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Most of current computer vision-based advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) perform detection and tracking of objects quite successfully under regular conditions. However, under adverse weather and changing lighting conditions, and in complex situations with many overlapping objects, these systems are not completely reliable. The spectral reflectance of the different objects in a driving scene beyond the visible spectrum can offer additional information to increase the reliability of these systems, especially under challenging driving conditions. Furthermore, this information may be significant enough to develop vision systems that allow for a better understanding and interpretation of the whole driving scene. In this work we explore the use of snapshot, video-rate hyperspectral imaging (HSI) cameras in ADAS on the assumption that the near infrared (NIR) spectral reflectance of different materials can help to better segment the objects in real driving scenarios. To do this, we have used the HSI-Drive 1.1 dataset to perform various experiments on spectral classification algorithms. However, the information retrieval of hyperspectral recordings in natural outdoor scenarios is challenging, mainly because of deficient colour constancy and other inherent shortcomings of current snapshot HSI technology, which poses some limitations to the development of pure spectral classifiers. In consequence, in this work we analyze to what extent the spatial features codified by standard, tiny fully convolutional network (FCN) models can improve the performance of HSI segmentation systems for ADAS applications. The abstract above is truncated due to submission limits. For the full abstract, please refer to the published article.

Blind all-in-one image restoration models aim to recover a high-quality image from an input degraded with unknown distortions. However, these models require all the possible degradation types to be defined during the training stage while showing limited generalization to unseen degradations, which limits their practical application in complex cases. In this paper, we propose a simple but effective adaptive blind all-in-one restoration (ABAIR) model, which can address multiple degradations, generalizes well to unseen degradations, and efficiently incorporate new degradations by training a small fraction of parameters. First, we train our baseline model on a large dataset of natural images with multiple synthetic degradations, augmented with a segmentation head to estimate per-pixel degradation types, resulting in a powerful backbone able to generalize to a wide range of degradations. Second, we adapt our baseline model to varying image restoration tasks using independent low-rank adapters. Third, we learn to adaptively combine adapters to versatile images via a flexible and lightweight degradation estimator. Our model is both powerful in handling specific distortions and flexible in adapting to complex tasks, it not only outperforms the state-of-the-art by a large margin on five- and three-task IR setups, but also shows improved generalization to unseen degradations and also composite distortions., Comment: 17 pages

The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) is a partnership between the European Space Agency and Switzerland with important contributions by 10 additional ESA member States. It is the first S-class mission in the ESA Science Programme. CHEOPS has been flying on a Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit since December 2019, collecting millions of short-exposure images in the visible domain to study exoplanet properties. A small yet increasing fraction of CHEOPS images show linear trails caused by resident space objects crossing the instrument field of view. To characterize the population of satellites and orbital debris observed by CHEOPS, all and every science images acquired over the past 3 years have been scanned with a Hough transform algorithm to identify the characteristic linear features that these objects cause on the images. Thousands of trails have been detected. This statistically significant sample shows interesting trends and features such as an increased occurrence rate over the past years as well as the fingerprint of the Starlink constellation. The cross-matching of individual trails with catalogued objects is underway as we aim to measure their distance at the time of observation and deduce the apparent magnitude of the detected objects. As space agencies and private companies are developing new space-based surveillance and tracking activities to catalogue and characterize the distribution of small debris, the CHEOPS experience is timely and relevant. With the first CHEOPS mission extension currently running until the end of 2026, and a possible second extension until the end of 2029, the longer time coverage will make our dataset even more valuable to the community, especially for characterizing objects with recurrent crossings., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, Special Issue of the Journal of Space Safety Engineering

We present the updated version of the HSI-Drive dataset aimed at developing automated driving systems (ADS) using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). The v2.0 version includes new annotated images from videos recorded during winter and fall in real driving scenarios. Added to the spring and summer images included in the previous v1.1 version, the new dataset contains 752 images covering the four seasons. In this paper, we show the improvements achieved over previously published results obtained on the v1.1 dataset, showcasing the enhanced performance of models trained on the new v2.0 dataset. We also show the progress made in comprehensive scene understanding by experimenting with more capable image segmentation models. These models include new segmentation categories aimed at the identification of essential road safety objects such as the presence of vehicles and road signs, as well as highly vulnerable groups like pedestrians and cyclists. In addition, we provide evidence of the performance and robustness of the models when applied to segmenting HSI video sequences captured in various environments and conditions. Finally, for a correct assessment of the results described in this work, the constraints imposed by the processing platforms that can sensibly be deployed in vehicles for ADS must be taken into account. Thus, and although implementation details are out of the scope of this paper, we focus our research on the development of computationally efficient, lightweight ML models that can eventually operate at high throughput rates. The dataset and some examples of segmented videos are available in https://ipaccess.ehu.eus/HSI-Drive/.

