Constraint Programming (CP) and Machine Learning (ML) face challenges in text generation due to CP's struggle with implementing "meaning'' and ML's difficulty with structural constraints. This paper proposes a solution by combining both approaches and embedding a Large Language Model (LLM) in CP. The LLM handles word generation and meaning, while CP manages structural constraints. This approach builds on GenCP, an improved version of On-the-fly Constraint Programming Search (OTFS) using LLM-generated domains. Compared to Beam Search (BS), a standard NLP method, this combined approach (GenCP with LLM) is faster and produces better results, ensuring all constraints are satisfied. This fusion of CP and ML presents new possibilities for enhancing text generation under constraints.

The Einstein Telescope (ET), a proposed European ground-based gravitational-wave detector of third-generation, is an evolution of second-generation detectors such as Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA which could be operating in the mid 2030s. ET will explore the universe with gravitational waves up to cosmological distances. We discuss its main scientific objectives and its potential for discoveries in astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics.

We examine the impact of concept-informed supervision on multimodal video interpretation models using MOByGaze, a dataset containing human-annotated explanatory concepts. We introduce Concept Modality Specific Datasets (CMSDs), which consist of data subsets categorized by the modality (visual, textual, or audio) of annotated concepts. Models trained on CMSDs outperform those using traditional legacy training in both early and late fusion approaches. Notably, this approach enables late fusion models to achieve performance close to that of early fusion models. These findings underscore the importance of modality-specific annotations in developing robust, self-explainable video models and contribute to advancing interpretable multimodal learning in complex video analysis.

ASTEP (Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) is a pilot project that aims at searching and characterizing transiting exoplanets from Dome C in Antarctica and to qualify this site for photometry in the visible. Two instruments were installed at Dome C and ran for six winters in total. The analysis of the collected data is nearly complete. We present the operation of the instruments, and the technical challenges, limitations, and possible solutions in light of the data quality. The instruments performed continuous observations during the winters. Human interventions are required mainly for regular inspection and ice dust removal. A defrosting system is efficient at preventing and removing ice on the mirrors. The PSF FWHM is 4.5 arcsec on average which is 2.5 times larger than the specification, and is highly variable; the causes are the poor ground-level seeing, the turbulent plumes generated by the heating system, and to a lower extent the imperfect optical alignment and focusing, and some astigmatism. We propose solutions for each of these aspects that would largely increase the PSF stability. The astrometric and guiding precisions are satisfactory and would deserve only minor improvements. Major issues are encountered with the camera shutter which did not close properly after two winters; we minimized this issue by heating the shutter and by developing specific image calibration algorithms. Finally, we summarize the site testing and science results obtained with ASTEP. Overall, the ASTEP experiment will serve as a basis to design and operate future optical and near-infrared telescopes in Antarctica.

We study the temporal dynamics of light interacting with a one-dimensional lattice of cold atoms. In such a system, a photonic band gap opens up, yielding an efficient Bragg reflection for an incident field incoming with the right angle and detuning. Here, we report two new effects appearing in the Bragg reflection. First, for some detunings, there is a ``flash'', i.e., a transient increase of the reflected intensity when the incident field is switched off. Second, the subsequent extinction of the reflected field is clearly superradiant, with decay rates up to 8 times the natural decay rate of the atomic excited state. Numerical simulations are in qualitative agreement with the observations, which can be explained by a classical photonic model.

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) that transforms city-wide fiber-optic cables into a large-scale strain sensing array has shown the potential to revolutionize urban traffic monitoring by providing a fine-grained, scalable, and low-maintenance monitoring solution. However, the real-world application of DAS is hindered by challenges such as noise contamination and interference among closely traveling cars. In response, we introduce a self-supervised U-Net model that can suppress background noise and compress car-induced DAS signals into high-resolution pulses through spatial deconvolution. Our work extends recent research by introducing three key advancements. Firstly, we perform a comprehensive resolution analysis of DAS-recorded traffic signals, laying a theoretical foundation for our approach. Secondly, we incorporate space-domain vehicle wavelets into our U-Net model, enabling consistent high-resolution outputs regardless of vehicle speed variations. Finally, we employ L-2 norm regularization in the loss function, enhancing our model's sensitivity to weaker signals from vehicles in remote traffic lanes. We evaluate the effectiveness and robustness of our method through field recordings under different traffic conditions and various driving speeds. Our results show that our method can enhance the spatial-temporal resolution and better resolve closely traveling cars. The spatial deconvolution U-Net model also enables the characterization of large-size vehicles to identify axle numbers and estimate the vehicle length. Monitoring large-size vehicles also benefits imaging deep earth by leveraging the surface waves induced by the dynamic vehicle-road interaction.

