13,962 research outputs found
The quantum measurement problem and physical reality: a computation theoretic perspective
Is the universe computable? If yes, is it computationally a polynomial place?
In standard quantum mechanics, which permits infinite parallelism and the
infinitely precise specification of states, a negative answer to both questions
is not ruled out. On the other hand, empirical evidence suggests that
NP-complete problems are intractable in the physical world. Likewise,
computational problems known to be algorithmically uncomputable do not seem to
be computable by any physical means. We suggest that this close correspondence
between the efficiency and power of abstract algorithms on the one hand, and
physical computers on the other, finds a natural explanation if the universe is
assumed to be algorithmic; that is, that physical reality is the product of
discrete sub-physical information processing equivalent to the actions of a
probabilistic Turing machine. This assumption can be reconciled with the
observed exponentiality of quantum systems at microscopic scales, and the
consequent possibility of implementing Shor's quantum polynomial time algorithm
at that scale, provided the degree of superposition is intrinsically, finitely
upper-bounded. If this bound is associated with the quantum-classical divide
(the Heisenberg cut), a natural resolution to the quantum measurement problem
arises. From this viewpoint, macroscopic classicality is an evidence that the
universe is in BPP, and both questions raised above receive affirmative
answers. A recently proposed computational model of quantum measurement, which
relates the Heisenberg cut to the discreteness of Hilbert space, is briefly
discussed. A connection to quantum gravity is noted. Our results are compatible
with the philosophy that mathematical truths are independent of the laws of
physics.Comment: Talk presented at "Quantum Computing: Back Action 2006", IIT Kanpur,
India, March 200
A Coverage Criterion for Spaced Seeds and its Applications to Support Vector Machine String Kernels and k-Mer Distances
Spaced seeds have been recently shown to not only detect more alignments, but
also to give a more accurate measure of phylogenetic distances (Boden et al.,
2013, Horwege et al., 2014, Leimeister et al., 2014), and to provide a lower
misclassification rate when used with Support Vector Machines (SVMs) (On-odera
and Shibuya, 2013), We confirm by independent experiments these two results,
and propose in this article to use a coverage criterion (Benson and Mak, 2008,
Martin, 2013, Martin and No{\'e}, 2014), to measure the seed efficiency in both
cases in order to design better seed patterns. We show first how this coverage
criterion can be directly measured by a full automaton-based approach. We then
illustrate how this criterion performs when compared with two other criteria
frequently used, namely the single-hit and multiple-hit criteria, through
correlation coefficients with the correct classification/the true distance. At
the end, for alignment-free distances, we propose an extension by adopting the
coverage criterion, show how it performs, and indicate how it can be
efficiently computed.Comment: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cmb.2014.017
A Coverage Criterion for Spaced Seeds and its Applications to Support Vector Machine String Kernels and k-Mer Distances
Spaced seeds have been recently shown to not only detect more alignments, but
also to give a more accurate measure of phylogenetic distances (Boden et al.,
2013, Horwege et al., 2014, Leimeister et al., 2014), and to provide a lower
misclassification rate when used with Support Vector Machines (SVMs) (On-odera
and Shibuya, 2013), We confirm by independent experiments these two results,
and propose in this article to use a coverage criterion (Benson and Mak, 2008,
Martin, 2013, Martin and No{\'e}, 2014), to measure the seed efficiency in both
cases in order to design better seed patterns. We show first how this coverage
criterion can be directly measured by a full automaton-based approach. We then
illustrate how this criterion performs when compared with two other criteria
frequently used, namely the single-hit and multiple-hit criteria, through
correlation coefficients with the correct classification/the true distance. At
the end, for alignment-free distances, we propose an extension by adopting the
coverage criterion, show how it performs, and indicate how it can be
efficiently computed.Comment: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cmb.2014.017
The Average-Case Area of Heilbronn-Type Triangles
From among triangles with vertices chosen from points in
the unit square, let be the one with the smallest area, and let be the
area of . Heilbronn's triangle problem asks for the maximum value assumed by
over all choices of points. We consider the average-case: If the
points are chosen independently and at random (with a uniform distribution),
then there exist positive constants and such that for all large enough values of , where is the expectation of
. Moreover, , with probability close to one. Our proof
uses the incompressibility method based on Kolmogorov complexity; it actually
determines the area of the smallest triangle for an arrangement in ``general
position.''Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure,Popular treatment in D. Mackenzie, On a
roll, {\em New Scientist}, November 6, 1999, 44--4
Oracles Are Subtle But Not Malicious
Theoretical computer scientists have been debating the role of oracles since
the 1970's. This paper illustrates both that oracles can give us nontrivial
insights about the barrier problems in circuit complexity, and that they need
not prevent us from trying to solve those problems.
First, we give an oracle relative to which PP has linear-sized circuits, by
proving a new lower bound for perceptrons and low- degree threshold
polynomials. This oracle settles a longstanding open question, and generalizes
earlier results due to Beigel and to Buhrman, Fortnow, and Thierauf. More
importantly, it implies the first nonrelativizing separation of "traditional"
complexity classes, as opposed to interactive proof classes such as MIP and
MA-EXP. For Vinodchandran showed, by a nonrelativizing argument, that PP does
not have circuits of size n^k for any fixed k. We present an alternative proof
of this fact, which shows that PP does not even have quantum circuits of size
n^k with quantum advice. To our knowledge, this is the first nontrivial lower
bound on quantum circuit size.
Second, we study a beautiful algorithm of Bshouty et al. for learning Boolean
circuits in ZPP^NP. We show that the NP queries in this algorithm cannot be
parallelized by any relativizing technique, by giving an oracle relative to
which ZPP^||NP and even BPP^||NP have linear-size circuits. On the other hand,
we also show that the NP queries could be parallelized if P=NP. Thus, classes
such as ZPP^||NP inhabit a "twilight zone," where we need to distinguish
between relativizing and black-box techniques. Our results on this subject have
implications for computational learning theory as well as for the circuit
minimization problem.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur
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