Human-object interaction (HOI) and human-scene interaction (HSI) are crucial for human-centric scene understanding applications in Embodied Artificial Intelligence (EAI), robotics, and augmented reality (AR). A common limitation faced in these research areas is the data scarcity problem: insufficient labeled human-scene object pairs on the input images, and limited interaction complexity and granularity between them. Recent HOI and HSI methods have addressed this issue by generating dynamic interactions with rigid objects. But more complex dynamic interactions such as a human rider pedaling an articulated bicycle have been unexplored. To address this limitation, and to enable research on complex dynamic human-articulated object interactions, in this paper we propose a method to generate simulated 3D dynamic cyclist assets and interactions. We designed a methodology for creating a new part-based multi-view articulated synthetic 3D bicycle dataset that we call 3DArticBikes that can be used to train NeRF and 3DGS-based 3D reconstruction methods. We then propose a 3DGS-based parametric bicycle composition model to assemble 8-DoF pose-controllable 3D bicycles. Finally, using dynamic information from cyclist videos, we build a complete synthetic dynamic 3D cyclist (rider pedaling a bicycle) by re-posing a selectable synthetic 3D person while automatically placing the rider onto one of our new articulated 3D bicycles using a proposed 3D Keypoint optimization-based Inverse Kinematics pose refinement. We present both, qualitative and quantitative results where we compare our generated cyclists against those from a recent stable diffusion-based method.

We present a computational framework for obtaining multidimensional phase-space solutions of systems of non-linear coupled differential equations, using high-order implicit Runge-Kutta Physics- Informed Neural Networks (IRK-PINNs) schemes. Building upon foundational work originally solving differential equations for fields depending on coordinates [J. Comput. Phys. 378, 686 (2019)], we adapt the scheme to a context where the coordinates are treated as functions. This modification enables us to efficiently solve equations of motion for a particle in an external field. Our scheme is particularly useful for explicitly time-independent and periodic fields. We apply this approach to successfully solve the equations of motion for a mass particle placed in a central force field and a charged particle in a periodic electric field., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, published in the International Conference on Scientific Computing and Machine Learning, see http://scml.jp

The climate crisis is a salient issue in online discussions, and hypocrisy accusations are a central rhetorical element in these debates. However, for large-scale text analysis, hypocrisy accusation detection is an understudied tool, most often defined as a smaller subtask of fallacious argument detection. In this paper, we define hypocrisy accusation detection as an independent task in NLP, and identify different relevant subtypes of hypocrisy accusations. Our Climate Hypocrisy Accusation Corpus (CHAC) consists of 420 Reddit climate debate comments, expert-annotated into two different types of hypocrisy accusations: personal versus political hypocrisy. We evaluate few-shot in-context learning with 6 shots and 3 instruction-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs) for detecting hypocrisy accusations in this dataset. Results indicate that the GPT-4o and Llama-3 models in particular show promise in detecting hypocrisy accusations (F1 reaching 0.68, while previous work shows F1 of 0.44). However, context matters for a complex semantic concept such as hypocrisy accusations, and we find models struggle especially at identifying political hypocrisy accusations compared to personal moral hypocrisy. Our study contributes new insights in hypocrisy detection and climate change discourse, and is a stepping stone for large-scale analysis of hypocrisy accusation in online climate debates., Comment: cite the public version, published at CPSS 2024 @ KONVENS

We study the (anti-)self-duality conditions under which the electric and magnetic parts of the conserved charges of the dyonic Kerr-Newman-NUT-AdS solution become equivalent. Within a holographic framework, the stress tensor and the boundary Cotton tensor are computed from the electric/magnetic content of the Weyl tensor. The holographic stress tensor/Cotton tensor duality is recovered along the (anti-)self-dual curve in parameter space. We show that the latter not only implies a duality relation for the mass but also for the angular momentum. The partition function is computed to first order in the saddle-point approximation and a BPS bound is obtained. The ground state of the theory is enlarged to all the (anti-)self-dual configurations when the $SO(4)$ and $U(1)$ Pontryagin densities are introduced. We demonstrate this at the level of the action and variations thereof., Comment: v1: 18 pages; v2: References added. Accepted for publication in PRD

