Abstract

This paper identifies the cryptocurrency market crashes and analyses its dynamics using the complex network. We identify three distinct crashes during 2017–20, and the analysis is carried out by dividing the time series into pre-crash, crash, and post-crash periods. Partial correlation based complex network analysis is carried out to study the crashes. Degree density (𝜌𝐷), average path length (̄𝑙), and average clustering coefficient (𝑐𝑐) are estimated from these networks. We find that both 𝜌𝐷 and 𝑐𝑐 are smallest during the pre-crash period, and spike during the crash suggesting the network is dense during a crash. Although 𝜌𝐷 and 𝑐𝑐 decrease in the postcrash period, they remain higher than pre-crash levels for the 2017–18 and 2018–19 crashes suggesting a market attempt to return to normalcy. We get ̄𝑙 is minimal during the crash period, suggesting a rapid flow of information. A dense network and rapid information flow suggest that during a crash uninformed synchronized panic sell-off happens. However, during the 2019– 20 crash, the values of 𝜌𝐷, 𝑐𝑐, and ̄𝑙 did not vary significantly, indicating minimal change in dynamics compared to other crashes. The findings of this study may guide investors in making decisions during market crashes.

Abstract

Our investigation centres on assessing the importance of a biased parameter (𝛼) in a multiplex Markov chain (MMC) model that is characterized by biased random walks in multiplex networks. We explore how varying complex network topologies affect the total multiplex imbalance as a function of biased parameter. Our primary finding is that the system demonstrates a gradual increase in total imbalance within both positive and negative regions of the biased parameter, with a consistent minimum value occurring at 𝛼 = −1. In contrast to the negative region, the total imbalance is consistently high when 𝛼 is significantly positive. We perform a detailed examination of four different network structures and establish three sets of multiplex networks. In each of these networks, the second layer consists of a Regular Random network, while the first layer is either a Barabási–Albert, Erdős-Rényi, or Watts Strogatz network, depending on the set. Our results demonstrate that the combination of Barabási–Albert and Random Regular Network exhibits the highest level of right saturation imbalance. Additionally, for left saturation imbalance, the Erdős–Rényi and Random Regular combination achieve a slightly higher value. We also observe that the total amount of imbalance at 𝛼 = −1 follows a decreasing trend as the size of the network of each layer increases. Furthermore, we are also able to illustrate that the second most significant eigenvalue of the supra-transition matrix exhibits a similar pattern in response to changes in the bias parameter, aligning with the overall system’s imbalance.

Abstract

Complexity is an important metric for appropriate characterization of different classes of irregular signals, observed in the laboratory or in nature. The literature is already rich in the description of such measures using a variety of entropy and disequilibrium measures, separately or in combination. Chaotic signal was given prime importance in such studies while no such measure was proposed so far, how complex were the extreme events when compared to non-extreme chaos. We address here this question of complexity in extreme events and investigate if we can distinguish them from non-extreme chaotic signal. The normalized Shannon entropy in combination with disequlibrium is used for our study and it is able to distinguish between extreme chaos and non-extreme chaos and moreover, it depicts the transition points from periodic to extremes via Pomeau-Manneville intermittency and, from small amplitude to large amplitude chaos and its transition to extremes via interior crisis. We report a general trend of complexity against a system parameter that increases during a transition to extreme events, reaches a maximum, and then starts decreasing. We employ three models, a nonautonomous Liénard system, 2-dimensional Ikeda map and a 6-dimensional coupled Hindmarh-Rose system to validate our proposition

Abstract

We review the main applications of machine learning models that are not fully supervised in particle physics, i.e., clustering, anomaly detection, detector simulation, and unfolding. Unsupervised methods are ideal for anomaly detection tasks—machine learning models can be trained on background data to identify deviations if we model the background data precisely. The learning can also be partially unsupervised when we can provide some information about the anomalies at the data level. Generative models are useful in speeding up detector simulations—they can mimic the computationally intensive task without large resources. They can also efficiently map detector-level data to parton-level data (i.e., data unfolding). In this review, we focus on interesting ideas and connections and briefly overview the underlying techniques wherever necessary.