Gateway Servers for the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) must meet stringent Security and Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, including cyberattack protection, low delays and minimal packet loss, to offer secure real-time data exchange for human and vehicle safety and efficient road traffic management. Therefore, it is vital to protect these systems from cyberattacks with adequate Attack Detection (AD) and Mitigation mechanisms. Such attacks often include packet Floods that impair the QoS of the networks and Gateways and even impede the Gateways capability to carry out AD. Thus, this paper first evaluates these effects using system measurements during Flood attacks. It then demonstrates how a Smart Quasi-Deterministic Policy Forwarder (SQF) at the entrance of the Gateway can regulate the incoming traffic to ensure that the Gateway supports the AD to operate promptly during an attack. Since Flood attacks create substantial packet backlogs, we propose a novel Adaptive Attack Mitigation (AAM) system that is activated after an attack is detected to dynamically sample the incoming packet stream, determine whether the attack is continuing, and also drop batches of packets at the input to reduce the effects of the attack. The AAM is designed to minimize a cost function that includes the sampling overhead and the cost of lost benign packets. We show experimentally that the Optimum AAM approach is effective in mitigating attacks and present theoretical and experimental results that validate the proposed approach.

There are no planets intermediate in size between Earth and Neptune in our Solar System, yet these objects are found around a substantial fraction of other stars. Population statistics show that close-in planets in this size range bifurcate into two classes based on their radii. It is hypothesized that the group with larger radii (referred to as "sub-Neptunes") is distinguished by having hydrogen-dominated atmospheres that are a few percent of the total mass of the planets. GJ 1214b is an archetype sub-Neptune that has been observed extensively using transmission spectroscopy to test this hypothesis. However, the measured spectra are featureless, and thus inconclusive, due to the presence of high-altitude aerosols in the planet's atmosphere. Here we report a spectroscopic thermal phase curve of GJ 1214b obtained with JWST in the mid-infrared. The dayside and nightside spectra (average brightness temperatures of 553 $\pm$ 9 and 437 $\pm$ 19 K, respectively) each show >3$\sigma$ evidence of absorption features, with H$_2$O as the most likely cause in both. The measured global thermal emission implies that GJ 1214b's Bond albedo is 0.51 $\pm$ 0.06. Comparison between the spectroscopic phase curve data and three-dimensional models of GJ 1214b reveal a planet with a high metallicity atmosphere blanketed by a thick and highly reflective layer of clouds or haze.

We present 1-D non-Local-Thermodynamic-Equilibrium time-dependent radiative-transfer simulations for supernovae (SNe) of type IIb, Ib, and Ic that result from the terminal explosion of the mass donor in a close-binary system. Here, we select three ejecta with a total kinetic energy of ~1.2e51erg, but characterised by different ejecta masses (2-5Msun), composition, and chemical mixing. The type IIb/Ib models correspond to the progenitors that have retained their He-rich shell at the time of explosion. The type Ic model arises from a progenitor that has lost its helium shell, but retains 0.32Msun of helium in a CO-rich core of 5.11Msun. We discuss their photometric and spectroscopic properties during the first 2-3 months after explosion, and connect these to their progenitor and ejecta properties including chemical stratification. For these three models, Arnett's rule overestimates the 56Ni mass by ~50% while the procedure of Katz et al., based on an energy argument, yields a more reliable estimate. The presence of strong CI lines around 9000A prior to maximum is an indicator that the pre-SN star was under-abundant in helium. As noted by others, the 1.08micron feature is a complex blend of CI, MgII, and HeI lines, which makes the identification of He uncertain in SNe Ibc unless other HeI lines can be identified. Our models show little scatter in (V-R) colour 10d after R-band maximum. We also address a number of radiative transfer properties of SNe Ibc, including the notion of a photosphere, the inference of a representative ejecta expansion rate, spectrum formation, blackbody fits and "correction factors".

