Sixteen space-filling curves and traversals for d-dimensional cubes and simplices

This article describes sixteen different ways to traverse d-dimensional space recursively in a way that is well-defined for any number of dimensions. Each of these traversals has distinct properties that may be beneficial for certain applications. Some of the traversals are novel, some have been known in principle but had not been described adequately for any number of dimensions, some of the traversals have been known. This article is the first to present them all in a consistent notation system. Furthermore, with this article, tools are provided to enumerate points in a regular grid in the order in which they are visited by each traversal. In particular, we cover: five discontinuous traversals based on subdividing cubes into 2^d subcubes: Z-traversal (Morton indexing), U-traversal, Gray-code traversal, Double-Gray-code traversal, and Inside-out traversal; two discontinuous traversals based on subdividing simplices into 2^d subsimplices: the Hill-Z traversal and the Maehara-reflected traversal; five continuous traversals based on subdividing cubes into 2^d subcubes: the Base-camp Hilbert curve, the Harmonious Hilbert curve, the Alfa Hilbert curve, the Beta Hilbert curve, and the Butz-Hilbert curve; four continuous traversals based on subdividing cubes into 3^d subcubes: the Peano curve, the Coil curve, the Half-coil curve, and the Meurthe curve. All of these traversals are self-similar in the sense that the traversal in each of the subcubes or subsimplices of a cube or simplex, on any level of recursive subdivision, can be obtained by scaling, translating, rotating, reflecting and/or reversing the traversal of the complete unit cube or simplex.Comment: 28 pages, 12 figures. v2: fixed a confusing typo on page 12, line

The power of linear programming for general-valued CSPs

Let $D$, called the domain, be a fixed finite set and let $\Gamma$, called the valued constraint language, be a fixed set of functions of the form $f:D^m\to\mathbb{Q}\cup\{\infty\}$, where different functions might have different arity $m$. We study the valued constraint satisfaction problem parametrised by $\Gamma$, denoted by VCSP$(\Gamma)$. These are minimisation problems given by $n$ variables and the objective function given by a sum of functions from $\Gamma$, each depending on a subset of the $n$ variables. Finite-valued constraint languages contain functions that take on only rational values and not infinite values. Our main result is a precise algebraic characterisation of valued constraint languages whose instances can be solved exactly by the basic linear programming relaxation (BLP). For a valued constraint language $\Gamma$, BLP is a decision procedure for $\Gamma$ if and only if $\Gamma$ admits a symmetric fractional polymorphism of every arity. For a finite-valued constraint language $\Gamma$, BLP is a decision procedure if and only if $\Gamma$ admits a symmetric fractional polymorphism of some arity, or equivalently, if $\Gamma$ admits a symmetric fractional polymorphism of arity 2. Using these results, we obtain tractability of several novel classes of problems, including problems over valued constraint languages that are: (1) submodular on arbitrary lattices; (2) $k$-submodular on arbitrary finite domains; (3) weakly (and hence strongly) tree-submodular on arbitrary trees.Comment: A full version of a FOCS'12 paper by the last two authors (arXiv:1204.1079) and an ICALP'13 paper by the first author (arXiv:1207.7213) to appear in SIAM Journal on Computing (SICOMP

Decoding distance-preserving permutation codes for power-line communications

Abstract: A new decoding method is presented for permutation codes obtained from distance-preserving mapping algorithms, used in conjunction with M-ary FSK for use on powerline channels. The new approach makes it possible for the permutation code to be used as an inner code with any other error correction code used as an outer code. The memory and number of computations necessary for this method is lower than when using a minimum distance decoding method

