We prove the effectiveness of the canonical bundle of several Hurwitz spaces of degree k covers of the projective line from curves of genus 13<g<20.

The article is devoted to the expansion of iterated Stratonovich stochastic integrals of arbitrary multiplicity $k$ $(kinmathbb{N})$ based on the generalized iterated Fourier series. The case of Fourier-Legendre series as well as the case of trigonotemric Fourier series are considered in details. The obtained expansion provides a possibility to represent the iterated Stratonovich stochastic integral in the form of iterated series of products of standard Gaussian random variables. Convergence in the mean of degree $2n$ $(nin mathbb{N})$ of the expansion is proved. Some modifications of the mentioned expansion were derived for the case $k=2$. One of them is based of multiple trigonomentric Fourier series converging almost everywhere in the square $[t, T]^2$. The results of the article can be applied to the numerical solution of Ito stochastic differential equations.

In this paper, we are concerned with the numerical solution of one type integro-differential equation by a probability method based on the fundamental martingale of mixed Gaussian processes. As an application, we will try to simulate the estimation of ruin probability with an unknown parameter driven not by the classical L'evy process but by the mixed fractional Brownian motion.

We use Ricci flow to obtain a local bi-Holder correspondence between Ricci limit spaces in three dimensions and smooth manifolds. This is more than a complete resolution of the three-dimensional case of the conjecture of Anderson-Cheeger-Colding-Tian, describing how Ricci limit spaces in three dimensions must be homeomorphic to manifolds, and we obtain this in the most general, locally non-collapsed case. The proofs build on results and ideas from recent papers of Hochard and the current authors.

We study flows on C*-algebras with the Rokhlin property. We show that every Kirchberg algebra carries a unique Rokhlin flow up to cocycle conjugacy, which confirms a long-standing conjecture of Kishimoto. We moreover present a classification theory for Rokhlin flows on C*-algebras satisfying certain technical properties, which hold for many C*-algebras covered by the Elliott program. As a consequence, we obtain the following further classification theorems for Rokhlin flows. Firstly, we extend the statement of Kishimoto's conjecture to the non-simple case: Up to cocycle conjugacy, a Rokhlin flow on a separable, nuclear, strongly purely infinite C*-algebra is uniquely determined by its induced action on the prime ideal space. Secondly, we give a complete classification of Rokhlin flows on simple classifiable $KK$-contractible C*-algebras: Two Rokhlin flows on such a C*-algebra are cocycle conjugate if and only if their induced actions on the cone of lower-semicontinuous traces are affinely conjugate.

The paper proves the Riemann Hypothesis.

Let $w$ be a word in $k$ variables. For a finite nilpotent group $G$, a conjecture of Amit states that $N_w(1) ge |G|^{k-1}$, where $N_w(1)$ is the number of $k$-tuples $(g_1,...,g_k)in G^{(k)}$ such that $w(g_1,...,g_k)=1$. Currently, this conjecture is known to be true for groups of nilpotency class 2. Here we consider a generalized version of Amit's conjecture, and prove that $N_w(g) ge |G|^{k-2}$, where $g$ is a $w$-value in $G$, for finite groups $G$ of odd order and nilpotency class 2. If $w$ is a word in two variables, we further show that $N_w(g) ge |G|$, where $g$ is a $w$-value in $G$ for finite groups $G$ of nilpotency class 2. In addition, for $p$ a prime, we show that finite $p$-groups $G$, with two distinct irreducible complex character degrees, satisfy the generalized Amit conjecture for words $w_k =[x_1,y_1]...[x_k,y_k]$ with $k$ a natural number; that is, for $g$ a $w_k$-value in $G$ we have $N_{w_k}(g) ge |G|^{2k-1}$.

Finally, we discuss the related group properties of being rational and chiral, and show that every finite group of nilpotency class 2 is rational.