Hot Jupiters are among the best-studied exoplanets, but it is still poorly understood how their chemical composition and cloud properties vary with longitude. Theoretical models predict that clouds may condense on the nightside and that molecular abundances can be driven out of equilibrium by zonal winds. Here we report a phase-resolved emission spectrum of the hot Jupiter WASP-43b measured from 5-12 $\mu$m with JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The spectra reveal a large day-night temperature contrast (with average brightness temperatures of 1524$\pm$35 and 863$\pm$23 Kelvin, respectively) and evidence for water absorption at all orbital phases. Comparisons with three-dimensional atmospheric models show that both the phase curve shape and emission spectra strongly suggest the presence of nightside clouds which become optically thick to thermal emission at pressures greater than ~100 mbar. The dayside is consistent with a cloudless atmosphere above the mid-infrared photosphere. Contrary to expectations from equilibrium chemistry but consistent with disequilibrium kinetics models, methane is not detected on the nightside (2$\sigma$ upper limit of 1-6 parts per million, depending on model assumptions).

The abundance and demographics of dark matter substructure is important for many areas in astrophysics and cosmological $N$-body simulations have been the primary tool used to investigate them. However, it has recently become clear that the simulations are subject to numerical artefacts, which hampers a proper treatment of the tidal evolution of subhaloes. Unfortunately, no analytical models that accurately describe subhalo evolution exist either. We therefore present a library of idealized, high resolution $N$-body simulations of the tidal evolution of individual subhaloes that can be used to calibrate semi-analytical models and to complement cosmological simulations. The simulations focus on minor mergers, i.e., the mass of the subhalo is much smaller than that of the host halo, such that the impact of dynamical friction is negligible. This setup allows the adoption of a fixed analytical potential for modelling the host halo. The dynamical evolution of subhaloes is followed with $N$-body computations. In the library, four parameters, two of which characterize the subhalo orbit with respect to the host halo, and the two concentrations of the host- and subhalo, are varied over the ranges encountered in cosmological simulations. We show several representative examples from the library that illustrate the evolution of the subhalo mass and velocity dispersion profiles. Additionally, we make publicly available a pre-trained non-parametric model of the subhalo mass evolution based on random forest regression. This model is able to interpolate the simulation data at the 0.1\,dex level and provides efficient access to the data for further use in modelling.

In 1985, Mader conjectured the existence of a function $f$ such that every digraph with minimum out-degree at least $f(k)$ contains a subdivision of the transitive tournament of order $k$. This conjecture is still completely open, as the existence of $f(5)$ remains unknown. In this paper, we show that if $D$ is an oriented path, or an in-arborescence (i.e., a tree with all edges oriented towards the root) or the union of two directed paths from $x$ to $y$ and a directed path from $y$ to $x$, then every digraph with minimum out-degree large enough contains a subdivision of $D$. Additionally, we study Mader's conjecture considering another graph parameter. The dichromatic number of a digraph $D$ is the smallest integer $k$ such that $D$ can be partitioned into $k$ acyclic subdigraphs. We show that any digraph with dichromatic number greater than $4^m (n-1)$ contains every digraph with $n$ vertices and $m$ arcs as a subdivision.

The near-surface swimming patterns of bacteria are strongly determined by the hydrodynamic interactions between bacteria and the surface, which trap bacteria in smooth circular trajectories that lead to inefficient surface exploration. Here, we show by combining experiments and a data-driven mathematical model that surface exploration of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) -- a pathogenic strain of E. coli causing serious illnesses such as bloody diarrhea -- results from a complex interplay between motility and transient surface adhesion events. These events allow EHEC to break the smooth circular trajectories and regulate their transport properties by the use stop-adhesion events that lead to a characteristic intermittent motion on surfaces. We find that the experimentally measured frequency of stop-adhesion events in EHEC is located at the value predicted by the developed mathematical model that maximizes bacterial surface diffusivity. We indicate that these results and the developed model apply to other bacterial strains on different surfaces, which suggests that swimming bacteria use transient adhesion to regulate surface motion.

