Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
State-of-the-art AGN SEDs for photoionization models: BLR predictions confront the observations

The great power offered by photoionization models of active galactic nuclei emission line regions has long been mitigated by the fact that very little is known about the spectral energy distribution (SED) between the Lyman limit, where intervening absorption becomes a problem, and 0.3 keV, where soft X-ray observations become possible. The emission lines themselves can, to some degree, be used to probe the SED, but only in the broadest terms. This paper employs a new generation of theoretical SEDs that are internally self-consistent, energy conserving, and tested against observations, to infer properties of the emission-line regions. The SEDs are given as a function of the Eddington ratio, allowing emission-line correlations to be investigated on a fundamental basis. We apply the simplest possible tests, based on the foundations of photoionization theory, to investigate the implications for the geometry of the emission-line region. The SEDs become more far-ultraviolet bright as the Eddington ratio increases, so the equivalent widths of recombination lines should also become larger, an effect that we quantify. The observed lack of correlation between Eddington ratio and equivalent width shows that the cloud covering factor must decrease as Eddington ratio increases. This would be consistent with recent models proposing that the broad-line region is a failed dusty wind off the accretion disc.
Mapping Fluorescence Enhancement of Plasmonic Nanorod Coupled Dye Molecules

Plasmonically enhanced fluorescence is a widely studied and applied phenomenon, however, only a comparative theoretical and experimental analysis of coupled fluorophores and plasmonic nanoresonators makes it possible to uncover how this phenomenon can be controlled. A numerical optimization method was applied to design configurations that are capable of resulting in an enhancement of excitation and emission, moreover, of both phenomena simultaneously in coupled Cy5 dye molecule and gold nanorod systems. Parametric sensitivity studies revealed how the fluorescence enhancement depends on the molecule’s location, distance and orientation. Coupled systems designed for simultaneous improvement exhibited the highest (intermediate directional) total fluorescence enhancement, which is accompanied by intermediate sensitivity to the molecule’s parameters, except the location and orientation sensitivity at the excitation wavelength. Gold nanorods with a geometry corresponding to the predicted optimal configurations were synthesized, and DNA strands were used to control the Cy5 dye molecule distance from the nanorod surface via hybridization of the Cy5-labelled oligonucleotide. State-of-the-art dSTORM microscopy was used to accomplish a proof-of-concept experimental demonstration of the theoretically predicted (directional) total fluorescence enhancement. The measured fluorescence enhancement was in good agreement with theoretical predictions, thus providing a complete kit to design and prepare coupled nanosystems exhibiting plasmonically enhanced fluorescence.
Simulating and Evaluating Rebalancing Strategies for Dockless Bike-Sharing Systems

Following the growth of dock-based bike sharing systems as an eco-friendly solution for transportation in urban areas, Dockless systems are revolutionizing the market for the increased flexibility they offer to users. Bike redistribution is a common approach to improve service, and there exists extensive research considering static and dynamic rebalancing strategies for dock-based systems. We approach the dockless problem by defining abstract stations from trip start and end location frequency. This paper offers an optimizing Mixed Integer Program framework to model the effects of various bike repositioning strategies for dockless systems. We process 30 days worth of Singapore-based dockless bike data from September 2017 to extract trips. Pairing our mixed integer program with a demand model built from the processed data, we unveil trends between fleet size, lost demand, and magnitude of repositioning proper to the repositioning strategy employed. We also show that increasing repositioning potential does not always improve service performance.
Learning Hierarchical Review Graph Representations for Recommendation

The user review data have been demonstrated to be effective in solving different recommendation problems. Previous review-based recommendation methods usually employ sophisticated compositional models, such as Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), to learn semantic representations from the review data for recommendation. However, these methods mainly capture the local dependency between neighbouring words in a word window, and they treat each review equally. Therefore, they may not be effective in capturing the global dependency between words, and tend to be easily biased by noise review information. In this paper, we propose a novel review-based recommendation model, named Review Graph Neural Network (RGNN). Specifically, RGNN builds a specific review graph for each individual user/item, which provides a global view about the user/item properties to help weaken the biases caused by noise review information. A type-aware graph attention mechanism is developed to learn semantic embeddings of words. Moreover, a personalized graph pooling operator is proposed to learn hierarchical representations of the review graph to form the semantic representation for each user/item. We compared RGNN with state-of-the-art review-based recommendation approaches on two real-world datasets. The experimental results indicate that RGNN consistently outperforms baseline methods, in terms of Mean Square Error (MSE).
The efficiency of dust trapping in ringed protoplanetary discs