We present a method for optimal path planning of human walking paths in mountainous terrain, using a control theoretic formulation and a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. Previous models for human navigation were entirely deterministic, assuming perfect knowledge of the ambient elevation data and human walking velocity as a function of local slope of the terrain. Our model includes a stochastic component which can account for uncertainty in the problem, and thus includes a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with viscosity. We discuss the model in the presence and absence of stochastic effects, and suggest numerical methods for simulating the model. We discuss two different notions of an optimal path when there is uncertainty in the problem. Finally, we compare the optimal paths suggested by the model at different levels of uncertainty, and observe that as the size of the uncertainty tends to zero (and thus the viscosity in the equation tends to zero), the optimal path tends toward the deterministic optimal path.

Positive geometries encode the physics of scattering amplitudes in flat space-time and the wavefunction of the universe in cosmology for a large class of models. Their unique canonical forms, providing such quantum mechanical observables, are characterised by having only logarithmic singularities along all the boundaries of the positive geometry. However, physical observables have logarithmic singularities just for a subset of theories. Thus, it becomes crucial to understand whether a similar paradigm can underlie their structure in more general cases. In this paper we start a systematic investigation of a geometric-combinatorial characterisation of differential forms with non-logarithmic singularities, focusing on projective polytopes and related meromorphic forms with multiple poles. We introduce the notions of covariant forms and covariant pairings. Covariant forms have poles only along the boundaries of the given polytope; moreover, their leading Laurent coefficients along any of the boundaries are still covariant forms on the specific boundary. Whereas meromorphic forms in covariant pairing with a polytope are associated to a specific (signed) triangulation, in which poles on spurious boundaries do not cancel completely, but their order is lowered. These meromorphic forms can be fully characterised if the polytope they are associated to is viewed as the restriction of a higher dimensional one onto a hyperplane. The canonical form of the latter can be mapped into a covariant form or a form in covariant pairing via a covariant restriction. We show how the geometry of the higher dimensional polytope determines the structure of these differential forms. Finally, we discuss how these notions are related to Jeffrey-Kirwan residues and cosmological polytopes.

In cite{CC} the authors, investigating a model of population dynamics, find the following result. Let $Omegasubset mathbb{R}^N$, $Ngeq 1$, be a bounded smooth domain. The weighted eigenvalue problem $-Delta u =lambda m u $ in $Omega$ under homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, where $lambda in mathbb{R}$ and $min L^infty(Omega)$, is considered. The authors prove the existence of minimizers $check m$ of the principal positive eigenvalue $lambda_1(m)$ when $m$ varies in a class $mathcal{M}$ of functions where average, maximum, and minimum values are given. A similar result is obtained in cite{CCP} when $m$ is in the class $mathcal{G}(m_0)$ of rearrangements of a fixed $m_0in L^infty(Omega)$. In our work we establish that, if $Omega$ is Steiner symmetric, then every minimizer in cite{CC,CCP} inherits the same kind of symmetry.

We present a systematic derivation of the abelianity conditions for the $q$-deformed $W$-algebras constructed from the elliptic quantum algebra $mathcal{A}_{q,p}(widehat{gl}(N)_{c})$. We identify two sets of conditions on a given critical surface yielding abelianity lines in the moduli space ($p, q, c$). Each line is identified as an intersection of a countable number of critical surfaces obeying diophantine consistency conditions. The corresponding Poisson brackets structures are then computed for which some universal features are described.

In this paper we consider Wronskian polynomials labeled by partitions that can be factorized via the combinatorial concepts of $p$-cores and $p$-quotients. We obtain the asymptotic behavior for these polynomials when the $p$-quotient is fixed while the size of the $p$-core grows to infinity. For this purpose, we associate the $p$-core with its characteristic vector and let all entries of this vector simultaneously tend to infinity. This result generalizes the Wronskian Hermite setting which is recovered when $p=2$.