We present a dynamical study of the intermediate polar cataclysmic variable YY Dra based on time-series observations in the $K$ band, where the donor star is known to be the major flux contributor. We covered the $3.97$-h orbital cycle with 44 spectra taken between $2020$ and $2022$ and two epochs of photometry observed in 2021 March and May. One of the light curves was simultaneously obtained with spectroscopy to better account for the effects of irradiation of the donor star and the presence of accretion light. From the spectroscopy, we derived the radial velocity curve of the donor star metallic absorption lines, constrained its spectral type to M0.5$-$M3.5 with no measurable changes in the effective temperature between the irradiated and non-irradiated hemispheres of the star, and measured its projected rotational velocity $v_\mathrm{rot} \sin i = 103 \pm 2 \, \mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. Through simultaneous modelling of the radial velocity and light curves, we derived values for the radial velocity semi-amplitude of the donor star, $K_2 = 188^{+1}_{-2} \, \mathrm{km} \, \mathrm{s}^{-1}$, the donor to white dwarf mass ratio, $q=M_2/M_1 = 0.62 \pm 0.02$, and the orbital inclination, $i={42^{\circ}}^{+2^{\circ}}_{-1^{\circ}}$. These binary parameters yield dynamical masses of $M_{1} = 0.99^{+0.10}_{-0.09} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and $M_2 = 0.62^{+0.07}_{-0.06} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ ($68$ per cent confidence level). As found for the intermediate polars GK Per and XY Ari, the white dwarf dynamical mass in YY Dra significantly differs from several estimates obtained by modelling the X-ray spectral continuum., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in A&A

We utilized photometric data from the space telescope AKARI to identify potential planetary nebulae (PNe) and proto-planetary nebulae (PPNe) candidates. Using the colour-colour diagram, we found a region with a high concentration of established PNe and PPNe, comprising about 95% of the objects. Based on this, we identified 67 objects within this region that lack definitive classification in existing literature, suggesting they are promising candidates. We conducted Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) analysis and morphological investigations using imagery from various observatories and satellites. Finally, we present a list of 65 potential PNe and PPNe candidates., Comment: 26 pages, 19 figures, 1 table

This paper analyzes the dynamics of a level-dependent quasi-birth-death process ${\cal X}=\{(I(t),J(t)): t\geq 0\}$, i.e., a bi-variate Markov chain defined on the countable state space $\cup_{i=0}^{\infty} l(i)$ with $l(i)=\{(i,j) : j\in\{0,...,M_i\}\}$, for integers $M_i\in\mathbb{N}_0$ and $i\in\mathbb{N}_0$, which has the special property that its $q$-matrix has a block-tridiagonal form. Under the assumption that the first passage to the subset $l(0)$ occurs in a finite time with certainty, we characterize the probability law of $(\tau_{\max},I_{\max},J(\tau_{\max}))$, where $I_{\max}$ is the running maximum level attained by process ${\cal X}$ before its first visit to states in $l(0)$, $\tau_{\max}$ is the first time that the level process $\{I(t): t\geq 0\}$ reaches the running maximum $I_{\max}$, and $J(\tau_{\max})$ is the phase at time $\tau_{\max}$. Our methods rely on the use of restricted Laplace-Stieltjes transforms of $\tau_{\max}$ on the set of sample paths $\{I_{\max}=i,J(\tau_{\max})=j\}$, and related processes under taboo of certain subsets of states. The utility of the resulting computational algorithms is demonstrated in two epidemic models: the SIS model for horizontally and vertically transmitted diseases; and the SIR model with constant population size., Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures

A popular method for enhancing images involves learning the style of a professional photo editor using pairs of training images comprised of the original input with the editor-enhanced version. When manipulating images, many editing tools offer a feature that allows the user to manipulate a limited selection of familiar colors. Editing by color name allows easy adjustment of elements like the "blue" of the sky or the "green" of trees. Inspired by this approach to color manipulation, we propose NamedCurves, a learning-based image enhancement technique that separates the image into a small set of named colors. Our method learns to globally adjust the image for each specific named color via tone curves and then combines the images using an attention-based fusion mechanism to mimic spatial editing. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method against several competing methods on the well-known Adobe 5K dataset and the PPR10K dataset, showing notable improvements., Comment: European Conference on Computer Vision ECCV 2024

