cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Submodular Optimization for Consensus Networks With Noise-Corrupted Leaders

We consider the leader selection problem in a network with consensus dynamics where both leader and follower agents are subject to stochastic external disturbances. The performance of the system is quantified by the total steady-state variance of the node states, and the goal is to identify the set of leaders that minimizes this variance. We first show that this performance measure can be expressed as a submodular set function over the nodes in the network. We then use this result to analyze the performance of two greedy, polynomial-time algorithms for leader selection, showing that the leader sets produced by the greedy algorithms are within provable bounds of optimal.
Bayesian meta-analysis of correlation coefficients through power prior

This article proposes a Bayesian approach for meta-analysis of correlation coefficients through power prior. The primary purpose of this method is to allow meta-analytic researchers to evaluate the...
Non-isothermal electrokinetics: energetic variational approach

Fluid dynamics accompanies with the entropy production thus increases the local temperature, which plays an important role in charged systems such as the ion channel in biological environment and electrodiffusion in capacitors/batteries. In this article, we propose a general framework to derive the transport equations with heat flow through the Energetic Variational Approach. According to thermodynamic first law, the total energy is conserved and we can then use the Least Action Principle to derive the conservative forces. From thermodynamic second law, the entropy increases and the dissipative forces can be computed with the Maximum Dissipation Principle. Combining these two laws, we then conclude with the force balance equations and a temperature equation. To emphasis, our method provide a self consistent procedure to obtain dynamical equations satisfying proper energy laws and it not only works for the charge systems but also for general systems.
Noetherian Hopf algebras

A brief survey of some aspects of noetherian Hopf algebras is given, concentrating on structure, homology, and classification, and accompanied by a panoply of open problems.
Nonabelian representations and signatures of double twist knots

A conjecture of Riley about the relationship between real parabolic representations and signatures of two-bridge knots is verified for double twist knots.
Weyl Group Multiple Dirichlet Series for Symmetrizable Kac-Moody Root Systems

Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series, introduced by Brubaker, Bump, Chinta, Friedberg and Hoffstein, are expected to be Whittaker coefficients of Eisenstein series on metaplectic groups. Chinta and Gunnells constructed these multiple Dirichlet series for all the finite root systems using the method of averaging a Weyl group action on the field of rational functions. In this paper, we generalize Chinta and Gunnells’ work and construct Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series for the root systems associated with symmetrizable Kac-Moody algebras, and establish their functional equations and meromorphic continuation. Introduction Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series were introduced in the paper [3] by Brubaker, Bump, Chinta, Friedberg and Hoffstein, and have been studied in their subsequent works [4, 5, 7]. These multiple Dirichlet series are defined for a finite root system Φ of rank r and a number field F containing the 2n-th roots of unity, and unify many examples in number theory that have been studied previously on a case-bycase basis, and are expected to be Whittaker coefficients of Eisenstein series on metaplectic groups. This expectation is now called an Eisenstein conjecture, and the conjecture has been proven for the root systems of type Ar [6]. Moreover, the theory of Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series can be applied to the moments problem of the Riemann zeta function and Dirichlet L-functions. A nice survey on this subject can be found in [9]. It is remarkable that there are two distinct constructions of these multiple Dirichlet series. In the work of Brubaker, Bump and Friedberg [5,6], the local coefficients are defined using the data from Kashiwara’s crystal graph [14]. More precisely, each local coefficient is given as a sum of G(v) over the crystals v of the same weight, where G(v) is a product of Gauss sums that are determined by the crystal graph. The construction has been completed for most of the classical root systems. The second construction is due to Chinta and Gunnells [10, 11]. They defined a new Weyl group action on the field of rational functions in several variables. The action involves Gauss sums and works for all the finite root systems in a coherent way. By taking an average of the Weyl group action, they obtained a deformed Weyl character and defined the local coefficients using the deformed character. The two constructions are expected to be equivalent, and the equivalence in type A has been established [6, 12, 16]. Received by the editors October 10, 2012 and, in revised form, October 12, 2012, November 2, 2012, April 11, 2013, and April 21, 2013. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 11F68; Secondary 17B67. c ©2014 American Mathematical Society Reverts to public domain 28 years from publication
A meshless Galerkin method for non-local diffusion using localized kernel bases

We introduce a meshless method for solving both continuous and discrete variational formulations of a volume constrained, nonlocal diffusion problem. We use the discrete solution to approximate the continuous solution. Our method is nonconforming and uses a localized Lagrange basis that is constructed out of radial basis functions. By verifying that certain inf-sup conditions hold, we demonstrate that both the continuous and discrete problems are well-posed, and also present numerical and theoretical results for the convergence behavior of the method. The stiffness matrix is assembled by a special quadrature routine unique to the localized basis. Combining the quadrature method with the localized basis produces a well-conditioned, symmetric matrix. This then is used to find the discretized solution.
ProCal: A Low-Cost and Programmable Calibration Tool for IoT Devices

