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Carbon dioxide is a chemically active molecule that plays a vital role in Earth's ecosphere. CO$_2$ affects the acidity of seawater and has multiple negative effects on marine organisms. It is also a fundamental component of the photosynthesis and respiration reactions. There is evidence that higher CO$_2$ concentration can make the photosynthetic reaction faster in some plants, but also negatively impact the respiration reaction in aerobic lifeforms. The effects of this chemical and biochemical perturbation on the biosphere and on human health may be more important than generally highlighted in the discussion on CO$_2$, usually focused on thermal effects only. These considerations stress the importance of rapidly reducing CO$_2$ emissions and, whenever possible, remove the excess from the atmosphere. They also show that geoengineering technologies based on Solar Radiation Management (SRM) alone cannot be sufficient to contrast the negative effects of CO$_2$ anthropogenic emissions., Comment: The Article is mainly a critical review of existing data and interpretations. It has no figures, 20 pages, and 76 references

Many real-world networks are characterized by directionality; however, the absence of an appropriate Fourier basis hinders the effective implementation of graph signal processing techniques. Inspired by discrete signal processing, where embedding a line digraph into a cycle digraph facilitates the powerful Discrete Fourier Transform for signal analysis, addressing the structural complexities of general digraphs can help overcome the limitations of the Graph Fourier Transform (GFT) and unlock its potential. The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) serves as a Graph Fourier Transform for both cycle graphs and Cayley digraphs on the finite cyclic groups $\mathbb{Z}_N$. We propose a systematic method to identify a class of such Cayley digraphs that can encompass a given directed graph. By embedding the directed graph into these Cayley digraphs and opting for envelope extensions that naturally support the Graph Fourier Transform, the GFT functionalities of these extensions can be harnessed for signal analysis. Among the potential envelopes, optimal performance is achieved by selecting one that meets key properties. This envelope's structure closely aligns with the characteristics of the original digraph. The Graph Fourier Transform of this envelope is reliable in terms of numerical stability, and its columns approximately form an eigenbasis for the adjacency matrix associated with the original digraph. It is shown that the envelope extensions possess a convolution product, with their GFT fulfilling the convolution theorem. Additionally, shift-invariant graph filters (systems) are described as the convolution operator, analogous to the classical case. This allows the utilization of systems for signal analysis., Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables

Cable-driven exosuits have the potential to support individuals with motor disabilities across the continuum of care. When supporting a limb with a cable, force sensors are often used to measure tension. However, force sensors add cost, complexity, and distal components. This paper presents a design and control approach to remove the force sensor from an upper limb cable-driven exosuit. A mechanical design for the exosuit was developed to maximize passive transparency. Then, a data-driven friction identification was conducted on a mannequin test bench to design a model-based tension controller. Seventeen healthy participants raised and lowered their right arms to evaluate tension tracking, movement quality, and muscular effort. Questionnaires on discomfort, physical exertion, and fatigue were collected. The proposed strategy allowed tracking the desired assistive torque with an RMSE of 0.71 Nm (18%) at 50% gravity support. During the raising phase, the EMG signals of the anterior deltoid, trapezius, and pectoralis major were reduced on average compared to the no-suit condition by 30%, 38%, and 38%, respectively. The posterior deltoid activity was increased by 32% during lowering. Position tracking was not significantly altered, whereas movement smoothness significantly decreased. This work demonstrates the feasibility and effectiveness of removing the force sensor from a cable-driven exosuit. A significant increase in discomfort in the lower neck and right shoulder indicated that the ergonomics of the suit could be improved. Overall this work paves the way towards simpler and more affordable exosuits., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, and 3 tables in the main manuscript. 12 pages, 4 figures, and 13 tables in the supplementary materials

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are used for modeling causal relationships, dependencies, and flows in various systems. However, spectral analysis becomes impractical in this setting because the eigendecomposition of the adjacency matrix yields all eigenvalues equal to zero. This inherent property of DAGs results in an inability to differentiate between frequency components of signals on such graphs. This problem can be addressed by {alternating the Fourier basis or adding edges in a DAG}. However, these approaches change the physics of the considered problem. To address this limitation, we propose a \textit{graph zero-padding} approach. This approach involves augmenting the original DAG with additional vertices that are connected to the existing structure. The added vertices are characterized by signal values set to zero. The proposed technique enables the spectral evaluation of system outputs on DAGs (in almost all cases), that is the computation of vertex-domain convolution without the adverse effects of aliasing due to changes in a graph structure, { with the ultimate goal of preserving the output of the system on a graph as if the changes in the graph structure were not performed}., Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures

