Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantum information scrambling in the presence of weak and strong thermalization

Quantum information scrambling under many-body dynamics is of fundamental interest. The tripartite mutual information can quantify the scrambling via its negative value. Here, we first study the quench dynamics of tripartite mutual information in a non-integrable Ising model where the strong and weak thermalization are observed with different initial states. We numerically show that the fastest scrambling can occur when the energy density of the chosen initial state possesses the maximum density of states. We then present an experimental protocol for observing weak and strong thermalization in a superconducting qubit array. Based on the protocol, the relation between scrambling and thermalization revealed in this work can be directly verified by superconducting quantum simulations.
Quantum multifractality in thermal conduction across random interfaces

Self-affine morphology of random interfaces governs their functionalities across tribological, geological, (opto-)electrical and biological applications. However, the knowledge of how energy carriers or generally classical/quantum waves interact with structural irregularity is still incomplete. In this work, we study vibrational energy transport through random interfaces exhibiting different correlation functions on the two-dimensional hexagonal lattice. We show that random interfaces at the atomic scale are Cantor composites populated on geometrical fractals, thus multifractals, and calculate their quantized conductance using atomistic approaches. We obtain a universal scaling law, which contains self-similarity for mass perturbation, and exponential scaling of structural irregularity quantified by fractal dimension. The multifractal nature and Cantor-composite picture may also be extendable to charge and photon transport across random interfaces.
A distortion matrix framework for high-resolution passive seismic 3-D imaging: application to the San Jacinto fault zone, California

Reflection seismic imaging usually suffers from a loss of resolution and contrast because of the fluctuations of the wave velocities in the Earth’s crust. In the literature, phase distortion issues are generally circumvented by means of a background wave velocity model. However, it requires a prior tomography of the wave velocity distribution in the medium, which is often not possible, especially in depth. In this paper, a matrix approach of seismic imaging is developed to retrieve a 3-D image of the subsoil, despite a rough knowledge of the background wave velocity. To do so, passive noise cross-correlations between geophones of a seismic array are investigated under a matrix formalism. They form a reflection matrix that contains all the information available on the medium. A set of matrix operations can then be applied in order to extract the relevant information as a function of the problem considered. On the one hand, the background seismic wave velocity can be estimated and its fluctuations quantified by projecting the reflection matrix in a focused basis. It consists in investigating the response between virtual sources and detectors synthesized at any point in the medium. The minimization of their cross-talk can then be used as a guide star for approaching the actual wave velocity distribution. On the other hand, the detrimental effect of wave velocity fluctuations on imaging is overcome by introducing a novel mathematical object: The distortion matrix. This operator essentially connects any virtual source inside the medium with the distortion that a wavefront, emitted from that point, experiences due to heterogeneities. A time reversal analysis of the distortion matrix enables the estimation of the transmission matrix that links each real geophone at the surface and each virtual geophone in depth. Phase distortions can then be compensated for any point of the underground. Applied to passive seismic data recorded along the Clark branch of the San Jacinto fault zone (SJFZ), the present method is shown to provide an image of the fault until a depth of 4 km over the frequency range 10–20Hz with an horizontal resolution of 80 m. Strikingly, this resolution is almost one eighth below the diffraction limit imposed by the geophone array aperture. The heterogeneities of the subsoil play the role of a scattering lens and of a transverse waveguide which increase drastically the array aperture. The contrast is also optimized since most of the incoherent noise is eliminated by the iterative time reversal process. Beyond the specific case of the SJFZ, the reported approach can be applied to any scales and areas for which a reflection matrix is available at a spatial sampling satisfying the Nyquist criterion.
Uniqueness and superposition of the distribution-dependent Zakai equations

The work concerns the Zakai equations from nonlinear filtering problems of McKean-Vlasov stochastic differential equations with correlated noises. First, we establish the Kushner-Stratonovich equations, the Zakai equations and the distribution-dependent Zakai equations. And then, the pathwise uniqueness, uniqueness in joint law and uniqueness in law of weak solutions for the distribution-dependent Zakai equations are shown. Finally, we prove a superposition principle between the distribution-dependent Zakai equations and distribution-dependent Fokker-Planck equations. As a by-product, we give some conditions under which distribution-dependent Fokker-Planck equations have unique weak solutions.
Channel Estimation for RIS-Empowered Multi-User MISO Wireless Communications

