Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Annihilating dark matter search with 12 yr of Fermi LAT data in nearby galaxy clusters

Galaxy clusters are the largest virialized objects in the Universe and, as such, have high dark matter (DM) concentrations. This abundance of dark matter makes them promising targets for indirect DM searches. Here we report the details of a search, utilizing almost 12 yr of Fermi/LAT data, for gamma-ray signatures from the pair annihilation of WIMP dark matter in the GeV energy band. From this, we present the constraints on the annihilation cross-section for the $b\overline{b}$, W+W−, and γγ channels, derived from the non-detection of a characteristic signal from five nearby, high Galactic latitude, galaxy clusters (Centaurus, Coma, Virgo, Perseus, and Fornax). We discuss the potential of a boost to the signal due to the presence of substructures in the DM haloes of selected objects, as well as the impact of uncertainties in DM profiles on the presented results. We assert that the obtained limits are, within a small factor, comparable to the best available limits of those based on Fermi/LAT observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies.
Hadron-quark phase transition at finite density in the presence of a magnetic field: Anisotropic approach

We investigate the hadron-quark phase transition at finite density in the presence of a magnetic field taking into account the anisotropy created by a uniform magnetic field in the system’s equations of state. We find a new anisotropic equilibrium condition that will drive the first-order phase transition along the boundary between the two phases. Fixing the magnetic field in the hadronic phase, the phase transition is realized by increasing the baryonic chemical potential at zero-temperature. It is shown that the magnetic field is mildly boosted after the system transitions from the hadronic to the quark phase. The magnetic-field discontinuity between the two phases is supported by a surface density of magnetic monopoles, which accumulate at the boundary separating the two phases. The mechanism responsible for the monopole charge density generation is discussed. Each phase is found to be paramagnetic with higher magnetic susceptibility in the quark phase. The connection with the physics of neutron stars is highlighted throughout the paper.
Anisotropic Second Harmonic Generation From Monocrystalline Gold Flakes

Noble metals with well-defined crystallographic orientation constitute an appealing class of materials for controlling light-matter interactions on the nanoscale. Nonlinear optical processes, being particularly sensitive to anisotropy, are a natural and versatile probe of crystallinity in nano-optical devices. Here we study the nonlinear optical response of monocrystalline gold flakes, revealing a polarization dependence in second-harmonic generation from the {111} surface that is markedly absent in polycrystalline films. Apart from suggesting an approach for directional enhancement of nonlinear response in plasmonic systems, we anticipate that our findings can be used as a rapid and non-destructive method for characterization of crystal quality and orientation that may be of significant importance in future applications.
Quantum Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoothed state

Smoothing is a technique that estimates the state of a system using measurement information both prior and posterior to the estimation time. Two notable examples of this technique are the Rauch-Tung-Striebel and Mayne-Fraser-Potter smoothing techniques for linear Gaussian systems, both resulting in the optimal smoothed estimate of the state. However, when considering a quantum system, classical smoothing techniques can result in an estimate that is not a valid quantum state. Consequently, a different smoothing theory was developed explicitly for quantum systems. This theory has since been applied to the special case of linear Gaussian quantum (LGQ) systems, where, in deriving the LGQ state smoothing equations, the Mayne-Fraser-Potter technique was used indirectly. As a result, the final equations describing the smoothed state are closely related to the classical Mayne-Fraser-Potter smoothing equations. In this technical note, I derive the equivalent Rauch-Tung-Striebel form of the quantum state smoothing equations. This new form of the LGQ state smoothing equations sheds light on properties of the smoothed quantum state that might have been hidden in the Mayne-Fraser-Potter form. As an example, this new form shows that, when the classically smoothed mean is smooth, the path of the mean of the smoothed quantum state is necessarily non-differentiable due to the Schrodinger-Heisenberg uncertainty relationship.
VENOMAVE: Clean-Label Poisoning Against Speech Recognition

In the past few years, we observed a wide adoption of practical systems that use Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems to improve human-machine interaction. Modern ASR systems are based on neural networks and prior research demonstrated that these systems are susceptible to adversarial examples, i.e., malicious audio inputs that lead to misclassification by the victim's network during the system's run time. The research question if ASR systems are also vulnerable to data poisoning attacks is still unanswered. In such an attack, a manipulation happens during the training phase of the neural network: an adversary injects malicious inputs into the training set such that the neural network's integrity and performance are compromised. In this paper, we present the first data poisoning attack in the audio domain, called VENOMAVE. Prior work in the image domain demonstrated several types of data poisoning attacks, but they cannot be applied to the audio domain. The main challenge is that we need to attack a time series of inputs. To enforce a targeted misclassification in an ASR system, we need to carefully generate a specific sequence of disturbed inputs for the target utterance, which will eventually be decoded to the desired sequence of words. More specifically, the adversarial goal is to produce a series of misclassification tasks and in each of them, we need to poison the system to misrecognize each frame of the target file. To demonstrate the practical feasibility of our attack, we evaluate VENOMAVE on an ASR system that detects sequences of digits from 0 to 9. When poisoning only 0.94% of the dataset on average, we achieve an attack success rate of 83.33%. We conclude that data poisoning attacks against ASR systems represent a real threat that needs to be considered.
NeuSpell: A Neural Spelling Correction Toolkit