First Nations Australians have a cultural obligation to look after land and sea Country, and Indigenous-partnered science is beginning to drive socially inclusive initiatives in conservation. The Australian Institute of Marine Science has partnered with Indigenous communities in systematically collecting monitoring data to understand the natural variability of ecological communities and better inform sea Country management. Monitoring partnerships are centred around the 2-way sharing of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, training in science and technology, and developing communication products that can be accessed across the broader community. We present a case study with the Bardi Jawi Rangers in northwest Australia focusing on a 3-year co-developed and co-delivered monitoring dataset for culturally important fish in coral reef ecosystems. We show how uncertainty estimated by Bayesian statistics can be incorporated into monitoring indicators and facilitate fuller communication between scientists and First Nations partners about the limitations of monitoring to identify change.

We develop novel annotation guidelines for sentence-level subjectivity detection, which are not limited to language-specific cues. We use our guidelines to collect NewsSD-ENG, a corpus of 638 objective and 411 subjective sentences extracted from English news articles on controversial topics. Our corpus paves the way for subjectivity detection in English and across other languages without relying on language-specific tools, such as lexicons or machine translation. We evaluate state-of-the-art multilingual transformer-based models on the task in mono-, multi-, and cross-language settings. For this purpose, we re-annotate an existing Italian corpus. We observe that models trained in the multilingual setting achieve the best performance on the task., Comment: LREC-COLING 2024, pages 273-285

We consider deterministic Mean Field Games (MFG) in all Euclidean space with a cost functional continuous with respect to the distribution of the agents and attaining its minima in a compact set. We first show that the static MFG with such a cost has an equilibrium, and we build from it a solution of the ergodic MFG system of 1st order PDEs with the same cost. Next we address the long-time limit of the solutions to finite horizon MFG with cost functional satisfying various additional assumptions, but not the classical Lasry-Lions monotonicity condition. Instead we assume that the cost has the same set of minima for all measures describing the population. We prove the convergence of the distribution of the agents and of the value function to a solution of the ergodic MFG system as the horizon of the game tends to infinity, extending to this class of MFG some results of weak KAM theory.

Social Honeypots are tools deployed in Online Social Networks (OSN) to attract malevolent activities performed by spammers and bots. To this end, their content is designed to be of maximum interest to malicious users. However, by choosing an appropriate content topic, this attractive mechanism could be extended to any OSN users, rather than only luring malicious actors. As a result, honeypots can be used to attract individuals interested in a wide range of topics, from sports and hobbies to more sensitive subjects like political views and conspiracies. With all these individuals gathered in one place, honeypot owners can conduct many analyses, from social to marketing studies. In this work, we introduce a novel concept of social honeypot for attracting OSN users interested in a generic target topic. We propose a framework based on fully-automated content generation strategies and engagement plans to mimic legit Instagram pages. To validate our framework, we created 21 self-managed social honeypots (i.e., pages) on Instagram, covering three topics, four content generation strategies, and three engaging plans. In nine weeks, our honeypots gathered a total of 753 followers, 5387 comments, and 15739 likes. These results demonstrate the validity of our approach, and through statistical analysis, we examine the characteristics of effective social honeypots., Comment: Accepted at ACNS2023

A comprehensive approach to the spectrum characterization (derivation of eigenvalues and the corresponding multiplicities) for non-normalized, symmetric discrete trigonometric transforms (DTT) is presented in the paper. Eight types of the DTT are analyzed. New explicit analytic expressions for the eigenvalues, together with their multiplicities, for the cases of three DTT (DCT$_{(1)}$, DCT$_{(5)}$, and DST$_{(8)}$), are the main contribution of this paper. Moreover, the presented theory is supplemented by new, original derivations for the closed-form expressions of the square and the trace of analyzed DTT matrices., Comment: 9 pages

We consider a singularly perturbed system of stochastic differential equations proposed by Chaudhari et al. (Res. Math. Sci. 2018) to approximate the Entropic Gradient Descent in the optimization of deep neural networks, via homogenisation. We embed it in a much larger class of two-scale stochastic control problems and rely on convergence results for Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations with unbounded data proved recently by ourselves (ESAIM Control Optim. Calc. Var. 2023). We show that the limit of the value functions is itself the value function of an effective control problem with extended controls, and that the trajectories of the perturbed system converge in a suitable sense to the trajectories of the limiting effective control system. These rigorous results improve the understanding of the convergence of the algorithms used by Chaudhari et al., as well as of their possible extensions where some tuning parameters are modelled as dynamic controls.