We propose a general procedure to construct noncommutative deformations of an algebraic submanifold $M$ of $mathbb{R}^n$, specializing the procedure [G. Fiore, T. Weber, Twisted submanifolds of $mathbb{R}^n$, arXiv:2003.03854] valid for smooth submanifolds. We use the framework of twisted differential geometry of [Aschieri et al.,Class. Quantum Gravity 23 (2006), 1883], whereby the commutative pointwise product is replaced by the $star$-product determined by a Drinfel'd twist. We actually simultaneously construct noncommutative deformations of all the algebraic submanifolds $M_c$ that are level sets of the $f^a(x)$, where $f^a(x)=0$ are the polynomial equations solved by the points of $M$, employing twists based on the Lie algebra $Xi_t$ of vector fields that are tangent to all the $M_c$. The twisted Cartan calculus is automatically equivariant under twisted $Xi_t$. If we endow $mathbb{R}^n$ with a metric, then twisting and projecting to normal or tangent components commute, projecting the Levi-Civita connection to the twisted $M$ is consistent, and in particular a twisted Gauss theorem holds, provided the twist is based on Killing vector fields. Twisted algebraic quadrics can be characterized in terms of generators and $star$-polynomial relations. We explicitly work out deformations based on abelian or Jordanian twists of all quadrics in $mathbb{R}^3$ except ellipsoids, in particular twisted cylinders embedded in twisted Euclidean $mathbb{R}^3$ and twisted hyperboloids embedded in twisted Minkowski $mathbb{R}^3$ [the latter are twisted (anti-)de Sitter spaces $dS_2,AdS_2$].

We show that any toric K"ahler cone with smooth compact cross-section admits a family of Calabi-Yau cone metrics with conical singularities along its toric divisors. The family is parametrized by the Reeb cone and the angles are given explicitly in terms of the Reeb vector field. The result is optimal, in the sense that any toric Calabi-Yau cone metric with conical singularities along the toric divisor (and smooth elsewhere) belongs to this family. We also provide examples and interpret our results in terms of Sasaki-Einstein metrics.

A reaction-diffusion model was developed describing the spread of the COVID-19 virus considering the mean daily movement of susceptible, exposed and asymptomatic individuals. The model was calibrated using data on the confirmed infection and death from France as well as their initial spatial distribution. First, the system of partial differential equations is studied, then the basic reproduction number, R0 is derived. Second, numerical simulations, based on a combination of level-set and finite differences, shown the spatial spread of COVID-19 from March 16 to June 16. Finally, scenarios of unlockdown are compared according to variation of distancing, or partially spatial lockdown.

In this article, we prove that if $R$ is a finitely generated ring over $mathbb{Z}$ of dimension $d, dgeq2, frac{1}{d!}in R$, then any unimodular row over $R[X]$ of length $d+1$ can be mapped to a factorial row by elementary transformations.

We consider two special cases of the connection problem for the second Painlev'e equation (PII) using the method of uniform asymptotics proposed by Bassom et al.. We give a classification of the real solutions of PII on the negative (positive) real axis with respect to their initial data. By product, a rigorous proof of a property associate with the nonlinear eigenvalue problem of PII on the real axis, recently revealed by Bender and Komijani, is given by deriving the asymptotic behavior of the Stokes multipliers.

Given spherically symmetric characteristic initial data for the Einstein-scalar field system with a positive cosmological constant, we provide a criterion, in terms of the dimensionless size and dimensionless renormalized mass content of an annular region of the data, for the formation of a future trapped surface. This corresponds to an extension of Christodoulou's classical criterion by the inclusion of the cosmological term.

Classical studies on aspiration-based dynamics suggest that a dissatisfied individual changes strategy without taking into account the success of others. This promotes defection spreading. The imitation-based dynamics allow individuals to imitate successful strategies without taking into account their own-satisfactions. In this article, we propose to study a dynamic based on aspiration which takes into account imitation of successful strategies for dissatisfied individuals. This helps cooperative members to resist. Individuals compare their success to their desired satisfaction level before making a decision to update their strategies. This mechanism helps individuals with a minimum of self-satisfaction to maintain their strategies. If an individual is dissatisfied, it will learn from others by choosing successful strategies. We derive an exact expression of the fixation probability in well-mixed populations as in structured populations in networks. As a result, we show that selection may favor cooperation more than defection in well-mixed populations as in populations ranged over a regular graph. We show that the best scenario is a graph with small connectivity.

