Discussion of "Frequentist coverage of adaptive nonparametric Bayesian credible sets"

Discussion of "Frequentist coverage of adaptive nonparametric Bayesian credible sets" by Szab\'o, van der Vaart and van Zanten [arXiv:1310.4489v5].Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-AOS1270D in the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Strong transmission and reflection of edge modes in bounded photonic graphene

The propagation of linear and nonlinear edge modes in bounded photonic honeycomb lattices formed by an array of rapidly varying helical waveguides is studied. These edge modes are found to exhibit strong transmission (reflection) around sharp corners when the dispersion relation is topologically nontrivial (trivial), and can also remain stationary. An asymptotic theory is developed that establishes the presence (absence) of edge states on all four sides, including in particular armchair edge states, in the topologically nontrivial (trivial) case. In the presence of topological protection, nonlinear edge solitons can persist over very long distances.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Minor updates on the presentation and interpretation of results. The movies showing transmission and reflection of linear edge modes are available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhaZZlkMadQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8NOw0NvRu

A universal asymptotic regime in the hyperbolic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation

The appearance of a fundamental long-time asymptotic regime in the two space one time dimensional hyperbolic nonlinear Schr\"odinger (HNLS) equation is discussed. Based on analytical and extensive numerical simulations an approximate self-similar solution is found for a wide range of initial conditions -- essentially for initial lumps of small to moderate energy. Even relatively large initial amplitudes, which imply strong nonlinear effects, eventually lead to local structures resembling those of the self-similar solution, with appropriate small modifications. These modifications are important in order to properly capture the behavior of the phase of the solution. This solution has aspects that suggest it is a universal attractor emanating from wide ranges of initial data.Comment: 36 pages, 26 pages text + 20 figure

Dispersive shock waves in the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili and Two Dimensional Benjamin-Ono equations

Dispersive shock waves (DSWs) in the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equation and two dimensional Benjamin-Ono (2DBO) equation are considered using parabolic front initial data. Employing a front tracking type ansatz exactly reduces the study of DSWs in two space one time (2+1) dimensions to finding DSW solutions of (1+1) dimensional equations. With this ansatz, the KP and 2DBO equations can be exactly reduced to cylindrical Korteweg-de Vries (cKdV) and cylindrical Benjamin-Ono (cBO) equations, respectively. Whitham modulation equations which describe DSW evolution in the cKdV and cBO equations are derived in general and Riemann type variables are introduced. DSWs obtained from the numerical solutions of the corresponding Whitham systems and direct numerical simulations of the cKdV and cBO equations are compared with excellent agreement obtained. In turn, DSWs obtained from direct numerical simulations of the KP and 2DBO equations are compared with the cKdV and cBO equations, again with remarkable agreement. It is concluded that the (2+1) DSW behavior along parabolic fronts can be effectively described by the DSW solutions of the reduced (1+1) dimensional equations.Comment: 25 Pages, 16 Figures. The movies showing dispersive shock wave propagation in Kadomtsev-Petviashvili II and Two Dimensional Benjamin-Ono equations are available at https://youtu.be/AExAQHRS_vE and https://youtu.be/aXUNYKFlke

Lensed Arcs and Inner Structure of Abell 697

We present new optical observations of the z=0.282 cluster Abell 697 from the Keck II telescope. Images show an unusual disturbed structure in the cD halo and a previously unknown faint gravitational lens arc. A spectrum of the arc did not yield a redshift, but its spectrum and colors suggest it lies at z>1.3. We construct models to reproduce the arc that show the potential is likely to be highly elliptical. We suggest that this cluster may have undergone a recent merger and is in the process of forming its cD galaxy. Analysis of X-ray data from ROSAT and ASCA suggests that the merging process is sufficiently advanced that the gas in the cluster has relaxed, and A697 lies near the L_x-T_x relation for normal clusters.Comment: LaTeX; 12 pages, 3 figures, submitted to ApJ Letter

Investigation of Programming Languages for an Automated Manufacturing System

This paper is an investigation of alternative programming languages for use in manufacturing control applications. After reviewing several types of languages, two alternative languages for programming the flexible manufacturing cell in Miami University's Manufacturing Engineering Department are investigated. One language, called Cell Programming Language (CPL), is an object-like high level language developed at Miami University. The other is Relay Ladder Logic (RLL) which is the predominant language used in industry to program programmable logic controllers. An RLL program that is equivalent to an existing CPL program was developed for this purpose

Affine Determinant Programs: A Framework for Obfuscation and Witness Encryption

An affine determinant program ADP: {0,1}^n → {0,1} is specified by a tuple (A,B_1,...,B_n) of square matrices over F_q and a function Eval: F_q → {0,1}, and evaluated on x \in {0,1}^n by computing Eval(det(A + sum_{i \in [n]} x_i B_i)). In this work, we suggest ADPs as a new framework for building general-purpose obfuscation and witness encryption. We provide evidence to suggest that constructions following our ADP-based framework may one day yield secure, practically feasible obfuscation. As a proof-of-concept, we give a candidate ADP-based construction of indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) for all circuits along with a simple witness encryption candidate. We provide cryptanalysis demonstrating that our schemes resist several potential attacks, and leave further cryptanalysis to future work. Lastly, we explore practically feasible applications of our witness encryption candidate, such as public-key encryption with near-optimal key generation

Communication Lower Bounds for Statistical Estimation Problems via a Distributed Data Processing Inequality

We study the tradeoff between the statistical error and communication cost of distributed statistical estimation problems in high dimensions. In the distributed sparse Gaussian mean estimation problem, each of the $m$ machines receives $n$ data points from a $d$-dimensional Gaussian distribution with unknown mean $\theta$ which is promised to be $k$-sparse. The machines communicate by message passing and aim to estimate the mean $\theta$. We provide a tight (up to logarithmic factors) tradeoff between the estimation error and the number of bits communicated between the machines. This directly leads to a lower bound for the distributed \textit{sparse linear regression} problem: to achieve the statistical minimax error, the total communication is at least $\Omega(\min\{n,d\}m)$, where $n$ is the number of observations that each machine receives and $d$ is the ambient dimension. These lower results improve upon [Sha14,SD'14] by allowing multi-round iterative communication model. We also give the first optimal simultaneous protocol in the dense case for mean estimation. As our main technique, we prove a \textit{distributed data processing inequality}, as a generalization of usual data processing inequalities, which might be of independent interest and useful for other problems.Comment: To appear at STOC 2016. Fixed typos in theorem 4.5 and incorporated reviewers' suggestion