Tootfinder

Optical and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Outbursting Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks
Ruining Zhao, Bin Yang, Michael S. P. Kelley, Silvia Protopapa, Aigen Li, Yang Huang, Jifeng Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03247

Optical and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Outbursting Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks
We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) observations of the outbursting, Halley-type comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. Three NIR spectra were obtained during two outbursts in October and November 2023, with the 3-meter Infrared Telescope Facility and the Palomar 200-inch Telescope, respectively. The NIR spectra exhibited absorption features at 1.5 and 2.0 $μ$m, consistent with the diagnostic absorption bands of water ice, superimposed on a red dust-scattering continuum. We find that the absorption ban…

from my link log —
The joys of UNIX keyboards.
https://donatstudios.com/UNIX-Keyboards
saved 2023-08-04 https://do…

The Joys of UNIX Keyboards

HouseTS: A Large-Scale, Multimodal Spatiotemporal U.S. Housing Dataset
Shengkun Wang, Yanshen Sun, Fanglan Chen, Linhan Wang, Naren Ramakrishnan, Chang-Tien Lu, Yinlin Chen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00765

HouseTS: A Large-Scale, Multimodal Spatiotemporal U.S. Housing Dataset
Accurate house-price forecasting is essential for investors, planners, and researchers. However, reproducible benchmarks with sufficient spatiotemporal depth and contextual richness for long horizon prediction remain scarce. To address this, we introduce HouseTS a large scale, multimodal dataset covering monthly house prices from March 2012 to December 2023 across 6,000 ZIP codes in 30 major U.S. metropolitan areas. The dataset includes over 890K records, enriched with points of Interest (POI),…

Speeding Up Hyper-Heuristics With Markov-Chain Operator Selection and the Only-Worsening Acceptance Operator
Abderrahim Bendahi, Benjamin Doerr, Adrien Fradin, Johannes F. Lutzeyer
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01107

Speeding Up Hyper-Heuristics With Markov-Chain Operator Selection and the Only-Worsening Acceptance Operator
The move-acceptance hyper-heuristic was recently shown to be able to leave local optima with astonishing efficiency (Lissovoi et al., Artificial Intelligence (2023)). In this work, we propose two modifications to this algorithm that demonstrate impressive performances on a large class of benchmarks including the classic Cliff$_d$ and Jump$_m$ function classes. (i) Instead of randomly choosing between the only-improving and any-move acceptance operator, we take this choice via a simple two-state…

Kantar: the share of Indians consuming media exclusively on mobile phones grew to 23% in Q1 2025, up from 15% in Q1 2023, as TVs stay unaffordable for many (Satviki Sanjay/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.14853 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_mat…

Near-Optimal Nonconvex-Strongly-Convex Bilevel Optimization with Fully First-Order Oracles
In this work, we consider bilevel optimization when the lower-level problem is strongly convex. Recent works show that with a Hessian-vector product (HVP) oracle, one can provably find an $ε$-stationary point within ${\mathcal{O}}(ε^{-2})$ oracle calls. However, the HVP oracle may be inaccessible or expensive in practice. Kwon et al. (ICML 2023) addressed this issue by proposing a first-order method that can achieve the same goal at a slower rate of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(ε^{-3})$. In this pap…

Suspense and Surprise in European Football
Raphael Flepp, Tim Pawlowski, Travis Richardson
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21253 https://a…

Suspense and Surprise in European Football
We propose utilizing match-level suspense and surprise - which capture the entertainment utility created by competitive balance and outcome uncertainty for sports spectators - as alternative policy targets for league organizers and managers. Through simulations, we derive a benchmark range for suspense and surprise based on a perfectly balanced match before analyzing over 25,000 men's matches (2010/11-2023/24) and 725 women's matches (2023/24) from Europe's top football leagues. Our findings re…

Infinite lexicographic products of positional objectives
Antonio Casares, Pierre Ohlmann, Micha{\l} Skrzypczak, Igor Walukiewicz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14544

Infinite lexicographic products of positional objectives
This paper contributes to the study of positional determinacy of infinite duration games played on potentially infinite graphs. Recently, [Ohlmann, TheoretiCS 2023] established that positionality of prefix-independent objectives is preserved by finite lexicographic products. We propose two different notions of infinite lexicographic products indexed by arbitrary ordinals, and extend Ohlmann's result by proving that they also preserve positionality. In the context of one-player positionality, th…

A new equilibrium: COVID-19 lockdowns and WFH persistence
Laura Ketter, Todd Morris, Lizi Yu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16671 https://

A new equilibrium: COVID-19 lockdowns and WFH persistence
This paper documents a robust link between COVID-19 lockdowns and the uptake and persistence of working from home (WFH) practices. Exploiting rich longitudinal data, we use a difference-in-differences strategy to compare office workers in three heavily locked-down Australian states to similar workers in less affected states. Locked-down workers sustain 43% higher WFH levels through 2023 - 0.5 days per week - with a monotonic dose-response relationship. Persistence is driven by adjustments on bo…