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This study introduces a straightforward electrode design featuring sharp edges with a curvature of a few hundred nanometers in radius, with which both ion accumulation and nanoparticle deposition can be observed under an alternating electrical potential. The electrodes, termed 'shark-teeth electrodes', are fabricated using a laser ablation technique optimized for facile nanostructure creation. This method involves successive, overlapping ablated discs in a thin film of gold, producing sharp tips that generate strong electric fields. When electrically polarized in an electrolyte solution, these sharp tips form a screening layer, facilitating the observation of ion and nanoparticle behavior. A total-internal reflection microscope is employed to monitor ion accumulation on these electrodes, demonstrating their capability in iontronic microscopy. Additionally, the same electrodes are used to track nanoparticle trapping under high-frequency alternating potentials. This dual functionality allows for the investigation of electrochemical and physical interactions between ions and colloidal nanoparticles, contributing valuable insights to the field of soft matter., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure, includes additional supplementary information

We establish three circles theorems for subharmonic functions on Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature, as well as on gradient shrinking Ricci solitons with scalar curvature bounded from below by $\frac{n-2}{2}$. We also establish a three circiles theorem for holomorphic functions on gradient shrinking K\"{a}hler-Ricci solitons with some curvature conditions. As applications, we prove some Liouville type theorems., Comment: 14 pages

This study harnesses state-of-the-art AI technology for chronic disease management, specifically in detecting various mental disorders through user-generated textual content. Existing studies typically rely on fully supervised machine learning, which presents challenges such as the labor-intensive manual process of annotating extensive training data for each disease and the need to design specialized deep learning architectures for each problem. To address such challenges, we propose a novel framework that leverages advanced AI techniques, including large language models and multi-prompt engineering. Specifically, we address two key technical challenges in data-driven chronic disease management: (1) developing personalized prompts to represent each user's uniqueness and (2) incorporating medical knowledge into prompts to provide context for chronic disease detection, instruct learning objectives, and operationalize prediction goals. We evaluate our method using four mental disorders, which are prevalent chronic diseases worldwide, as research cases. On the depression detection task, our method (F1 = 0.975~0.978) significantly outperforms traditional supervised learning paradigms, including feature engineering (F1 = 0.760) and architecture engineering (F1 = 0.756). Meanwhile, our approach demonstrates success in few-shot learning, i.e., requiring only a minimal number of training examples to detect chronic diseases based on user-generated textual content (i.e., only 2, 10, or 100 subjects). Moreover, our method can be generalized to other mental disorder detection tasks, including anorexia, pathological gambling, and self-harm (F1 = 0.919~0.978).

Video moment retrieval is to identify the target moment according to the given sentence in an untrimmed video. Due to temporal boundary annotations of the video are extremely time-consuming to acquire, modeling in the weakly-supervised setting is increasingly focused, where we only have access to the video-sentence pairs during training. Most existing weakly-supervised methods adopt a MIL-based framework to develop inter-sample confrontment, but neglect the intra-sample confrontment between moments with similar semantics. Therefore, these methods fail to distinguish the correct moment from plausible negative moments. Further, the previous attention models in cross-modal interaction tend to focus on a few dominant words exorbitantly, ignoring the comprehensive video-sentence correspondence. In this paper, we propose a novel Regularized Two-Branch Proposal Network with Erasing Mechanism to consider the inter-sample and intra-sample confrontments simultaneously. Concretely, we first devise a language-aware visual filter to generate both enhanced and suppressed video streams. Then, we design the sharable two-branch proposal module to generate positive and plausible negative proposals from the enhanced and suppressed branch respectively, contributing to sufficient confrontment. Besides, we introduce an attention-guided dynamic erasing mechanism in enhanced branch to discover the complementary video-sentence relation. Moreover, we apply two types of proposal regularization to stabilize the training process and improve model performance. The extensive experiments on ActivityCaption, Charades-STA and DiDeMo datasets show the effectiveness of our method.

It is well-known that at the high Reynolds number, the linearized Navier-Stokes equations around the inviscid stable shear profile admit growing mode solutions due to the destabilizing effect of the viscosity. This phenomenon, called Tollmien-Schlichting instability, has been rigorously justified by Grenier-Guo-Nguyen [Adv. Math. 292 (2016); Duke J. Math. 165 (2016)] for Poiseuille flows and boundary layers in the incompressible fluid. To reveal this intrinsic instability mechanism in the compressible setting, in this paper, we study the long-time instability of the Poiseuille flow in a channel. Note that this instability arises in a low-frequency regime instead of a high-frequency regime for the Prandtl boundary layer. The proof is based on the quasi-compressible-Stokes iteration introduced by Yang-Zhang in [50] and subtle analysis of the dispersion relation for the instability. Note that we do not require symmetric conditions on the background shear flow or perturbations., Comment: Any comments are welcome!

