyzed rotational spectral line emission of OCS, CH3OH, HCOOCH3,
and H2CS observed toward the low-mass Class 0 protostellar source IRAS
16293-2422 Source A at a sub-arcsecond resolution (~0".6 x 0".5) with ALMA.
Significant chemical differentiation is found at a 50 AU scale. The OCS line is
found to well trace the infalling-rotating envelope in this source. On the
other hand, the CH3OH and HCOOCH3 distributions are found to be concentrated
around the inner part of the infalling-rotating envelope. With a simple
ballistic model of the infalling-rotating envelope, the radius of the
centrifugal barrier (a half of the centrifugal radius) and the protostellar
mass are evaluated from the OCS data to be from 40 to 60 AU and from 0.5 to 1.0
Msun, respectively, assuming the inclination angle of the envelope/disk
structure to be 60 degrees (90 degrees for the edge-on configuration). Although
the protostellar mass is correlated with the inclination angle, the radius of
the centrifugal barrier is not. This is the first indication of the centrifugal
barrier of the infalling-rotating envelope in a hot corino source. CH3OH and
HCOOCH3 may be liberated from ice mantles due to weak accretion shocks around
the centrifugal barrier, and/or due to protostellar heating. The H2CS emission
seems to come from the disk component inside the centrifugal barrier in
addition to the envelope component. The centrifugal barrier plays a central
role not only in the formation of a rotationally-supported disk but also in the
chemical evolution from the envelope to the protoplanetary disk.


title: Excitation Entanglement Entropy in 2d Conformal Field Theories

abstract:
  We analyze how excitations affect the entanglement entropy for an arbitrary
entangling interval in a 2d conformal field theory (CFT) using the holographic
entanglement entropy techniques as well as direct CFT computations. We
introduce the excitation entanglement entropy \Delta_h S, the difference
between the entanglement entropy generic excitations and their arbitrary
descendants denoted by h. The excitation entanglement entropy, unlike the
entanglement entropy, is a finite quantity (independent of the cutoff), and
hence a good physical observable. We show that the excitation entanglement
entropy is governed by a second order differential equation sourced by the one
point function of the energy momentum tensor computed in the excited background
state. We analyze low and high temperature behavior of the excitation
entanglement entropy and show that \Delta_h S grows as function of temperature.
We prove an "integrated positivity" for the excitation entanglement entropy,
that although \Delta_h S can be positive or negative, its average value is
always positive. We also discuss the mutual and multipartite information with
generic excitations.


title: Local Calabi-Yau manifolds of type \tilde{A} via SYZ mirror symmetry

abstract:
  We carry out the SYZ program for the local Calabi--Yau manifolds of type
$\widetilde{A}$ by developing an equivariant SYZ theory for the toric
Calabi--Yau manifolds of infinite-type. Mirror geometry is shown to be
expressed in terms of the Riemann theta functions and generating functions of
open Gromov--Witten invariants, whose modular properties are found and studied
in this article. Our work also provides a mathematical justification for a
mirror symmetry assertion of the physicists Hollowood--Iqbal--Vafa.


title: Statistical structure of concave compositions

abstract:
  In this paper, we study concave compositions, an extension of partitions that
were considered by Andrews, Rhoades, and Zwegers. They presented several open
problems regarding the statistical structure of concave compositions including
the distribution of the perimeter and tilt, the number of summands, and the
shape of the graph of a typical concave composition. We present solutions to
these problems by applying Fristedt's conditioning device on the uniform
measure.


title: Do Neutrino Wave Functions Overlap and Does it Matter?

abstract:
  Studies of neutrinos commonly ignore anti-symmetrization of their wave
functions. This implicitly assumes that either spatial wave functions for
neutrinos with approximately the same momentum do not overlap or their
overlapping has no measurable consequences. We examine these assumptions by
considering the evolution of three-dimensional neutrino wave packets (WPs). We
find that it is perfectly adequate to treat accelerator and reactor neutrinos
as separate WPs for typical experimental setup. While solar and supernova
neutrinos correspond to overlapping WPs, they can be treated effectively as
non-overlapping for analyses of their detection.


