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Indigenous methodologies for guiding, advising, and educating children have been in place since time immemorial. Those well-honed approaches to education were built to support whole and healthy individual development while also establishing a lifelong awareness and reverence for community, connection, kinship, and reciprocity. In Western cultures, literacy is narrowly defined as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. For many Indigenous peoples from oral cultures, however, the emphasis is placed on a different set of skills, including careful observation and understanding of both the human and natural world. The transfer of intergenerational, place-based knowledge through storytelling and other oral and social interactions and experiences creates a rich and meaningful learning environment in which children develop not only literacy skills but also a deep understanding of the connection between the people, the land, sacred waterways, and animal and plant relatives. In Indigenous cultures, literacy cannot be limited to the ability to read and write but must also include the capacity to understand, respect, and transmit heritage knowledge. The ability to communicate effectively and meaningfully fosters well-being and connection and supports Indigenous people in contributing to the world around them. SEA leaders from the Offices of Native Education in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington met several times over a year as part of the Region 16 Comprehensive Center's (R16CC) Co-designing with Families and Communities initiative. These leaders have been grappling with the complex tensions between Indigenous language revitalization and literacy, particularly in the context of the state and national emphasis on the Science of Reading and the goal of ensuring every student reads proficiently by third grade--an approach that prioritizes English. At the same time, there is growing recognition from the nation's capital of the importance of multilingualism, which for Native families and communities means a focus on language revitalization. This report aims to support SEA leaders as they navigate these tensions, balancing the push for early literacy in English instruction aligned with the Science of Reading while advocating for educational sovereignty, cultural integrity, Indigenous language revitalization, and authentic family and community engagement. As the Co-designing with Families and Communities initiative came to a close, the SEA Native education leaders requested that R16CC create a report detailing the intersections, constraints, and insights related to Indigenous language revitalization and literacy approaches. This report draws on both research and the lived experiences of key leaders and experts, offering perspectives to advance the conversation around these inherent tensions while supporting state efforts to promote language and literacy for Native students in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington.

The physical and orbital parameters of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) provide valuable information about the Solar System's formation and evolution. In particular, the characterization of binaries provides insights into the formation mechanisms that may be playing a role at such large distances from the Sun. Studies show two distinct populations, and (38628) Huya occupies an intermediate position between the unequal-size binaries and those with components of roughly equal sizes. In this work, we predicted and observed three stellar occultation events by Huya. Huya and its satellite - S/2012 (38628) 1 - were detected during occultations in March 2021 and again in June 2023. Additionally, an attempt to detect Huya in February 2023 resulted in an additional single-chord detection of the secondary. A spherical body with a minimum diameter of D = 165 km can explain the three single-chord observations and provide a lower limit for the satellite size. The astrometry of Huya's system, as derived from the occultations and supplemented by observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory, provided constraints on the satellite orbit and the mass of the system. Therefore, assuming the secondary is in an equatorial orbit around the primary, the limb fitting was constrained by the satellite orbit position angle. The system density, calculated by summing the most precise measurement of Huya's volume to the spherical satellite average volume, is $\rho_{1}$ = 1073 $\pm$ 66 kg m$^{-3}$. The density that the object would have assuming a Maclaurin equilibrium shape with a rotational period of 6.725 $\pm$ 0.01 hours is $\rho_{2}$ = 768 $\pm$ 42 kg m$^{-3}$. This difference rules out the Maclaurin equilibrium assumption for the main body shape., Comment: Manuscript accepted by Planetary Science Journal (PSJ)

GX 339$-$4 is one of the prototypical black hole X-ray transients, exhibiting recurrent outbursts that allow detailed studies of black hole accretion and ejection phenomena. In this work we present four epochs of optical and near-infrared spectroscopy obtained with X-shooter at the Very Large Telescope. The dataset includes two hard state spectra, collected during the 2013 and 2015 outbursts, and two soft state spectra observed during the 2021 outburst. Strong Balmer, Paschen, He I and He II emission lines are consistently observed in all spectra, while Brackett transitions and the Bowen blend are only prominent in the soft state. Although P-Cygni profiles are not identified, the presence of wind signatures, such as extended emission wings, flat-top and asymmetric red-skewed profiles, is consistently observed through most emission lines, suggesting the presence of wind-type ejecta. These features are particularly evident in the hard state, but they are also observed in the soft state, especially in the near-infrared. This strengthens the case for state-independent winds in black hole transients and increases the evidence for wind signatures in low-to-intermediate orbital inclination systems. We also study the spectral energy distribution, which provides evidence for the presence of synchrotron emission during the hard state. The jet significantly affects the near-infrared continuum, greatly diluting the emission features produced in the accretion flow. The simultaneous identification of both jet and wind signatures during the hard state reinforces the idea of a complex outflow scenario, in which different types of ejecta coexist., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A