Measurement of the gas velocity distribution in galaxy clusters provides insight into the physics of mergers, through which large scale structures form in the Universe. Velocity estimates within the intracluster medium (ICM) can be obtained via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, but its observation is challenging both in term of sensitivity requirement and control of systematic effects, including the removal of contaminants. In this paper we report resolved observations, at 150 and 260 GHz, of the SZ effect toward the triple merger MACS J0717.5+3745 (z=0.55), using data obtained with the NIKA camera at the IRAM 30m telescope. Assuming that the SZ signal is the sum of a thermal (tSZ) and a kinetic (kSZ) component and by combining the two NIKA bands, we extract for the first time a resolved map of the kSZ signal in a cluster. The kSZ signal is dominated by a dipolar structure that peaks at -5.1 and +3.4 sigma, corresponding to two subclusters moving respectively away and toward us and coincident with the cold dense X-ray core and a hot region undergoing a major merging event. We model the gas electron density and line-of-sight velocity of MACS J0717.5+3745 as four subclusters. Combining NIKA data with X-ray observations from XMM-Newton and Chandra, we fit this model to constrain the gas line-of-sight velocity of each component, and we also derive, for the first time, a velocity map from kSZ data (i.e. that is model-dependent). Our results are consistent with previous constraints on the merger velocities, and thanks to the high angular resolution of our data, we are able to resolve the structure of the gas velocity. Finally, we investigate possible contamination and systematic effects with a special care given to radio and submillimeter galaxies. Among the sources that we detect with NIKA, we find one which is likely to be a high redshift lensed submillimeter galaxy.

The so-called "early activity" of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has been observed to originate mostly in parts of the concave region or "neck" between its two lobes. Since activity is driven by the sublimation of volatiles, this is a puzzling result because this area is less exposed to the Sun and is therefore expected to be cooler on average (Sierks et al. 2015). We used a thermophysical model that takes into account thermal inertia, global self-heating, and shadowing, to compute surface temperatures of the comet. We found that, for every rotation in the August--December 2014 period, some parts of the neck region undergo the fastest temperature variations of the comet's surface precisely because they are shadowed by their surrounding terrains. Our work suggests that these fast temperature changes are correlated to the early activity of the comet, and we put forward the hypothesis that erosion related to thermal cracking is operating at a high rate on the neck region due to these rapid temperature variations. This may explain why the neck contains some ice --as opposed to most other parts of the surface (Capaccioni et al. 2015)-- and why it is the main source of the comet's early activity (Sierks et al. 2015). In a broader context, these results indicate that thermal cracking can operate faster on atmosphereless bodies with significant concavities than implied by currently available estimates (Delbo' et al. 2014).

This paper investigates the generalization of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to Riemannian manifolds. We first propose a new and general type of family of subspaces in manifolds that we call barycentric subspaces. They are implicitly defined as the locus of points which are weighted means of $k+1$ reference points. As this definition relies on points and not on tangent vectors, it can also be extended to geodesic spaces which are not Riemannian. For instance, in stratified spaces, it naturally allows principal subspaces that span several strata, which is impossible in previous generalizations of PCA. We show that barycentric subspaces locally define a submanifold of dimension k which generalizes geodesic subspaces.Second, we rephrase PCA in Euclidean spaces as an optimization on flags of linear subspaces (a hierarchy of properly embedded linear subspaces of increasing dimension). We show that the Euclidean PCA minimizes the Accumulated Unexplained Variances by all the subspaces of the flag (AUV). Barycentric subspaces are naturally nested, allowing the construction of hierarchically nested subspaces. Optimizing the AUV criterion to optimally approximate data points with flags of affine spans in Riemannian manifolds lead to a particularly appealing generalization of PCA on manifolds called Barycentric Subspaces Analysis (BSA).