Calibration is an important step towards building reliable IoT systems. For example, accurate sensor reading requires ADC calibration, and power monitoring chips must be calibrated before being used for measuring the energy consumption of IoT devices. In this paper, we present ProCal, a low-cost, accurate, and scalable power calibration tool. ProCal is a programmable platform which provides dynamic voltage and current output for calibration. The basic idea is to use a digital potentiometer connected to a parallel resistor network controlled through digital switches. The resistance and output frequency of ProCal is controlled by a software communicating with the board through the SPI interface. Our design provides a simple synchronization mechanism which prevents the need for accurate time synchronization. We present mathematical modeling and validation of the tool by incorporating the concept of Fibonacci sequence. Our extensive experimental studies show that this tool can significantly improve measurement accuracy. For example, for ATMega2560, the ADC error reduces from 0.2% to 0.01%. ProCal not only costs less than 2% of the current commercial solutions, it is also highly accurate by being able to provide extensive range of current and voltage values.
Gradient Driven Learning for Pooling in Visual Pipeline Feature Extraction Models

Hyper-parameter selection remains a daunting task when building a pattern recognition architecture which performs well, particularly in recently constructed visual pipeline models for feature extraction. We re-formulate pooling in an existing pipeline as a function of adjustable pooling map weight parameters and propose the use of supervised error signals from gradient descent to tune the established maps within the model. This technique allows us to learn what would otherwise be a design choice within the model and specialize the maps to aggregate areas of invariance for the task presented. Preliminary results show moderate potential gains in classification accuracy and highlight areas of importance within the intermediate feature representation space.
A CLT concerning critical points of random functions on a Euclidean space

Abstract We prove a central limit theorem concerning the number of critical points in large cubes of an isotropic Gaussian random function on a Euclidean space.
The Sound of APALM Clapping: Faster Nonsmooth Nonconvex Optimization with Stochastic Asynchronous PALM

We introduce the Stochastic Asynchronous Proximal Alternating Linearized Minimization (SAPALM) method, a block coordinate stochastic proximal-gradient method for solving nonconvex, nonsmooth optimization problems. SAPALM is the first asynchronous parallel optimization method that provably converges on a large class of nonconvex, nonsmooth problems. We prove that SAPALM matches the best known rates of convergence --- among synchronous or asynchronous methods --- on this problem class. We provide upper bounds on the number of workers for which we can expect to see a linear speedup, which match the best bounds known for less complex problems, and show that in practice SAPALM achieves this linear speedup. We demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on several matrix factorization problems.
Error analysis of staggered finite difference finite volume schemes on unstructured meshes

This work combines the consistency in lower-order differential operators with external approximations of functional spaces to obtain error estimates for finite difference finite volume schemes on unstructured non-uniform meshes. This combined approach is first applied to the one-dimensional elliptic boundary value problem on non-uniform meshes, and a first-order convergence rate is obtained, which agrees with the results previously reported. The approach is also applied to the staggered MAC scheme for the two-dimensional incompressible Stokes problem on unstructured meshes. A first-order convergence rate is obtained, which improves over a previously reported result in that it also holds on unstructured meshes. For both problems considered in this work, the convergence rate is one order higher on meshes satisfying special requirements.
Soft modes in the proton–neutron pairing channel as precursors of deuteron condensate in N = Z nuclei

Abstract Relativistic nuclear response theory is formulated for the proton–neutron pairing, or deuteron transfer, channel. The approach is based on the meson–nucleon Lagrangian of Quantum Hadrodynamics (QHD) and advances the relativistic field theory to connect consistently the high-energy scale of heavy mesons, the medium-energy range of the pion and the low-energy domain of emergent collective vibrations (phonons) in a parameter-free way. Mesons and phonons build up the in-medium nucleon–nucleon interaction in spin–isospin transfer channels, in particular, the phonon-exchange part takes care of the leading-order retardation effects. In this framework, we explore J π = 0 + and J π = 1 + channels of the nuclear response to the proton–neutron pair removal and addition in 56Ni and 100Sn with a special focus on the lowest (soft) modes as precursors of deuteron condensate and candidates for being the mediators of the proton–neutron pairing interaction.
Challenges in computational lower bounds.

