Fast evaluation of union-intersection expressions

We show how to represent sets in a linear space data structure such that expressions involving unions and intersections of sets can be computed in a worst-case efficient way. This problem has applications in e.g. information retrieval and database systems. We mainly consider the RAM model of computation, and sets of machine words, but also state our results in the I/O model. On a RAM with word size $w$, a special case of our result is that the intersection of $m$ (preprocessed) sets, containing $n$ elements in total, can be computed in expected time $O(n (\log w)^2 / w + km)$, where $k$ is the number of elements in the intersection. If the first of the two terms dominates, this is a factor $w^{1-o(1)}$ faster than the standard solution of merging sorted lists. We show a cell probe lower bound of time $\Omega(n/(w m \log m)+ (1-\tfrac{\log k}{w}) k)$, meaning that our upper bound is nearly optimal for small $m$. Our algorithm uses a novel combination of approximate set representations and word-level parallelism

Achievable DoF-delay trade-offs for the K-user MIMO interference channel with delayed CSIT

©2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The degrees of freedom (DoFs) of the K-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel are studied when perfect, but delayed channel state information is available at the transmitter side (delayed CSIT). Recent works have proposed schemes improving the DoF knowledge of the interference channel, but at the cost of developing transmission involving many channel uses (long delay), thus increasing the complexity at both transmitter and receiver side. This paper proposes three linear precoding strategies, limited to at most three phases, based on the concept of interference alignment, and built upon three main ingredients: delayed CSIT precoding, user scheduling, and redundancy transmission. In this respect, the interference alignment is realized by exploiting delayed CSIT to align the interference at the non-intended receivers along the space-time domain. Moreover, a new framework is proposed where the number of transmitted symbols and duration of the phases is obtained as the solution of a maximization problem, and enabling the introduction of complexity constraints, which allows deriving the achievable DoF as a function of the transmission delay, i.e., the achievable DoF-delay trade-off. Finally, the latter part of this paper settles that the assumption of time-varying channels common along all the literature on delayed CSIT is indeed unnecessary.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

New insights into the Jahn–Teller effect in NO_3 via the dark à 2E" state

The recent cavity ringdown (CRD) measurement of the forbidden Ã^2 E"←X~^2 A2' transition of the nitrate radical NO_3 reveals a rich, well-resolved spectrum in the near-infrared. The spectroscopic detail provides a new window onto the Jahn–Teller (JT) and pseudo-Jahn–Teller (PJT) effects in NO_3. This paper reviews the current experimental evidence for vibronic coupling in the à state and discusses the theoretical issues in the context of new preliminary EOMIP/CCSD and CCSD(T) calculations. The theoretical results to date indicate that the à 2E" state of NO_3 undergoes a relatively strong JT distortion which may require inclusion of higher order vibronic couplings. The intensity of this transition may involve multiple intensity borrowing mechanisms via PJT coupling among the X~, à and B~ states

Excitons in T-shaped quantum wires

We calculate energies, oscillator strengths for radiative recombination, and two-particle wave functions for the ground state exciton and around 100 excited states in a T-shaped quantum wire. We include the single-particle potential and the Coulomb interaction between the electron and hole on an equal footing, and perform exact diagonalisation of the two-particle problem within a finite basis set. We calculate spectra for all of the experimentally studied cases of T-shaped wires including symmetric and asymmetric GaAs/Al$_{x}$Ga$_{1-x}$As and In$_{y}$Ga$_{1-y}$As/Al$_{x}$Ga$_{1-x}$As structures. We study in detail the shape of the wave functions to gain insight into the nature of the various states for selected symmetric and asymmetric wires in which laser emission has been experimentally observed. We also calculate the binding energy of the ground state exciton and the confinement energy of the 1D quantum-wire-exciton state with respect to the 2D quantum-well exciton for a wide range of structures, varying the well width and the Al molar fraction $x$. We find that the largest binding energy of any wire constructed to date is 16.5 meV. We also notice that in asymmetric structures, the confinement energy is enhanced with respect to the symmetric forms with comparable parameters but the binding energy of the exciton is then lower than in the symmetric structures. For GaAs/Al$_{x}$Ga$_{1-x}$As wires we obtain an upper limit for the binding energy of around 25 meV in a 10 {\AA} wide GaAs/AlAs structure which suggests that other materials must be explored in order to achieve room temperature applications. There are some indications that In$_{y}$Ga$_{1-y}$As/Al$_{x}$Ga$_{1-x}$As might be a good candidate.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, uses RevTeX and psfig, submitted to Physical Review

Social dilemmas, time preferences and technology adoption in a commons problem

Agents interacting on a body of water choose between technologies to catch fish. One is harmless to the resource, as it allows full recovery; the other yields high immediate catches, but low(er) future catches. Strategic interaction in one 'objective'resource game may induce several 'subjective' games in the class of social dilemmas. Which unique 'subjective'game is actually played depends crucially on how the agents discount their future payo¤s. We examine equilibrium behavior and its consequences on sustainability of the common-pool resource system under exponential and hyperbolic discounting. A sufficient degree of patience on behalf of the agents may lead to equilibrium behavior averting exhaustion of the resource, though full restraint (both agents choosing the ecologically or environmentally sound technology) is not necessarily achieved. Furthermore, if the degree of patience between agents is sufficiently dissimilar, the more patient is exploited by the less patient one in equilibrium. We demonstrate the generalizability of our approach developed throughout the paper. We provide recommendations to reduce the enormous complexity surrounding the general cases

An MDP decomposition approach for traffic control at isolated signalized intersections

This article presents a novel approach for the dynamic control of a signalized intersection. At the intersection, there is a number of arrival flows of cars, each having a single queue (lane). The set of all flows is partitioned into disjoint combinations of nonconflicting flows that will receive green together. The dynamic control of the traffic lights is based on the numbers of cars waiting in the queues. The problem concerning when to switch (and which combination to serve next) is modeled as a Markovian decision process in discrete time. For large intersections (i.e., intersections with a large number of flows), the number of states becomes tremendously large, prohibiting straightforward optimization using value iteration or policy iteration. Starting from an optimal (or nearly optimal) fixed-cycle strategy, a one-step policy improvement is proposed that is easy to compute and is shown to give a close to optimal strategy for the dynamic proble