title:
Supersymmetric correspondence in spectra on a graph and its line graph:
  From circuit theory to spoof plasmons on metallic lattices

abstract:
  We investigate the supersymmetry (SUSY) structures for inductor-capacitor
circuit networks on a simple regular graph and its line graph. We show that
their eigenspectra must coincide (except, possibly, for the highest
eigenfrequency) due to SUSY, which is derived from the topological nature of
the circuits. To observe this spectra correspondence in the high-frequency
range, we study spoof plasmons on metallic hexagonal and kagom\'e lattices. The
band correspondence between them is predicted by a simulation. Using terahertz
time-domain spectroscopy, we demonstrate the band correspondence of fabricated
metallic hexagonal and kagom\'e lattices.


title:
Multiple Change Point Analysis: Fast Implementation And Strong
  Consistency

abstract:
  One of the main challenges in identifying structural changes in stochastic
processes is to carry out analysis for time series with dependency structure in
a computationally tractable way. Another challenge is that the number of true
change points is usually unknown, requiring a suitable model selection
criterion to arrive at informative conclusions. To address the first challenge,
we model the data generating process as a segment-wise autoregression, which is
composed of several segments (time epochs), each of which modeled by an
autoregressive model. We propose a multi-window method that is both effective
and efficient for discovering the structural changes. The proposed approach was
motivated by transforming a segment-wise autoregression into a multivariate
time series that is asymptotically segment-wise independent and identically
distributed. To address the second challenge, we derive theoretical guarantees
for (almost surely) selecting the true number of change points of segment-wise
independent multivariate time series. Specifically, under mild assumptions, we
show that a Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC)-like criterion gives a
strongly consistent selection of the optimal number of change points, while an
Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)-like criterion cannot. Finally, we
demonstrate the theory and strength of the proposed algorithms by experiments
on both synthetic and real-world data, including the Eastern US temperature
data and the El Nino data from 1854 to 2015. The experiment leads to some
interesting discoveries about temporal variability of the summer-time
temperature over the Eastern US, and about the most dominant factor of ocean
influence on climate.


title: Parameter estimation for linear control valve with hysteresis

abstract:
  The problem of estimating parameters of linear control valve with hysteresis
is considered. The hysteretic behavior of control valve is formulated as a
switched linear model. An indicator vector, which shows the switching epochs of
switched linear model, is explored by subspace decomposition on measurements.
With the help of indicator vector, the noisy measurements are classified into
separate groups, each corresponding to up-stroke and down-stroke of control
valve respectively. The least squares technique is adopted to estimate the
parameters of control valve. It is shown that the proposed technique exactly
estimates the parameters and switching epochs in absence of noise and exhibits
dominant advantage in noisy case.


title: Nonadditivity of Rains' bound for distillable entanglement

abstract:
  Rains' bound is arguably the best known upper bound of the distillable
entanglement by operations completely preserving positivity of partial
transpose (PPT) and was conjectured to be additive and coincide with the
asymptotic relative entropy of entanglement. We disprove both conjectures by
explicitly constructing a special class of mixed two-qubit states. We then
introduce an additive semidefinite programming lower bound ($E_M$) for the
asymptotic Rains' bound, and it immediately becomes a computable lower bound
for entanglement cost of bipartite states. Furthermore, $E_M$ is also proved to
be the best known upper bound of the PPT-assisted deterministic distillable
entanglement and gives the asymptotic rates for all pure states and some class
of genuinely mixed states.


title: Determinants associated to traces on operator bimodules

abstract:
  Given a II$_1$-factor $\mathcal{M}$ with tracial state $\tau$ and given an
$\mathcal{M}$-bimodule $\mathcal{E}(\mathcal{M},\tau)$ of operators affiliated
to $\mathcal{M}$ and a trace $\varphi$ on $\mathcal{E}(\mathcal{M},\tau)$,
(namely, a linear functional that is invariant under unitary conjugation), we
prove that $\det_\varphi:\mathcal{E}_{\log}(\mathcal{M},\tau)\to[0,\infty)$
defined by $\det_\varphi(T)=\exp(\varphi(\log |T|))$ is a multiplicative map on
the set $\mathcal{E}_{\log}(\mathcal{M},\tau)$ of all affiliated operators $T$
such that $\log_+(|T|)\in\mathcal{E}(\mathcal{M},\tau)$. Finally, we show that
all multiplicative maps on the invertible elements of
$\mathcal{E}_{\log}(\mathcal{M},\tau)$ arise in this fashion.