When imaged at high-resolution, many proto-planetary discs show gaps and rings in their dust sub-mm continuum emission profile. These structures are widely considered to originate from local maxima in the gas pressure profile. The properties of the underlying gas structures are however unknown. In this paper we present a method to measure the dust-gas coupling $\alpha/St$ and the width of the gas pressure bumps affecting the dust distribution, applying high-precision techniques to extract the gas rotation curve from emission lines data-cubes. As a proof-of-concept, we then apply the method to two discs with prominent sub-structure, HD163296 and AS 209. We find that in all cases the gas structures are larger than in the dust, confirming that the rings are pressure traps. Although the grains are sufficiently decoupled from the gas to be radially concentrated, we find that the degree of coupling of the dust is relatively good ($\alpha/St \sim 0.1$). We can therefore reject scenarios in which the disc turbulence is very low and the dust has grown significantly. If we further assume that the dust grain sizes are set by turbulent fragmentation, we find high values of the $\alpha$ turbulent parameter ($\alpha \sim 10^{-2}$). Alternatively, solutions with smaller turbulence are still compatible with our analysis if another process is limiting grain growth. For HD163296, recent measurements of the disc mass suggest that this is the case if the grain size is 1mm. Future constraints on the dust spectral indices will help to discriminate between the two alternatives.
Numerical Calculations of Finite Key Rate for General Quantum Key Distribution Protocols

Finite key analysis of quantum key distribution (QKD) is an important tool for any QKD implementation. While much work has been done on the framework of finite key analysis, the application to individual protocols often relies on the the specific protocol being simple or highly symmetric as well as represented in small finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In this work, we extend our pre-existing reliable, efficient, tight, and generic numerical method for calculating the asymptotic key rate of device-dependent QKD protocols in finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces to the finite key regime using the security analysis framework of Renner. We explain how this extension preserves the reliability, efficiency, and tightness of the asymptotic method. We then explore examples which illustrate both the generality of our method as well as the importance of parameter estimation and data processing within the framework.
Ultradiffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster: Probing Their Origin and AGN Occupation Fraction

Ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) exhibit low surface brightness, but their optical extent is comparable to that of Milky Way-type galaxies. In this work, we utilize Chandra X-ray observations of 404 UDGs in the Coma cluster and address two crucial goals. First, we constrain the formation scenario of UDGs by probing the X-ray emission originating from diffuse gas and from the population of unresolved low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) residing in globular clusters (GCs). It is expected that both the luminosity of the hot gas and the number of GCs, and hence the luminosity from GC-LMXBs, are proportional to the total mass of the dark matter halo. We do not detect statistically significant emission from the hot gas or from GC-LMXBs. The upper limits on the X-ray luminosities suggest that the bulk of the UDGs reside in low-mass dark matter halos, implying that they are genuine dwarf galaxies. This conclusion agrees with our previous results obtained for isolated UDGs, arguing that UDGs are a homogeneous population of galaxies. Second, we constrain the AGN occupation fraction of UDGs, i.e., the fraction of UDGs that are occupied by an active galactic nucleus, for the first time. To this end, we cross-correlate the position of detected X-ray sources in the Coma cluster with the position of UDGs. We identify two UDGs that have a luminous X-ray source at 3. ″0 and 3. ″2 from their center, which could be off-center AGNs. However, Monte Carlo simulations suggest that one of these sources could be the result of spatial coincidence with a background AGN. Therefore, we place an upper limit of ≲0.5% on the AGN occupation fraction of UDGs.
Domain Walls in 4d N = 1 SYM

4d N = 1 super Yang-Mills (SYM) with simply connected gauge group G has h gapped vacua arising from the spontaneously broken discrete R-symmetry, where h is the dual Coxeter number of G. Therefore, the theory admits stable domain walls interpolating between any two vacua, but it is a nonperturbative problem to determine the low energy theory on the domain wall. We put forward an explicit answer to this question for all the domain walls for G = SU(N),Sp(N), Spin(N) and G2, and for the minimal domain wall connecting neighboring vacua for arbitrary G. We propose that the domain wall theories support specific nontrivial topological quantum field theories (TQFTs), which include the Chern-Simons theory proposed long ago by Acharya-Vafa for SU(N). We provide nontrivial evidence for our proposals by exactly matching renormalization group invariant partition functions twisted by global symmetries of SYM computed in the ultraviolet with those computed in our proposed infrared TQFTs. A crucial element in this matching is constructing the Hilbert space of spin TQFTs, that is, theories that depend on the spin structure of spacetime and admit fermionic states – a subject we delve into in some detail. ddelmastro@perimeterinstitute.ca jgomis@perimeterinstitute.ca ar X iv :2 00 4. 11 39 5v 1 [ he pth ] 2 3 A pr 2 02 0
Characterization of clinical progression of COVID-19 patients in Shenzhen, China