In this paper, we derive a formula for the sums of powers of the first $n$ positive integers that involves the hyperharmonic numbers and the Stirling numbers of the second kind. Then, using an explicit representation for the hyperharmonic numbers, we generalize this formula to the sums of powers of an arbitrary arithmetic progression. Moreover, as a by-product, we express the Bernoulli polynomials in terms of the hyperharmonic polynomials and the Stirling numbers of the second kind.

A natural problem in the context of the coupon collector's problem is the behavior of the maximum of independent geometrically distributed random variables (with distinct parameters). This question has been addressed by Brennan et al. (British J. of Math. & CS. 8 (2015), 330-336). Here we provide explicit asymptotic expressions for the moments of that maximum, as well as of the maximum of exponential random variables with corresponding parameters. We also deal with the probability of each of the variables being the maximal one.

The calculations lead to expressions involving Hurwitz's zeta function at certain special points. We find here explicitly the values of the function at these points. Also, the distribution function of the maximum we deal with is closely related to the generating function of the partition function. Thus, our results (and proofs) rely on classical results pertaining to the partition function.

We construct a smooth moduli stack of tuples consisting of genus two nodal curves, line bundles, and twisted fields. It leads to a desingularization of the moduli of genus two stable maps to projective spaces. The construction of this new moduli is based on systematical application of the theory of stacks with twisted fields (STF), which has its prototype appeared in arXiv:1906.10527 and arXiv:1201.2427 and is fully developed in this article. The results of this article are the second step of a series of works toward the resolutions of the moduli of stable maps of higher genera.

A perfect matroid design (PMD) is a matroid whose flats of the same rank all have the same size. In this paper we introduce the q-analogue of a PMD and its properties. In order to do that, we first establish new cryptomorphic definitions for q-matroids. We show that q-Steiner systems are examples of q-PMD's and we use this matroid structure to construct subspace designs from q-Steiner systems. We apply this construction to S(2, 13, 3; q) Steiner systems and hence establish the existence of subspace designs with previously unknown parameters.

We observe that the DeTurck Laplacian flow of G2-structures introduced by Bryant and Xu as a gauge fixing of the Laplacian flow can be regarded as a flow of G2-structures (not necessarily closed) which fits in the general framework introduced by Hamilton in [4].

Let $E$ be the self-similar set generated by the {it iterated function system} {[ f_0(x)=frac{x}{eta},quad f_1(x)=frac{x+1}{eta}, quad f_{eta+1}=frac{x+eta+1}{eta} ]}with $etage 3$. {Then} $E$ is a self-similar set with complete {overlaps}, i.e., $f_{0}circ f_{eta+1}=f_{1}circ f_1$, but $E$ is not totally self-similar.

We investigate all its generating iterated function systems, give the spectrum of $E$, and determine the Hausdorff dimension and Hausdorff measure of $E$ and of the sets which contain all points in $E$ having finite or infinite different triadic codings.

Let $Nge 2$ and $ hoin(0,1/N^2]$. The homogenous Cantor set $E$ is the self-similar set generated by the iterated function system

[

left{f_i(x)= ho x+frac{i(1- ho)}{N-1}: i=0,1,ldots, N-1 ight}.