Fast-turn around methods to predict airfoil trailing-edge noise are crucial for incorporating noise limitations into design optimization loops of several applications. Among these aeroacoustic predictive models, Amiet's theory offers the best balance between accuracy and simplicity. The accuracy of the model relies heavily on precise wall-pressure spectrum predictions, which are often based on single-equation formulations with adjustable parameters. These parameters are calibrated for particular airfoils and flow conditions and consequently tend to fail when applied outside their calibration range. This paper introduces a new wall-pressure spectrum empirical model designed to enhance the robustness and accuracy of current state-of-the-art predictions while widening the range of applicability of the model to different airfoils and flow conditions. The model is developed using AI-based symbolic regression via a genetic-algorithm-based approach, and applied to a dataset of wall-pressure fluctuations measured on NACA 0008 and NACA 63018 airfoils at multiple angles of attack and inflow velocities, covering turbulent boundary layers with both adverse and favorable pressure gradients. Validation against experimental data (outside the training dataset) demonstrates the robustness of the model compared to well-accepted semi-empirical models. Finally, the model is integrated with Amiet's theory to predict the aeroacoustic noise of a full-scale wind turbine, showing good agreement with experimental measurements.

We present new a stability result for periodic solutions of the periodic predator prey Lotka Volterra model, based on boundaries for the average of the coexistence states. Our result complements previous one in the literature.

Network intrusion detection systems face significant challenges in identifying emerging attack patterns, especially when limited data samples are available. To address this, we propose a novel Multi-Space Prototypical Learning (MSPL) framework tailored for few-shot attack detection. The framework operates across multiple metric spaces-Euclidean, Cosine, Chebyshev, and Wasserstein distances-integrated through a constrained weighting scheme to enhance embedding robustness and improve pattern recognition. By leveraging Polyak-averaged prototype generation, the framework stabilizes the learning process and effectively adapts to rare and zero-day attacks. Additionally, an episodic training paradigm ensures balanced representation across diverse attack classes, enabling robust generalization. Experimental results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that MSPL outperforms traditional approaches in detecting low-profile and novel attack types, establishing it as a robust solution for zero-day attack detection., Comment: The AAAI-25 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Security (AICS)

This work explores the potential of the Variational Quantum Eigensolver in solving Dynamic Portfolio Optimization problems surpassing the 100 qubit utility frontier. We systematically analyze how to scale this strategy in complexity and size, from 6 to 112 qubits, by testing different combinations of ansatz and optimizer on a real Quantum Processing Unit. We achieve best results when using a combination of a Differential Evolution classical optimizer and an ansatz circuit tailored to both the problem and the properties of the Quantum Processing Unit.

Modeling quantum thermal machines provides a practical approach to describing the thermodynamic properties of quantum technologies and devices. For this purpose, power-law potentials are often employed as working mediums of quantum thermodynamic cycles to investigate the concepts of heat, work, and efficiency. With this in mind, we present the results for the Stirling and Otto numerical modeling of quantum thermal machines that use a general power law potential with a characteristic $q$ exponent. We calculate its energy spectra, showing that it recovers the traditional forms of harmonic oscillator and 1-D potential well. We derive expressions for the reduced energy exchanges during a complete cycle and for the efficiency/coefficient of performance as a function of the exponent $q$, the bath temperatures, and the frequency ratio. From these results, we identify parameters that yield desired properties, such as optimized performance and transitions between different operation modes. The findings highlight the role of power-like potentials in optimizing quantum heat engines and support the design of tailored engines with specific performance characteristics.