Text-to-Image (T2I) generation has made significant advancements with the advent of diffusion models. These models exhibit remarkable abilities to produce images based on textual prompts. Current T2I models allow users to specify object colors using linguistic color names. However, these labels encompass broad color ranges, making it difficult to achieve precise color matching. To tackle this challenging task, named color prompt learning, we propose to learn specific color prompts tailored to user-selected colors. Existing T2I personalization methods tend to result in color-shape entanglement. To overcome this, we generate several basic geometric objects in the target color, allowing for color and shape disentanglement during the color prompt learning. Our method, denoted as ColorPeel, successfully assists the T2I models to peel off the novel color prompts from these colored shapes. In the experiments, we demonstrate the efficacy of ColorPeel in achieving precise color generation with T2I models. Furthermore, we generalize ColorPeel to effectively learn abstract attribute concepts, including textures, materials, etc. Our findings represent a significant step towards improving precision and versatility of T2I models, offering new opportunities for creative applications and design tasks. Our project is available at https://moatifbutt.github.io/colorpeel/., Comment: Accepted in ECCV 2024

We present mid-infrared (MIR) spectral-timing measurements of the prototypical Galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105. The source was observed with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) onboard JWST in June 2023 at a MIR luminosity L(MIR)~10^{36} erg/s exceeding past IR levels by about a factor of 10. By contrast, the X-ray flux is much fainter than the historical average, in the source's now-persistent 'obscured' state. The MIRI low-resolution spectrum shows a plethora of emission lines, the strongest of which are consistent with recombination in the hydrogen Pfund (Pf) series and higher. Low amplitude (~1%) but highly significant peak-to-peak photometric variability is found on timescales of ~1,000 s. The brightest Pf(6-5) emission line lags the continuum. Though difficult to constrain accurately, this lag is commensurate with light-travel timescales across the outer accretion disc or with expected recombination timescales inferred from emission line diagnostics. Using the emission line as a bolometric indicator suggests a moderate (~5-30% Eddington) intrinsic accretion rate. Multiwavelength monitoring shows that JWST caught the source close in-time to unprecedentedly bright MIR and radio long-term flaring. Assuming a thermal bremsstrahlung origin for the MIRI continuum suggests an unsustainably high mass-loss rate during this time unless the wind remains bound, though other possible origins cannot be ruled out. PAH features previously detected with Spitzer are now less clear in the MIRI data, arguing for possible destruction of dust in the interim. These results provide a preview of new parameter space for exploring MIR spectral-timing in XRBs and other variable cosmic sources on rapid timescales., Comment: Dedicated to the memory of our colleague, Tomaso Belloni. Submitted 2024 June 21; Comments welcome

We define several notions of a limit point on sequences with domain a barrier in $[\omega]^{<\omega}$ focusing on the two dimensional case $[\omega]^2$. By exploring some natural candidates, we show that countable compactness has a number of generalizations in terms of limits of high dimensional sequences and define a particular notion of $\alpha$-countable compactness for $\alpha\leq\omega_1$. We then focus on dimension 2 and compare 2-countable compactness with notions previously studied in the literature. We present a number of counterexamples showing that these classes are different. In particular assuming the existence of a Ramsey ultrafilter, a subspace of $\beta\omega$ which is doubly countably compact whose square is not countably compact, answering a question of T. Banakh, S. Dimitrova and O. Gutik. The analysis of this construction leads to some possibly new types of ultrafilters related to discrete, P-points and Ramsey ultrafilters., Comment: 20 pages