title:
Thermodynamics of the collapse transition of the all-backbone peptide
  Gly15

abstract:
  Simulations show Gly$_{15}$, a polypeptide lacking any side-chains, can
collapse in water. We assess the hydration thermodynamics in this collapse by
calculating the hydration free energy at each of the end points of the reaction
coordinate, here the end-to-end distance ($r$) in the chain. To examine the
role of the various conformations for a given $r$, we study the conditional
distribution, $P(R_g | r)$, of the radius of gyration for a given value of $r$.
$P(R_g|r)$ is found to vary more gently compared to the corresponding variation
in the excess hydration free energy. Using this insight within a multistate
generalization of the potential distribution theorem, we calculate a reasonable
upper bound for the hydration free energy of the peptide for a given $r$. On
this basis we find that peptide hydration greatly favors the expanded state of
the chain, despite primitive hydrophobic effects favoring chain collapse. The
net free energy of collapse is seen to be a delicate balance between opposing
intra-peptide and hydration effects, with intra-peptide contributions favoring
collapse by a small margin. The favorable intra-peptide interactions are
primarily electrostatic in origin, and found to arise primarily from
interaction between C=O dipoles, hydrogen bonding interaction between C=O and
N-H groups, and favorable interaction between N-H dipoles.


title: Irreducible polynomials with prescribed sums of coefficients

abstract:
  Let $q$ be a power of a prime, let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be the finite field with
$q$ elements and let $n \geq 2$. For a polynomial $h(x) \in \mathbb{F}_q[x]$ of
degree $n \in \mathbb{N}$ and a subset $W \subseteq [0,n] := \{0, 1, \ldots,
n\}$, we define the sum-of-digits function $$S_W(h) = \sum_{w \in W}[x^{w}]
h(x)$$ to be the sum of all the coefficients of $x^w$ in $h(x)$ with $w \in W$.
In the case when $q = 2$, we prove, except for a few genuine exceptions, that
for any $c \in \mathbb{F}_2$ and any $W \subseteq [0,n]$ there exists an
irreducible polynomial $P(x)$ of degree $n$ over $\mathbb{F}_2$ such that
$S_{W}(P) = c$. In particular, restricting ourselves to the case when $\# W =
1$, we obtain a new proof of the Hansen-Mullen irreducibility conjecture (now a
theorem) in the case when $q = 2$. In the case of $q> 2$, we prove that, for
any $c \in \mathbb{F}_q$, any $n\geq 2$ and any $W \subseteq [0,n]$, there
exists an irreducible polynomial $P(x)$ of degree $n$ such that $S_{W}(P) \neq
c$.


title: Synchronization in Delayed Multiplex Networks

abstract:
  We study impact of multiplexing on the global phase synchronizability of
different layers in the delayed coupled multiplex networks. We find that at
strong couplings, the multiplexing induces the global synchronization in sparse
networks. The introduction of global synchrony depends on the connection
density of the layers being multiplexed, which further depends on the
underlying network architecture. Moreover, multiplexing may lead to a
transition from a quasi-periodic or chaotic evolution to a periodic evolution.
For the periodic case, the multiplexing may lead to a change in the period of
the dynamical evolution. Additionally, delay in the couplings may bring upon
synchrony to those multiplex networks which do not exhibit synchronization for
the undelayed evolution. Using a simple example of two globally connected
layers forming a multiplex network, we show how delay brings upon a possibility
for the inter layer global synchrony, that is not possible for the undelayed
evolution.


title:
Rate-Optimal Perturbation Bounds for Singular Subspaces with
  Applications to High-Dimensional Statistics

abstract:
  Perturbation bounds for singular spaces, in particular Wedin's $\sin \Theta$
theorem, are a fundamental tool in many fields including high-dimensional
statistics, machine learning, and applied mathematics. In this paper, we
establish separate perturbation bounds, measured in both spectral and Frobenius
$\sin \Theta$ distances, for the left and right singular subspaces. Lower
bounds, which show that the individual perturbation bounds are rate-optimal,
are also given.
  The new perturbation bounds are applicable to a wide range of problems. In
this paper, we consider in detail applications to low-rank matrix denoising and
singular space estimation, high-dimensional clustering, and canonical
correlation analysis (CCA). In particular, separate matching upper and lower
bounds are obtained for estimating the left and right singular spaces. To the
best of our knowledge, this is the first result that gives different optimal
rates for the left and right singular spaces under the same perturbation. In
addition to these problems, applications to other high-dimensional problems
such as community detection in bipartite networks, multidimensional scaling,
and cross-covariance matrix estimation are also discussed.


