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Regulatory authorities aim to tackle illegal activities by targeting the economic incentives that drive such behaviour. This is typically achieved through the implementation of financial sanctions against the entities involved in the crimes. However, the rise of cryptocurrencies has presented new challenges, allowing entities to evade these sanctions and continue criminal operations. Consequently, enforcement measures have been expanded to include crypto assets information of sanctioned entities. Yet, due to the nature of the crypto ecosystem, blocking or freezing these digital assets is harder and, in some cases, such as with Bitcoin, unfeasible. Therefore, sanctions serve merely as deterrents. For this reason, in this study, we aim to assess the impact of these sanctions on entities' crypto activities, particularly those related to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Our objective is to shed light on the validity and effectiveness (or lack thereof) of such countermeasures. Specifically, we analyse the transactions and the amount of USD moved by punished entities that possess crypto addresses after being sanctioned by the authority agency. Results indicate that while sanctions have been effective for half of the examined entities, the others continue to move funds through sanctioned addresses. Furthermore, punished entities demonstrate a preference for utilising rapid exchange services to convert their funds, rather than employing dedicated money laundering services. To the best of our knowledge, this study offers valuable insights into how entities use crypto assets to circumvent sanctions., Comment: preprint version of paper presented at 8th International Workshop on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology - CBT 2024 and published in LNCS Proceedings

Over the last decade, ingenuous developments in Monte Carlo methods have enabled the unbiased estimation of adjoint-weighted reactor parameters expressed as bilinear forms, such as kinetics parameters and sensitivity coefficients. A prominent example is the Iterated Fission Probability method, which relies on the simulation of the fission chains descending from an ancestor neutron: the neutron population at an asymptotic fission generation yields an estimate of the importance function (and hence of the adjoint fundamental eigenmode) at the phase-space coordinates of the ancestor neutron. In this paper we first establish rigorous results concerning the moments of the asymptotic neutron population stemming from a single initial particle, with special focus on the average and the variance. Then, we propose a simple benchmark configuration where exact solutions are derived for these moments, which can be used for the verification of new functionalities of production Monte Carlo codes involving the Iterated Fission Probability method.

Ransomware has become one of the most widespread threats, primarily due to its easy deployment and the accessibility to services that enable attackers to raise and obfuscate funds. This latter aspect has been significantly enhanced with the advent of cryptocurrencies, which, by fostering decentralisation and anonymity, have transformed this threat into a large-scale outbreak. However, recent reports indicate that a small group of individuals dominate the ransomware ecosystem and try to obfuscate their activity using multiple strains characterised by a short time to live. This scenario suggests that different strains could share mechanisms in ransom collection, fund movement, and money laundering operations. For this reason, this study aims to analyse the address-transaction graphs generated in the Bitcoin network by low-labelled ransomware families. Our goals are to identify payment spreading patterns for evaluating the evolution of ransomware families and to detect similarities among different strains that potentially can be controlled by the same attacker. Specifically, this latter task assigns an address behaviour to each node in the address-transaction graphs according to its dynamics. The distribution of the behaviours in each strain is finally used to evaluate the closeness among different ransomware families. Our findings show that although ransomware families can quickly establish connections with millions of addresses, numerous families require multiple-step analysis. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the introduced behaviours can effectively be used to highlight similarities among different ransomware strains. The outcome shows that families are similar primarily due to behaviours usually associated with ransom collection and money laundering operations.+, Comment: Presented and Published at The 7th International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain 2024)

We report the study of a huge optical intraday flare on November 12, 2021, at 2 am UT, in the blazar OJ287. In the binary black hole model it is associated with an impact of the secondary black hole on the accretion disk of the primary. Our multifrequency observing campaign was set up to search for such a signature of the impact, based on a prediction made eight years earlier. The first I-band results of the flare have already been reported by \cite{2024ApJ...960...11K}. Here we combine these data with our monitoring in the R-band. There is a big change in the R-I spectral index by $1.0\pm0.1$ between the normal background and the flare, suggesting a new component of radiation. The polarization variation during the rise of the flare suggests the same. The limits on the source size place it most reasonably in the jet of the secondary black hole. We then ask why we have not seen this phenomenon before. We show that OJ287 was never before observed with sufficient sensitivity on the night when the flare should have happened according to the binary model. We also study the probability that this flare is just an oversized example of intraday variability, using the Krakow-dataset of intense monitoring between 2015 and 2023. We find that the occurrence of a flare of this size and rapidity is unlikely. In the Appendix, we give the full orbit-linked historical light curve of OJ287 as well as the dense monitoring sample of Krakow., Comment: to Appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters

During the last 25 years, hundreds of binary stars and planets have been discovered towards the Galactic Bulge by microlensing surveys. Thanks to a new generation of large-sky surveys, it is now possible to regularly detect microlensing events across the entire sky. The OMEGA Key Projet at the Las Cumbres Observatory carries out automated follow-up observations of microlensing events alerted by these surveys with the aim of identifying and characterizing exoplanets as well as stellar remnants. In this study, we present the analysis of the binary lens event Gaia20bof. By automatically requesting additional observations, the OMEGA Key Project obtained dense time coverage of an anomaly near the peak of the event, allowing characterization of the lensing system. The observed anomaly in the lightcurve is due to a binary lens. However, several models can explain the observations. Spectroscopic observations indicate that the source is located at $\le2.0$ kpc, in agreement with the parallax measurements from Gaia. While the models are currently degenerate, future observations, especially the Gaia astrometric time series as well as high-resolution imaging, will provide extra constraints to distinguish between them., Comment: Accepted in AJ

We present the largest optical photometry compilation of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) with redshifts ($z$). We include 64813 observations of 535 events (including upper limits) from 28 February 1997 up to 18 August 2023. We also present a user-friendly web tool \textit{grbLC} which allows users the visualization of photometry, coordinates, redshift, host galaxy extinction, and spectral indices for each event in our database. Furthermore, we have added a Gamma Ray Coordinate Network (GCN) scraper that can be used to collect data by gathering magnitudes from the GCNs. The web tool also includes a package for uniformly investigating colour evolution. We compute the optical spectral indices for 138 GRBs for which we have at least 4 filters at the same epoch in our sample and craft a procedure to distinguish between GRBs with and without colour evolution. By providing a uniform format and repository for the optical catalogue, this web-based archive is the first step towards unifying several community efforts to gather the photometric information for all GRBs with known redshifts. This catalogue will enable population studies by providing light curves (LCs) with better coverage since we have gathered data from different ground-based locations. Consequently, these LCs can be used to train future LC reconstructions for an extended inference of the redshift. The data gathering also allows us to fill some of the orbital gaps from Swift in crucial points of the LCs, e.g., at the end of the plateau emission or where a jet break is identified., Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to MNRAS, this version matches the third revision. The Online Materials and data will be available after the publication

Tools for fighting cyber-criminal activities using new technologies are promoted and deployed every day. However, too often, they are unnecessarily complex and hard to use, requiring deep domain and technical knowledge. These characteristics often limit the engagement of law enforcement and end-users in these technologies that, despite their potential, remain misunderstood. For this reason, in this study, we describe our experience in combining learning and training methods and the potential benefits of gamification to enhance technology transfer and increase adult learning. In fact, in this case, participants are experienced practitioners in professions/industries that are exposed to terrorism financing (such as Law Enforcement Officers, Financial Investigation Officers, private investigators, etc.) We define training activities on different levels for increasing the exchange of information about new trends and criminal modus operandi among and within law enforcement agencies, intensifying cross-border cooperation and supporting efforts to combat and prevent terrorism funding activities. On the other hand, a game (hackathon) is designed to address realistic challenges related to the dark net, crypto assets, new payment systems and dark web marketplaces that could be used for terrorist activities. The entire methodology was evaluated using quizzes, contest results, and engagement metrics. In particular, training events show about 60% of participants complete the 11-week training course, while the Hackathon results, gathered in two pilot studies (Madrid and The Hague), show increasing expertise among the participants (progression in the achieved points on average). At the same time, more than 70% of participants positively evaluate the use of the gamification approach, and more than 85% of them consider the implemented Use Cases suitable for their investigations.

Permutation entropy and its associated frameworks are remarkable examples of physics-inspired techniques adept at processing complex and extensive datasets. Despite substantial progress in developing and applying these tools, their use has been predominantly limited to structured datasets such as time series or images. Here, we introduce the k-nearest neighbor permutation entropy, an innovative extension of the permutation entropy tailored for unstructured data, irrespective of their spatial or temporal configuration and dimensionality. Our approach builds upon nearest neighbor graphs to establish neighborhood relations and uses random walks to extract ordinal patterns and their distribution, thereby defining the k-nearest neighbor permutation entropy. This tool not only adeptly identifies variations in patterns of unstructured data, but also does so with a precision that significantly surpasses conventional measures such as spatial autocorrelation. Additionally, it provides a natural approach for incorporating amplitude information and time gaps when analyzing time series or images, thus significantly enhancing its noise resilience and predictive capabilities compared to the usual permutation entropy. Our research substantially expands the applicability of ordinal methods to more general data types, opening promising research avenues for extending the permutation entropy toolkit for unstructured data., Comment: 14 two-column pages, 6 figures

The usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems has increased exponentially, thanks to their ability to reduce the amount of data to be analyzed, the user efforts and preserving a high rate of accuracy. However, introducing this new element in the loop has converted them into attacked points that can compromise the reliability of the systems. This new scenario has raised crucial challenges regarding the reliability and trustworthiness of the AI models, as well as about the uncertainties in their response decisions, becoming even more crucial when applied in critical domains such as healthcare, chemical, electrical plants, etc. To contain these issues, in this paper, we present NeuralSentinel (NS), a tool able to validate the reliability and trustworthiness of AI models. This tool combines attack and defence strategies and explainability concepts to stress an AI model and help non-expert staff increase their confidence in this new system by understanding the model decisions. NS provide a simple and easy-to-use interface for helping humans in the loop dealing with all the needed information. This tool was deployed and used in a Hackathon event to evaluate the reliability of a skin cancer image detector. During the event, experts and non-experts attacked and defended the detector, learning which factors were the most important for model misclassification and which techniques were the most efficient. The event was also used to detect NS's limitations and gather feedback for further improvements.

More than 36 years have passed since the discovery of the infrared excess from circumstellar dust orbiting the white dwarf G29-38, which at 17.5 pc it is the nearest and brightest of its class. The precise morphology of the orbiting dust remains only marginally constrained by existing data, subject to model-dependent inferences, and thus fundamental questions of its dynamical origin and evolution persist. This study presents a means to constrain the geometric distribution of the emitting dust using stellar pulsations measured at optical wavelengths as a variable illumination source of the dust, which re-radiates primarily in the infrared. By combining optical photometry from the Whole Earth Telescope with 0.7-2.5 micron spectroscopy obtained with SpeX at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility, we detect luminosity variations at all observed wavelengths, with variations at most wavelengths corresponding to the behavior of the pulsating stellar photosphere, but towards the longest wavelengths the light curves probe the corresponding time-variability of the circumstellar dust. In addition to developing methodology, we find pulsation amplitudes decrease with increasing wavelength for principal pulsation modes, yet increase beyond approximately 2 microns for nonlinear combination frequencies. We interpret these results as combination modes deriving from principal modes of identical l values and discuss the implications for the morphology of the warm dust. We also draw attention to some discrepancies between our findings and theoretical expectations for the results of the non-linearity imposed by the surface convection zone on mode--mode interactions and on the behavior of the first harmonic of the highest-amplitude pulsation mode., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, to be published in The Astrophysical Journal

We report discovering an exoplanet from following up a microlensing event alerted by Gaia. The event Gaia22dkv is toward a disk source rather than the traditional bulge microlensing fields. Our primary analysis yields a Jovian planet with M_p = 0.59^{+0.15}_{-0.05} M_J at a projected orbital separation r_perp = 1.4^{+0.8}_{-0.3} AU, and the host is a ~1.1 M_sun turnoff star at ~1.3 kpc. At r'~14, the host is far brighter than any previously discovered microlensing planet host, opening up the opportunity of testing the microlensing model with radial velocity (RV) observations. RV data can be used to measure the planet's orbital period and eccentricity, and they also enable searching for inner planets of the microlensing cold Jupiter, as expected from the ''inner-outer correlation'' inferred from Kepler and RV discoveries. Furthermore, we show that Gaia astrometric microlensing will not only allow precise measurements of its angular Einstein radius theta_E, but also directly measure the microlens parallax vector and unambiguously break a geometric light-curve degeneracy, leading to definitive characterization of the lens system., Comment: Accepted by AJ

We present the results of our analysis of Gaia19dke, an extraordinary microlensing event in the Cygnus constellation that was first spotted by the {\gaia} satellite. This event featured a strong microlensing parallax effect, which resulted in multiple peaks in the light curve. We conducted extensive photometric, spectroscopic, and high-resolution imaging follow-up observations to determine the mass and the nature of the invisible lensing object. Using the Milky Way priors on density and velocity of lenses, we found that the dark lens is likely to be located at a distance of $D_L =(3.05^{+4.10}_{-2.42})$kpc, and has a mass of $M_L =(0.51^{+3.07}_{-0.40}) M_\odot$. Based on its low luminosity and mass, we propose that the lens in Gaia19dke event is an isolated white dwarf., Comment: 16 pages, submitted to A&A

Intense outbursts in blazars are among the most extreme phenomena seen in extragalactic objects. Studying these events can offer important information about the energetic physical processes taking place within the innermost regions of blazars, which are beyond the resolution of current instruments. This work presents some of the largest and most rapid flares detected in the optical band from the sources 3C 279, OJ 49, S4 0954+658, Ton 599, and PG 1553+113, which are mostly TeV blazars. The source flux increased by nearly ten times within a few weeks, indicating the violent nature of these events. Such energetic events might originate from magnetohydrodynamical instabilities near the base of the jets, triggered by processes modulated by the magnetic field of the accretion disc. We explain the emergence of flares owing to the injection of high-energy particles by the shock wave passing along the relativistic jets. Alternatively, the flares may have also arisen due to geometrical effects related to the jets. We discuss both source-intrinsic and source-extrinsic scenarios as possible explanations for the observed large amplitude flux changes., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023) proceedings