We draw two incomplete, biased maps of challenges in computational complexity lower bounds. Our aim is to put these challenges in perspective, and to present some connections which do not seem widely known. We do not survey existing lower bounds, go through the history, or repeat standard definitions. All of this can be found e.g. in the recent book [Juk12], or in the books and surveys [SY10, Lok09, Vio09b, She08, AB09, KN97, Bei93, Raz91, BS90, Has87]. Each node in the maps represents the challenge of proving that there exists an explicit boolean function that cannot be computed with the resources labeling that node. We take explicit to mean NP, thus excluding most or all of the lower bounds that rely on diagonalization. An arrow from node A to B means that resources A can simulate resources B, and so solving A implies solving B.
WiFlix: Adaptive Video Streaming in Massive MU-MIMO Wireless Networks

We consider the problem of simultaneous on-demand streaming of stored video to multiple users in a multicell wireless network where multiple unicast streaming sessions are run in parallel and share the same frequency band. Each streaming session is formed by the sequential transmission of video “chunks,” such that each chunk arrives into the corresponding user playback buffer within its playback deadline. We formulate the problem as a network utility maximization (NUM) where the objective is to fairly maximize users’ video streaming quality of experience (QoE) and then derive an iterative control policy using Lyapunov optimization, which solves the NUM problem up to any level of accuracy and yields an online protocol with control actions at every iteration decomposing into two layers interconnected by the users’ request queues : 1) a video streaming adaptation layer reminiscent of dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH), implemented at each user node; and 2) a transmission scheduling layer where a max-weight scheduler is implemented at each base station. The proposed chunk request scheme is a pull strategy where every user opportunistically requests video chunks from the neighboring base stations and dynamically adapts the quality of its requests based on the current size of the request queue. For the transmission scheduling component, we first describe the general max-weight scheduler and then particularize it to a wireless network where the base stations have multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) beamforming capabilities. We exploit the channel hardening effect of large-dimensional MIMO channels (massive MIMO) and devise a low complexity user selection scheme to solve the underlying combinatorial problem of selecting user subsets for downlink beamforming, which can be easily implemented and run independently at each base station. Furthermore, through simulations, we show that deploying MU-MIMO significantly improves video streaming performance and also that the proposed cross-layer approach is able to serve users more fairly than a baseline scheme representative of current systems running independently designed protocol layers.
Probabilistic existence of large sets of designs

A new probabilistic technique for establishing the existence of certain regular combinatorial structures has been recently introduced by Kuperberg, Lovett, and Peled (STOC 2012). Using this technique, it can be shown that under certain conditions, a randomly chosen structure has the required properties of a t-(n, k, λ) combinatorial design with tiny, yet positive, probability. Herein, we strengthen both the method and the result of Kuperberg, Lovett, and Peled as follows. We modify the random choice and the analysis to show that, under the same conditions, not only does a t-(n, k, λ) design exist but, in fact, with positive probability there exists a large set of such designs --- that is, a partition of the set of k-subsets of [n] into t-(n, k, λ) designs. Specifically, using the probabilistic approach derived herein, we prove that for all sufficiently large n,large sets of t-(n, k, λ) designs exist whenever k > 9t and the necessary divisibility conditions are satisfied. This resolves the existence conjecture for large sets of designs for all k > 9t.
International Welfare Spillovers of National Pension Schemes

We employ a two-country overlapping-generations model to explore the international dimension of household portfolio choices induced by the asymmetric provision of government-run pensions. We study the resulting patterns of risk-sharing and the corresponding welfare effects on both home and foreign agents. Introducing the de?fined benefi?ts pay-as-you-go system at home increases the welfare of all other agents at the expense of the home workers and improves the degree of intergenerational risk sharing abroad. Conversely, a defi?ned contributions system leads to welfare losses of both home cohorts accompanied by gains abroad, but does increase the extent of intergenerational risk sharing at home.
Fundamental Limits of Invisible Flow Fingerprinting

Network flow fingerprinting can be used to de-anonymize communications on anonymity systems such as Tor by linking the ingress and egress segments of anonymized connections. Assume Alice and Bob have access to the input and the output links of an anonymous network, respectively, and they wish to collaboratively reveal the connections between the input and the output links without being detected by Willie who protects the network. Alice generates a codebook where each codeword is a unique fingerprint indicating a sequence of inter-packet delays, and shares it only with Bob. To trace each flow, Alice selects a fingerprint and manipulates the packet timings of the flow to follow the packet timings suggested by the fingerprint, and Bob extracts the fingerprints from it after it passes through the network. We model the network as parallel $M/M/1$ queues where each queue is shared by a flow $f_{i}$ from Alice to Bob and other flows independent of $f_{i}$ . Packet timings of the flows are governed by independent Poisson processes. Assuming all input flows have equal packet rates and that Bob observes only flows with fingerprints, we first present two scenarios: 1) Alice fingerprints all the flows and 2) Alice fingerprints a subset of the flows, unknown to Willie. Then, we extend the construction and analysis to the case of arbitrary flow rates and the case where Bob observes flows with and without fingerprints. For each scenario, we derive the number of flows that Alice and Bob can trace by fingerprinting.
Critical Lieb-Thirring bounds in gaps and the generalized Nevai conjecture for finite gap Jacobi matrices