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) have been recently considered as an energy-efficient solution for future wireless networks due to their fast and low-power configuration, which has increased potential in enabling massive connectivity and low-latency communications. Accurate and low-overhead channel estimation in RIS-based systems is one of the most critical challenges due to the usually large number of RIS unit elements and their distinctive hardware constraints. In this paper, we focus on the uplink of a RIS-empowered multi-user Multiple Input Single Output (MISO) uplink communication systems and propose a channel estimation framework based on the parallel factor decomposition to unfold the resulting cascaded channel model. We present two iterative estimation algorithms for the channels between the base station and RIS, as well as the channels between RIS and users. One is based on alternating least squares (ALS), while the other uses vector approximate message passing to iteratively reconstruct two unknown channels from the estimated vectors. To theoretically assess the performance of the ALS-based algorithm, we derived its estimation Cramér-Rao Bound (CRB). We also discuss the downlink achievable sum rate computation with estimated channels and different precoding schemes for the base station. Our extensive simulation results show that our algorithms outperform benchmark schemes and that the ALS technique achieves the CRB. It is also demonstrated that the sum rate using the estimated channels always reach that of perfect channels under various settings, thus, verifying the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed estimation algorithms.
Multimodal Image-to-Image Translation via a Single Generative Adversarial Network

Despite significant advances in image-to-image (I2I) translation with Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have been made, it remains challenging to effectively translate an image to a set of diverse images in multiple target domains using a pair of generator and discriminator. Existing multimodal I2I translation methods adopt multiple domain-specific content encoders for different domains, where each domain-specific content encoder is trained with images from the same domain only. Nevertheless, we argue that the content (domain-invariant) features should be learned from images among all the domains. Consequently, each domain-specific content encoder of existing schemes fails to extract the domain-invariant features efficiently. To address this issue, we present a flexible and general SoloGAN model for efficient multimodal I2I translation among multiple domains with unpaired data. In contrast to existing methods, the SoloGAN algorithm uses a single projection discriminator with an additional auxiliary classifier, and shares the encoder and generator for all domains. As such, the SoloGAN model can be trained effectively with images from all domains such that the domain-invariant content representation can be efficiently extracted. Qualitative and quantitative results over a wide range of datasets against several counterparts and variants of the SoloGAN model demonstrate the merits of the method, especially for the challenging I2I translation tasks, i.e., tasks that involve extreme shape variations or need to keep the complex backgrounds unchanged after translations. Furthermore, we demonstrate the contribution of each component using ablation studies.
Cone‐equivalent nilpotent groups with different Dehn functions

For every k⩾3$k\geqslant 3$ , we exhibit a simply connected k$k$ ‐nilpotent Lie group Nk$N_k$ whose Dehn function behaves like nk$n^k$ , while the Dehn function of its associated Carnot graded group gr(Nk)$\mathsf {gr}(N_k)$ behaves like nk+1$n^{k+1}$ . This property and its consequences allow us to reveal three new phenomena. First, since those groups have uniform lattices, this provides the first examples of pairs of finitely presented groups with bi‐Lipschitz asymptotic cones but with different Dehn functions. The second surprising feature of these groups is that for every even integer k⩾4$k \geqslant 4$ , the centralised Dehn function of Nk$N_k$ behaves like nk−1$n^{k-1}$ and so has a different exponent than the Dehn function. This answers a question of Young. Finally, we turn our attention to sublinear bi‐Lipschitz equivalences (SBEs). Introduced by Cornulier, these are maps between metric spaces inducing bi‐Lipschitz homeomorphisms between their asymptotic cones. These can be seen as weakenings of quasi‐isometries where the additive error is replaced by a sublinearly growing function v$v$ . We show that a v$v$ ‐SBE between Nk$N_k$ and gr(Nk)$\mathsf {gr}(N_k)$ must satisfy v(n)≽n1/(2k+2)$v(n)\succcurlyeq n^{1/(2k + 2)}$ , strengthening the fact that those two groups are not quasi‐isometric. This is the first instance where an explicit lower bound is provided for a pair of SBE groups.
Evaluation of an Aerial Survey of Pacific Walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens)

An aerial survey of Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) was evaluated to determine the reliability of estimates of population abundance. The probability of detecting groups of walruses on the pack ice remained uniform to at least 0.93 km from the flight line, whereas the probability of detection decreased significantly beyond 0.23 km for walruses in the water. Walruses were more abundant along the ice-edge zone between 162 and 165°W than in other areas of the Chukchi Sea during September 1975. Few walruses were observed in consolidated pack ice north of the ice-edge zone or in ice-free water to the south. More walrus groups and larger mean group size were observed on September 8 than on other days. We estimated abundance for each day and all days combined using methods based on sample area and numbers of strip samples. Estimates varied among days by over an order of magnitude; this variation is attributed to the combined effect of chance sampling of an aggregated population and variation in the.
On uniqueness of invariant measures for random walks on 
${\textup {HOMEO}}^+(\mathbb R)$