We introduce NeuSpell, an open-source toolkit for spelling correction in English. Our toolkit comprises ten different models, and benchmarks them on naturally occurring misspellings from multiple sources. We find that many systems do not adequately leverage the context around the misspelt token. To remedy this, (i) we train neural models using spelling errors in context, synthetically constructed by reverse engineering isolated misspellings; and (ii) use richer representations of the context. By training on our synthetic examples, correction rates improve by 9% (absolute) compared to the case when models are trained on randomly sampled character perturbations. Using richer contextual representations boosts the correction rate by another 3%. Our toolkit enables practitioners to use our proposed and existing spelling correction systems, both via a simple unified command line, as well as a web interface. Among many potential applications, we demonstrate the utility of our spell-checkers in combating adversarial misspellings. The toolkit can be accessed at neuspell.github. io.
Metric rigidity of Kähler manifolds with lower Ricci bounds and almost maximal volume

In this short note we prove that a Kahler manifold with lower Ricci curvature bound and almost maximal volume is Gromov-Hausdorff close to the projective space with the Fubini-Study metric. This is done by combining the recent results of Kewei Zhang and Yuchen Liu on holomorphic rigidity of such Kahler manifolds with the structure theorem of Tian-Wang for almost Einstein manifolds. This can be regarded as the complex analog of the result on Colding on the shape of Riemannian manifolds with almost maximal volume
Temporal Properties of Precursors, Main Peaks, and Extended Emissions of Short GRBs in the Third Swift/BAT GRB Catalog

A comprehensive study is given to short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) in the third Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) GRB Catalog from 2004 December to 2019 July. We examine in detail the temporal properties of the three components in the prompt gamma-ray emission phase, including precursors, main peaks, and extended emissions (EEs). We investigate the similarity of the main peaks between one-component and two-component sGRBs. It is found that there is no substantial difference among their main peaks. Importantly, comparisons are made between in the single-peaked sGRBs and the double-peaked sGRBs. It is found that our results for main peaks in Swift/BAT sGRBs are essentially consistent with those in the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) ones recently found in our Paper I. Interestingly, we suspect, besides the newly found MODE I/II evolution forms of pulses in BATSE sGRBs in Paper I, that there would have been more evolution modes of pulses across differently adjacent energy channels in view of the Swift/BAT observations. We further inspect the correlation of the main peaks with either the precursors or the EEs. We find that the main peaks tend to last longer than the precursors but shorter than the EEs. Moreover, we verify the power-law correlations related with peak fluxes of the three components, strongly suggesting that they are produced from the similar central-engine activities. In particular, we compare the temporal properties of GRB 170817A with other sGRBs with EE and find no obvious differences between them.
Riemannian Langevin Algorithm for Solving Semidefinite Programs

We propose a Langevin diffusion-based algorithm for non-convex optimization and sampling on a product manifold of spheres. Under a logarithmic Sobolev inequality, we establish a guarantee for finite iteration convergence to the Gibbs distribution in terms of Kullback-Leibler divergence. We show that with an appropriate temperature choice, the suboptimality gap to the global minimum is guaranteed to be arbitrarily small with high probability. As an application, we analyze the proposed Langevin algorithm for solving the Burer-Monteiro relaxation of a semidefinite program (SDP). In particular, we establish a logarithmic Sobolev inequality for the Burer-Monteiro problem when there are no spurious local minima; hence implying a fast escape from saddle points. Combining the results, we then provide a global optimality guarantee for the SDP and the Max-Cut problem. More precisely, we show the Langevin algorithm achieves $\epsilon$-multiplicative accuracy with high probability in $\widetilde{\Omega}( n^2 \epsilon^{-3} )$ iterations, where $n$ is the size of the cost matrix.
Characterization of a Disordered above Room Temperature Skyrmion Material Co8Zn8Mn4