This study investigates the trade-offs between fairness, privacy, and utility in image classification using machine learning (ML). Recent research suggests that generalization techniques can improve the balance between privacy and utility. One focus of this work is sharpness-aware training (SAT) and its integration with differential privacy (DP-SAT) to further improve this balance. Additionally, we examine fairness in both private and non-private learning models trained on datasets with synthetic and real-world biases. We also measure the privacy risks involved in these scenarios by performing membership inference attacks (MIAs) and explore the consequences of eliminating high-privacy risk samples, termed outliers. Moreover, we introduce a new metric, named \emph{harmonic score}, which combines accuracy, privacy, and fairness into a single measure. Through empirical analysis using generalization techniques, we achieve an accuracy of 81.11\% under $(8, 10^{-5})$-DP on CIFAR-10, surpassing the 79.5\% reported by De et al. (2022). Moreover, our experiments show that memorization of training samples can begin before the overfitting point, and generalization techniques do not guarantee the prevention of this memorization. Our analysis of synthetic biases shows that generalization techniques can amplify model bias in both private and non-private models. Additionally, our results indicate that increased bias in training data leads to reduced accuracy, greater vulnerability to privacy attacks, and higher model bias. We validate these findings with the CelebA dataset, demonstrating that similar trends persist with real-world attribute imbalances. Finally, our experiments show that removing outlier data decreases accuracy and further amplifies model bias., Comment: Published as a conference paper at the 25th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2025)

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in performing post-hoc uncertainty estimation about the predictions of pre-trained deep neural networks (DNNs). Given a pre-trained DNN via back-propagation, these methods enhance the original network by adding output confidence measures, such as error bars, without compromising its initial accuracy. In this context, we introduce a novel family of sparse variational Gaussian processes (GPs), where the posterior mean is fixed to any continuous function when using a universal kernel. Specifically, we fix the mean of this GP to the output of the pre-trained DNN, allowing our approach to effectively fit the GP's predictive variances to estimate the DNN prediction uncertainty. Our approach leverages variational inference (VI) for efficient stochastic optimization, with training costs that remain independent of the number of training points, scaling efficiently to large datasets such as ImageNet. The proposed method, called fixed mean GP (FMGP), is architecture-agnostic, relying solely on the pre-trained model's outputs to adjust the predictive variances. Experimental results demonstrate that FMGP improves both uncertainty estimation and computational efficiency when compared to state-of-the-art methods., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures and 2 tables. Submitted to IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PATTERN ANALYSIS AND MACHINE INTELLIGENCE

Quantum thermodynamics is a powerful theoretical tool for assessing the suitability of quantum materials as platforms for novel technologies. In particular, the modeling of quantum cycles allows us to investigate the heat changes and work extraction at the nanoscale, where quantum effects dominate over classical ones. In this Review, we cover the mathematical formulation used to model the quantum thermodynamic behavior of small-scale systems, building up the quantum analog versions of thermodynamic processes and reversible cycles. We discuss theoretical results obtained after applying this approach to model Heisenberg-like spin systems, which are toy models for metal complex systems. In addition, we discuss recent experimental advances in this class of materials that have been achieved using the quantum thermodynamic approach, paving the way for the development of quantum devices. Finally, we point out perspectives to guide future efforts in using quantum thermodynamics as a reliable and effective approach to establish metal complex systems as quantum materials for energy storage/harvesting purposes.

In this work, we obtain the Helmholtz decomposition for vector fields in Morrey, Zorko, and block spaces over bounded or exterior $C^{1}$ domains. Generally speaking, our proofs rely on a careful interplay of localization, flattening, and duality arguments. To accomplish this, we need to extend some classical tools in analysis and PDE theory to those spaces, including Stein extensions, compact embeddings, Poincar\'{e} inequalities, Bogovskii-type theorem, among other ingredients. Some of these findings may be of independent interest and applied to the study of a number of PDEs., Comment: 35 pages