During early development, waves of activity propagate across the retina and play a key role in the proper wiring of the early visual system. During the stage II these waves are triggered by a transient network of neurons, called Starburst Amacrine Cells (SACs), showing a bursting activity which disappears upon further maturation. While several models have attempted to reproduce retinal waves, none of them is able to mimic the rhythmic autonomous bursting of individual SACs and reveal how these cells change their intrinsic properties during development. Here, we introduce a mathematical model, grounded on biophysics, which enables us to reproduce the bursting activity of SACs and to propose a plausible, generic and robust, mechanism that generates it. The core parameters controlling repetitive firing are fast depolarizing $V$-gated calcium channels and hyperpolarizing $V$-gated potassium channels. The quiescent phase of bursting is controlled by a slow after hyperpolarization (sAHP), mediated by calcium-dependent potassium channels. Based on a bifurcation analysis we show how biophysical parameters, regulating calcium and potassium activity, control the spontaneously occurring fast oscillatory activity followed by long refractory periods in individual SACs. We make a testable experimental prediction on the role of voltage-dependent potassium channels on the excitability properties of SACs and on the evolution of this excitability along development. We also propose an explanation on how SACs can exhibit a large variability in their bursting periods, as observed experimentally within a SACs network as well as across different species, yet based on a simple, unique, mechanism. As we discuss, these observations at the cellular level have a deep impact on the retinal waves description.

The classification of the minor bodies of the Solar System based on observables has been continuously developed and iterated over the past 40 years. While prior iterations followed either the availability of large observational campaigns or new instrumental capabilities opening new observational dimensions, we see the opportunity to improve primarily upon the established methodology. We developed an iteration of the asteroid taxonomy which allows the classification of partial and complete observations (i.e. visible, near-infrared, and visible-near-infrared spectrometry) and which reintroduces the visual albedo into the classification observables. The resulting class assignments are given probabilistically, enabling the uncertainty of a classification to be quantified. We built the taxonomy based on 2983 observations of 2125 individual asteroids, representing an almost tenfold increase of sample size compared with the previous taxonomy. The asteroid classes are identified in a lower-dimensional representation of the observations using a mixture of common factor analysers model. We identify 17 classes split into the three complexes C, M, and S, including the new Z-class for extremely-red objects in the main belt. The visual albedo information resolves the spectral degeneracy of the X-complex and establishes the P-class as part of the C-complex. We present a classification tool which computes probabilistic class assignments within this taxonomic scheme from asteroid observations. The taxonomic classifications of 6038 observations of 4526 individual asteroids are published. The ability to classify partial observations and the reintroduction of the visual albedo provide a taxonomy which is well suited for the current and future datasets of asteroid observations, in particular provided by the Gaia, MITHNEOS, NEO Surveyor, and SPHEREx surveys.

Accurate measurements of the cosmic shear signal require a separation of the true weak gravitational lensing signal from intrinsic shape correlations of galaxies. These `intrinsic alignments' of galaxies originate from galaxy formation processes and are expected to be correlated with the gravitational field through tidal processes affecting the galaxies, such as tidal shearing for elliptical galaxies and tidal torquing for spiral galaxies. In this study, we use morphologically selected samples of elliptical and spiral galaxies from the IllustrisTNG simulation at z=0 and z=1 to test the commonly employed linear (tidal shearing) and quadratic (tidal torquing) models for intrinsic alignments. We obtain local measurements of the linear and quadratic alignment parameters, including corrections for large-scale anisotropies of the cosmologically small simulation volume, and study their dependence on galaxy and environmental properties. We find a significant alignment signal for elliptical galaxies (linear model), that increases with mass and redshift. Spiral galaxies (quadratic model) on the other hand exhibit a significant signal only for the most massive objects at z=1. We show the quadratic model for spiral galaxies to break down at its fundamental assumptions, and simultaneously obtain a significant signal of spiral galaxies to align according to the linear model. We use the derived alignment parameters to compute intrinsic alignment spectra and estimate the expected contamination in the weak lensing signal obtained by Euclid.

Few-shot classification is a challenge in machine learning where the goal is to train a classifier using a very limited number of labeled examples. This scenario is likely to occur frequently in real life, for example when data acquisition or labeling is expensive. In this work, we consider the problem of post-labeled few-shot unsupervised learning, a classification task where representations are learned in an unsupervised fashion, to be later labeled using very few annotated examples. We argue that this problem is very likely to occur on the edge, when the embedded device directly acquires the data, and the expert needed to perform labeling cannot be prompted often. To address this problem, we consider an algorithm consisting of the concatenation of transfer learning with clustering using Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs). We introduce a TensorFlow-based implementation to speed-up the process in multi-core CPUs and GPUs. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the method using standard off-the-shelf few-shot classification benchmarks.