Harmonious Hilbert curves and other extradimensional space-filling curves

This paper introduces a new way of generalizing Hilbert's two-dimensional space-filling curve to arbitrary dimensions. The new curves, called harmonious Hilbert curves, have the unique property that for any d' < d, the d-dimensional curve is compatible with the d'-dimensional curve with respect to the order in which the curves visit the points of any d'-dimensional axis-parallel space that contains the origin. Similar generalizations to arbitrary dimensions are described for several variants of Peano's curve (the original Peano curve, the coil curve, the half-coil curve, and the Meurthe curve). The d-dimensional harmonious Hilbert curves and the Meurthe curves have neutral orientation: as compared to the curve as a whole, arbitrary pieces of the curve have each of d! possible rotations with equal probability. Thus one could say these curves are `statistically invariant' under rotation---unlike the Peano curves, the coil curves, the half-coil curves, and the familiar generalization of Hilbert curves by Butz and Moore. In addition, prompted by an application in the construction of R-trees, this paper shows how to construct a 2d-dimensional generalized Hilbert or Peano curve that traverses the points of a certain d-dimensional diagonally placed subspace in the order of a given d-dimensional generalized Hilbert or Peano curve. Pseudocode is provided for comparison operators based on the curves presented in this paper.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figures, pseudocode include

Estimates on the Size of Symbol Weight Codes

The study of codes for powerlines communication has garnered much interest over the past decade. Various types of codes such as permutation codes, frequency permutation arrays, and constant composition codes have been proposed over the years. In this work we study a type of code called the bounded symbol weight codes which was first introduced by Versfeld et al. in 2005, and a related family of codes that we term constant symbol weight codes. We provide new upper and lower bounds on the size of bounded symbol weight and constant symbol weight codes. We also give direct and recursive constructions of codes for certain parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Reachability analysis of first-order definable pushdown systems

We study pushdown systems where control states, stack alphabet, and transition relation, instead of being finite, are first-order definable in a fixed countably-infinite structure. We show that the reachability analysis can be addressed with the well-known saturation technique for the wide class of oligomorphic structures. Moreover, for the more restrictive homogeneous structures, we are able to give concrete complexity upper bounds. We show ample applicability of our technique by presenting several concrete examples of homogeneous structures, subsuming, with optimal complexity, known results from the literature. We show that infinitely many such examples of homogeneous structures can be obtained with the classical wreath product construction.Comment: to appear in CSL'1

A powerful abelian square-free substitution over 4 letters

AbstractIn 1961, Paul Erdös posed the question whether abelian squares can be avoided in arbitrarily long words over a finite alphabet. An abelian square is a non-empty word uv, where u and v are permutations (anagrams) of each other. The case of the four letter alphabet Σ4={a,b,c,d} turned out to be the most challenging and remained open until 1992 when the author presented an abelian square-free (a-2-free) endomorphism g85 of Σ4∗. The size of this g85, i.e., |g85(abcd)|, is equal to 4×85 (uniform modulus). Until recently, all known methods for constructing arbitrarily long a-2-free words on Σ4 have been based on the structure of g85 and on the endomorphism g98 of Σ4∗ found in 2002.In this paper, a great many new a-2-free endomorphisms of Σ4∗ are reported. The sizes of these endomorphisms range from 4×102 to 4×115. Importantly, twelve of the new a-2-free endomorphisms, of modulus m=109, can be used to construct an a-2-free (commutatively functional) substitution σ109 of Σ4∗ with 12 image words for each letter.The properties of σ109 lead to a considerable improvement for the lower bound of the exponential growth of cn, i.e., of the number of a-2-free words over 4 letters of length n. It is obtained that cn>β−50βn with β=121/m≃1.02306. Originally, in 1998, Carpi established the exponential growth of cn by showing that cn>β−tβn with β=219/t=219/(853−85)≃1.000021, where t=853−85 is the modulus of the substitution that he constructs starting from g85

Belief merging within fragments of propositional logic

Recently, belief change within the framework of fragments of propositional logic has gained increasing attention. Previous works focused on belief contraction and belief revision on the Horn fragment. However, the problem of belief merging within fragments of propositional logic has been neglected so far. This paper presents a general approach to define new merging operators derived from existing ones such that the result of merging remains in the fragment under consideration. Our approach is not limited to the case of Horn fragment but applicable to any fragment of propositional logic characterized by a closure property on the sets of models of its formulae. We study the logical properties of the proposed operators in terms of satisfaction of merging postulates, considering in particular distance-based merging operators for Horn and Krom fragments.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 15th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR 2014