Classical simulations of quantum circuits are essential for verifying and benchmarking quantum algorithms, particularly for large circuits, where computational demands increase exponentially with the number of qubits. Among available methods, the classical simulation of quantum circuits inspired by density functional theory -- the so-called QC-DFT method, shows promise for large circuit simulations as it approximates the quantum circuits using single-qubit reduced density matrices to model multi-qubit systems. However, the QC-DFT method performs very poorly when dealing with multi-qubit gates. In this work, we introduce a novel CNOT "functional" that leverages neural networks to generate unitary transformations, effectively mitigating the simulation errors observed in the original QC-DFT method. For random circuit simulations, our modified QC-DFT enables efficient computation of single-qubit marginal measurement probabilities, or single-qubit probability (SQPs), and achieves lower SQP errors and higher fidelities than the original QC-DFT method. Despite some limitations in capturing full entanglement and joint probability distributions, we find potential applications of SQPs in simulating Shor's and Grover's algorithms for specific solution classes. These findings advance the capabilities of classical simulations for some quantum problems and provide insights into managing entanglement and gate errors in practical quantum computing., Comment: Submitted to Physical Review A with 6 pages of main text, 2 main figures, and 5-page Supplementary Material file

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks pose a significant threat in the realm of AI systems security, causing substantial financial losses and downtime. However, AI systems' high computational demands, dynamic behavior, and data variability make monitoring and detecting DoS attacks challenging. Nowadays, statistical and machine learning (ML)-based DoS classification and detection approaches utilize a broad range of feature selection mechanisms to select a feature subset from networking traffic datasets. Feature selection is critical in enhancing the overall model performance and attack detection accuracy while reducing the training time. In this paper, we investigate the importance of feature selection in improving ML-based detection of DoS attacks. Specifically, we explore feature contribution to the overall components in DoS traffic datasets by utilizing statistical analysis and feature engineering approaches. Our experimental findings demonstrate the usefulness of the thorough statistical analysis of DoS traffic and feature engineering in understanding the behavior of the attack and identifying the best feature selection for ML-based DoS classification and detection., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, IEEE VTC2024-Fall

In this paper we study the birational geometry of $X$, a projective space $\mathbb{P}^n$ blown up at $s$ general points. We obtain a characterization of a special class of subvarieties, which we call Weyl $r$-planes, each of them being swept out by one $(n-r)$-moving curve class. For Mori dream spaces $X$, we unify different previous approaches, by reinterpreting the description of the Mori chamber decomposition of the effective cone in terms of these curve classes; in this case all relevant orbits are finite. For general $s$, we prove that Weyl $r$-planes are infinite and continue to appear as stable base locus. This yields the definition of the Weyl chamber decomposition of the pseudoeffective cone of divisors, that is a coarsening of its Mori chamber decomposition, when the latter can be defined. We prove that the combinatorics of such chamber decomposition obeys the Weyl group action on curves. We conjecture that for $s=n+4$ the Weyl and the Mori chamber decompositions coincide., Comment: 35 pages

Recent advances in deep learning have shown significant potential for solving combinatorial optimization problems in real-time. Unlike traditional methods, deep learning can generate high-quality solutions efficiently, which is crucial for applications like routing and scheduling. However, existing approaches like deep reinforcement learning (RL) and behavioral cloning have notable limitations, with deep RL suffering from slow learning and behavioral cloning relying solely on expert actions, which can lead to generalization issues and neglect of the optimization objective. This paper introduces a novel offline RL method designed for combinatorial optimization problems with complex constraints, where the state is represented as a heterogeneous graph and the action space is variable. Our approach encodes actions in edge attributes and balances expected rewards with the imitation of expert solutions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method on job-shop scheduling and flexible job-shop scheduling benchmarks, achieving superior performance compared to state-of-the-art techniques.

This paper studies the number of centers and limit cycles of the family of planar quartic polynomial vector fields that has the invariant algebraic curve $(4x^2-1)(4y^2-1)=0.$ The main interest for this type of vector fields comes from their appearance in some mathematical models in Game Theory composed by two players. In particular, we find examples with five nested limit cycles surrounding the same singularity, as well as examples with four limit cycles formed by two disjoint nests, each one of them with two limit cycles. We also prove a Berlinski\u \i's type result for this family of vector fields.