title:
Morphological and Embedded Computation in a Self-contained Soft Robotic
  Hand

abstract:
  We present a self-contained, soft robotic hand composed of soft pneumatic
actuator modules that are equipped with strain and pressure sensing. We show
how this data can be used to discern whether a grasp was successful.
Co-locating sensing and embedded computation with the actuators greatly
simplifies control and system integration. Equipped with a small pump, the hand
is self-contained and needs only power and data supplied by a single USB
connection to a PC. We demonstrate its function by grasping a variety of
objects ranging from very small to large and heavy objects weighing more than
the hand itself. The presented system nicely illustrates the advantages of soft
robotics: low cost, low weight, and intrinsic compliance. We exploit
morphological computation to simplify control, which allows successful grasping
via underactuation. Grasping indeed relies on morphological computation at
multiple levels, ranging from the geometry of the actuator which determines the
actuator's kinematics, embedded strain sensors to measure curvature, to
maximizing contact area and applied force during grasping. Morphological
computation reaches its limitations, however, when objects are too bulky to
self-align with the gripper or when the state of grasping is of interest. We
therefore argue that efficient and reliable grasping also requires not only
intrinsic compliance, but also embedded sensing and computation. In particular,
we show how embedded sensing can be used to detect successful grasps and vary
the force exerted onto an object based on local feedback, which is not possible
using morphological computation alone.


title: Contrastive Structured Anomaly Detection for Gaussian Graphical Models

abstract:
  Gaussian graphical models (GGMs) are probabilistic tools of choice for
analyzing conditional dependencies between variables in complex systems.
Finding changepoints in the structural evolution of a GGM is therefore
essential to detecting anomalies in the underlying system modeled by the GGM.
In order to detect structural anomalies in a GGM, we consider the problem of
estimating changes in the precision matrix of the corresponding Gaussian
distribution. We take a two-step approach to solving this problem:- (i)
estimating a background precision matrix using system observations from the
past without any anomalies, and (ii) estimating a foreground precision matrix
using a sliding temporal window during anomaly monitoring. Our primary
contribution is in estimating the foreground precision using a novel
contrastive inverse covariance estimation procedure. In order to accurately
learn only the structural changes to the GGM, we maximize a penalized
log-likelihood where the penalty is the $l_1$ norm of difference between the
foreground precision being estimated and the already learned background
precision. We modify the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)
algorithm for sparse inverse covariance estimation to perform contrastive
estimation of the foreground precision matrix. Our results on simulated GGM
data show significant improvement in precision and recall for detecting
structural changes to the GGM, compared to a non-contrastive sliding window
baseline.


title:
Universal trade-off relation between power and efficiency for heat
  engines

abstract:
  For a general thermodynamic system described as a Markov process, we prove a
general lower bound for dissipation in terms of the square of the heat current,
thus establishing that nonvanishing current inevitably implies dissipation.
This leads to a universal trade-off relation between efficiency and power, with
which we rigorously prove that a heat engine with nonvanishing power never
attains the Carnot efficiency. Our theory applies to systems arbitrarily far
from equilibrium, and does not assume any specific symmetry of the model.


title:
Quantum error correction against photon loss using multi-component cat
  states

abstract:
  We analyse a generalised quantum error correction code against photon loss
where a logical qubit is encoded into a subspace of a single oscillator mode
that is spanned by distinct multi-component cat states (coherent-state
superpositions). We present a systematic code construction that includes the
extension of an existing one-photon-loss code to higher numbers of losses. When
subject to a photon loss (amplitude damping) channel, the encoded qubits are
shown to exhibit a cyclic behaviour where the code and error spaces each
correspond to certain multiples of losses, half of which can be corrected. As
another generalisation we also discuss how to protect logical qudits against
photon losses, and as an application we consider a one-way quantum
communication scheme, in which the encoded qubits are periodically recovered
while the coherent-state amplitudes are restored as well at regular intervals.