The highly variable blazar OJ~287 is commonly discussed as an example of a binary black hole system. The 130 year long optical light curve is well explained by a model where the central body is a massive black hole of 18.35$\times$10$^9$ solar mass that supports a thin accretion disc. The secondary black hole of 0.15$\times$10$^9$ solar mass impacts the disc twice during its 12 year orbit, and causes observable flares. Recently, it has been argued that an accretion disc with a typical AGN accretion rate and above mentioned central body mass should be at least six magnitudes brighter than OJ~287's host galaxy and would therefore be observationally excluded. Based on the observations of OJ~287's radio jet, detailed in Marscher and Jorstad (2011), and up-to-date accretion disc models of Azadi et al. (2022), we show that the V-band magnitude of the accretion disc is unlikely to exceed the host galaxy brightness by more than one magnitude, and could well be fainter than the host. This is because accretion power is necessary to launch the jet as well as to create electromagnetic radiation, distributed across many wavelengths, and not concentrated especially on the optical V-band. Further, we note that the claimed V-band concentration of accretion power leads to serious problems while interpreting observations of other Active Galactic Nuclei. Therefore, we infer that the mass of the primary black hole and its accretion rate do not need to be smaller than what is determined in the standard model for OJ~287.

We present a summary of the results of the OJ 287 observational campaign, which was carried out during the 2021/2022 observational season. This season is special in the binary model because the major axis of the precessing binary happens to lie almost exactly in the plane of the accretion disc of the primary. This leads to pairs of almost identical impacts between the secondary black hole and the accretion disk in 2005 and 2022. In 2005, a special flare called "blue flash" was observed 35 days after the disk impact, which should have also been verifiable in 2022. We did observe a similar flash and were able to obtain more details of its properties. We describe this in the framework of expanding cloud models. In addition, we were able to identify the flare arising exactly at the time of the disc crossing from its photo-polarimetric and gamma-ray properties. This is an important identification, as it directly confirms the orbit model. Moreover, we saw a huge flare that lasted only one day. We may understand this as the lighting up of the jet of the secondary black hole when its Roche lobe is suddenly flooded by the gas from the primary disk. Therefore, this may be the first time we directly observed the secondary black hole in the OJ 287 binary system., Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures, published in Galaxies as part of the Special Issue Distant Glowing Objects: Quest for Quasars

Automated batch refactoring has become a de-facto mechanism to restructure software that may have significant design flaws negatively impacting the code quality and maintainability. Although automated batch refactoring techniques are known to significantly improve overall software quality and maintainability, their impact on resource utilization is not well studied. This paper aims to bridge the gap between batch refactoring code smells and consumption of resources. It determines the relationship between software code smell batch refactoring, and resource consumption. Next, it aims to design algorithms to predict the impact of code smell refactoring on resource consumption. This paper investigates 16 code smell types and their joint effect on resource utilization for 31 open source applications. It provides a detailed empirical analysis of the change in application CPU and memory utilization after refactoring specific code smells in isolation and in batches. This analysis is then used to train regression algorithms to predict the impact of batch refactoring on CPU and memory utilization before making any refactoring decisions. Experimental results also show that our ANN-based regression model provides highly accurate predictions for the impact of batch refactoring on resource consumption. It allows the software developers to intelligently decide which code smells they should refactor jointly to achieve high code quality and maintainability without increasing the application resource utilization. This paper responds to the important and urgent need of software engineers across a broad range of software applications, who are looking to refactor code smells and at the same time improve resource consumption. Finally, it brings forward the concept of resource aware code smell refactoring to the most crucial software applications.

The bright blazar OJ~287 routinely parades high brightness bremsstrahlung flares, which are explained as being a result of a secondary supermassive black hole (SMBH) impacting the accretion disc of a more massive primary SMBH in a binary system. The accretion disc is not rigid but rather bends in a calculable way due to the tidal influence of the secondary. Below we refer to this phenomenon as a variable disc level. We begin by showing that these flares occur at times predicted by a simple analytical formula, based on general relativity inspired modified Kepler equation, which explains impact flares since 1888. The 2022 impact flare, namely flare number 26, is rather peculiar as it breaks the typical pattern of two impact flares per 12-year cycle. This is the third bremsstrahlung flare of the current cycle that follows the already observed 2015 and 2019 impact flares from OJ~287. It turns out that the arrival epoch of flare number 26 is sensitive to the level of primary SMBH's accretion disc relative to its mean level in our model. We incorporate these tidally induced changes in the level of the accretion disc to infer that the thermal flare should have occurred during July-August 2022, when it was not possible to observe it from the Earth. Thereafter, we explore possible observational evidence for certain pre-flare activity by employing spectral and polarimetric data from our campaigns in 2004/05 and 2021/22. We point out theoretical and observational implications of two observed mini-flares during January-February 2022., Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.08360