In this paper, the Quantum Brownian motion of a point particle induced by the quantum vacuum fluctuations of a real massless scalar field in Einstein universe under Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions is studied. Using the Wightman functions, general expressions for the renormalized dispersion of the physical momentum are derived. Distinct expressions are found for the dispersion associated with each component of the particle physical momentum, indicating that the global properties of homogeneity and isotropy of space are lost, as a consequence of the introduced boundary conditions. Divergences also arise and are related to the compact nature of Einstein universe and the introduced boundary conditions., Comment: 19 pages, 2 Figures

We study equilibrium states for an open class of non-uniformly expanding local homeomorphisms defined by a mild condition such that for some iterate each point admits at least one contracting inverse branch. We prove the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states and the differentiability of statistical quantities (such as the equilibrium states and the free energy function) with respect to the dynamical system., Comment: 18 pages

In this study, we propose a novel approach to uncover subgroup-specific and subgroup-common latent factors addressing the challenges posed by the heterogeneity of neurological and mental disorders, which hinder disease understanding, treatment development, and outcome prediction. The proposed approach, sparse Group Factor Analysis (GFA) with regularised horseshoe priors, was implemented with probabilistic programming and can uncover associations (or latent factors) among multiple data modalities differentially expressed in sample subgroups. Synthetic data experiments showed the robustness of our sparse GFA by correctly inferring latent factors and model parameters. When applied to the Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI) dataset, which comprises patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) with genetically defined subgroups, the sparse GFA identified latent disease factors differentially expressed across the subgroups, distinguishing between "subgroup-specific" latent factors within homogeneous groups and "subgroup common" latent factors shared across subgroups. The latent disease factors captured associations between brain structure and non-imaging variables (i.e., questionnaires assessing behaviour and disease severity) across the different genetic subgroups, offering insights into disease profiles. Importantly, two latent factors were more pronounced in the two more homogeneous FTD patient subgroups (progranulin (GRN) and microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) mutation), showcasing the method's ability to reveal subgroup-specific characteristics. These findings underscore the potential of sparse GFA for integrating multiple data modalities and identifying interpretable latent disease factors that can improve the characterization and stratification of patients with neurological and mental health disorders., Comment: 38 pages, 14 figures

Accurate state estimation is crucial for legged robot locomotion, as it provides the necessary information to allow control and navigation. However, it is also challenging, especially in scenarios with uneven and slippery terrain. This paper presents a new Invariant Extended Kalman filter for legged robot state estimation using only proprioceptive sensors. We formulate the methodology by combining recent advances in state estimation theory with the use of robust cost functions in the measurement update. We tested our methodology on quadruped robots through experiments and public datasets, showing that we can obtain a pose drift up to 40% lower in trajectories covering a distance of over 450m, in comparison with a state-of-the-art Invariant Extended Kalman filter., Comment: Accepted to the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots 2024

We present the discovery of Aquarius III, an ultra-faint Milky Way satellite galaxy identified in the second data release of the DECam Local Volume Exploration (DELVE) survey. Based on deeper follow-up imaging with DECam, we find that Aquarius III is a low-luminosity ($M_V = -2.5^{+0.3}_{-0.5}$; $L_V = 850^{+380}_{-260} \ L_{\odot}$), extended ($r_{1/2} = 41^{+9}_{-8}$ pc) stellar system located in the outer halo ($D_{\odot} = 85 \pm 4$ kpc). From medium-resolution Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy, we identify 11 member stars and measure a mean heliocentric radial velocity of $v_{\rm sys} = -13.1^{+1.0}_{-0.9} \ \rm km \ s^{-1}$ for the system and place an upper limit of $\sigma_v < 3.5 \rm \ km \ s^{-1}$ ($\sigma_v < 1.6 \rm \ km \ s^{-1}$) on its velocity dispersion at the 95% (68%) credible level. Based on Calcium-Triplet-based metallicities of the six brightest red giant members, we find that Aquarius III is very metal-poor ([Fe/H]$ = -2.61 \pm 0.21$) with a statistically-significant metallicity spread ($\sigma_{\rm [Fe/H]} = 0.46^{+0.26}_{-0.14}$ dex). We interpret this metallicity spread as strong evidence that the system is a dwarf galaxy as opposed to a star cluster. Combining our velocity measurement with $Gaia$ proper motions, we find that Aquarius III is currently situated near its orbital pericenter in the outer halo ($r_{\rm peri} = 78 \pm 7$ kpc) and that it is plausibly on first infall onto the Milky Way. This orbital history likely precludes significant tidal disruption from the Galactic disk, notably unlike other satellites with comparably low velocity dispersion limits in the literature. Thus, if further velocity measurements confirm that its velocity dispersion is truly below $\sigma_v \lesssim 2 \rm \ km \ s^{-1}$, Aquarius III may serve as a useful laboratory for probing galaxy formation physics in low-mass halos., Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to AAS Journals