title:
Formal Analysis of Vulnerabilities of Web Applications Based on SQL
  Injection (Extended Version)

abstract:
  We present a formal approach that exploits attacks related to SQL Injection
(SQLi) searching for security flaws in a web application. We give a formal
representation of web applications and databases, and show that our
formalization effectively exploits SQLi attacks. We implemented our approach in
a prototype tool called SQLfast and we show its efficiency on real-world case
studies, including the discovery of an attack on Joomla! that no other tool can
find.


title: Duhamel convolution product in the setting of Quantum calculus

abstract:
  In this paper we introduce the notions of $q$-Duhamel product and
$q$-integration operator. We prove that the classical Wiener algebra
$W(\mathbb{D})$ of all analytic functions on the unit disc $\mathbb{D}$ of the
complex plane $\mathbb{C}$ with absolutely convergent Taylor series is a Banach
algebra with respect to $q$-Duhamel product. We also describe the cyclic
vectors of the $q$-integration operator on $W(\mathbb{D})$ and characterize its
commutant in terms of the $q$-Duhamel product operators.


title: Hard X-ray emissions from Cassiopeia A observed by INTEGRAL

abstract:
  Cassiopeia A (Cas A) as the nearby young remnant of a core-collapse supernova
is the best candidate for astrophysical studies in supernova explosion and its
environment. We studied hard X-ray emissions from Cas A using the ten-year data
of INTEGRAL observations, and first detected non-thermal continuum emission
from the source up to 220 keV. The $^{44}$Ti line emissions at 68 and 78 keV
are confirmed by our observations with a mean flux of $\sim (2.2\pm 0.4)\times
10^{-5}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, corresponding to a $^{44}$Ti yield in Cas A of
$(1.3\pm 0.4)\times 10^{-4}$ \ms. The continuum emission from 3 -- 500 keV can
be fitted with a thermal bremsstrahlung of $kT\sim 0.79\pm 0.08$ keV plus a
power-law model of $\Gamma \sim 3.13\pm 0.03$. The non-thermal emission from
Cas A is well fitted with a power-law model without a cutoff up to 220 keV.
This radiation characteristic is inconsistent with the diffusive shock
acceleration models with the remnant shock velocity of only 5000km s$^{-1}$.
The central compact object in Cas A cannot contribute to the emission above 80
keV significantly. Some possible physical origins of the non-thermal emission
above 80 keV from the remnant shock are discussed. We deduce that the
asymmetrical supernova explosion scenario of Cas A is a promising scenario to
produce high energy synchrotron radiation photons, where a part of ejecta with
the velocity of $\sim 0.1c$ and opening angle of $\sim10^\circ$ can account for
the 100-keV emission, consistent with the "jet" observed in Cas A.


title: Monte Carlo with Determinantal Point Processes

abstract:
  We show that repulsive random variables can yield Monte Carlo methods with
faster convergence rates than the typical $N^{-1/2}$, where $N$ is the number
of integrand evaluations. More precisely, we propose stochastic numerical
quadratures involving determinantal point processes associated with
multivariate orthogonal polynomials, and we obtain root mean square errors that
decrease as $N^{-(1+1/d)/2}$, where $d$ is the dimension of the ambient space.
First, we prove a central limit theorem (CLT) for the linear statistics of a
class of determinantal point processes, when the reference measure is a product
measure supported on a hypercube, which satisfies the Nevai-class regularity
condition, a result which may be of independent interest. Next, we introduce a
Monte Carlo method based on these determinantal point processes, and prove a
CLT with explicit limiting variance for the quadrature error, when the
reference measure satisfies a stronger regularity condition. As a corollary, by
taking a specific reference measure and using a construction similar to
importance sampling, we obtain a general Monte Carlo method, which applies to
any measure with continuously derivable density. Loosely speaking, our method
can be interpreted as a stochastic counterpart to Gaussian quadrature, which,
at the price of some convergence rate, is easily generalizable to any dimension
and has a more explicit error term.