We prove bounds of the form ∑_(e∈I⋂σ_d(H)) dist(e, σ_e(H)^(1/2) ≤ L^1 -norm of a perturbation, where I is a gap. Included are gaps in continuum one-dimensional periodic Schrodinger operators and finite gap Jacobi matrices, where we get a generalized Nevai conjecture about an L^(1)-condition implying a Szegő condition. One key is a general new form of the Birman-Schwinger bound in gaps.
Emergence of landauer transport from quantum dynamics: A model Hamiltonian approach

The Landauer expression for computing current-voltage characteristics in nanoscale devices is efficient but not suited to transient phenomena and a time-dependent current because it is applicable only when the charge carriers transition into a steady flux after an external perturbation. In this article, we construct a very general expression for time-dependent current in an electrode-molecule-electrode arrangement. Utilizing a model Hamiltonian (consisting of the subsystem energy levels and their electronic coupling terms), we propagate the Schrodinger wave function equation to numerically compute the time-dependent population in the individual subsystems. The current in each electrode (defined in terms of the rate of change of the corresponding population) has two components, one due to the charges originating from the same electrode and the other due to the charges initially residing at the other electrode. We derive an analytical expression for the first component and illustrate that it agrees reasonably with its numerical counterpart at early times. Exploiting the unitary evolution of a wavefunction, we construct a more general Landauer style formula and illustrate the emergence of Landauer transport from our simulations without the assumption of time-independent charge flow. Our generalized Landauer formula is valid at all times for models beyond the wide-band limit, non-uniform electrode density of states and for time and energy-dependent electronic coupling between the subsystems. Subsequently, we investigate the ingredients in our model that regulate the onset time scale of this steady state. We compare the performance of our general current expression with the Landauer current for time-dependent electronic coupling. Finally, we comment on the applicability of the Landauer formula to compute hot-electron current arising upon plasmon decoherence.
Incremental eigenpair computation for graph Laplacian matrices: theory and applications

The smallest eigenvalues and the associated eigenvectors (i.e., eigenpairs) of a graph Laplacian matrix have been widely used for spectral clustering and community detection. However, in real-life applications, the number of clusters or communities (say, K) is generally unknown a priori. Consequently, the majority of the existing methods either choose K heuristically or they repeat the clustering method with different choices of K and accept the best clustering result. The first option, more often, yields suboptimal result, while the second option is computationally expensive. In this work, we propose an incremental method for constructing the eigenspectrum of the graph Laplacian matrix. This method leverages the eigenstructure of graph Laplacian matrix to obtain the Kth smallest eigenpair of the Laplacian matrix given a collection of all previously computed $$K-1$$ smallest eigenpairs. Our proposed method adapts the Laplacian matrix such that the batch eigenvalue decomposition problem transforms into an efficient sequential leading eigenpair computation problem. As a practical application, we consider user-guided spectral clustering. Specifically, we demonstrate that users can utilize the proposed incremental method for effective eigenpair computation and for determining the desired number of clusters based on multiple clustering metrics.
4-MOVES AND THE DABKOWSKI–SAHI INVARIANT FOR KNOTS

We study the 4-move invariant ${\mathcal R}_4(L)$ for links in the 3-sphere developed by Dabkowski and Sahi, which is defined as a quotient of the fundamental group of the link complement. We develop techniques for computing this invariant and show that for several classes of knots it is equal to the invariant for the unknot; therefore, in these cases the invariant cannot detect a counterexample to the 4-move conjecture.
Degree four plane spanners: Simpler and better

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

In many smart infrastructure applications, flexibility in achieving sustainability goals can be gained by engaging end users. However, these users often have heterogeneous preferences that are unknown to the decision maker tasked with improving operational efficiency. Modeling user interaction as a continuous game between noncooperative players, we propose a robust parametric utility learning framework that employs constrained feasible generalized least squares estimation with heteroskedastic inference. To improve forecasting performance, we extend the robust utility learning scheme by employing bootstrapping with bagging, bumping, and gradient boosting ensemble methods. Moreover, we estimate the noise covariance, which provides approximated correlations between players, which we leverage to develop a novel correlated utility learning framework. We apply the proposed methods both to a toy example arising from Bertrand-Nash competition between two firms and to data from a social game experiment designed to encourage energy efficient behavior among smart building occupants. Using occupant voting data for shared resources such as lighting, we simulate the game defined by the estimated utility functions to demonstrate the performance of the proposed methods.
Exploring the Use of Shatter for AllSAT Through Ramsey-Type Problems