We present an analysis of the $BVRI$ photometry of the blazar BL Lacertae on diverse timescales from mid-July to mid-September 2020. We have used 11 different optical telescopes around the world and have collected data over 84 observational nights. The observations cover the onset of a new activity phase of BL Lacertae started in August 2020 (termed as the August 2020 flare by us), and the analysis is focused on the intra-night variability. On short-term timescales, (i) flux varied with ~2.2\,mag in $R$ band, (ii) the spectral index was found to be weakly dependent on the flux (i.e., the variations could be considered mildly chromatic) and (iii) no periodicity was detected. On intra-night timescales, BL Lacertae was found to show bluer-when-brighter chromatism predominantly. We also found two cases of significant inter-band time lags of the order of a few minutes. The duty cycle of the blazar during the August 2020 flare was estimated to be quite high (~90\% or higher). We decomposed the intra-night light curves into individual flares and determined their characteristics. On the basis of our analysis and assuming the turbulent jet model, we determined some characteristics of the emitting regions: Doppler factor, magnetic field strength, electron Lorentz factor, and radius. The radii determined were discussed in the framework of the Kolmogorov theory of turbulence. We also estimated the weighted mean structure function slope on intra-night timescales, related it to the slope of the power spectral density, and discussed it with regard to the origin of intra-night variability., Comment: 46 pages, 19 figures, 8 tables, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (manuscript version after proof correction)

Flaring episodes in blazars represent one of the most violent processes observed in extra-galactic objects. Studies of such events shed light on the energetics of the physical processes occurring in the innermost regions of blazars, which cannot otherwise be resolved by any current instruments. In this work, we present some of the largest and most rapid flares captured in the optical band in the blazars 3C 279, OJ 49, S4 0954+658, TXS 1156+295 and PG 1553+113. The source flux was observed to increase by nearly ten times within a timescale of a few weeks. We applied several methods of time series analysis and symmetry analysis. Moreover, we also performed searches for periodicity in the light curves of 3C 279, OJ 49 and PG 1553+113 using the Lomb-Scargle method and found plausible indications of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs). In particular, the 33- and 22-day periods found in 3C 279, i.e. a 3:2 ratio, are intriguing. These violent events might originate from magnetohydrodynamical instabilities near the base of the jets, triggered by processes modulated by the magnetic field of the accretion disc. We present a qualitative treatment as the possible explanation for the observed large amplitude flux changes in both the source-intrinsic and source-extrinsic scenarios., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, MNRAS accepted

Cybersecurity is a crucial step in data protection to ensure user security and personal data privacy. In this sense, many companies have started to control and restrict access to their data using authentication systems. However, these traditional authentication methods, are not enough for ensuring data protection, and for this reason, behavioral biometrics have gained importance. Despite their promising results and the wide range of applications, biometric systems have shown to be vulnerable to malicious attacks, such as Presentation Attacks. For this reason, in this work, we propose to study a new approach aiming to deploy a presentation attack towards a keystroke authentication system. Our idea is to use Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks (cGAN) for generating synthetic keystroke data that can be used for impersonating an authorized user. These synthetic data are generated following two different real use cases, one in which the order of the typed words is known (ordered dynamic) and the other in which this order is unknown (no-ordered dynamic). Finally, both keystroke dynamics (ordered and no-ordered) are validated using an external keystroke authentication system. Results indicate that the cGAN can effectively generate keystroke dynamics patterns that can be used for deceiving keystroke authentication systems.

We characterize the optical variability properties of eight lobe-dominated radio quasars (QSOs): B2 0709$+$37, FBQS J095206.3$+$235245, PG 1004$+$130, [HB89] 1156$+$631, [HB89] 1425$+$267, [HB89] 1503$+$691, [HB89] 1721$+$343, 4C $+$74.26, systematically monitored for a duration of 13 years since 2009. The quasars are radio-loud objects with extended radio lobes that indicate their orientation close to the sky plane. Five of the eight QSOs are classified as giant radio quasars. All quasars showed variability during our monitoring, with magnitude variations between 0.3 and 1 mag for the least variable and the most variable QSO, respectively. We performed both structure function (SF) analysis and power spectrum density (PSD) analysis for the variability characterization and search for characteristic timescales and periodicities. As a result of our analysis, we obtained relatively steep SF slopes ($\alpha$ ranging from 0.49 to 0.75) that are consistent with the derived PSD slopes ($\sim$2--3). All the PSDs show a good fit to single power law forms, indicating a red-noise character of variability between $\sim$13 years and weeks timescales. We did not measure reliable characteristic timescales of variability from the SF analysis which indicates that the duration of the gathered data is too short to reveal them. The absence of bends in the PSDs (change of slope from $\geq$1 to $\sim$0) on longer timescales indicates that optical variations are most likely caused by thermal instabilities in the accretion disk., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJS; 17 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables

The bright blazar OJ~287 routinely parades high brightness bremsstrahlung flares which are explained as being a result of a secondary supermassive black hole (SMBH) impacting the accretion disk of a primary SMBH in a binary system. We begin by showing that these flares occur at times predicted by a simple analytical formula, based on the Kepler equation, which explains flares since 1888. The next impact flare, namely the flare number 26, is rather peculiar as it breaks the typical pattern of two impact flares per 12 year cycle. This will be the third bremsstrahlung flare of the current cycle that follows the already observed 2015 and 2019 impact flares from OJ~287. Unfortunately, astrophysical considerations make it difficult to predict the exact arrival epoch of the flare number 26. In the second part of the paper, we describe our recent OJ~287 observations. They show that the pre-flare light curve of flare number 22, observed in 2005, exhibits similar activity as the pre-flare light curve in 2022, preceding the expected flare number 26 in our model. We argue that the pre-flare activity most likely arises in the primary jet whose activity is modulated by the transit of the secondary SMBH through the accretion disk of the primary. Observing the next impact flare of OJ~287 in October 2022 will substantiate the theory of disk impacts in binary black hole systems., Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures

Biometric systems represent valid solutions in tasks like user authentication and verification, since they are able to analyze physical and behavioural features with high precision. However, especially when physical biometrics are used, as is the case of iris recognition, they require specific hardware such as retina scanners, sensors, or HD cameras to achieve relevant results. At the same time, they require the users to be very close to the camera to extract high-resolution information. For this reason, in this work, we propose a novel approach that uses long-range (LR) distance images for implementing an iris verification system. More specifically, we present a novel methodology for converting LR iris images into graphs and then use Graph Siamese Neural Networks (GSNN) to predict whether two graphs belong to the same person. In this study, we not only describe this methodology but also evaluate how the spectral components of these images can be used for improving the graph extraction and the final classification task. Results demonstrate the suitability of this approach, encouraging the community to explore graph application in biometric systems., Comment: Accepted to 2022 3rd Symposium on Pattern Recognition and Applications

The study of short-term variability properties in AGN jets has the potential to shed light on their particle acceleration and emission mechanisms. We report results from a four-day coordinated multi-wavelength campaign on the highly-peaked blazar (HBL) Mkn 421 in 2019 January. We obtained X-ray data from AstroSAT, BVRI photometry with the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT), and TeV data from FACT to explore short-term multi-wavelength variability in this HBL. The X-ray continuum is rapidly variable on time-scales of tens of ks. Fractional variability amplitude increases with energy across the synchrotron hump, consistent with previous studies; we interpret this observation in the context of a model with multiple cells whose emission spectra contain cutoffs that follow a power-law distribution. We also performed time-averaged and time-resolved (time-scales of 6 ks) spectral fits; a broken power-law model fits all spectra well; time-resolved spectral fitting reveals the usual hardening when brightening behaviour. Intra-X-ray cross correlations yield evidence for the 0.6-0.8 keV band to likely lead the other bands by an average of 4.6 +- 2.6 ks, but only during the first half of the observation. The source displayed minimal night-to-night variability at all wavebands thus precluding significant interband correlations during our campaign. The broadband SED is modeled well with a standard one-zone leptonic model, yielding jet parameters consistent with those obtained from previous SEDs of this source., Comment: This article has been accepted for publication in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2022), and is published in Volume 513, Issue 2, pp.1662-1679. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. 19 pages; 12 figures