The ESO public survey VISTA Variables in the V\'ia L\'actea (VVV) surveyed the inner Galactic bulge and the adjacent southern Galactic disk from $2009-2015$. Upon its conclusion, the complementary VVV eXtended (VVVX) survey has expanded both the temporal as well as spatial coverage of the original VVV area, widening it from $562$ to $1700$ sq. deg., as well as providing additional epochs in $JHK_{\rm s}$ filters from $2016-2023$. With the completion of VVVX observations during the first semester of 2023, we present here the observing strategy, a description of data quality and access, and the legacy of VVVX. VVVX took $\sim 2000$ hours, covering about 4% of the sky in the bulge and southern disk. VVVX covered most of the gaps left between the VVV and the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) areas and extended the VVV time baseline in the obscured regions affected by high extinction and hence hidden from optical observations. VVVX provides a deep $JHK_{\rm s}$ catalogue of $\gtrsim 1.5\times10^9$ point sources, as well as a $K_{\rm s}$ band catalogue of $\sim 10^7$ variable sources. Within the existing VVV area, we produced a $5D$ map of the surveyed region by combining positions, distances, and proper motions of well-understood distance indicators such as red clump stars, RR Lyrae, and Cepheid variables. In March 2023 we successfully finished the VVVX survey observations that started in 2016, an accomplishment for ESO Paranal Observatory upon 4200 hours of observations for VVV+VVVX. The VVV+VVVX catalogues complement those from the Gaia mission at low Galactic latitudes and provide spectroscopic targets for the forthcoming ESO high-multiplex spectrographs MOONS and 4MOST., Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures (+ appendix). Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics in section 14: Catalogs and data

The rapid evolution of intelligent document processing systems demands robust solutions that adapt to diverse domains without extensive retraining. Traditional methods often falter with variable document types, leading to poor performance. To overcome these limitations, this paper introduces a text-graphic layer separation approach that enhances domain adaptability in document image restoration (DIR) systems. We propose LayeredDoc, which utilizes two layers of information: the first targets coarse-grained graphic components, while the second refines machine-printed textual content. This hierarchical DIR framework dynamically adjusts to the characteristics of the input document, facilitating effective domain adaptation. We evaluated our approach both qualitatively and quantitatively using a new real-world dataset, LayeredDocDB, developed for this study. Initially trained on a synthetically generated dataset, our model demonstrates strong generalization capabilities for the DIR task, offering a promising solution for handling variability in real-world data. Our code is accessible on GitHub., Comment: Accepted to ICDAR 2024 (Athens, Greece) Workshop on Automatically Domain-Adapted and Personalized Document Analysis (ADAPDA)

In this paper, for the first time, we obtain a new class of solutions for the Hill-type differential equations, which emerge in the preheating self-resonance phase of the expanding Universe. We study, in particular, the class of symmetric and asymmetric scalar field potentials coming from the so-called $\alpha$-attractor models of the early Universe cosmology. By making a series expansion of the potential and employing perturbative techniques we reformulate the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation, which captures the dynamics of the curvature perturbation in these models, into a Hill equation. This last includes higher-order terms that were never solved in the literature. Namely, those coming from the cubic and quartic contributions of the scalar field potential. Then, we derive the expressions for the Floquet exponents of the Mukhanov-Sasaki variable. Our analytical results are then compared with numerical computations, showing a good agreement and thus making this method valuable for obtaining theoretical predictions with new observational applications in the contexts of Primordial Black Holes and Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures

HIP 41378 d is a long-period planet that has only been observed to transit twice, three years apart, with K2. According to stability considerations and a partial detection of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, $P_\mathrm{d} = 278.36$ d has been determined to be the most likely orbital period. We targeted HIP 41378 d with CHEOPS at the predicted transit timing based on $P_\mathrm{d}= 278.36$ d, but the observations show no transit. We find that large ($>22.4$ hours) transit timing variations (TTVs) could explain this non-detection during the CHEOPS observation window. We also investigated the possibility of an incorrect orbital solution, which would have major implications for our knowledge of this system. If $P_\mathrm{d} \neq 278.36$ d, the periods that minimize the eccentricity would be $101.22$ d and $371.14$ d. The shortest orbital period will be tested by TESS, which will observe HIP 41378 in Sector 88 starting in January 2025. Our study shows the importance of a mission like CHEOPS, which today is the only mission able to make long observations (i.e., from space) to track the ephemeris of long-period planets possibly affected by large TTVs., Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Bifurcations are one of the most remarkable features of dynamical systems. Corral et al. [Sci. Rep. 8(11783), 2018] showed the existence of scaling laws describing the transient (finite-time) dynamics in discrete dynamical systems close to a bifurcation point, following an approach that was valid for the transcritical as well as for the saddle-node bifurcations. We reformulate those previous results and extend them to other discrete and continuous bifurcations, remarkably the pitchfork bifurcation. In contrast to the previous work, we obtain a finite-time bifurcation diagram directly from the scaling law, without a necessary knowledge of the stable fixed point. The derived scaling laws provide a very good and universal description of the transient behavior of the systems for long times and close to the bifurcation points., Comment: 19 pages of main text in preprint format, including 10 subfigures