]

Let $s=dim_H E$ be the Hausdorff dimension of $E$, and let $mu=mathcal H^s|_E$ be the $s$-dimensional Hausdorff measure restricted to $E$. In this paper we describe, for each $xin E$, the pointwise lower $s$-density $Theta_*^s(mu,x)$ and upper $s$-density $Theta^{*s}(mu, x)$ of $mu$ at $x$. This extends some early results of Feng et al. (2000). Furthermore, we determine two critical values $a_c$ and $b_c$ for the sets

[

E_*(a)=left{xin E: Theta_*^s(mu, x)ge a ight}quad extrm{and}quad E^*(b)=left{xin E: Theta^{*s}(mu, x)le b ight}

] respectively, such that $dim_H E_*(a)>0$ if and only if $a<a_c$, and that $dim_H E^*(b)>0$ if and only if $b>b_c$. We emphasize that both values $a_c$ and $b_c$ are related to the Thue-Morse type sequences, and our strategy to find them relies on ideas from open dynamics and techniques from combinatorics on words.

We investigate the quantum twistor bundle constructed as a $U(1)$-quotient of the quantum instanton bundle of Bonechi, Ciccoli and Tarlini. It is an example of a locally trivial noncommutative bundle fulfilling conditions of the framework recently proposed by Brzezi'nski and Szyma'nski. In particular, we give a detailed description of the corresponding $C^*$-algebra of 'continuous functions' on its noncommutative total space. Furthermore, we analyse a different construction of a quantum instanton bundle due to Landi, Pagani and Reina, find a basis of its polynomial algebra and discover an intriguing and unexpected feature of its enveloping $C^*$-algebra.

Recent studies of optimization methods and GNC of spacecraft near small bodies focusing on descent, landing, rendezvous, etc., with key safety constraints such as line-of-sight conic zones and soft landings have shown promising results; this paper considers descent missions to an asteroid surface with a constraint that consists of an onboard camera and asteroid surface markers while using a stochastic convex MPC law. An undermodeled asteroid gravity and spacecraft technology inspired measurement model is established to develop the constraint. Then a computationally light stochastic Linear Quadratic MPC strategy is presented to keep the spacecraft in satisfactory field of view of the surface markers while trajectory tracking, employing chance based constraints and up-to-date estimation uncertainty from navigation. The estimation uncertainty giving rise to the tightened constraints is particularly addressed. Results suggest robust tracking performance across a variety of trajectories.

We study a two-stage reneging queue with Poisson arrivals, exponential services, and two levels of exponential reneging behaviors, extending the popular Erlang A model that assumes a constant reneging rate. We derive approximate analytical formulas representing performance measures for the two-stage queue following the Markov chain decomposition approach. Our formulas not only give accurate results spanning the heavy-traffic to the light-traffic regimes, but also provide insight into capacity decisions.

In this note, we establish a local maximum principle along Ricci flow under scaling invariant curvature condition. This unifies the known preservation of nonnegativity results along Ricci flow with unbounded curvature. By combining with the Dirichlet heat kernel estimates, we also give a more direct proof of Hochard's localized version of a maximum principle given by R. Bamler, E. Cabezas-Rivas, and B. Wilking on the lower bound of curvature conditions.

In this paper, we give new constructions of strongly regular Cayley graphs on abelian groups as generalizations of a series of known constructions: the construction of covering extended building sets in finite fields by Xia (1992), the product construction of Menon-Hadamard difference sets by Turyn (1984), and the construction of Paley type partial difference sets by Polhill (2010). Then, we obtain new large families of strongly regular Cayley graphs of Latin square type or negative Latin square type.

In the spirit of very recent articles by J. Bonet, W. Lusky and J. Taskinen we are studying the so-called solid hulls and cores of spaces of weighted entire functions when the weights are given in terms of associated weight functions coming from weight sequences. These sequences are required to satisfy certain (standard) growth and regularity properties which are frequently arising and used in the theory of ultradifferentiable and ultraholomorphic function classes (where also the associated weight function plays a prominent role). Thanks to this additional information we are able to see which growth behavior the so-called "Lusky-numbers", arising in the representations of the solid hulls and cores, have to satisfy resp. if such numbers can exist.

