4,397 research outputs found
Chasing robbers on random geometric graphs---an alternative approach
We study the vertex pursuit game of \emph{Cops and Robbers}, in which cops
try to capture a robber on the vertices of the graph. The minimum number of
cops required to win on a given graph is called the cop number of . We
focus on , a random geometric graph in which vertices are
chosen uniformly at random and independently from , and two vertices
are adjacent if the Euclidean distance between them is at most . The main
result is that if then the cop number is
with probability that tends to as tends to infinity. The case was
proved earlier and independently in \cite{bdfm}, using a different approach.
Our method provides a tight upper bound for the number of rounds
needed to catch the robber.Comment: 6 page
Bounds for graph regularity and removal lemmas
We show, for any positive integer k, that there exists a graph in which any
equitable partition of its vertices into k parts has at least ck^2/\log^* k
pairs of parts which are not \epsilon-regular, where c,\epsilon>0 are absolute
constants. This bound is tight up to the constant c and addresses a question of
Gowers on the number of irregular pairs in Szemer\'edi's regularity lemma.
In order to gain some control over irregular pairs, another regularity lemma,
known as the strong regularity lemma, was developed by Alon, Fischer,
Krivelevich, and Szegedy. For this lemma, we prove a lower bound of
wowzer-type, which is one level higher in the Ackermann hierarchy than the
tower function, on the number of parts in the strong regularity lemma,
essentially matching the upper bound. On the other hand, for the induced graph
removal lemma, the standard application of the strong regularity lemma, we find
a different proof which yields a tower-type bound.
We also discuss bounds on several related regularity lemmas, including the
weak regularity lemma of Frieze and Kannan and the recently established regular
approximation theorem. In particular, we show that a weak partition with
approximation parameter \epsilon may require as many as
2^{\Omega(\epsilon^{-2})} parts. This is tight up to the implied constant and
solves a problem studied by Lov\'asz and Szegedy.Comment: 62 page
Compound-Specific δ^(34)S Analysis of Volatile Organics by Coupled GC/Multicollector-ICPMS
We have developed a highly sensitive and robust method for the analysis of δ^(34)S in individual organic compounds by coupled gas chromatography (GC) and multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS). The system requires minimal alteration of commercial hardware and is amenable to virtually all sample introduction methods. Isobaric interference from O_2^+ is minimized by employing dry plasma conditions and is cleanly resolved at all masses using medium resolution on the Thermo Neptune MC-ICPMS. Correction for mass bias is accomplished using standard−sample bracketing with peaks of SF6 reference gas. The precision of measured δ^(34)S values approaches 0.1‰ for analytes containing >40 pmol S and is better than 0.5‰ for those containing as little as 6 pmol S. This is within a factor of 2 of theoretical shot-noise limits. External accuracy is better than 0.3‰. Integrating only the center of chromatographic peaks, rather than the entire peak, offers significant gain in precision and chromatographic resolution with minimal effect on accuracy but requires further study for verification as a routine method. Coelution of organic compounds that do not contain S can cause degraded analytical precision. Analyses of crude oil samples show wide variability in δ^(34)S and demonstrate the robustness and precision of the method in complex environmental samples
Separation dimension of bounded degree graphs
The 'separation dimension' of a graph is the smallest natural number
for which the vertices of can be embedded in such that any
pair of disjoint edges in can be separated by a hyperplane normal to one of
the axes. Equivalently, it is the smallest possible cardinality of a family
of total orders of the vertices of such that for any two
disjoint edges of , there exists at least one total order in
in which all the vertices in one edge precede those in the other. In general,
the maximum separation dimension of a graph on vertices is . In this article, we focus on bounded degree graphs and show that the
separation dimension of a graph with maximum degree is at most
. We also demonstrate that the above bound is nearly
tight by showing that, for every , almost all -regular graphs have
separation dimension at least .Comment: One result proved in this paper is also present in arXiv:1212.675
Restricted Strip Covering and the Sensor Cover Problem
Given a set of objects with durations (jobs) that cover a base region, can we
schedule the jobs to maximize the duration the original region remains covered?
We call this problem the sensor cover problem. This problem arises in the
context of covering a region with sensors. For example, suppose you wish to
monitor activity along a fence by sensors placed at various fixed locations.