Purpose: The teacher role in the classroom can explain important aspects of the student's school experience. The teacher-student relationship, a central dimension of social capital, influences students' engagement, and the teaching style plays an important role in student outcomes. But there is scarce literature that links teaching styles to teacher-student relationship. This article aims to: 1) analyze whether there is a relationship between teaching styles and the type of relationship perceived by students; 2) test whether this relationship is equally strong for any teaching style; and 3) determine the extent to which students' perceptions vary according to their profile. Design/methodology/approach: A structural equation model with four latent variables is estimated: two for the teacher-student relationship (emotional vs. educational) and two for the teaching styles (directive vs. participative), with information for 21126 sixth-grade primary-students in 2019 in Spain. Findings: Teacher-student relationships and teaching styles are interconnected. The participative style implies a better relationship. The perceptions of the teacher are heterogeneous, depending on gender (girls perceive clearer than boys) and with the educational background (children from lower educational background perceive both types of teaching styles more clearly). Originality/value: The analysis is based on the point of view of the addressee of the teacher's work, i.e. the student. It provides a model that can be replicated in any other education system. The latent variables, based on a periodically administered questionnaire, could be estimated with data from diagnostic assessments in other countries, which in turn would allow the formulation of context-specific educational policy proposals that take into account student feedback., Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures

In this paper, we investigate the vacuum bosonic current density induced by a carrying-magnetic-flux cosmic string in a $(D+1)$-de Sitter spacetime considering the presence of two flat boundaries perpendicular to it. In this setup, the Robin boundary conditions are imposed on the scalar charged quantum field on the boundaries. The particular cases of Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions are studied separately. Due to the coupling of the quantum scalar field with the classical gauge field, corresponding to a magnetic flux running along the string's core, a nonzero vacuum expectation value for the current density operator along the azimuthal direction is induced. The two boundaries divide the space in three regions with different properties of the vacuum states. In this way, our main objective is to calculate the induced currents in these three regions. In order to develop this analysis we calculate, for both regions, the positive frequency Wightman functions. Because the vacuum bosonic current in dS space has been investigated before, in this paper we consider only the contributions induced by the boundaries. We show that for each region the azimuthal current densities are odd functions of the magnetic flux along the string. To probe the correctness of our results, we take the particular cases and analyze some asymptotic limits of the parameters of the model. Also some graphs are presented exhibiting the behavior of the current with relevant physical parameter of the system., Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures. Revised version accepted for publication in Universe

In this article we show that the empirical measure of certain continuous time random walks satisfies a strong large deviation principle with respect to a topology introduced in~\cite{MV2016} by Mukherjee and Varadhan. This topology is natural in models which exhibit an invariance with respect to spatial translations. Our result applies in particular to the case of simple random walk and complements the results obtained in~\cite{MV2016} in which the large deviation principle has been established for the empirical measure of Brownian motion., Comment: 20 pages

Pricing decisions stand out as one of the most critical tasks a company faces, particularly in today's digital economy. As with other business decision-making problems, pricing unfolds in a highly competitive and uncertain environment. Traditional analyses in this area have heavily relied on game theory and its variants. However, an important drawback of these approaches is their reliance on common knowledge assumptions, which are hardly tenable in competitive business domains. This paper introduces an innovative personalized pricing framework designed to assist decision-makers in undertaking pricing decisions amidst competition, considering both buyer's and competitors' preferences. Our approach (i) establishes a coherent framework for modeling competition mitigating common knowledge assumptions; (ii) proposes a principled method to forecast competitors' pricing and customers' purchasing decisions, acknowledging major business uncertainties; and, (iii) encourages structured thinking about the competitors' problems, thus enriching the solution process. To illustrate these properties, in addition to a general pricing template, we outline two specifications - one from the retail domain and a more intricate one from the pension fund domain.