Topologically nontrivial spin textures host great promise for future spintronic applications. Skyrmions in particular are of burgeoning interest owing to their nanometric size, topological protection, and high mobility via ultra-low current densities. It has been previously reported through magnetic susceptibility, microscopy, and scattering techniques that Co8Zn8Mn4 forms an above room temperature triangular skyrmion lattice. Here, we report the synthesis procedure and characterization of a polycrystalline Co8Zn8Mn4 disordered bulk sample. We employ powder X-ray diffraction and backscatter Laue diffraction as characterization tools of the crystallinity of the samples, while magnetic susceptibility and Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) measurements are performed to study the skyrmion phase. Magnetic susceptibility measurements show a dip anomaly in the magnetization curves, which persists over a range of approximately 305 K–315 K. SANS measurements reveal a rotationally disordered polydomain skyrmion lattice. Applying a symmetry-breaking magnetic field sequence, we were able to orient and order the previously jammed state to yield the prototypical hexagonal diffraction patterns with secondary diffraction rings. This emergence of the skyrmion order serves as a unique demonstration of the fundamental interplay of structural disorder and anisotropy in stabilizing the thermal equilibrium phase.
BERT for Joint Multichannel Speech Dereverberation with Spatial-aware Tasks

We propose a method for joint multichannel speech dereverberation with two spatial-aware tasks: direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation and speech separation. The proposed method addresses involved tasks as a sequence to sequence mapping problem, which is general enough for a variety of front-end speech enhancement tasks. The proposed method is inspired by the excellent sequence modeling capability of bidirectional encoder representation from transformers (BERT). Instead of utilizing explicit representations from pretraining in a self-supervised manner, we utilizes transformer encoded hidden representations in a supervised manner. Both multichannel spectral magnitude and spectral phase information of varying length utterances are encoded. Experimental result demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Evidence for bosonic mode coupling in electron dynamics of LiFeAs superconductor

Super-high resolution laser-based angle-resolved photoemission measurements are carried out on LiFeAs superconductor to investigate its electron dynamics. Three energy scales at ∼ 20 meV, ∼ 34 meV, and ∼ 55 meV are revealed for the first time in the electron self-energy both in the superconducting state and normal state. The ∼ 20 meV and ∼ 34 meV scales can be attributed to the coupling of electrons with sharp bosonic modes which are most likely phonons. These observations provide definitive evidence on the existence of mode coupling in iron-based superconductors.
Cell-specific innate immunity in lung infection and inflammation

Pneumonia and asthma affect millions of adults and children annually and are responsible for a significant amount of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Our airways are continuously exposed to pathogens and allergens inhaled through air that can potentially cause these serious illnesses. The innate immune system is initiated once the epithelial barrier fails. The net effect of the innate immunity is the result of complex cell-specific responses not yet fully understood. In this thesis, we studied these cell-specific contributions to host defense using genetically modified mice in which bacterial pneumonia and asthma were simulated. Cells present in the respiratory tract are able to recognize specific molecular patterns of pathogens or allergens because of the expression Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Correct functioning of TLRs is regulated by the chaperone glycoprotein 96 (gp96), and we found that host defense of mice with gp96 deficient macrophages was strongly impaired during pneumonia caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae. Next, we studied the cell-specific role of myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88), the universal adaptor protein found downstream in the TLR signaling pathway. In a series of studies, we found that only myeloid MyD88, but not endothelial or epithelial MyD88, contributes significantly to protection against Klebsiella pneumonia, while in pneumonia induced by Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, antibacterial defense depends on epithelial but not myeloid MyD88. Finally, we examined the role of cell-specific MyD88 signaling in asthma, and found that general expression of MyD88 is essential for the development of asthma. Neither myeloid nor alveolar type II MyD88 affects asthma induced inflammatory response.
Vicomtech at CAPITEL 2020: Facing Entity Recognition and Universal Dependency Parsing of Spanish News Articles with BERT Models

These working notes describe the participation of Vicomtech NLP team in the CAPITEL task, which is part of the IberLEF 2020. CAPITEL task included two sub-tasks: Named Entity Recognition and Classification (NERC) and Universal Dependency (UD) Parsing for Spanish news articles. A specific system has been designed for each task based on BERT architectures. Both systems have been tested with different settings, where the best ones have been selected for being submitted to the shared task. The resulting systems show robust and competitive systems in both tasks with simple architectures.
21st International Research/Expert Conference

Laser interferometers are often used instruments for accurate one-dimensional measurements in precise industries like automotive industry, lithography, and nanotechnology, as well as in calibration laboratories. In metrology laboratories and in clean rooms with advanced environmental conditions control, accuracies of few nanometers per meter can be reached. In order to be able to reach such accuracies, laser interferometers and corresponding sensors for measuring environmental conditions shall be calibrated periodically. There are two common methods available: calibration of laser frequency by using primary length standards, and comparative calibration with a reference laser interferometer. While the first method is appropriate for high-level metrology laboratories with very high precision demands, the second is more “user friendly” and is convenient for accredited laboratories and industry. Laboratory for Production Measurement at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Maribor has quite long experiences in applying the first, more scientific, method, while the procedure based on the second method is currently being developed and tested. This article is presenting basic approaches of assuring traceability of measurements with laser interferometers, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of both commonly used calibration methods as regards measurement uncertainty, as well as the form and application of the calibration results.
Hypoxia-induced TGF-β–RBFOX2–ESRP1 axis regulates human MENA alternative splicing and promotes EMT in breast cancer