The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed healthcare care systems throughout the world. Understanding clinical progression of cases is a key public health priority that informs optimal resource allocation during an emergency. Using data from Shenzhen, China, where all cases were monitored in hospital and symptom profiles and clinical and lab results were available starting from early stages of clinical course, we characterized clinical progression of COVID-19 cases and determined important predictors for faster clinical progression to key clinical events and longer use of medical resources. Epidemiological, demographic, laboratory, clinical, and outcome data were extracted from electronic medical records. We found that those who progressed to the severe stage, developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, and were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) progressed on average 9.5 days (95%CI 8.7,10.3), 11.0 days (95%CI 9.7,12.3), and 10.5 days (95%CI 8.2,13.3) after symptom onset, respectively. We estimated that patients who were admitted to ICUs remained there for an average of 34.4 days (95%CI 24.1,43.2) and the average time on a ventilator was 28.5 days (95%CI 20.0,39.1) among those requiring mechanical ventilation. The median length of hospital stay was 21.3 days (95%CI, 20.5, 22.2) for the mild or moderate cases who did not progress to the severe stage, but increased to 52.1 days (95%CI, 43.3, 59.5) for those who required ICU admission. Clear characterization of clinical progression informs planning for healthcare resource allocation during COVID-19 outbreaks and provides a basis that helps assess the effectiveness of new treatment and therapeutics.
Eosinopenia Phenotype in Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Multi-center Retrospective Study from Anhui, China

Background: Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has become a global unprecedented pandemic infecting more than one millon people, which is declared by WHO as a international public health emergency. Eosinopenia may predict a poor prognosis of COVID-19. However, to date, there is no detailed analysis of the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients with eosinopenia. Research question: The aim of this study was to describe clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients with eosinopenia. Study Design and Methods: This was a multi-center retrospective study conducted in three tertiary hospitals. A total of 59 patients with COVID-19 were reviewed from January 23, 2020 to March 10, 2020. We described clincial characteristics of patients with COIVD-19 and eosinopenia phenotype. Results: The median age of patients with COVID-19 was 39 years old, and 32 (54,2%) were male. Patients with severe type had higher proportions of dyspnea (50%) and gastrointestinal symptoms (50%) compared with mild or moderate patients. Laboratory findings indicated that lower counts of lymphocyte and eosnophils were observed in patients with severe type. Cough, sputum, and fatigue were more common symptoms in eosinopenia patients compared with non-eosinopenia patients. High proportion of comorbidities was observed in eosinopenia patients. Laboratory findings indicated that lymphocyte counts (median: 101 cells/l ) in eosinopenia patients were significantly less than those of non-eosinopenia patients (median: 167 cells/l, p<0.001). The use of corticosteroids therapy in COVID-19 patients with eosinopenia were notably higher than those in patients with non-eosinopenia (50% vs 13.8%, respectively, p=0.005). Compared with parameters in non-eosinopenia patients, eosinopenia patients were more inclined to have less lymphocyte counts (OR value 6.566, 95%CI[1.101-39.173], p=0.039). Interpretation Eosinopenia are very common in COVID-19 patient, particularly in severe patients. Common symptoms included fever, cough, sputum, and fatigue are frequent in eosinopenia patients. Eosinopenia may represent a novel phenotype in COVID-19, which needs further investigation.
Anthropometric Reference Data for International Use: Recommendations from a who Expert Committee

The World Health Organization (WHO) convened an Expert Committee to re-evaluate the use of anthropometry at different ages for assessing health, nutrition, and social well-being. The Committee's task included identifying reference data for anthropometric indices when appropriate, and providing guidelines on how the data should be used. For foetal growth, the Committee recommended an existing sex-specific multiracial reference. In view of the significant technical drawbacks of the current National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)/WHO reference and its inadequacy for assessing the growth of breastfed infants, the Committee recommended the development of a new reference concerning weight and length/height for infants and children, which will be a complex and costly undertaking. Proper interpretation of mid-upper-arm circumference for pre-schoolers requires age-specific reference data. To evaluate adolescent height-for-age, the Committee recommended the current NCHS/WHO reference. Use of the NCHS body mass index (BMI) data, with their upper percentile elevations and skewness, is undesirable for setting health goals; however, these data were provisionally recommended for defining obesity based on a combination of elevated BMI and high subcutaneous fat. The NCHS values were provisionally recommended as reference data for subscapular and triceps skinfold thicknesses. Guidelines were also provided for adjusting adolescent anthropometric comparisons for maturational status. Currently, there is no need for adult reference data for BMI; interpretation should be based on pragmatic BMI cut-offs. Finally, the Committee noted that few normative anthropometric data exist for the elderly, especially for those over 80 years of age. Proper definitions of health status, function, and biologic age remain to be developed for this group.
Phenotypic and genotypic diversity of Streptococcus pneumoniae strains in Tanzania and the United Kingdom