Abstract

This article asks what it is like for the rural poor to live with coal over time as mines expand and agriculture and forest-dependent ways of living inevitably become more restricted. Research on the expansion of open pit coal mining in India shows a widespread inability to appropriately compensate the rural poor for lost land and access to common property resources. Yet it is simultaneously clear that the growth of coal extraction over time ensures increased community dependence on mainly informal, coal-based livelihoods. What then happens over the long-term for people who live in and around the coalfields? Drawing on evidence from 2011 to 2022, this article explores longer term changes for mine-affected people next to major coal mines in Telangana state, India. Specifically, it examines a) the acquisition of forest and agricultural lands for the expanding mines, b) the operating mines and their environmental implications, but also improved job opportunities, and c) mine closure as an opportunity to rehabilitate the landscape and return the land for alternative community uses post mining. The results add to the understanding of the long-term changes that large-scale mining brings to rural communities, and the challenges to a just transition once coal mining inevitably comes to an end.

Abstract

We re-examined whether different time scales such as week, day of week, and hour of day are independently used during memory retrieval as has been previously argued (i.e., independence of scales). To overcome the limitations of previous studies, we used experience sampling technology to obtain test stimuli that have higher ecological validity. We also used pointwise mutual information to directly calculate the degree of dependency between time scales in a formal way. Participants were provided with a smartphone and were asked to wear it around their neck for two weeks, which was equipped with an app that automatically collected time, images, GPS, audio and accelerometry. After a one-week retention interval, participants were presented with an image that was captured during their data collection phase, and were tested on their memory of when the event happened (i.e., week, day of week, and hour). We find that, in contrast to previous arguments, memories of different time scales were not retrieved independently. Moreover, through rendering recurrence plots of the images that the participants collected, we provide evidence the dependency may have originated from the repetitive events that the participants encountered in their daily life.

Abstract

The role of completely positive–indivisibility (CP-indivisibility) and incompatibility as valuable resources for various information-theoretic tasks is widely acknowledged. This study delves into the intricate relationship between CP-divisibility and channel compatibility. Our investigation focuses on the behavior of incompatibility robustness of quantum channels for a pair of generic dynamical maps. We show that the incompatibility robustness of channels is monotonically nonincreasing for a pair of generic CP-divisible dynamical maps. Further, our explicit study of the behavior of incompatibility robustness with time for some specific dynamical maps reveals nonmonotonic behavior in the CP-indivisible regime. Additionally, we propose a measure of CP-indivisibility based on the incompatibility robustness of quantum channels. Our investigation provides valuable insights into the nature of quantum dynamical maps and their relevance in information-theoretic applications.

Abstract

Advancements in Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) have shown significant promise for the development of self directed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Our research focuses on examining the impact of time-varying noise such as that present in Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors on the efficacy of DRL-based waypoint navigation and obstacle avoidance in UAVs. Sensor noise affects localization and obstacle detection, and is assumed to follow a Gaussian probability distribution with an unknown non-zero time varying mean and variance. In this study, we consider environment with static obstacles where noise exhibits a time-varying bias, a characteristic commonly associated with IMU sensors. We evaluate the effectiveness of a DRL agent, trained using the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) technique, in the presence of such noise.

Abstract

The complex, glinty appearance of detailed normal-mapped surfaces at different scales requires expensive per-pixel Normal Distribution Function computations. Moreover, large light sources further compound this integration and increase the noise in the Monte Carlo renderer. Specialized rendering techniques that explicitly express the underlying normal distribution have been developed to improve performance for glinty surfaces controlled by a fixed material roughness. We present a new method that supports spatially varying roughness based on a neural histogram that computes per-pixel NDFs with arbitrary positions and sizes. Our representation is both memory and compute efficient. Additionally, we fully integrate direct illumination for all light directions in constant time. Our approach decouples roughness and normal distribution, allowing the live editing of the spatially varying roughness of complex normal-mapped objects. We demonstrate that our approach improves on previous work by achieving smaller footprints while offering GPU-friendly computation and compact representation.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel two-step technique for text classification using autoregressive Language Models (LM). In the first step, a set of perplexity and log-likelihood based numeric features are elicited from an LM for a text instance to be classified. Then, in the second step, a classifier based on these features is trained to predict the final label. The classifier used is usually a simple machine learning classifier like Support Vector Machine (SVM) or Logistic Regression (LR) and it is trained using a small set of training examples. We believe, our technique presents a whole new way of exploiting the available training instances, in addition to the existing ways like fine-tuning LMs or in-context learning. Our approach stands out by eliminating the need for parameter updates in LMs, as required in fine-tuning, and does not impose limitations on the number of training examples faced while building prompts for in-context learning. We evaluate our technique across 5 different datasets and compare with multiple competent baselines.