Accurately detecting 3D objects from monocular images in dynamic roadside scenarios remains a challenging problem due to varying camera perspectives and unpredictable scene conditions. This paper introduces a two-stage training strategy to address these challenges. Our approach initially trains a model on the large-scale synthetic dataset, RoadSense3D, which offers a diverse range of scenarios for robust feature learning. Subsequently, we fine-tune the model on a combination of real-world datasets to enhance its adaptability to practical conditions. Experimental results of the Cube R-CNN model on challenging public benchmarks show a remarkable improvement in detection performance, with a mean average precision rising from 0.26 to 12.76 on the TUM Traffic A9 Highway dataset and from 2.09 to 6.60 on the DAIR-V2X-I dataset when performing transfer learning. Code, data, and qualitative video results are available on the project website: https://roadsense3d.github.io., Comment: 18 pages. Accepted for ECVA European Conference on Computer Vision 2024 (ECCV'24)

Photometric wide-field surveys are imaging the sky in unprecedented detail. These surveys face a significant challenge in efficiently estimating galactic photometric redshifts while accurately quantifying associated uncertainties. In this work, we address this challenge by exploring the estimation of Probability Density Functions (PDFs) for the photometric redshifts of galaxies across a vast area of 17,000 square degrees, encompassing objects with a median 5$\sigma$ point-source depth of $g$ = 24.3, $r$ = 23.9, $i$ = 23.5, and $z$ = 22.8 mag. Our approach uses deep learning, specifically integrating a Recurrent Neural Network architecture with a Mixture Density Network, to leverage magnitudes and colors as input features for constructing photometric redshift PDFs across the whole DECam Local Volume Exploration (DELVE) survey sky footprint. Subsequently, we rigorously evaluate the reliability and robustness of our estimation methodology, gauging its performance against other well-established machine learning methods to ensure the quality of our redshift estimations. Our best results constrain photometric redshifts with the bias of $-0.0013$, a scatter of $0.0293$, and an outlier fraction of $5.1\%$. These point estimates are accompanied by well-calibrated PDFs evaluated using diagnostic tools such as Probability Integral Transform and Odds distribution. We also address the problem of the accessibility of PDFs in terms of disk space storage and the time demand required to generate their corresponding parameters. We present a novel Autoencoder model that reduces the size of PDF parameter arrays to one-sixth of their original length, significantly decreasing the time required for PDF generation to one-eighth of the time needed when generating PDFs directly from the magnitudes., Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures

We report results of magnetization and $^{19}$F NMR measurements in the normal state of as-grown LaO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_2$. The magnetization is dominated by a temperature-independent diamagnetic component and a field- and temperature-dependent paramagnetic contribution $M_\mu(H,T)$ from a $\sim$1000~ppm concentration of local moments, an order of magnitude higher than can be accounted for by measured rare-earth impurity concentrations. $M_\mu(H,T)$ can be fit by the Brillouin function $B_J(x)$ or, perhaps more realistically, a two-level $\tanh(x)$ model for magnetic Bi $6p$ ions in defect crystal fields. Both fits require a phenomenological Curie-Weiss argument $x = \mu_\mathrm{eff}H/(T + T_W)$, $T_W \approx 1.7$ K. There is no evidence for magnetic order down to 2 K, and the origin of $T_W$ is not clear. $^{19}$F frequency shifts, linewidths, and spin-lattice relaxation rates are consistent with purely dipolar $^{19}$F/defect-spin interactions. The defect-spin correlation time $\tau_c(T)$ obtained from $^{19}$F spin-lattice relaxation rates obeys the Korringa relation $\tau_cT = \text{const.}$, indicating the relaxation is dominated by conduction-band fluctuations., Comment: Corrected citations, 15 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables, 69 references, corresponding author O. O. Bernal: obernal@calstatela.edu

