Cops and Invisible Robbers: the Cost of Drunkenness

We examine a version of the Cops and Robber (CR) game in which the robber is invisible, i.e., the cops do not know his location until they capture him. Apparently this game (CiR) has received little attention in the CR literature. We examine two variants: in the first the robber is adversarial (he actively tries to avoid capture); in the second he is drunk (he performs a random walk). Our goal in this paper is to study the invisible Cost of Drunkenness (iCOD), which is defined as the ratio ct_i(G)/dct_i(G), with ct_i(G) and dct_i(G) being the expected capture times in the adversarial and drunk CiR variants, respectively. We show that these capture times are well defined, using game theory for the adversarial case and partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDP) for the drunk case. We give exact asymptotic values of iCOD for several special graph families such as $d$-regular trees, give some bounds for grids, and provide general upper and lower bounds for general classes of graphs. We also give an infinite family of graphs showing that iCOD can be arbitrarily close to any value in [2,infinty). Finally, we briefly examine one more CiR variant, in which the robber is invisible and "infinitely fast"; we argue that this variant is significantly different from the Graph Search game, despite several similarities between the two games

Dagstuhl Reports : Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2011

Online Privacy: Towards Informational Self-Determination on the Internet (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 11061) : Simone Fischer-Hübner, Chris Hoofnagle, Kai Rannenberg, Michael Waidner, Ioannis Krontiris and Michael Marhöfer Self-Repairing Programs (Dagstuhl Seminar 11062) : Mauro Pezzé, Martin C. Rinard, Westley Weimer and Andreas Zeller Theory and Applications of Graph Searching Problems (Dagstuhl Seminar 11071) : Fedor V. Fomin, Pierre Fraigniaud, Stephan Kreutzer and Dimitrios M. Thilikos Combinatorial and Algorithmic Aspects of Sequence Processing (Dagstuhl Seminar 11081) : Maxime Crochemore, Lila Kari, Mehryar Mohri and Dirk Nowotka Packing and Scheduling Algorithms for Information and Communication Services (Dagstuhl Seminar 11091) Klaus Jansen, Claire Mathieu, Hadas Shachnai and Neal E. Youn

Tree-width for first order formulae

We introduce tree-width for first order formulae \phi, fotw(\phi). We show that computing fotw is fixed-parameter tractable with parameter fotw. Moreover, we show that on classes of formulae of bounded fotw, model checking is fixed parameter tractable, with parameter the length of the formula. This is done by translating a formula \phi\ with fotw(\phi)<k into a formula of the k-variable fragment L^k of first order logic. For fixed k, the question whether a given first order formula is equivalent to an L^k formula is undecidable. In contrast, the classes of first order formulae with bounded fotw are fragments of first order logic for which the equivalence is decidable. Our notion of tree-width generalises tree-width of conjunctive queries to arbitrary formulae of first order logic by taking into account the quantifier interaction in a formula. Moreover, it is more powerful than the notion of elimination-width of quantified constraint formulae, defined by Chen and Dalmau (CSL 2005): for quantified constraint formulae, both bounded elimination-width and bounded fotw allow for model checking in polynomial time. We prove that fotw of a quantified constraint formula \phi\ is bounded by the elimination-width of \phi, and we exhibit a class of quantified constraint formulae with bounded fotw, that has unbounded elimination-width. A similar comparison holds for strict tree-width of non-recursive stratified datalog as defined by Flum, Frick, and Grohe (JACM 49, 2002). Finally, we show that fotw has a characterization in terms of a cops and robbers game without monotonicity cost

Linear rank-width and linear clique-width of trees

We show that for every forest T the linear rank-width of T is equal to the path-width of T, and the linear clique-width of T equals the path-width of T plus two, provided that T contains a path of length three. It follows that both linear rank-width and linear clique-width of forests can be computed in linear time. Using our characterization of linear rank-width of forests, we determine the set of minimal excluded acyclic vertex-minors for the class of graphs of linear rank-width at most k

Hyperopic Cops and Robbers

International audienceWe introduce a new variant of the game of Cops and Robbers played on graphs, where the robber is invisible unless outside the neighbor set of a cop. The hyperopic cop number is the corresponding analogue of the cop number, and we investigate bounds and other properties of this parameter. We characterize the cop-win graphs for this variant, along with graphs with the largest possible hyperopic cop number. We analyze the cases of graphs with diameter 2 or at least 3, focusing on when the hyperopic cop number is at most one greater than the cop number. We show that for planar graphs, as with the usual cop number, the hyperopic cop number is at most 3. The hyperopic cop number is considered for countable graphs, and it is shown that for connected chains of graphs, the hyperopic cop density can be any real number in [0, 1/2]

The Variable Hierarchy for the Games mu-Calculus

Parity games are combinatorial representations of closed Boolean mu-terms. By adding to them draw positions, they have been organized by Arnold and one of the authors into a mu-calculus. As done by Berwanger et al. for the propositional modal mu-calculus, it is possible to classify parity games into levels of a hierarchy according to the number of fixed-point variables. We ask whether this hierarchy collapses w.r.t. the standard interpretation of the games mu-calculus into the class of all complete lattices. We answer this question negatively by providing, for each n >= 1, a parity game Gn with these properties: it unravels to a mu-term built up with n fixed-point variables, it is semantically equivalent to no game with strictly less than n-2 fixed-point variables

Testing can enhance or reduce suggestibility: The importance of contextual detail during misinformation exposure

Witnesses are likely to describe an event to a police investigator or 911 operator soon after the event and prior to any exposure to misinformation. Recent studies have found that recalling an event can increase people\u27s suggestibility (e.g., Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009) while other studies have reported that retrieval can reduce subsequent eyewitness suggestibility (e.g., Pansky & Tenenboim, 2011). In this dissertation, I examined whether differences in the way misinformation is presented can modulate the effects of testing on suggestibility. Participants watched a video of a robbery and some were questioned about the event immediately afterwards. Later, participants were exposed to misinformation in a narrative (Experiment 1a) or in questions (Experiment 1b). Consistent with previous studies, testing increased suggestibility when misinformation was presented via a narrative; however, when misinformation was presented in questions, testing decreased suggestibility. In Experiments 2 and 3, I sought to uncover why the retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES) effect was eliminated when misinformation was presented in questions. Experiment 2 was designed to address whether differences in the presentation duration of misinformation can account for the opposite patterns of results in Experiment 1 - they cannot. In Experiment 3, I manipulated whether a) misinformation was presented in questions or a narrative and b) the amount of contextual detail presented with the misinformation. I found that an RES effect was present only when misinformation was embedded in rich contextual details, regardless of whether misinformation was presented in questions or a narrative. Consistent with these data, previous studies that have found an RES effect have used misinformation narratives that included many additional contextual details (e.g., Chan & LaPaglia, 2011), whereas work showing a testing benefit has consistently presented misinformation in relative isolation (e.g., LaPaglia & Chan, 2012). These results suggest that the way in which misinformation is presented determines whether initial testing enhances or reduces suggestibility. The main findings are discussed within the context of discourse comprehension and narrative persuasion