Abstract We consider random walks on the group of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of the real line ${\mathbb R}$ . In particular, the fundamental question of uniqueness of an invariant measure of the generated process is raised. This problem was studied by Choquet and Deny [Sur l’équation de convolution $\mu = \mu * \sigma $ . C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 250 (1960), 799–801] in the context of random walks generated by translations of the line. Nowadays the answer is quite well understood in general settings of strongly contractive systems. Here we focus on a broader class of systems satisfying the conditions of recurrence, contraction and unbounded action. We prove that under these conditions the random process possesses a unique invariant Radon measure on ${\mathbb R}$ . Our work can be viewed as following on from Babillot et al [The random difference equation $X_n=A_n X_{n-1}+B_n$ in the critical case. Ann. Probab. 25(1) (1997), 478–493] and Deroin et al [Symmetric random walk on $\mathrm {HOMEO}^{+}(\mathbb {R})$ . Ann. Probab. 41(3B) (2013), 2066–2089].
A Search for Light Hydrides in the Envelopes of Evolved Stars

We report a search for the diatomic hydrides SiH, PH, and FeH along the line of sight toward the chemically rich circumstellar envelopes of IRC+10216 and VY Canis Majoris. These molecules are thought to form in high-temperature regions near the photospheres of those stars, and may then further react via gas-phase and dust-grain interactions leading to more complex species, but have yet to be constrained by observation. We used the German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies spectrometer on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy to search for rotational emission lines of these molecules in four spectral windows ranging from 600 to 1500 GHz. Although none of the targeted species was detected in our search, we report their upper limit abundances in each source and discuss how they influence the current understanding of hydride chemistry in dense circumstellar media. We attribute the nondetections of these hydrides to their compact source sizes, high barriers of formation, and proclivity to react with other molecules in the winds.
Characterizing galaxy clusters by their gravitational potential: Systematics of cluster potential reconstruction

Context. Biases in mass measurements of galaxy clusters are one of the major limiting systematics in constraining cosmology with clusters. Aims. We aim to demonstrate that the systematics associated with cluster gravitational potentials are smaller than the hydrostatic mass bias and that cluster potentials could therefore be a good alternative to cluster masses in cosmological studies. Methods. Using cosmological simulations of galaxy clusters, we compute the biases in the hydrostatic mass (HE mass) and those in the gravitational potential, reconstructed from measurements at X-ray and millimeter wavelengths. In particular, we investigate the effects of the presence of substructures and of nonthermal pressure support on both the HE mass and the reconstructed potential. Results. We find that the bias in the reconstructed potential (6%) is less than that of the HE mass (13%) and that the scatter in the reconstructed potential decreases by ∼35% with respect to that in the HE mass. Conclusions. This study shows that characterizing galaxy clusters by their gravitational potential is a promising alternative to using cluster masses in cluster cosmology.
Forensic Writer Identification Using Microblogging Texts

Establishing the authorship of online texts is a fundamental issue to combat several cybercrimes. Unfortunately, some platforms limit the length of the text, making the challenge harder. Here, we aim at identifying the author of Twitter messages limited to 140 characters. We evaluate popular stylometric features, widely used in traditional literary analysis, which capture the writing style at different levels (character, word, and sentence). We use a public database of 93 users, containing 1142 to 3209 Tweets per user. We also evaluate the influence of the number of Tweets per user for enrolment and testing. If the amount is sufficient (>500), a Rank 1 of 97-99% is achieved. If data is scarce (e.g. 20 Tweets for testing), the Rank 1 with the best individual feature method ranges from 54.9% (100 Tweets for enrolment) to 70.6% (1000 Tweets). By combining the available features, a substantial improvement is observed, reaching a Rank 1 of 70% when using 100 Tweets for enrolment and only 20 for testing. With a bigger hit list size, accuracy of the latter case increases to 86.4% (Rank 5) or 95% (Rank 20). This demonstrates the feasibility of identifying writers of digital texts, even with few data available.
Non-chemical strategies to control postharvest losses and extend the shelf life of table grape fruits

In this study, preharvest application of formulated Bacillus subtilis and postharvest cooling were examined to control the postharvest losses and extend the shelf life of table grape fruits (TGF). The preharvest application of B. subtilis improved the general appearance of both clusters and berries at harvest. The postharvest application of cooling decreased the changes in both physical (weight loss and firmness) and chemical (total soluble solid and acidity) characters of TGF, and hence decreased the incidence of decay. The preharvest application of B. subtilis improved the efficiency of postharvest cooling in extending the fruit shelf life. The changes in phenols, flavonoids, hydrolytic enzymes (carboxy methyl cellulase, pectin lyase, pectin methyl esterase, polygalacturonase) and oxidative enzymes (peroxidase, polyphenoloxidase) of TGF could be used as sensitive indicators of fruit quality, hence suggesting a positive correlation between the integrated management and maintenance of fruit quality. The synergistic action of preharvest and postharvest treatments in this study suggests that decreasing postharvest losses and extending shelf life of TGF could best be achieved by integrated management.
Diagnosis of sepsis in dogs by measuring carbonylated proteins (PCOs) and paraoxonase (PON-1)