We study the two-parameter quadratic sieve for a general test function. We prove, under some very general assumptions, that the function considered by Barban and Vehov [BV68] and Graham [Gra78] for this problem is optimal up to the second-order term. We determine that second-order term explicitly.

The aim of this paper is to obtain a generalized CK-extension theorem in superspace for the bi-axial Dirac operator. In the classical commuting case, this result can be written as a power series of Bessel type of certain differential operators acting on a single initial function. In the superspace setting, novel structures appear in the cases of negative even superdimensions. In these cases, the CK-extension depends on two initial functions on which two power series of differential operators act. These series are not only of Bessel type but they give rise to an additional structure in terms of Appell polynomials. This pattern also is present in the structure of the Pizzetti formula, which describes integration over the supersphere in terms of differential operators. We make this relation explicit by studying the decomposition of the generalized CK-extension into plane waves integrated over the supersphere. Moreover, these results are applied to obtain a decomposition of the Cauchy kernel in superspace into monogenic plane waves, which shall be useful for inverting the super Radon transform.

Consider an infinite planar graph with uniform polynomial growth of degree d > 2. Many examples of such graphs exhibit similar geometric and spectral properties, and it has been conjectured that this is necessary. We present a family of counterexamples. In particular, we show that for every rational d > 2, there is a planar graph with uniform polynomial growth of degree d on which the random walk is transient, disproving a conjecture of Benjamini (2011).

By a well-known theorem of Benjamini and Schramm, such a graph cannot be a unimodular random graph. We also give examples of unimodular random planar graphs of uniform polynomial growth with unexpected properties. For instance, graphs of (almost sure) uniform polynomial growth of every rational degree d > 2 for which the speed exponent of the walk is larger than 1/d, and in which the complements of all balls are connected. This resolves negatively two questions of Benjamini and Papasoglou (2011).

We derive sufficient conditions for exponential decay of solutions of the delay negative feedback equation with distributed delay. The conditions are written in terms of exponential moments of the distribution. Our method only uses elementary tools of calculus and is robust towards possible extensions to more complex settings, in particular, systems of delay differential equations. We illustrate the applicability of the method to particular distributions - Dirac delta, Gamma distribution, uniform and truncated normal distributions.

Finite metric spaces are the object of study in many data analysis problems. We examine the concept of weak isometry between finite metric spaces, in order to analyse properties of the spaces that are invariant under strictly increasing rescaling of the distance functions. In this paper, we analyse some of the possible complete and incomplete invariants for weak isometry and we introduce a dissimilarity measure that asses how far two spaces are from being weakly isometric. Furthermore, we compare these ideas with the theory of persistent homology, to study how the two are related.

In this work we study the dynamical behavior Tonelli Lagrangian systems defined on the tangent bundle of the torus $mathbb{T}^2=mathbb{R}^2 / mathbb{Z}^2$. We prove that the Lagrangian flow restricted to a high energy level $ E_L^{-1}(c)$ (i.e $ c> c_0(L)$) has positive topological entropy if the flow satisfies the Kupka-Smale propriety in $ E_L^{-1}(c)$ (i.e, all closed orbit with energy $c$ are hyperbolic or elliptic and all heteroclinic intersections are transverse on $E_L^{-1}(c)$). The proof requires the use of well-known results in Aubry-Mather's Theory.

For an odd prime $p$, we determined the Brown-Peterson cohomology of $BPU_n$ in dimensions $-(2p-2)leq ileq 2p+2$, where $BPU_n$ is the classifying space of the projective unitary group $PU_n$. We construct a family of $p$-torsion classes $eta_{p,k}in BP^{2p^{k+1}+2}(BPU_n)$ for $p|n$ and $kgeq 0$ and identify their images under the Thom map with well understood cohomology classes in $H^*(BPU_n;mathbb{Z}_{(p)})$.