title:
An optimized round robin cpu scheduling algorithm with dynamic time
  quantum

abstract:
  CPU scheduling is one of the most crucial operations performed by operating
system. Different algorithms are available for CPU scheduling amongst them RR
(Round Robin) is considered as optimal in time shared environment. The
effectiveness of Round Robin completely depends on the choice of time quantum.
In this paper a new CPU scheduling algorithm has been proposed, named as DABRR
(Dynamic Average Burst Round Robin). That uses dynamic time quantum instead of
static time quantum used in RR. The performance of the proposed algorithm is
experimentally compared with traditional RR and some existing variants of RR.
The results of our approach presented in this paper demonstrate improved
performance in terms of average waiting time, average turnaround time, and
context switching.


title:
Isospin decomposition of $\gamma N \to N^*$ transitions within a
  dynamical coupled-channels model

abstract:
  By extending the dynamical coupled-channels analysis performed in our
previous work [Phys. Rev. C 88, 035209 (2013)] to include the available data of
photoproduction of pi meson off the neutron, the transition amplitudes for the
photo-excitation of the neutron to nucleon resonances, gamma n --> N*, at the
resonance pole positions are determined. The combined fits to the data for both
the proton- and neutron-target reactions also revise our results for the
resonance pole positions and the gamma p --> N* transition amplitudes. Our
results allow an isospin decomposition of the gamma N --> N* transition
amplitudes for the isospin I=1/2 N* resonances, which is necessary for testing
hadron structure models and gives crucial inputs for constructing models of
neutrino-induced reactions in the nucleon resonance region.


title:
Accessing proton generalized parton distributions and pion distribution
  amplitudes with the exclusive pion-induced Drell-Yan process at J-PARC

abstract:
  Generalized parton distributions (GPDs) encoding multidimensional information
of hadron partonic structure appear as the building blocks in a factorized
description of hard exclusive reactions. The nucleon GPDs have been accessed by
deeply virtual Compton scattering and deeply virtual meson production with
lepton beam. A complementary probe with hadron beam is the exclusive
pion-induced Drell-Yan process. In this paper, we discuss recent theoretical
advances on describing this process in terms of nucleon GPDs and pion
distribution amplitudes. Furthermore, we address the feasibility of measuring
the exclusive pion-induced Drell-Yan process $\pi^- p \to \mu^+\mu^- n$ via a
spectrometer at the High Momentum Beamline being constructed at J-PARC in
Japan. Realization of such measurement at J-PARC will provide a new test of
perturbative QCD descriptions of a novel class of hard exclusive reactions. It
will also offer the possibility of experimentally accessing nucleon GPDs at
large timelike virtuality.


title:
Third-order analysis of pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann model for
  multiphase flow

abstract:
  In this work, a third-order Chapman-Enskog analysis of the
multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann (LB) model for
multiphase flow is performed for the first time. The leading terms on the
interaction force, consisting of an anisotropic and an isotropic term, are
successfully identified in the third-order macroscopic equation recovered by
the lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE), and then new mathematical insights into
the pseudopotential LB model are provided. For the third-order anisotropic
term, numerical tests show that it can cause the stationary droplet to become
out-of-round, which suggests the isotropic property of the LBE needs to be
seriously considered in the pseudopotential LB model. By adopting the classical
equilibrium moment or setting the so-called "magic" parameter to 1/12, the
anisotropic term can be eliminated, which is found from the present third-order
analysis and also validated numerically. As for the third-order isotropic term,
when and only when it is considered, accurate continuum form pressure tensor
can be definitely obtained, by which the predicted coexistence densities always
agree well with the numerical results. Compared with this continuum form
pressure tensor, the classical discrete form pressure tensor is accurate only
when the isotropic term is a specific one. At last, in the framework of the
present third-order analysis, a consistent scheme for third-order additional
term is proposed, which can be used to independently adjust the coexistence
densities and surface tension. Numerical tests are subsequently carried out to
validate the present scheme.


title: Compression Artifacts Removal Using Convolutional Neural Networks

abstract:
  This paper shows that it is possible to train large and deep convolutional
neural networks (CNN) for JPEG compression artifacts reduction, and that such
networks can provide significantly better reconstruction quality compared to
previously used smaller networks as well as to any other state-of-the-art
methods. We were able to train networks with 8 layers in a single step and in
relatively short time by combining residual learning, skip architecture, and
symmetric weight initialization. We provide further insights into convolution
networks for JPEG artifact reduction by evaluating three different objectives,
generalization with respect to training dataset size, and generalization with
respect to JPEG quality level.