We study singular perturbations of a class of two-scale stochastic control systems with unbounded data. The assumptions are designed to cover some relaxation problems for deep neural networks. We construct effective Hamiltonian and initial data and prove the convergence of the value function to the solution of a limit (effective) Cauchy problem for a parabolic equation of HJB type. We use methods of probability, viscosity solutions and homogenization., Comment: 26 pages

The terrestrial water cycle links the soil and atmosphere moisture reservoirs through four fluxes: precipitation, evaporation, runoff, and atmospheric moisture convergence (net import of water vapor to balance runoff). Each of these processes is essential for human and ecosystem well-being. Predicting how the water cycle responds to changes in vegetation cover remains a challenge. Recently, changes in plant transpiration across the Amazon basin were shown to be associated disproportionately with changes in rainfall, suggesting that even small declines in transpiration (e.g., from deforestation) would lead to much larger declines in rainfall. Here, constraining these results by the law of mass conservation, we show that in a sufficiently wet atmosphere, forest transpiration can control atmospheric moisture convergence such that increased transpiration enhances atmospheric moisture import and resulting water yield. Conversely, in a sufficiently dry atmosphere increased transpiration reduces atmospheric moisture convergence and water yield. This previously unrecognized dichotomy can explain the otherwise mixed observations of how water yield responds to re-greening, as we illustrate with examples from China's Loess Plateau. Our analysis indicates that any additional precipitation recycling by additional vegetation increases precipitation but decreases local water yield and steady-state runoff. Therefore, in the drier regions and early stages of ecological restoration, the role of vegetation can be confined to precipitation recycling, while once a wetter stage is achieved, additional vegetation enhances atmospheric moisture convergence and water yield. Evaluating the transition between regimes, and recognizing the potential of vegetation for enhancing moisture convergence, are crucial for characterizing the consequences of deforestation and for motivating and guiding ecological restoration., Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables

The terrestrial water cycle links the soil and atmosphere moisture reservoirs through four fluxes: precipitation, evaporation, runoff and atmospheric moisture convergence. Each of these fluxes is essential for human and ecosystem well-being. However, predicting how the water cycle responds to changes in vegetation cover, remains a challenge (Lawrence and Vandecar, 2015; Ellison et al., 2017; te Wierik et al., 2021). Recently, rainfall was shown to decrease disproportionally with reduced forest transpiration following deforestation (Baudena et al., 2021). Here, combining these findings with the law of matter conservation, we show that in a sufficiently wet atmosphere forest transpiration can control atmospheric moisture convergence such that increased transpiration enhances atmospheric moisture import. Conversely, in a drier atmosphere increased transpiration reduces atmospheric moisture convergence and runoff. This previously unrecognized dichotomy can explain the seemingly random observations of runoff and soil moisture sometimes increasing and sometimes reducing in response to re-greening (e.g., Zheng et al., 2021). Evaluating the transition between the two regimes is crucial both for characterizing the risk posed by deforestation as well as for motivating and guiding global ecosystem restoration., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

We show a connection between global unconstrained optimization of a continuous function $f$ and weak KAM theory for an eikonal-type equation arising also in ergodic control. A solution $v$ of the critical Hamilton-Jacobi equation is built by a small discount approximation as well as the long time limit of an associated evolutive equation. Then $v$ is represented as the value function of a control problem with target, whose optimal trajectories are driven by a differential inclusion describing the gradient descent of $v$. Such trajectories are proved to converge to the set of minima of $f$, using tools in control theory and occupational measures. We prove also that in some cases the set of minima is reached in finite time., Comment: We improved the results in section 2 (Thm. 2.1 and Thm. 2.2). Prop. 3.1 in the previous version is now replaced with Thm. 3.4. We also added Thm. 3.6 and updated the introduction