In this work, we investigate possible bound states of the $D_s\bar{D}_s$ system in the Bethe-Salpeter formalism in the ladder and instantaneous approximations. By numerically solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation with a kernel that includes the contributions from $\phi$ and $J/\psi$ exchanges, we confirm the existence of a bound state in the $D_s\bar{D}_s$ system. We further investigate the partial decay widths of the $D_s\bar{D}_s$ bound state into $D\bar{D}$, $\eta_c\eta$, and $J/\psi\omega$, finding that these partial widths are sensitive to the parameter $\alpha$ in our model. Notably, we observe that the dominant decay channel for the $D_s\bar{D}_s$ bound state is that into $D\bar{D}$.

Fact-checking is an essential task in NLP that is commonly utilized for validating the factual accuracy of claims. Prior work has mainly focused on fine-tuning pre-trained languages models on specific datasets, which can be computationally intensive and time-consuming. With the rapid development of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT and GPT-3, researchers are now exploring their in-context learning capabilities for a wide range of tasks. In this paper, we aim to assess the capacity of LLMs for fact-checking by introducing Self-Checker, a framework comprising a set of plug-and-play modules that facilitate fact-checking by purely prompting LLMs in an almost zero-shot setting. This framework provides a fast and efficient way to construct fact-checking systems in low-resource environments. Empirical results demonstrate the potential of Self-Checker in utilizing LLMs for fact-checking. However, there is still significant room for improvement compared to SOTA fine-tuned models, which suggests that LLM adoption could be a promising approach for future fact-checking research., Comment: Accepted by NAACL 2024 Findings

Optical methods for monitoring the electrochemical reaction at the interface are advantageous because of their table-top setup and ease of integration into reactors. Here we apply EDL-modulation microscopy to one of the main components of amperometric measurement devices: a microelectrode. We present experimental measurements of the EDL-modulation contrast from the tip of a tungsten microelectrode at various electrochemical potentials inside a ferrocene-dimethanol \ch{Fe(MeOH)2} solution. By the combination of the dark-field scattering microscope and the lock-in detection technique, we measure the phase and amplitude of local ion-concentration oscillations in response to an AC potential as the electrode potential is scanned through the redox-activity window of the dissolved species. We present the amplitude and phase map of this response As such, this method can be used to study the spatial and temporal variations of the ion-flux due to an electrochemical reaction close to metallic and semiconducting objects of general geometry. We discuss the advantages and possible extensions of using this microscopy method for wide-field imaging of ionic currents.

Depression is a common disease worldwide. It is difficult to diagnose and continues to be underdiagnosed. Because depressed patients constantly share their symptoms, major life events, and treatments on social media, researchers are turning to user-generated digital traces on social media for depression detection. Such methods have distinct advantages in combating depression because they can facilitate innovative approaches to fight depression and alleviate its social and economic burden. However, most existing studies lack effective means to incorporate established medical domain knowledge in depression detection or suffer from feature extraction difficulties that impede greater performance. Following the design science research paradigm, we propose a Deep Knowledge-aware Depression Detection (DKDD) framework to accurately detect social media users at risk of depression and explain the critical factors that contribute to such detection. Extensive empirical studies with real-world data demonstrate that, by incorporating domain knowledge, our method outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods. Our work has significant implications for IS research in knowledge-aware machine learning, digital traces utilization, and NLP research in IS. Practically, by providing early detection and explaining the critical factors, DKDD can supplement clinical depression screening and enable large-scale evaluations of a population's mental health status., Comment: Presented at INFORMS 2022 Data Science Workshop

We present detailed design and operation instructions for a single-objective inverted microscope. Our design is suitable for two dark-field modes of operation: 1- total internal reflection scattering, and 2- cross-polarization backscattering. The user can switch between the two modes by exchanging one mode-steering element, which is also adapted to the Thorlabs cage system. To establish a stable background speckle for differential microscopy the imaging plane is stabilized with active feedback. We validate the stabilization efficacy by performing long-term scattering measurement on single nanoparticles. This setup can be extended for simultaneous scattering, fluorescence, and confocal imaging modes., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, other design files can be found here https://osf.io/t3yvd/ , submitted to HardwareX journal

Many efforts have been made to construct dialog systems for different types of conversations, such as task-oriented dialog (TOD) and open-domain dialog (ODD). To better mimic human-level conversations that usually fuse various dialog modes, it is essential to build a system that can effectively handle both TOD and ODD and access different knowledge sources. To address the lack of available data for the fused task, we propose a framework for automatically generating dialogues that combine knowledge-grounded ODDs and TODs in various settings. Additionally, we introduce a unified model PivotBot that is capable of appropriately adopting TOD and ODD modes and accessing different knowledge sources in order to effectively tackle the fused task. Evaluation results demonstrate the superior ability of the proposed model to switch seamlessly between TOD and ODD tasks., Comment: SIGDIAL 2023