In the context of SAT solvers, Shatter is a popular tool for symmetry breaking on CNF formulas. Nevertheless, little has been said about its use in the context of AllSAT problems: problems where we are interested in listing all the models of a Boolean formula. AllSAT has gained much popularity in recent years due to its many applications in domains like model checking, data mining, etc. One example of a particularly transparent application of AllSAT to other fields of computer science is computational Ramsey theory. In this paper we study the effect of incorporating Shatter to the workflow of using Boolean formulas to generate all possible edge colorings of a graph avoiding prescribed monochromatic subgraphs. Generating complete sets of colorings is an important building block in computational Ramsey theory. We identify two drawbacks in the na\"ive use of Shatter to break the symmetries of Boolean formulas encoding Ramsey-type problems for graphs: a "blow-up" in the number of models and the generation of incomplete sets of colorings. The issues presented in this work are not intended to discourage the use of Shatter as a preprocessing tool for AllSAT problems in combinatorial computing but to help researchers properly use this tool by avoiding these potential pitfalls. To this end, we provide strategies and additional tools to cope with the negative effects of using Shatter for AllSAT. While the specific application addressed in this paper is that of Ramsey-type problems, the analysis we carry out applies to many other areas in which highly-symmetrical Boolean formulas arise and we wish to find all of their models.
Public Sector Balance Sheet Strength and the Macro Economy

This paper introduces concepts of public sector balance sheet (PSBS) strength, taking into account different aspects of what governments own in addition to what they owe. It develops measures of PSBS strength and investigates their macroeconomic implications. Empirical estimations show that in their pricing of sovereign bonds, financial markets account for government assets and net worth in addition to their liabilities. Furthermore, economies with stronger public sector balance sheets experience shallower recessions and recover faster in the aftermath of economic downturns. This faster return to growth can be explained by the greater space for countercyclical fiscal policy in countries with stronger balance sheets.
Reagent: Converting Ordinary Webpages into Interactive Software Agents.

We introduce Reagent, a technology that readily converts ordinary webpages containing structured data into software agents with which one can interact naturally, via a combination of speech and pointing. Previous efforts to make webpage content manipulable by third-party software components in browsers or desktop applications have generally relied upon specialized instrumentation included in the webpages -- a practice that neither scales well nor applies to pre-existing webpages. In contrast, Reagent automatically captures semantic details and semantically-meaningful mouse events from arbitrary webpages that contain no pre-existing special instrumentation. Reagent combines these events with text transcriptions of user speech to derive and execute parameterized commands representing human intent. Thus, users may request various visualization or analytic operations to be performed on data displayed on a page by speaking to it and/or pointing to elements within it. When unable to infer translations between event labels and human terminology, Reagent proactively asks users for definitions and adds them to its dictionary. We demonstrate Reagent in the context of a collection of pre-existing webpages that contain football team and player statistics.
Ergodicity and Lyapunov Functions for Langevin Dynamics with Singular Potentials

We study Langevin dynamics of $N$ particles on $R^d$ interacting through a singular repulsive potential, e.g.~the well-known Lennard-Jones type, and show that the system converges to the unique invariant Gibbs measure exponentially fast in a weighted total variation distance. The proof of the main result relies on an explicit construction of a Lyapunov function. In contrast to previous results for such systems, our result implies geometric convergence to equilibrium starting from an essentially optimal family of initial distributions.
Tactile Mapping and Localization from High-Resolution Tactile Imprints

This work studies the problem of shape reconstruction and object localization using a vision-based tactile sensor, GelSlim. The main contributions are the recovery of local shapes from contact, an approach to reconstruct the tactile shape of objects from tactile imprints, and an accurate method for object localization of previously reconstructed objects. The algorithms can be applied to a large variety of 3D objects and provide accurate tactile feedback for in-hand manipulation.Results show that by exploiting the dense tactile information we can reconstruct the shape of objects with high accuracy and do on-line object identification and localization, opening the door to reactive manipulation guided by tactile sensing. We provide videos and supplemental information in the project’s website web.mit.edu/mcube/research/tactile localization.html.
Non-interactive Non-malleability from Quantum Supremacy

We construct non-interactive non-malleable commitments without setup in the plain model, under well-studied assumptions.
Design of a Power Efficient Artificial Neuron Using Superconducting Nanowires