An early diagnosis of sepsis could allow a better prognosis and avoid the abuse of antibiotic administration; unfortunately, in veterinary medicine, specific and sensitive markers of sepsis are not available.Because Protein Carbonyls (PCOs), that result from protein oxidation, are widely used in human medicine as sepsis markers , the aim of our study was to validate an ELISA kit (Enzolifesciences, 3V Chimica, Roma) on canine serum and to measure PCOs, after a preliminary validation study, in three groups (homogeneous for age and size): healthy dogs without clinical or laboratory abnormalities (A, n=14), dogs with septic (B, n=14) and non-septic inflammation (C, n=12) at the first presentation and without previous treatments. Moreover, Paraoxonase-1, a negative acute phase protein with anti-oxidant properties (PON-1) was measured in each group with a method already validated in dogs.A Kruskal-Wallis test followed by a Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to evaluate differences between groups.The ELISA method for measuring PCOs showed a very good precision (coefficient of variation <12%) and a good accuracy in spiking-recovery tests.Compared with controls, the concentration of PCOs was significantly higher either in dogs with sepsis (P<0.001) or in dogs with non-septic inflammation (P=0.005) but no significant differences were found between the two groups of sick dogs. Conversely, PON-1 was significantly lower in sick dogs compared with controls (P<0.001 for both groups) and in septic dogs compared with dogs with non-septic inflammation (P=0.001). A negative correlation between the two markers was found (P<0.001, r=-0.594) Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves demonstrated that both markers may discriminate dogs with sepsis with the other groups. However, PCO was less sensitive than PON-1 in diagnosing sepsis.Future studies should be focused on the association of PCOs with other inflammatory markers, as well as the possible prognostic role of PCOs based on the outcome of the enrolled patients.
Impact of COVID-19 on the access to hearing health care services for children with cochlear implants: a survey of parents

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world in an unprecedented manner. It has aggravated psychological distress in parents of children with cochlear implants. Continuous use of a speech sound processor is critical for auditory stimulation in children with cochlear implants. However, movement restrictions imposed have affected access to hearing healthcare services. The current study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hearing healthcare access for children with cochlear implants. Methods: An online questionnaire survey was conducted among parents of children with cochlear implants. Results: A total of 24 parents responded to the questionnaire. All the respondents reported that COVID-19 has a significant impact on access to hearing health services for their children. Speech processor breakdown and disconnection from the auditory mode of communication had a critical influence on behavioral changes in children. Conclusions: The current study highlights the hurdles faced by the parents in order to access hearing health services for their children. The use of innovative methods such as remote tele-audiology will be the way forward to tackle challenges faced by the parents.
Olfaction at depth: Cribriform plate size declines with dive depth and duration in aquatic arctoid carnivorans

Abstract It is widely accepted that obligate aquatic mammals, specifically toothed whales, rely relatively little on olfaction. There is less agreement about the importance of smell among aquatic mammals with residual ties to land, such as pinnipeds and sea otters. Field observations of marine carnivorans stress their keen use of smell while on land or pack ice. Yet, one dimension of olfactory ecology is often overlooked: while underwater, aquatic carnivorans forage “noseblind,” diving with nares closed, removed from airborne chemical cues. For this reason, we predicted marine carnivorans would have reduced olfactory anatomy relative to closely related terrestrial carnivorans. Moreover, because species that dive deeper and longer forage farther removed from surface scent cues, we predicted further reductions in their olfactory anatomy. To test these hypotheses, we looked to the cribriform plate (CP), a perforated bone in the posterior nasal chamber of mammals that serves as the only passageway for olfactory nerves crossing from the periphery to the olfactory bulb and thus covaries in size with relative olfactory innervation. Using CT scans and digital quantification, we compared CP morphology across Arctoidea, a clade at the interface of terrestrial and aquatic ecologies. We found that aquatic carnivoran species from two lineages that independently reinvaded marine environments (Pinnipedia and Mustelidae), have significantly reduced relative CP than terrestrial species. Furthermore, within these aquatic lineages, diving depth and duration were strongly correlated with CP loss, and the most extreme divers, elephant seals, displayed the greatest reductions. These observations suggest that CP reduction in carnivorans is an adaptive response to shifting selection pressures during secondary invasion of marine environments, particularly to foraging at great depths. Because the CP is fairly well preserved in the fossil record, using methods presented here to quantify CP morphology in extinct species could further clarify evolutionary patterns of olfactory loss across aquatic mammal lineages that have independently committed to life in water.