OJ 287 is a BL Lacertae type quasar in which the active galactic nucleus (AGN) outshines the host galaxy by an order of magnitude. The only exception to this may be at minimum light when the AGN activity is so low that the host galaxy may make quite a considerable contribution to the photometric intensity of the source. Such a dip or a fade in the intensity of OJ 287 occurred in November 2017, when its brightness was about 1.75 magnitudes lower than the recent mean level. We compare the observations of this fade with similar fades in OJ 287 observed earlier in 1989, 1999, and 2010. It appears that there is a relatively strong reddening of the B$-$V colours of OJ 287 when its V-band brightness drops below magnitude 17. Similar changes are also seen V$-$R, V$-$I, and R$-$I colours during these deep fades. These data support the conclusion that the total magnitude of the host galaxy is $V=18.0 \pm 0.3$, corresponding to $M_{K}=-26.5 \pm 0.3$ in the K-band. This is in agreement with the results, obtained using the integrated surface brightness method, from recent surface photometry of the host. These results should encourage us to use the colour separation method also in other host galaxies with strongly variable AGN nuclei. In the case of OJ 287, both the host galaxy and its central black hole are among the biggest known, and its position in the black hole mass-galaxy mass diagram lies close to the mean correlation., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Context. The close approach of the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis to Earth in 2029 will provide a unique opportunity to examine how the physical properties of the asteroid could be changed due to the Earth's gravitational perturbation. As a result, the Republic of Korea is planning a rendezvous mission to Apophis. Aims. Our aim was to use photometric data from the apparitions in 2020-2021 to refine the shape model and spin state of Apophis. Methods. Using thirty-six 1 to 2-m class ground-based telescopes and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, we performed a photometric observation campaign throughout the 2020-2021 apparition. The convex shape model and spin state were refined using the light-curve inversion method. Results. According to our best-fit model, Apophis is rotating in a short axis mode with rotation and precession periods of 264.178 hours and 27.38547 hours, respectively. The angular momentum vector orientation of Apophis was found as (275$^\circ$, -85$^\circ$) in the ecliptic coordinate system. The ratio of the dynamic moments of inertia of this asteroid was fitted to $I_a:I_b:I_c=0.64:0.97:1$, which corresponds to an elongated prolate ellipsoid. These findings regarding the spin state and shape model could be used to not only design the space mission scenario but also investigate the impact of the Earth's tidal force during close encounters., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures; Accepted for publication on Astronomy & Astrophysics

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are fascinating events due to their panchromatic nature. We study optical plateaus in GRB afterglows via an extended search into archival data. We comprehensively analyze all published GRBs with known redshifts and optical plateaus observed by many ground-based telescopes (e.g., Subaru Telescope, RATIR) around the world and several space-based observatories such as the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. We fit 500 optical light curves (LCs), showing the existence of the plateau in 179 cases. This sample is 75% larger than the previous one (arXiv:2105.10717), and it is the largest compilation so far of optical plateaus. We discover the 3D fundamental plane relation at optical wavelengths using this sample. This correlation is between the rest-frame time at the end of the plateau emission, $T^{*}_{\rm opt}$, its optical luminosity, $L_{\rm opt}$, and the peak in the optical prompt emission, $L_{\rm peak, opt}$, thus resembling the three-dimensional (3D) X-ray fundamental plane relation (arXiv:1604.06840). We correct our sample for redshift evolution and selection effects, discovering that this correlation is indeed intrinsic to GRB physics. We investigate the rest-frame end time distributions in X-rays and optical ($T^{*}_{\rm opt}$, $T^{*}_{\rm X}$), and conclude that the plateau is achromatic only when selection biases are not considered. We also investigate if the 3D optical correlation may be a new discriminant between optical GRB classes and find that there is no significant separation between the classes compared to the Gold sample plane after correcting for evolution., Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJS. Reworded one sentence for clarity

Machine learning methods are becoming increasingly important for the development of materials science. In spite of this, the use of image analysis in the development of these systems is still recent and underexplored, especially in materials often studied via optical imaging techniques such as liquid crystals. Here we apply the recently proposed method of ordinal networks to map optical textures obtained from experimental samples of liquid crystals into complex networks and use this representation jointly with a simple statistical learning algorithm to investigate different physical properties of these materials. Our research demonstrates that ordinal networks formed by only 24 nodes encode crucial information about liquid crystal properties, thus allowing us to train simple machine learning models capable of identifying and classifying mesophase transitions, distinguishing among different doping concentrations used to induce chiral mesophases, and predicting sample temperatures with outstanding accuracy. The precision and scalability of our approach indicate it can be used to probe properties of different materials in situations involving large-scale datasets or real-time monitoring systems., Comment: 9 two-column pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals

Successful observations of the seven predicted bremsstrahlung flares from the unique bright blazar OJ 287 firmly point to the presence of a nanohertz gravitational wave (GW) emitting supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary central engine. We present arguments for the continued monitoring of the source in several electromagnetic windows to firmly establish various details of the SMBH binary central engine description for OJ 287. In this article, we explore what more can be known about this system, particularly with regard to accretion and outflows from its two accretion disks. We mainly concentrate on the expected impact of the secondary black hole on the disk of the primary on December 3, 2021, and the resulting electromagnetic signals in the following years. We also predict the times of exceptional fades and outline their usefulness in the study of the host galaxy. A spectral survey has been carried out, and spectral lines from the secondary were searched for but not found. The jet of the secondary has been studied and proposals to discover it in future VLBI observations are mentioned. In conclusion, the binary black hole model explains a large number of observations of different kinds in OJ 287. Carefully timed future observations will be able to provide further details of its central engine. Such multi-wavelength and multidisciplinary efforts will be required to pursue multi-messenger nanohertz GW astronomy with OJ 287 in the coming decades., Comment: 31 pages, 14 figures, Accepted for publication in Galaxies