In cognitive neuroscience and brain-computer interface research, accurately predicting imagined stimuli is crucial. This study investigates the effectiveness of Domain Adaptation (DA) in enhancing imagery prediction using primarily visual data from fMRI scans of 18 subjects. Initially, we train a baseline model on visual stimuli to predict imagined stimuli, utilizing data from 14 brain regions. We then develop several models to improve imagery prediction, comparing different DA methods. Our results demonstrate that DA significantly enhances imagery prediction in binary classification on our dataset, as well as in multiclass classification on a publicly available dataset. We then conduct a DA-enhanced searchlight analysis, followed by permutation-based statistical tests to identify brain regions where imagery decoding is consistently above chance across subjects. Our DA-enhanced searchlight predicts imagery contents in a highly distributed set of brain regions, including the visual cortex and the frontoparietal cortex, thereby outperforming standard cross-domain classification methods. The complete code and data for this paper have been made openly available for the use of the scientific community.

The AEFishBIT tri-axial accelerometer was externally attached to the operculum to assess the divergent activity and respiratory patterns of two marine farmed fish, the gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) and European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). Analysis of raw data from exercised fish highlighted the large amplitude of operculum aperture and body tail movements in European sea bass, which were overall more stable at low-medium exercise intensity levels. Cosinor analysis in free-swimming fish (on-board data processing) highlighted a pronounced daily rhythmicity of locomotor activity and respiratory frequency in both gilthead sea bream and European sea bass. Acrophases of activity and respiration were coupled in gilthead sea bream, acting feeding time (once daily at 11:00 h) as a main synchronizing factor. By contrast, locomotor activity and respiratory frequency were out of phase in European sea bass with activity acrophase on early morning and respiration acrophase on the afternoon. The daily range of activity and respiration variation was also higher in European sea bass, probably as part of the adaptation of this fish species to act as a fast swimming predator. In any case, lower locomotor activity and enhanced respiration were associated with larger body weight in both fish species. This agrees with the notion that selection for fast growth in farming conditions is accompanied by a lower activity profile, which may favor an efficient feed conversion for growth purposes. Therefore, the use of behavioral monitoring is becoming a reliable and large-scale promising tool for selecting more efficient farmed fish, allowing researchers and farmers to establish stricter criteria of welfare for more sustainable and ethical fish production.

Emotion classification through EEG signals plays a significant role in psychology, neuroscience, and human-computer interaction. This paper addresses the challenge of mapping human emotions using EEG data in the Mapping Human Emotions through EEG Signals FG24 competition. Subjects mimic the facial expressions of an avatar, displaying fear, joy, anger, sadness, disgust, and surprise in a VR setting. EEG data is captured using a multi-channel sensor system to discern brain activity patterns. We propose a novel two-stream neural network employing a Bi-Hemispheric approach for emotion inference, surpassing baseline methods and enhancing emotion recognition accuracy. Additionally, we conduct a temporal analysis revealing that specific signal intervals at the beginning and end of the emotion stimulus sequence contribute significantly to improve accuracy. Leveraging insights gained from this temporal analysis, our approach offers enhanced performance in capturing subtle variations in the states of emotions., Comment: Second place award at the Brain Responses to Emotional Avatars Challenge held by the 18th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition(FG2024)

Let $X$ be a planar smooth vector field with a polycycle $\Gamma^n$ with $n$ sides and all its corners, that are at most $n$ singularities, being hyperbolic saddles. In this paper we study the cyclicity of $\Gamma^n$ in terms of the hyperbolicity ratios of these saddles, giving explicit conditions that ensure that it is at least $k,$ for any $k\leqslant n.$ Our result extends old results and also provides a more accurate proof of the known ones because we rely on some recent powerful works that study in more detail the regularity with respect to initial conditions and parameters of the Dulac map of hyperbolic saddles for families of vector fields. We also prove that when $X$ is polynomial there is a polynomial perturbation (in general with degree much higher that the one of $X$) that attains each of the obtained lower bounds for the cyclicities. Finally, we also study some related inverse problems and provide concrete examples of applications in the polynomial world.

For control-affine systems on non-compact manifolds, the notion of strong chain control sets is introduced and related to the strong chain transitivity of the associated control flows. Affine control systems on R^n are embedded into bilinear control systems in an extended state space and it is shown that they are topologically conjugate to the induced system on the northern hemisphere of the Poincar\'e sphere. This preserves strong chain control sets. Further chain controllability properties on spheres are analyzed, Comment: 42 pages, 2 figures

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