With the rising societal demand for more information-processing capacity with lower power consumption, alternative architectures inspired by the parallelism and robustness of the human brain have recently emerged as possible solutions. In particular, spiking neural networks (SNNs) offer a bio-realistic approach, relying on pulses, analogous to action potentials, as units of information. While software encoded networks provide flexibility and precision, they are often computationally expensive. As a result, hardware SNNs based on the spiking dynamics of a device or circuit represent an increasingly appealing direction. Here, we propose to use superconducting nanowires as a platform for the development of an artificial neuron. Building on an architecture first proposed for Josephson junctions, we rely on the intrinsic nonlinearity of two coupled nanowires to generate spiking behavior, and use electrothermal circuit simulations to demonstrate that the nanowire neuron reproduces multiple characteristics of biological neurons. Furthermore, by harnessing the nonlinearity of the superconducting nanowire’s inductance, we develop a design for a variable inductive synapse capable of both excitatory and inhibitory control. We demonstrate that this synapse design supports direct fanout, a feature that has been difficult to achieve in other superconducting architectures, and that the nanowire neuron’s nominal energy performance is competitive with that of current technologies.
Marker-less Vision-based Detection of Improper Seat Belt Routing

Seat belt routing classification is of crucial importance to the automotive industry. It determines whether an occupant's seat belt is not only buckled but also properly routed through the body, making sure that the occupant is truly protected in case of an accident. Current technology, such as the buckle Hall effect sensor, only addresses the problem of buckling detection, but no reliable solution exists for the proper routing scenario. In this work we compiled a database of more than 34,000 images each from two different camera setups and trained deep neural networks to detect improper seat belt routing. The results show that the best camera setup can achieve an accuracy of 0.977 on a coarse (four-class) wrong routing classification task and 0.924 on a fine-grained (seven-class) classification task, which may be a step toward reducing injuries.
EZRA POUND, MADE IN CHINA

Translational poetics represents the greatest achievement of Anglo-American poetic modernism. Having learned the ideogrammic method from the Chinese, Ezra Pound becomes a translational poet, who uses over twenty languages in his Cantos and creates between these languages a relationship that Walter Benjamin tries to describe in his famous essay on translation. What Benjamin articulates in theory has actually been realized in poetry by Pound, who digs deep into the Chinese box of sound symbolism in order to explore the terrain of pure language.
Characterization of the preform stretching process

The VAD and OVD soot processes for making lightguide preforms typically produce large diameter (25-50-mm) glass rods after sintering which must be stretched and overclad to achieve the correct core/clad ratio in the finished preform. To obtain consistent transmission properties along the entire length of the fiber drawn from the preform, the boule must be stretched very uniformly so that a constant core/clad ratio is maintained along the length of the preform.
Utilizing trait networks and structural equation models as tools to interpret multi-trait genome-wide association studies

Plant breeders seek to develop cultivars with maximal agronomic value, which is often assessed using numerous, often genetically correlated traits. As intervention on one trait will affect the value of another, breeding decisions should consider the relationships among traits in the context of putative causal structures (i.e., trait networks). While multi-trait genome-wide association studies (MTM-GWAS) can infer putative genetic signals at the multivariate scale, standard MTM-GWAS does not accommodate the network structure of phenotypes, and therefore does not address how the traits are interrelated. We extended the scope of MTM-GWAS by incorporating trait network structures into GWAS using structural equation models (SEM-GWAS). Here, we illustrate the utility of SEM-GWAS using a digital metric for shoot biomass, root biomass, water use, and water use efficiency in rice. A salient feature of SEM-GWAS is that it can partition the total single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) effects acting on a trait into direct and indirect effects. Using this novel approach, we show that for most QTL associated with water use, total SNP effects were driven by genetic effects acting directly on water use rather that genetic effects originating from upstream traits. Conversely, total SNP effects for water use efficiency were largely due to indirect effects originating from the upstream trait, projected shoot area. We describe a robust framework that can be applied to multivariate phenotypes to understand the interrelationships between complex traits. This framework provides novel insights into how QTL act within a phenotypic network that would otherwise not be possible with conventional multi-trait GWAS approaches. Collectively, these results suggest that the use of SEM may enhance our understanding of complex relationships among agronomic traits.
Fighting giants: using standard form contracts to protect the industry outsider

Recent advancements in technology have changed the way consumers watch movies and television, and disrupted the entertainment industry. In the aftermath of this disruption, artists have more bargai...
R&D Planning and Risk Management†