title:
Variations of the 3-D coronal magnetic field associated with the
  X3.4-class solar flare event of AR 10930

abstract:
  The variations of the 3-D coronal magnetic fields associated with the
X3.4-class flare of active region 10930 are studied in this paper. The coronal
magnetic field data are reconstructed from the photospheric vector magnetograms
obtained by the Hinode satellite and using the nonlinear force-free field
extrapolation method developed in our previous work (He et al., 2011). The 3-D
force-free factor $\alpha$, 3-D current density, and 3-D magnetic energy
density are employed to analyze the coronal data. The distributions of $\alpha$
and current density reveal a prominent magnetic connectivity with strong
negative $\alpha$ values and strong current density before the flare. This
magnetic connectivity extends along the main polarity inversion line and is
found to be totally broken after the flare. The distribution variation of
magnetic energy density reveals the redistribution of magnetic energy before
and after the flare. In the lower space of the modeling volume the increase of
magnetic energy dominates, and in the higher space the decrease of energy
dominates. The comparison with the flare onset imaging observation exhibits
that the breaking site of the magnetic connectivity and site with the highest
values of energy density increase coincide with the location of flare initial
eruption. We conclude that a cramped positive $\alpha$ region appearing in the
photosphere causes the breaking of the magnetic connectivity. A scenario for
flare initial eruption is proposed in which the Lorentz force acting on the
isolated electric current at the magnetic connectivity breaking site lifts the
associated plasmas and causes the initial ejection.


title: A remark on the extension of a class of linear functionals

abstract:
  We will remark an extension of a linear functional on subalgebra of algebra
of continuous functions on subset of $\mathbb{R}^n$ which preserves positivity.


title: Multiple metamagnetic quantum criticality in Sr$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$

abstract:
  Bilayer strontium ruthenate Sr$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$ displays pronounced non-Fermi
liquid behavior at magnetic fields around 8 T, applied perpendicular to the
ruthenate planes, which previously has been associated with an itinerant
metamagnetic quantum critical end point (QCEP). We focus on the magnetic
Gr\"uneisen parameter $\Gamma_{\rm H}$, which is the most direct probe to
characterize field-induced quantum criticality. We confirm quantum critical
scaling due to a putative two-dimensional QCEP near 7.845(5) T, which is masked
by two ordered phases A and B, identified previously by neutron scattering. In
addition we find evidence for a QCEP at 7.53(2) T and determine the quantum
critical regimes of both instabilities and the effect of their superposition.


title:
A ferro-deformation at the open quantum system with protons, Z = 8,
  neutrons, N = 20: 28O

abstract:
  We offer a possibility that the nuclear system with protons, Z = 8 has a
large deformation at neutrons, N = 20; 28O that is beyond the neutron drip
line. According to our previous works [arXiv: 1604.05013, 1604.02786,
1604.01017], it is expected that the ferro-deformation would occur at Z = 8, N
= 20 through a shape phase transition at N = 18 out of N =16. The shape
transition can be explained in terms of isospin dependent spin-orbital
interactions between neutrons in the d3/2 orbital and protons in the d5/2
orbital, by yielding both the neutron and the proton pseudo-shell
configurations built on each combined subshells. We argue that such a large
deformation at N = 18 would be responsible for the 26O to be unbound, leading
to a ground state neutron emitter. The ferro-deformation is mapped on the
nuclear chart such that is around the following critical proton, neutron
coordinates, (Z, N); (64, 104), (40, 64), (20, 40), (8, 20). This configuration
depicts a beautiful pattern coming from a harmonious order in the microscopic
quantum world.


title: The Diagonal Problem for Higher-Order Recursion Schemes is Decidable

abstract:
  A non-deterministic recursion scheme recognizes a language of finite trees.
This very expressive model can simulate, among others, higher-order pushdown
automata with collapse. We show decidability of the diagonal problem for
schemes. This result has several interesting consequences. In particular, it
gives an algorithm that computes the downward closure of languages of words
recognized by schemes. In turn, this has immediate application to separability
problems and reachability analysis of concurrent systems.