Abstract Hypoxic microenvironment heralds epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion and metastasis in solid tumors. Deregulation of alternative splicing (AS) of several cancer-associated genes has been instrumental in hypoxia-induced EMT. Our study in breast cancer unveils a previously unreported mechanism underlying hypoxia-mediated AS of hMENA, a crucial cytoskeleton remodeler during EMT. We report that the hypoxia-driven depletion of splicing regulator ESRP1 leads to skipping of hMENA exon 11a producing a pro-metastatic isoform, hMENAΔ11a. The transcriptional repression of ESRP1 is mediated by SLUG, which gets stimulated via hypoxia-driven TGF-β signaling. Interestingly, RBFOX2, an otherwise RNA-binding protein, is also found to transcriptionally repress ESRP1 while interacting with SLUG. Similar to SLUG, RBFOX2 gets upregulated under hypoxia via TGF-β signaling. Notably, we found that the exosomal delivery of TGF-β contributes to the elevation of TGF-β signaling under hypoxia. Moreover, our results show that in addition to hMENA, hypoxia-induced TGF-β signaling contributes to global changes in AS of genes associated with EMT. Overall, our findings reveal a new paradigm of hypoxia-driven AS regulation of hMENA and insinuate important implications in therapeutics targeting EMT.
Phototoxic Activity of Selected Thai Rutaceous and Umbelliferous Plant Extracts

Phototoxic activity of ethanol extracts from 25 Rutaceous and Umbelliferous species were assessed. Light mediated antimicrobial activities against gram-nagative bacteria, Escherichia coli ; gram-positive bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus ; gram-positive spores forming bacteria, Bacillus subtilis ; yeast Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were conducted. Agar diffusion inhibitions potential with and without UVA irradiation at 360 nm were evaluated. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were determined. Thirteen species showed UV-induced inhibitory activity against microorganisms. These were from both families as follow: Aegle marmelos (L.) Corr. , Atalantia monophylla DC. , Feroniella lucida (Scheff.) Swingle. , Hesperethusa crenulata (Roxb.) Roem. , Murraya koenigii L. , Triphasia trifolia (Burm.t.) P. Wils. in Rutaceous plants and Anethum graveolens L. , Angelica dahulica Benth. , Apium graveolens , Foeniculum vulgare Mill. , Heracleum siamicum Craib , Petroselinum crispum (Miller) A.W. Hill, Pimpinella anisum L. in Umbelliferous plants. Furthermore, these extracts exhibited selectively inhibitory effect against the tested microorganisms. S. aureus strain was mostly selected, followed by B. subtilis, C. albicans and S. cerevisiae respectively whilst E. coli showed negative effect of UV induced inhibitory activity.
Clinical and molecular findings in a family expressing a novel heterozygous variant of the G elongation factor mitochondrial 1 gene

The identified mutations in the G elongation factor mitochondrial 1 (GFM1) gene have been associated with heterogeneous clinical features of an early-onset mitochondrial disease in only 25 families. The present study reports the case of two siblings with a novel GFM1 variant and their clinical and laboratory presentations, which included progressive hepatic encephalopathy, failure to thrive and persistent lactic acidemia. Both histological changes and diminished expression of the GFM1 protein were observed in the liver and kidney tissues of the index patient. Whole-exome and Sanger sequencing technologies were used to diagnose the index patient with defective GFM1 using amniocentesis at 32 weeks' gestation. Heterozygous mutations in the GFM1 gene were identified in both siblings: A novel mutation, C1576T in exon 13 inherited from their asymptomatic mother, resulting in a premature stop codon at amino acid position 526 and the previously reported G688A mutation on the boundary between exon 5 and intron 5-6, inherited from their asymptomatic father. In conclusion, the present study reports two siblings carrying a novel GFM1 variant with a rare fatal mitochondrial disease.
Structural color for wood coloring: A review

The color, texture, and natural defects of wood are important factors affecting its commercial value. Change of wood’s surface color is a primary way to improve its value. This study analyzes and summarizes the development status and existing problems of the traditional wood dyeing process and induced discoloration process. It is proposed that color improvement with photonic crystal structure color is a clean and pollution-free ecological biomimetic coloring technology. Its research status in the fields of fiber, fabric, wood, wood-based panel surface color improvement, new coatings for wood, and lignocellulose nanocrystalline structure color film are reviewed. The following aspects were studied: 1) construction and mechanistic study of the wood surface structure color film, 2) light response and interface mechanistic study of the wood surface structure color film, 3) large-scale application technology study of the wood surface biomimetic structure color film, and 4) preparation and functional development of structural color films of lignocellulose nanocrystal.