Each sensor has a range and limited battery life. The problem is to schedule
when to turn on the sensors so that the fence is fully monitored for as long as
possible. This one dimensional problem involves intervals on the real line.
Associating a duration to each yields a set of rectangles in space and time,
each specified by a pair of fixed horizontal endpoints and a height. The
objective is to assign a position to each rectangle to maximize the height at
which the spanning interval is fully covered. We call this one dimensional
problem restricted strip covering. If we replace the covering constraint by a
packing constraint, the problem is identical to dynamic storage allocation, a
scheduling problem that is a restricted case of the strip packing problem. We
show that the restricted strip covering problem is NP-hard and present an O(log
log n)-approximation algorithm. We present better approximations or exact
algorithms for some special cases. For the uniform-duration case of restricted
strip covering we give a polynomial-time, exact algorithm but prove that the
uniform-duration case for higher-dimensional regions is NP-hard. Finally, we
consider regions that are arbitrary sets, and we present an O(log
n)-approximation algorithm.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
On the Complexity of Local Distributed Graph Problems
This paper is centered on the complexity of graph problems in the
well-studied LOCAL model of distributed computing, introduced by Linial [FOCS
'87]. It is widely known that for many of the classic distributed graph
problems (including maximal independent set (MIS) and -vertex
coloring), the randomized complexity is at most polylogarithmic in the size
of the network, while the best deterministic complexity is typically
. Understanding and narrowing down this exponential gap
is considered to be one of the central long-standing open questions in the area
of distributed graph algorithms. We investigate the problem by introducing a
complexity-theoretic framework that allows us to shed some light on the role of
randomness in the LOCAL model. We define the SLOCAL model as a sequential
version of the LOCAL model. Our framework allows us to prove completeness
results with respect to the class of problems which can be solved efficiently
in the SLOCAL model, implying that if any of the complete problems can be
solved deterministically in rounds in the LOCAL model, we can
deterministically solve all efficient SLOCAL-problems (including MIS and
-coloring) in rounds in the LOCAL model. We show
that a rather rudimentary looking graph coloring problem is complete in the
above sense: Color the nodes of a graph with colors red and blue such that each
node of sufficiently large polylogarithmic degree has at least one neighbor of
each color. The problem admits a trivial zero-round randomized solution. The
result can be viewed as showing that the only obstacle to getting efficient
determinstic algorithms in the LOCAL model is an efficient algorithm to
approximately round fractional values into integer values
Clustering, Hamming Embedding, Generalized LSH and the Max Norm
We study the convex relaxation of clustering and hamming embedding, focusing
on the asymmetric case (co-clustering and asymmetric hamming embedding),
understanding their relationship to LSH as studied by (Charikar 2002) and to
the max-norm ball, and the differences between their symmetric and asymmetric
versions.Comment: 17 page
Pathway from condensation via fragmentation to fermionization of cold bosonic systems
For small scattering lengths, cold bosonic atoms form a condensate the
density profile of which is smooth. With increasing scattering length, the
density {\it gradually} acquires more and more oscillations. Finally, the
number of oscillations equals the number of bosons and the system becomes {\it
fermionized}. On this pathway from condensation to fermionization intriguing
phenomena occur, depending on the shape of the trap. These include macroscopic
fragmentation and
{\it coexistence} of condensed and fermionized parts that are separated in
space.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
Faster Existential FO Model Checking on Posets
We prove that the model checking problem for the existential fragment of
first-order (FO) logic on partially ordered sets is fixed-parameter tractable
(FPT) with respect to the formula and the width of a poset (the maximum size of
an antichain). While there is a long line of research into FO model checking on
graphs, the study of this problem on posets has been initiated just recently by
Bova, Ganian and Szeider (CSL-LICS 2014), who proved that the existential
fragment of FO has an FPT algorithm for a poset of fixed width. We improve upon
their result in two ways: (1) the runtime of our algorithm is
O(f(|{\phi}|,w).n^2) on n-element posets of width w, compared to O(g(|{\phi}|).
n^{h(w)}) of Bova et al., and (2) our proofs are simpler and easier to follow.
We complement this result by showing that, under a certain
complexity-theoretical assumption, the existential FO model checking problem
does not have a polynomial kernel.Comment: Paper as accepted to the LMCS journal. An extended abstract of an
earlier version of this paper has appeared at ISAAC'14. Main changes to the
previous version are improvements in the Multicoloured Clique part (Section
4
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