The optical spectroscopic classification of active galactic nuclei (AGN) into type 1 and type 2 can be understood in the frame of the AGN unification models. However, it remains unclear which physical properties are driving the classification into intermediate sub-types (1.0,1.2,1.5,1.8,1.9). To shed light on this issue, we present an analysis of the effect of extinction and AGN and host galaxy luminosities on sub-type determination for a sample of 159 X-ray selected AGN with a complete and robust optical spectroscopic classification. The sample spans a rest-frame 2 - 10 keV X-ray luminosity range of $10^{42}-10^{46}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and redshifts between 0.05 and 0.75. From the fitting of their UV-to-mid-infrared spectral energy distributions, we extracted the observed AGN over total AGN+galaxy contrast, optical/UV line-of-sight extinction as well as host galaxy and AGN luminosities. The observed contrast exhibits a clear decline with sub-type, distinguishing two main groups: 1.0-5 and 1.8-9/2. This difference is partly driven by an increase in extinction following the same trend. Nevertheless, 50% of 1.9s and 2s lack sufficient extinction to explain the lack of detection of broad emission lines, unveiling the necessity of an additional effect. Our findings show that 1.8-9/2s preferentially live in host galaxies with higher luminosities while displaying similar intrinsic AGN luminosities to 1.0-5s. Consequently, the AGN to host galaxy luminosity ratio diminishes, hindering the detection of the emission of the broad emission lines, resulting in the 1.8-9/2 classification of those with insufficient extinction. Thus, the combination of increasing extinction and decreasing AGN/galaxy luminosity ratio, mainly driven by an increasing host galaxy luminosity, constitutes the main reasons behind the sub-type classification into 1.0-5 and 1.8-9/2., Comment: Accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysics. 15 pages, 21 figures

We study self-gravitating solutions of 3-dimensional massive gravity coupled to Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons gauge theory. Among these, there is a family of asymptotically Warped-Anti de Sitter black holes that come to generalize previous solutions found in the literature and studied in the context of WAdS$_3$/CFT$_2$. We also present self-gravitating solutions to the 3-dimensional Einstein-Yang-Mills theory, as well as other self-gravitating solutions in the presence of higher-curvature terms., Comment: v1: 16 pages; v2: Accepted for publication in EPJC

In this paper we describe how to compute a Saito basis of a cusp, a plane curve with only one Puiseux pair. Moreover, the 1-forms of the Saito basis that we compute are characterized in terms of their divisorial orders associated to the "cuspidal" divisor of the minimal reduction of singularities of the cusp. We also introduce a new family of analytic invariants for plane curves computed in terms of Saito bases.

We introduce a 2-dimensional stochastic dominance (2DSD) index to characterize both strict and almost stochastic dominance. Based on this index, we derive an estimator for the minimum violation ratio (MVR), also known as the critical parameter, of the almost stochastic ordering condition between two variables. We determine the asymptotic properties of the empirical 2DSD index and MVR for the most frequently used stochastic orders. We also provide conditions under which the bootstrap estimators of these quantities are strongly consistent. As an application, we develop consistent bootstrap testing procedures for almost stochastic dominance. The performance of the tests is checked via simulations and the analysis of real data., Comment: 35 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

In this paper we present the architecture of the Kyber-E2E submission to the map track of CARLA Leaderboard 2.0 Autonomous Driving (AD) challenge 2023, which achieved first place. We employed a modular architecture for our solution consists of five main components: sensing, localization, perception, tracking/prediction, and planning/control. Our solution leverages state-of-the-art language-assisted perception models to help our planner perform more reliably in highly challenging traffic scenarios. We use open-source driving datasets in conjunction with Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) to enhance the performance of our motion planner. We provide insight into our design choices and trade-offs made to achieve this solution. We also explore the impact of each component in the overall performance of our solution, with the intent of providing a guideline where allocation of resources can have the greatest impact.

