Conquer the fine structure splitting of excitons in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots via combined stresses

Eliminating the fine structure splitting (FSS) of excitons in self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) is essential to the generation of high quality entangled photon pairs. It has been shown that the FSS has a lower bound under uniaxial stress. In this letter, we show that the FSS of excitons in a general self-assembled InGaAs/GaAs QD can be fully suppressed via combined stresses along the [110] and [010] directions. The result is confirmed by atomic empirical pseudopotential calculations. For all the QDs we studied, the FSS can be tuned to be vanishingly small ($<$ 0.1 $\mu$eV), which is sufficient small for high quality entangled photon emission.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure, 1 tabl

Robust Probabilistic Prediction for Stochastic Dynamical Systems

It is critical and challenging to design robust predictors for stochastic dynamical systems (SDSs) with uncertainty quantification (UQ) in the prediction. Specifically, robustness guarantees the worst-case performance when the predictor's information set of the system is inadequate, and UQ characterizes how confident the predictor is about the predictions. However, it is difficult for traditional robust predictors to provide robust UQ because they were designed to robustify the performance of point predictions. In this paper, we investigate how to robustify the probabilistic prediction for SDS, which can inherently provide robust distributional UQ. To characterize the performance of probabilistic predictors, we generalize the concept of likelihood function to likelihood functional, and prove that this metric is a proper scoring rule. Based on this metric, we propose a framework to quantify when the predictor is robust and analyze how the information set affects the robustness. Our framework makes it possible to design robust probabilistic predictors by solving functional optimization problems concerning different information sets. In particular, we design a class of moment-based optimal robust probabilistic predictors and provide a practical Kalman-filter-based algorithm for implementation. Extensive numerical simulations are provided to elaborate on our results

Dependable Distributed Nonconvex Optimization via Polynomial Approximation

There has been work on exploiting polynomial approximation to solve distributed nonconvex optimization problems involving univariate objectives. This idea facilitates arbitrarily precise global optimization without requiring local evaluations of gradients at every iteration. Nonetheless, there remains a gap between existing theoretical guarantees and diverse practical requirements for dependability, notably privacy preservation and robustness to network imperfections (e.g., time-varying directed communication and asynchrony). To fill this gap and keep the above strengths, we propose a Dependable Chebyshev-Proxy-based distributed Optimization Algorithm (D-CPOA). Specifically, to ensure both accuracy of solutions and privacy of local objectives, a new privacy-preserving mechanism is designed. This mechanism leverages the randomness in blockwise insertions of perturbed vector states and hence provides an improved privacy guarantee compared to the literature in terms of ($\alpha,\beta$)-data-privacy. Furthermore, to gain robustness to various network imperfections, we use the push-sum consensus protocol as a backbone, discuss its specific enhancements, and evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm accordingly. Thanks to the linear consensus-based structure of iterations, we avoid the privacy-accuracy trade-off and the bother of selecting appropriate step-sizes in different settings. We provide rigorous analysis of the accuracy, dependability and complexity. It is shown that the advantages brought by the idea of polynomial approximation are maintained when all the above requirements exist. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed algorithm

Multi-period Optimal Control for Mobile Agents Considering State Unpredictability

The optimal control for mobile agents is an important and challenging issue. Recent work shows that using randomized mechanism in agents' control can make the state unpredictable, and thus improve the security of agents. However, the unpredictable design is only considered in single period, which can lead to intolerable control performance in long time horizon. This paper aims at the trade-off between the control performance and state unpredictability of mobile agents in long time horizon. Utilizing random perturbations consistent with uniform distributions to maximize the attackers' prediction errors of future states, we formulate the problem as a multi-period convex stochastic optimization problem and solve it through dynamic programming. Specifically, we design the optimal control strategy considering both unconstrained and input constrained systems. The analytical iterative expressions of the control are further provided. Simulation illustrates that the algorithm increases the prediction errors under Kalman filter while achieving the control performance requirements successfully

Local News Deserts in China: The Role of Social Media and Personal Communication Networks

The field of local news is often associated with news deserts, commonly defined as geo‐based communities without news‐ papers or other legacy media as providers of locally oriented news and civic information. This phenomenon is expanding in global society due to the diminishing presence of newspapers at moments of accelerated digitization. This study examines the multiplex nature of news deserts in rural and suburban areas in China. Data were collected through a multi‐methods approach combining two focus groups and 44 semi‐structured in‐depth interviews. Patterns of engagement among inter‐ viewees reveal that smartphone‐based social media applications and digital platforms function as viable sources of news, and incidental exposure to news has become the norm of digital news use. Government‐orchestrated convergent media services and WeChat channels are preferred choices by most research participants for local news. We argue that a media ecology perspective may be a productive approach to understanding community news and local newspaper