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a prevalent etiological agent of diseases and a common colonizer. During pneumococcal colonization, adaptation and evolution of the organism is thought to occur by horizontal gene transfer. Heterogeneity in distribution of genes between strains contributes to the global supragenome pool greater than the genome of any single strain. Co-colonization of multiple strains, therefore, enables an organism to expand its supragenome and hence its adaptive potential. In this study, the development and design of a single primer-pair PCR- and sequence-based serotyping (sequetyping) method for surveillance of prevalent serotypes is presented. Serotypes including those covered in the latest conjugate vaccines were identified at least to the serogroup level. This method thus shows promise in its application in routine determination of prevalent serotypes. The sequetyping method was applied to perform a systematic analysis of characterizing pneumococci isolated from healthy Tanzanian children in an attempt to determine phenotypic and genotypic diversities (multilocus sequence typing) within colonization events. Through this work evidence is presented to support that previous studies analyzing serotype diversity alone is an underestimate of true strain diversity during co-colonization events. Determination of competence peptide allelic variants revealed significant differences in proportions of pherotypes in two geographical locations. The majority of co-colonization events showed multiple pherotypes, indicating that co-colonization events may provide an optimal condition for genetic exchanges. Intra-serotype variations in the capsular gene cpsB were observed and the difference of this variation between serotypes. Nucleotide differences were mapped to specific domains of the CpsB protein, which may affect the enzymatic activity of this regulatory protein. Sequencing comC from presumptive strains of S. pseudopneumoniae revealed that comC6.1 is a common pherotype of this organism. It is proposed that this gene may be a potential target for differentiation between S. pseudopneumoniae from S. pneumoniae and other streptococcal species.
ReDirect

As we enter the dark silicon era, architects should not envision designs in which every transistor remains turned on permanently but rather ones in which portions of the chip are judiciously turned on/off depending on the characteristics of a workload. At the same time, due to the increasing cost per transistor, architects should also consider new ways to re-purpose transistors to increase their architectural value. In this work, we consider the design of directory-based cache coherence in light of the dark silicon era and the need to re-purpose transistors. We point out that directories are not needed all of the time, and we argue that directories (and coherence) should be off unless it is actually needed for correctness. In our design, directories will be disabled and powered off for workloads with no sharing. Then only when parallel workloads need cache coherence will directories be enabled in proportion to the sharing that is present. At the same time, we exploit the structural similarities of directories and cache. If a directory is idle, then we reconfigure it to be used as extra capacity in the last-level cache. Since our novel approach can keep most directories off, we are free to select sparse overprovisioned directory designs that are reconfigurable to large amounts of cache that can significantly boost performance when the directory is idle. We call these combined features Reconfigured Dark Directories, since directories are usually dark (off) and can be reconfigured. Our results for Reconfigurable Dark Directories running SPEC 2006 applications show a performance benefit, on average, of 17% for an 8× overprovisioned fully mapped directory on a 64-tile system under low system concurrency (10% under heavy concurrency), or a 29% average speedup for a 2× overprovisioned directory on 256-tile system (10% under heavy concurrency) to systems with a conventional sparse directory design using the same overprovisioning factor.
Hybris

Besides well-known benefits, commodity cloud storage also raises concerns that include security, reliability, and consistency. We present Hybris key-value store, the first robust hybrid cloud storage system, aiming at addressing these concerns leveraging both private and public cloud resources. Hybris robustly replicates metadata on trusted private premises (private cloud), separately from data, which are dispersed (using replication or erasure coding) across multiple untrusted public clouds. Hybris maintains metadata stored on private premises at the order of few dozens of bytes per key, avoiding the scalability bottleneck at the private cloud. In turn, the hybrid design allows Hybris to efficiently and robustly tolerate cloud outages but also potential malice in clouds without overhead. Namely, to tolerate up to f malicious clouds, in the common case of the Hybris variant with data replication, writes replicate data across f+1 clouds, whereas reads involve a single cloud. In the worst case, only up to f additional clouds are used. This is considerably better than earlier multi-cloud storage systems that required costly 3f+1 clouds to mask f potentially malicious clouds. Finally, Hybris leverages strong metadata consistency to guarantee to Hybris applications strong data consistency without any modifications to the eventually consistent public clouds. We implemented Hybris in Java and evaluated it using a series of micro and macro-benchmarks. Our results show that Hybris significantly outperforms comparable multi-cloud storage systems and approaches the performance of bare-bone commodity public cloud storage.