ErdH{o}s and Hajnal constructed a 4-coloring of the triples of an $N$-element set such that every $n$-element subset contains 2 triples with distinct colors, and $N$ is double exponential in $n$. Conlon, Fox and R"odl asked whether there is some integer $qge 3$ and a $q$-coloring of the triples of an $N$-element set such that every $n$-element subset has 3 triples with distinct colors, and $N$ is double exponential in $n$. We make the first nontrivial progress on this problem by providing a $q$-coloring with this property for all $qgeq 9$, where $N$ is exponential in $n^{2+cq}$ and $c>0$ is an absolute constant.

In this paper we study manifolds $M_{Sigma}$ with fibered singularities, more specifically, a relevant space $Riem^{psc}(X_{Sigma})$ of Riemannian metrics with positive scalar curvature. Our main goal is to prove that the space $Riem^{psc}(X_{Sigma})$ is homotopy invariant under certain surgeries on $M_{Sigma}$.

High-performance implementations of graph algorithms are challenging to implement on new parallel hardware such as GPUs, because of three challenges: (1) difficulty of coming up with graph building blocks, (2) load imbalance on parallel hardware, and (3) graph problems having low arithmetic intensity. To address these challenges, GraphBLAS is an innovative, on-going effort by the graph analytics community to propose building blocks based in sparse linear algebra, which will allow graph algorithms to be expressed in a performant, succinct, composable and portable manner. In this paper, we examine the performance challenges of a linear algebra-based approach to building graph frameworks and describe new design principles for overcoming these bottlenecks. Among the new design principles is exploiting input sparsity, which allows users to write graph algorithms without specifying push and pull direction. Exploiting output sparsity allows users to tell the backend which values of the output in a single vectorized computation they do not want computed. Load-balancing is an important feature for balancing work amongst parallel workers. We describe the important load-balancing features for handling graphs with different characteristics. The design principles described in this paper have been implemented in "GraphBLAST", the first open-source linear algebra-based graph framework on GPU targeting high-performance computing. The results show that on a single GPU, GraphBLAST has on average at least an order of magnitude speedup over previous GraphBLAS implementations SuiteSparse and GBTL, comparable performance to the fastest GPU hardwired primitives and shared-memory graph frameworks Ligra and Gunrock, and better performance than any other GPU graph framework, while offering a simpler and more concise programming model.

Quantum computing has evolved quickly in recent years and is showing significant benefits in a variety of fields. Malware analysis is one of those fields that could also take advantage of quantum computing. The combination of software used to locate the most frequent hashes and $n$-grams between benign and malicious software (KiloGram) and a quantum search algorithm could be beneficial, by loading the table of hashes and $n$-grams into a quantum computer, and thereby speeding up the process of mapping $n$-grams to their hashes. The first phase will be to use KiloGram to find the top-$k$ hashes and $n$-grams for a large malware corpus. From here, the resulting hash table is then loaded into a quantum machine. A quantum search algorithm is then used search among every permutation of the entangled key and value pairs to find the desired hash value. This prevents one from having to re-compute hashes for a set of $n$-grams, which can take on average $O(MN)$ time, whereas the quantum algorithm could take $O(sqrt{N})$ in the number of table lookups to find the desired hash values.

In this work, we investigate multi-task learning as a way of pre-training models for classification tasks in digital pathology. It is motivated by the fact that many small and medium-size datasets have been released by the community over the years whereas there is no large scale dataset similar to ImageNet in the domain. We first assemble and transform many digital pathology datasets into a pool of 22 classification tasks and almost 900k images. Then, we propose a simple architecture and training scheme for creating a transferable model and a robust evaluation and selection protocol in order to evaluate our method. Depending on the target task, we show that our models used as feature extractors either improve significantly over ImageNet pre-trained models or provide comparable performance. Fine-tuning improves performance over feature extraction and is able to recover the lack of specificity of ImageNet features, as both pre-training sources yield comparable performance.