Ultra-short orbital period contact binaries (Porb < 0.26 d) host some of the smallest and least massive stars. These systems are faint and rare, and it is believed that they have reached a contact configuration after several Gyrs of evolution via angular momentum loss, mass transfer and mass loss through stellar wind processes. This study is conducted in the frame of Contact Binaries Towards Merging (CoBiToM) Project and presents the results from light curve and orbital analysis of 30 ultra-short orbital period contact binaries, with the aim to investigate the possibility of them being red nova progenitors, eventually producing merger events. Approximately half of the systems exhibit orbital period modulations, as a result of mass transfer or mass loss processes. Although they are in contact, their fill-out factor is low (less than 30 per cent), while their mass ratio is larger than the one in longer period contact binaries. The present study investigates the orbital stability of these systems and examines their physical and orbital parameters in comparison to those of the entire sample of known and well-studied contact binaries, based on combined spectroscopic and photometric analysis. It is found that ultra-short orbital period contact binaries have very stable orbits, while very often additional components are gravitationally bound in wide orbits around the central binary system. We confirmed that the evolution of such systems is very slow, which explains why the components of ultra-short orbital period systems are still Main Sequence stars after several Gyrs of evolution.

We present the results of variability power spectral density (PSD) analysis using multiwavelength radio to GeV\,$\gamma$-ray light curves covering decades/years to days/minutes timescales for the blazars 3C 279 and PKS 1510-089. The PSDs are modeled as single power-laws, and the best-fit spectral shape is derived using the `power spectral response' method. With more than ten years of data obtained with weekly/daily sampling intervals, most of the PSDs cover ~2-4 decades in temporal frequency; moreover, in the optical band, the PSDs cover ~6 decades for 3C 279 due to the availability of intranight light curves. Our main results are the following: (1) on timescales ranging from decades to days, the synchrotron and the inverse Compton spectral components, in general, exhibit red-noise (slope ~2) and flicker-noise (slope ~1) type variability, respectively; (2) the slopes of $\gamma$-ray variability PSDs obtained using a 3-hr integration bin and a 3-weeks total duration exhibit a range between ~1.4 and ~2.0 (mean slope = 1.60$\pm$0.70), consistent within errors with the slope on longer timescales; (3) comparisons of fractional variability indicate more power on timescales $\leq$100\, days at $\gamma$-ray frequencies as compared to longer wavelengths, in general (except between $\gamma$-ray and optical frequencies for PKS 1510$-$089); (4) the normalization of intranight optical PSDs for 3C\,279 appears to be a simple extrapolation from longer timescales, indicating a continuous (single) process driving the variability at optical wavelengths; (5) the emission at optical/infrared wavelengths may involve a combination of disk and jet processes for PKS\,1510$-$089., Comment: ApJ accepted. Comments are welcome

We present the photometric analysis of Gaia19bld, a high-magnification ($A\approx60$) microlensing event located in the southern Galactic plane, which exhibited finite source and microlensing parallax effects. Due to a prompt detection by the Gaia satellite and the very high brightness of $I = 9.05~$mag at the peak, it was possible to collect a complete and unique set of multi-channel follow-up observations, which allowed us to determine all parameters vital for the characterisation of the lens and the source in the microlensing event. Gaia19bld was discovered by the Gaia satellite and was subsequently intensively followed up with a network of ground-based observatories and the Spitzer Space Telescope. We collected multiple high-resolution spectra with Very Large Telescope (VLT)/X-Shooter to characterise the source star. The event was also observed with VLT Interferometer (VLTI)/PIONIER during the peak. Here we focus on the photometric observations and model the light curve composed of data from Gaia, Spitzer, and multiple optical, ground-based observatories. We find the best-fitting solution with parallax and finite source effects. We derived the limit on the luminosity of the lens based on the blended light model and spectroscopic distance. We compute the mass of the lens to be $1.13 \pm 0.03~M_{\odot}$ and derive its distance to be $5.52^{+0.35}_{-0.64}~\mathrm{kpc}$. The lens is likely a main sequence star, however its true nature has yet to be verified by future high-resolution observations. Our results are consistent with interferometric measurements of the angular Einstein radius, emphasising that interferometry can be a new channel for determining the masses of objects that would otherwise remain undetectable, including stellar-mass black holes., Comment: accepted to Astronomy&Astrophysics