A New Stable Peer-to-Peer Protocol with Non-persistent Peers

Recent studies have suggested that the stability of peer-to-peer networks may rely on persistent peers, who dwell on the network after they obtain the entire file. In the absence of such peers, one piece becomes extremely rare in the network, which leads to instability. Technological developments, however, are poised to reduce the incidence of persistent peers, giving rise to a need for a protocol that guarantees stability with non-persistent peers. We propose a novel peer-to-peer protocol, the group suppression protocol, to ensure the stability of peer-to-peer networks under the scenario that all the peers adopt non-persistent behavior. Using a suitable Lyapunov potential function, the group suppression protocol is proven to be stable when the file is broken into two pieces, and detailed experiments demonstrate the stability of the protocol for arbitrary number of pieces. We define and simulate a decentralized version of this protocol for practical applications. Straightforward incorporation of the group suppression protocol into BitTorrent while retaining most of BitTorrent's core mechanisms is also presented. Subsequent simulations show that under certain assumptions, BitTorrent with the official protocol cannot escape from the missing piece syndrome, but BitTorrent with group suppression does.Comment: There are only a couple of minor changes in this version. Simulation tool is specified this time. Some repetitive figures are remove

Card shuffling and diophantine approximation

The ``overlapping-cycles shuffle'' mixes a deck of $n$ cards by moving either the $n$th card or the $(n-k)$th card to the top of the deck, with probability half each. We determine the spectral gap for the location of a single card, which, as a function of $k$ and $n$, has surprising behavior. For example, suppose $k$ is the closest integer to $\alpha n$ for a fixed real $\alpha\in(0,1)$. Then for rational $\alpha$ the spectral gap is $\Theta(n^{-2})$, while for poorly approximable irrational numbers $\alpha$, such as the reciprocal of the golden ratio, the spectral gap is $\Theta(n^{-3/2})$.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AAP484 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The Jammed Phase of the Biham-Middleton-Levine Traffic Model

Initially a car is placed with probability p at each site of the two-dimensional integer lattice. Each car is equally likely to be East-facing or North-facing, and different sites receive independent assignments. At odd time steps, each North-facing car moves one unit North if there is a vacant site for it to move into. At even time steps, East-facing cars move East in the same way. We prove that when p is sufficiently close to 1 traffic is jammed, in the sense that no car moves infinitely many times. The result extends to several variant settings, including a model with cars moving at random times, and higher dimensions.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures; revised journal versio

Modular Graph Functions

In earlier work we studied features of non-holomorphic modular functions associated with Feynman graphs for a conformal scalar field theory on a two-dimensional torus with zero external momenta at all vertices. Such functions, which we will refer to as modular graph functions, arise, for example, in the low energy expansion of genus-one Type II superstring amplitudes. We here introduce a class of single-valued elliptic multiple polylogarithms, which are defined as elliptic functions associated with Feynman graphs with vanishing external momenta at all but two vertices. These functions depend on a coordinate, $\zeta$, on the elliptic curve and reduce to modular graph functions when $\zeta$ is set equal to $1$. We demonstrate that these single-valued elliptic multiple polylogarithms are linear combinations of multiple polylogarithms, and that modular graph functions are sums of single-valued elliptic multiple polylogarithms evaluated at the identity of the elliptic curve, in both cases with rational coefficients. This insight suggests the many interrelations between modular graph functions (a few of which were established in earlier papers) may be obtained as a consequence of identities involving multiple polylogarithms, and explains an earlier observation that the coefficients of the Laurent polynomial at the cusp are given by rational numbers times single-valued multiple zeta values.Comment: 42 pages, significant clarifications added in section 5, minor typos corrected, and references added in version