Large transformer-based language models have been shown to be very effective in many classification tasks. However, their computational complexity prevents their use in applications requiring the classification of a large set of candidates. While previous works have investigated approaches to reduce model size, relatively little attention has been paid to techniques to improve batch throughput during inference. In this paper, we introduce the Cascade Transformer, a simple yet effective technique to adapt transformer-based models into a cascade of rankers. Each ranker is used to prune a subset of candidates in a batch, thus dramatically increasing throughput at inference time. Partial encodings from the transformer model are shared among rerankers, providing further speed-up. When compared to a state-of-the-art transformer model, our approach reduces computation by 37% with almost no impact on accuracy, as measured on two English Question Answering datasets.

Large-scale pretrained language models are the major driving force behind recent improvements in performance on the Winograd Schema Challenge, a widely employed test of common sense reasoning ability. We show, however, with a new diagnostic dataset, that these models are sensitive to linguistic perturbations of the Winograd examples that minimally affect human understanding. Our results highlight interesting differences between humans and language models: language models are more sensitive to number or gender alternations and synonym replacements than humans, and humans are more stable and consistent in their predictions, maintain a much higher absolute performance, and perform better on non-associative instances than associative ones. Overall, humans are correct more often than out-of-the-box models, and the models are sometimes right for the wrong reasons. Finally, we show that fine-tuning on a large, task-specific dataset can offer a solution to these issues.

A standard approach to evaluating language models analyzes how models assign probabilities to valid versus invalid syntactic constructions (i.e. is a grammatical sentence more probable than an ungrammatical sentence). Our work uses ambiguous relative clause attachment to extend such evaluations to cases of multiple simultaneous valid interpretations, where stark grammaticality differences are absent. We compare model performance in English and Spanish to show that non-linguistic biases in RNN LMs advantageously overlap with syntactic structure in English but not Spanish. Thus, English models may appear to acquire human-like syntactic preferences, while models trained on Spanish fail to acquire comparable human-like preferences. We conclude by relating these results to broader concerns about the relationship between comprehension (i.e. typical language model use cases) and production (which generates the training data for language models), suggesting that necessary linguistic biases are not present in the training signal at all.

Image analysis in the field of digital pathology has recently gained increased popularity. The use of high-quality whole slide scanners enables the fast acquisition of large amounts of image data, showing extensive context and microscopic detail at the same time. Simultaneously, novel machine learning algorithms have boosted the performance of image analysis approaches. In this paper, we focus on a particularly powerful class of architectures, called Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), applied to histological image data. Besides improving performance, GANs also enable application scenarios in this field, which were previously intractable. However, GANs could exhibit a potential for introducing bias. Hereby, we summarize the recent state-of-the-art developments in a generalizing notation, present the main applications of GANs and give an outlook of some chosen promising approaches and their possible future applications. In addition, we identify currently unavailable methods with potential for future applications.

Embodiment is an important characteristic for all intelligent agents (creatures and robots), while existing scene description tasks mainly focus on analyzing images passively and the semantic understanding of the scenario is separated from the interaction between the agent and the environment. In this work, we propose the Embodied Scene Description, which exploits the embodiment ability of the agent to find an optimal viewpoint in its environment for scene description tasks. A learning framework with the paradigms of imitation learning and reinforcement learning is established to teach the intelligent agent to generate corresponding sensorimotor activities. The proposed framework is tested on both the AI2Thor dataset and a real world robotic platform demonstrating the effectiveness and extendability of the developed method.

Hearing is often believed to be more sensitive than touch. This assertion is based on a comparison of sensitivities to weak stimuli. The respective stimuli, however, are not easily comparable since hearing is gauged using acoustic pressure and touch using skin displacement. We show that under reasonable assumptions the auditory and tactile detection thresholds can be reconciled on a level playing field. The results indicate that the capacity of touch and hearing to detect weak stimuli varies according to the size of a sensed object as well as to the frequency of its oscillations. In particular, touch is found to be more effective than hearing at detecting small and slow objects.