We address the study of nonlocal gradients defined through general radial kernels $\rho$. Our investigation focuses on the properties of the associated function spaces, which depend on the characteristics of the kernel function. Specifically, even with minimal assumptions on $\rho$, we establish Poincar\'e inequalities and compact embeddings into Lebesgue spaces. Additionally, we present a fundamental theorem of calculus that enables us to recover a function from its nonlocal gradient through a convolution. This is used to demonstrate embeddings into Orlicz spaces and spaces of continuous functions that mirror the well-known Sobolev and Morrey inequalities for classical gradients. Finally, we establish conditions for inclusions and equality of spaces associated to different kernels., Comment: 39 pages

We investigate the existence of minimizers of variational models with Eulerian-Lagrangian formulations. We consider energy functionals depending on the deformation of a body, defined on its reference configuration, and an Eulerian map defined on the unknown deformed configuration in the actual space. Our existence theory moves beyond the purely elastic setting and accounts for material failure by addressing free-discontinuity problems where both deformations and Eulerian fields are allowed to jump. To do so, we build upon the work of Henao and Mora-Corral regarding the variational modeling of cavitation and fracture in nonlinear elasticity. Two main settings are considered by modeling deformations as Sobolev and SBV-maps, respectively. The regularity of Eulerian maps is specified in each of these two settings according to the geometric and topological properties of the deformed configuration. We present some applications to specific models of liquid crystals, phase transitions, and ferromagnetic elastomers. Effectiveness and limitations of the theory are illustrated by means of explicit examples., Comment: 63 pages, 8 figures

Automated and robust portrait quality assessment (PQA) is of paramount importance in high-impact applications such as smartphone photography. This paper presents FHIQA, a learning-based approach to PQA that introduces a simple but effective quality score rescaling method based on image semantics, to enhance the precision of fine-grained image quality metrics while ensuring robust generalization to various scene settings beyond the training dataset. The proposed approach is validated by extensive experiments on the PIQ23 benchmark and comparisons with the current state of the art. The source code of FHIQA will be made publicly available on the PIQ23 GitHub repository at https://github.com/DXOMARK-Research/PIQ2023., Comment: Pre-print

The emergence of correlated phenomena arising from the combination of 1$\mathrm{T}$ and 1$\mathrm{H}$ van der Waals layers is the focus of intense research. Here, we synthesize a novel self-stacked 6$\mathrm{R}$ phase in NbSeTe, showing a perfect alternating 1T and 1H layers that grow coherently along the c-direction, as revealed by scanning transmission electron microscopy. Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy shows a mixed contribution of the trigonal and octahedral Nb bands to the Fermi level. Diffuse scattering reveals temperature-independent short-range charge fluctuations with propagation vector $\mathrm{q_{CO}}$=(0.25,0), derived from the condensation of a longitudinal mode in the 1T layer. We observe that ligand disorder quenches the formation of a charge density wave. Magnetization measurements suggest the presence of an inhomogeneous, short-range magnetic order, further supported by the absence of a clear phase transition in the specific heat. These experimental analyses in combination with \textit{ab initio} calculations indicate that the ground state of 6$\mathrm{R}$-NbSeTe is described by a statistical distribution of short-range charge-modulated and spin-correlated regions driven by ligand disorder. Our results devise a route to synthesize 1$\mathrm{T}$-1$\mathrm{H}$ self-stacked bulk heterostructures to study emergent phases of matter., Comment: 12 pages, including Supplementary Information. 4 figures + 6 supplementary figures

We present a novel asymptotically anti-de Sitter black hole solution with conformally-coupled scalar fields in the first-order formalism of gravity in four dimensions. To do so, we consider a one-parameter extension of conformal transformations by exploiting the fact that the vielbein and spin connection are regarded as independent fields. We solve the field equations analytically and obtain a static black hole solution with nontrivial torsion sourced by the conformal coupling between the scalar field and geometry. The presence of torsion renders the scalar field everywhere regular, while the curvature and torsion singularities coalesce into the origin. We show that this configuration is continuously connected to previously reported solutions in the limit of vanishing torsion and analyze its main properties, focusing on the consequences of the torsional singularity., Comment: References added. Matches published version

Let $\xi$ be a real analytic vector field with an elementary isolated singularity at $0\in \mathbb{R}^3$ and eigenvalues $\pm bi,c$ with $b,c\in \mathbb{R}$ and $b\neq 0$. We prove that all cycles of $\xi$ in a sufficiently small neighborhood of $0$, if they exist, are contained in a finite number of subanalytic invariant surfaces entirely composed by a continuum of cycles. In particular, we solve Dulac's problem, i.e. finiteness of limit cycles, for such vector fields.