This article discusses quantitative concepts and methods for making risk-management decisions about R&D projects. Such decisions include what projects to fund, the order in which to attempt different activities within an R&D project, when to abandon projects that are not working out as hoped, and how to structure the incentives of R&D project managers and investors to take best advantage of the opportunities represented by risky projects. Keywords: RD index policies; differential games; simulation optimization; portfolio selection; incentives; moral hazard
On the Comparison of Measures of Convex Bodies via Projections and Sections

In this manuscript, we study the inequalities between measures of convex bodies implied by comparison of their projections and sections. Recently, Giannopoulos and Koldobsky proved that if convex bodies $K, L$ satisfy $|K|\theta^{\perp}| \le |L \cap \theta^{\perp}|$ for all $\theta \in S^{n-1}$, then $|K| \le |L|$. Firstly, we study the reverse question: in particular, we show that if $K, L$ are origin-symmetric convex bodies in John's position with $|K \cap \theta^{\perp}| \le |L|\theta^{\perp}|$ for all $\theta \in S^{n-1}$ then $|K| \le \sqrt{n}|L|$. The condition we consider is weaker than both the conditions $|K \cap \theta^{\perp}| \le |L \cap \theta^{\perp}|$ and $|K|\theta^{\perp}| \le |L|\theta^{\perp}|$ for all $\theta \in S^{n-1}$ that appear in the Busemann-Petty and Shephard problems respectively. Secondly, we appropriately extend the result of Giannopoulos and Koldobsky to various classes of measures possessing concavity properties, including log-concave measures.
Fuzzy-algebra uncertainty analysis for abnormal-environment safety assessment

Many safety (risk) analyses depend on uncertain inputs and on mathematical models chosen from various alternatives, but give fixed results (implying no uncertainty). Conventional uncertainty analyses help, but are also based on assumptions and models, the accuracy of which may be difficult to assure. Some of the models and assumptions that on cursory examination seem reasonable can be misleading. As a result, quantitative assessments, even those accompanied by uncertainty measures, can give unwarranted impressions of accuracy. Since analysis results can be a major contributor to a safety-measure decision process, risk management depends on relating uncertainty to only the information available. The uncertainties due to abnormal environments are even more challenging than those in normal-environment safety assessments; and therefore require an even more cautious approach. A fuzzy algebra analysis is proposed in this paper that has the potential to appropriately reflect the information available and portray uncertainties well, especially for abnormal environments. >
Enhanced Figure of Merit in Bismuth-Antimony Fine-Grained Alloys at Cryogenic Temperatures

Thermoelectric (TE) materials research plays a vital role in heat-to-electrical energy conversion and refrigeration applications. Bismuth-antimony (Bi-Sb) alloy is a promising material for thermoelectric cooling. Herein, a high figure of merit, ZT, near 0.6 at cryogenic temperatures (100–150 K) has been achieved in melt-spun n-type Bi85Sb15 bulk samples consisting of micron-size grains. The achieved ZT is nearly 50% higher than polycrystalline averaged single crystal ZT of ~0.4, and it is also significantly higher than ZT of less than ~0.3 measured below 150 K in Bi-Te alloys commonly used for cryogenic cooling applications. The improved thermoelectric properties can be attributed to the fine-grained microstructure achieved from rapid solidification, which not only significantly reduced the thermal conductivity but also mitigated a segregation effect. A record low thermal conductivity of ~1.5 W m−1 K−1 near 100 K was measured using the hot disk method. The thermoelectric properties for this intriguing semimetal-semiconductor alloy system were analyzed within a two-band effective mass model. The study revealed a gradual narrowing of the band gap at increasing temperature in Bi-Sb alloy for the first time. Magneto-thermoelectric effects of this Bi-Sb alloy further improved the TE properties, leading to ZT of about 0.7. The magneto-TE effect was further demonstrated in a combined NdFeB/BiSb/NdFeB system. The compactness of the BiSb-magnet system with high ZT enables the utilization of magneto-TE effect in thermoelectric cooling applications.
Stochastic functional estimates in longitudinal models with interval‐censored anchoring events

Timelines of longitudinal studies are often anchored by specific events. In the absence of fully observed the anchoring event times, the study timeline becomes undefined, and the traditional longitudinal analysis loses its temporal reference. In this paper, we considered an analytical situation where the anchoring events are interval-censored. We demonstrated that by expressing the regression parameter estimators as stochastic functionals of a plug-in estimate of the unknown anchoring event time distribution, the standard longitudinal models could be extended to accommodate the situation of less well-defined timelines. We showed that for a broad class of longitudinal models, the functional parameter estimates are consistent and asymptotically normally distributed with a n convergence rate under mild regularity conditions. Applying the developed theory to linear mixed-effects models, we further proposed a hybrid computational procedure that combines the strengths of the Fisher’s scoring method and the expectation-expectation (EM) algorithm, for model parameter estimation. We conducted a simulation study to validate the asymptotic properties and to assess the finite sample performance of the proposed method. A real data analysis was used to illustrate the proposed method. The method fills in a gap in the existing longitudinal analysis methodology for data with less well defined timelines.
Golden Ratio Geometry and the Fine-Structure Constant