In this work, we systematically investigate the two-pseudoscalar meson systems with the Bethe-Salpeter equation in the ladder and instantaneous approximations. By solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation numerically with the kernel containing the one-particle exchange diagrams, we find that the $K\bar{K}$, $DK$, $B\bar{K}$, $D\bar{D}$, $B\bar{B}$, $BD$, $D\bar{K}$, $BK$, and $B\bar{D}$ systems with $I=0$ can exist as bound states. We also study the contributions from heavy meson ($J/\psi$ and $\Upsilon$) exchanges, and we find that the contribution from heavy meson exchange can not be ignored., Comment: 12 pages, 1 table, 3 figures

Existing studies in conversational AI mostly treat task-oriented dialog (TOD) and question answering (QA) as separate tasks. Towards the goal of constructing a conversational agent that can complete user tasks and support information seeking, it is important to build a system that handles both TOD and QA with access to various external knowledge. In this work, we propose a new task, Open-Book TOD (OB-TOD), which combines TOD with QA task and expand external knowledge sources to include both explicit knowledge sources (e.g., the Web) and implicit knowledge sources (e.g., pre-trained language models). We create a new dataset OB-MultiWOZ, where we enrich TOD sessions with QA-like information seeking experience grounded on external knowledge. We propose a unified model OPERA (Open-book End-to-end Task-oriented Dialog) which can appropriately access explicit and implicit external knowledge to tackle the defined task. Experimental results demonstrate OPERA's superior performance compared to closed-book baselines and illustrate the value of both knowledge types.

Predicting gene functions is a challenge for biologists in the post genomic era. Interactions among genes and their products compose networks that can be used to infer gene functions. Most previous studies adopt a linkage assumption, i.e., they assume that gene interactions indicate functional similarities between connected genes. In this study, we propose to use a gene's context graph, i.e., the gene interaction network associated with the focal gene, to infer its functions. In a kernel-based machine-learning framework, we design a context graph kernel to capture the information in context graphs. Our experimental study on a testbed of p53-related genes demonstrates the advantage of using indirect gene interactions and shows the empirical superiority of the proposed approach over linkage-assumption-based methods, such as the algorithm to minimize inconsistent connected genes and diffusion kernels.

In this paper, we study the 1D steady Boltzmann flow in a channel. The walls of the channel are assumed to have vanishing velocity and given temperatures $\theta_0$ and $\theta_1$. This problem was studied by Esposito et al [13,14] where they showed that the solution tends to a local Maxwellian with parameters satisfying the compressible Navier-Stokes equation with no-slip boundary condition. However, a lot of numerical experiments reveal that the fluid layer does not entirely stick to the boundary. In the regime where the Knudsen number is reasonably small, the slip phenomenon is significant near the boundary. Thus, we revisit this problem by taking into account the slip boundary conditions. Following the lines of [9], we will first give a formal asymptotic analysis to see that the flow governed by the Boltzmann equation is accurately approximated by a superposition of a steady CNS equation with a temperature jump condition and two Knudsen layers located at end points. Then we will establish a uniform $L^\infty$ estimate on the remainder and derive the slip boundary condition for compressible Navier-Stokes equations rigorously.

It is a classical problem in fluid dynamics about the stability and instability of different hydrodynamic patterns in various physical settings, in particular in the high Reynolds number limit of laminar flow with boundary layer. However, there are very few mathematical results on the compressible fluid despite the extensive studies when the fluid is governed by the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. This paper aims to introduce a new approach to study the compressible Navier-Stokes equations in the subsonic and high Reynolds number regime where a subtle quasi-compressible and Stokes iteration is developed. As a byproduct, we show the spectral instability of subsonic boundary layer., Comment: 35pages. All comments are welcome

In this paper we explore the use of symbolic knowledge and machine teaching to reduce human data labeling efforts in building neural task bots. We propose SYNERGY, a hybrid learning framework where a task bot is developed in two steps: (i) Symbolic knowledge to neural networks: Large amounts of simulated dialog sessions are generated based on task-specific symbolic knowledge which is represented as a task schema consisting of dialog flows and task-oriented databases. Then a pre-trained neural dialog model, SOLOIST, is fine-tuned on the simulated dialogs to build a bot for the task. (ii) Neural learning: The fine-tuned neural dialog model is continually refined with a handful of real task-specific dialogs via machine teaching, where training samples are generated by human teachers interacting with the task bot. We validate SYNERGY on four dialog tasks. Experimental results show that SYNERGY maps task-specific knowledge into neural dialog models achieving greater diversity and coverage of dialog flows, and continually improves model performance with machine teaching, thus demonstrating strong synergistic effects of symbolic knowledge and machine teaching., Comment: 8 pages

In this paper, we study the instability induced by the Tollmien-Schlichting wave governed by the MHD system in the Prandtl-Hartmann regime. The interaction of the inviscid mode and viscous mode that leads to the instability is analyzed by the introduction of a new decomposition of the Orr-Sommerfeld operator on the velocity and magnetic fields. The critical Gevrey index for the instability is justified by constructing the growing mode in the essential frequency and it is shown to be the same as the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in the Prandtl regime. This result justifies rigorously the physical understanding that the transverse magnetic field to the boundary in the Prandtl-Hartmann regime has no extra stabilizing effect on the Tollmien-Schlichting wave., Comment: 38 pages