We present the discovery and characterization of two warm mini-Neptunes transiting the K3V star TOI-815 in a K-M binary system. Analysis of the spectra and rotation period reveal it to be a young star with an age of $200^{+400}_{-200}$Myr. TOI-815b has a 11.2-day period and a radius of 2.94$\pm$0.05$\it{R_{\rm\mathrm{\oplus}}}$ with transits observed by TESS, CHEOPS, ASTEP, and LCOGT. The outer planet, TOI-815c, has a radius of 2.62$\pm$0.10$\it{R_{\rm\mathrm{\oplus}}}$, based on observations of three non-consecutive transits with TESS, while targeted CHEOPS photometry and radial velocity follow-up with ESPRESSO were required to confirm the 35-day period. ESPRESSO confirmed the planetary nature of both planets and measured masses of 7.6$\pm$1.5 $\it{M_{\rm \mathrm{\oplus}}}$ ($\rho_\mathrm{P}$=1.64$^{+0.33}_{-0.31}$gcm$^{-3}$) and 23.5$\pm$2.4$\it{M_{\rm\mathrm{\oplus}}}$ ($\rho_\mathrm{P}$=7.2$^{+1.1}_{-1.0}$gcm$^{-3}$) respectively. Thus, the planets have very different masses, unlike the usual similarity of masses in compact multi-planet systems. Moreover, our statistical analysis of mini-Neptunes orbiting FGK stars suggests that weakly irradiated planets tend to have higher bulk densities compared to those suffering strong irradiation. This could be ascribed to their cooler atmospheres, which are more compressed and denser. Internal structure modeling of TOI-815b suggests it likely has a H-He atmosphere constituting a few percent of the total planet mass, or higher if the planet is assumed to have no water. In contrast, the measured mass and radius of TOI-815c can be explained without invoking any atmosphere, challenging planetary formation theories. Finally, we infer from our measurements that the star is viewed close to pole-on, which implies a spin-orbit misalignment at the 3$\sigma$ level., Comment: 24 pages, 27 figures, 6 tables

Major advances in telecommunications and the Internet of Things have given rise to numerous smart city scenarios in which smart services are provided. What was once a dream for the future has now become reality. However, the need to provide these smart services quickly, efficiently, in an interoperable manner and in real time is a cutting-edge technological challenge. Although some software architectures offer solutions in this area, these are often limited in terms of reusability and maintenance by independent modules, involving the need for system downtime when maintaining or evolving, as well as by a lack of standards in terms of the interoperability of their interface. In this paper, we propose a fully reusable microservice architecture, standardized through the use of the Web of things paradigm, and with high efficiency in real-time data processing, supported by complex event processing techniques. To illustrate the proposal, we present a fully reusable implementation of the microservices necessary for the deployment of the architecture in the field of air quality monitoring and alerting in smart ports. The performance evaluation of this architecture shows excellent results.

The ALICE collaboration is proposing a completely new detector, ALICE 3, for operation during the LHC Runs 5 and 6. One of the ALICE~3 subsystems is the Muon IDentifier detector (MID), which has to be optimised to be efficient for the reconstruction of $J/\psi$ at rest (muons down to $p_{\rm T}\approx1.5$ GeV/$c$) for $|\eta|<1.3$. Given the modest particle flux expected in the MID of a few Hz/cm$^2$, technologies like plastic scintillator bars ($\approx1$ m length) equipped with wavelength-shifting fibers and silicon photomultiplier readout, and lightweight Multi-Wire Proportional Chambers (MWPCs) are under investigation. To this end, different plastic scintillator paddles and MWPCs were studied at the CERN T10 test beam facility. This paper reports on the performance of the scintillator prototypes tested at different beam momenta (from 0.5 GeV/$c$ up to 6 GeV/$c$) and positions (horizontal, vertical, and angular scans). The MWPCs were tested at different momenta (from 0.5 GeV/$c$ to 10 GeV/$c$) and beam intensities, their efficiency and position resolutions were verified beyond the particle rates expected with the MID in ALICE 3., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, to appear in JINST