The golden ratio is found to be related to the fine-structure constant, which determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. The golden ratio and classical harmonic proportions with quartic equations give an approximate value for the inverse fine-structure constant the same as that discovered previously in the geometry of the hydrogen atom. With the former golden ratio results, relationships are also shown between the four fundamental forces of nature: electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force, and the force of gravitation.
Fairness in representation: quantifying stereotyping as a representational harm

While harms of allocation have been increasingly studied as part of the subfield of algorithmic fairness, harms of representation have received considerably less attention. In this paper, we formalize two notions of stereotyping and show how they manifest in later allocative harms within the machine learning pipeline. We also propose mitigation strategies and demonstrate their effectiveness on synthetic datasets.
Millimeter-Wave Path Loss at 73 GHz in Indoor and Outdoor Airport Environments

In this paper, two large-scale fading path loss models are presented based on indoor and outdoor channel measurements at 73 GHz. The line-of-sight millimeter-wave propagation measurement campaigns were uniquely conducted within the indoor and outdoor environments at an airport setting, i.e., the Boise Airport. The channel measurements were made with directional transmit and receive antennas with a 24 dBi gain at different receive antenna heights. From the measured data, we obtained the parameters of two path loss models, i.e., the close-in reference distance model (CIM) and the floating-intercept model (FIM). Results show that the path loss exponents estimated from the CIM are very close to that of the free- space path loss model, while the FIM provides a better fit to the measurement data.
Real-time Intranet-controlled virtual instrument multiple-circuit power monitoring

The virtual instrument (VI) based power metering manifold (PMM), monitoring multiple branch circuits on a common distribution panel, is enhanced by the client-server interactive network architecture. The Intranet-controlled power monitoring system integrates control, measurement, and communication, while it still maintains economy by eliminating the extra network construction and hardware investment. Moreover, the multicast Web application enables the power metering results to be accessed by multiple users for a variety of applications in a real-time manner.
Gabidulin Codes With Support Constrained Generator Matrices

Gabidulin codes are the first general construction of linear codes that are maximum rank distant (MRD). They have found applications in linear network coding, for example, when the transmitter and receiver are oblivious to the inner workings and topology of the network (the so-called incoherent regime). The reason is that Gabidulin codes can be used to map information to linear subspaces, which in the absence of errors cannot be altered by linear operations, and in the presence of errors can be corrected if the subspace is perturbed by a small rank. Furthermore, in distributed coding and distributed systems, one is led to the design of error correcting codes whose generator matrix must satisfy a given support constraint. In this paper, we give necessary and sufficient conditions on the support of the generator matrix that guarantees the existence of Gabidulin codes and general MRD codes. When the rate of the code is not very high, this is achieved with the same field size necessary for Gabidulin codes with no support constraint. When these conditions are not satisfied, we characterize the largest possible rank distance under the support constraints and show that they can be achieved by subcodes of Gabidulin codes. The necessary and sufficient conditions are identical to those that appear for MDS codes which were recently proven by Yildiz et al. and Lovett in the context of settling the GM-MDS conjecture.
New Ways to Rotation Rates

Progress in determining rotation rates of Algol primary stars from light curves is assessed. Included are elementary ideas on why the new method works, how to carry out solutions, and how and when to apply the constraint on rotational lobe filling. Some comments are made on desirable improvements for measuring rotation from line broadening. A few remarks are made about the problem of identifying likely fast rotating Algols.
Endogenous corporate leverage response to a safer macro environment: The case of foreign exchange reserve accumulation

Abstract A country may adopt policy measures such as raising its foreign exchange reserves to better prepare for sudden reversal of international capital flows or currency attacks, which in principle should reduce financial vulnerability for its firms and the entire economy, but the beneficial effect of such policies may be partially offset by endogenous firms' decisions to take on more risks. We present a robust but previously undocumented relationship between corporate leverage and country-level foreign exchange reserve holdings. For 6610 non-financial firms in 23 emerging markets from 2000 to 2006, we show that more foreign reserve accumulation leads to higher corporate leverage. The effect is significantly greater in sectors that are intrinsically more sensitive to uncertainty. We go from correlation to causality via a two-prong instrumental variable strategy: simultaneously (1) instrumenting FX reserves by global commodity price movement, and (2) examining leverage of firms outside the commodity-sensitive sectors.