11,262 research outputs found
Lower bounds for several online variants of bin packing
We consider several previously studied online variants of bin packing and
prove new and improved lower bounds on the asymptotic competitive ratios for
them. For that, we use a method of fully adaptive constructions. In particular,
we improve the lower bound for the asymptotic competitive ratio of online
square packing significantly, raising it from roughly 1.68 to above 1.75.Comment: WAOA 201
Causal perturbation theory in terms of retarded products, and a proof of the Action Ward Identity
In the framework of perturbative algebraic quantum field theory a local
construction of interacting fields in terms of retarded products is performed,
based on earlier work of Steinmann. In our formalism the entries of the
retarded products are local functionals of the off shell classical fields, and
we prove that the interacting fields depend only on the action and not on terms
in the Lagrangian which are total derivatives, thus providing a proof of
Stora's 'Action Ward Identity'. The theory depends on free parameters which
flow under the renormalization group. This flow can be derived in our local
framework independently of the infrared behavior, as was first established by
Hollands and Wald. We explicitly compute non-trivial examples for the
renormalization of the interaction and the field.Comment: 76 pages, to appear in Rev. Math. Phy
Removal of violations of the Master Ward Identity in perturbative QFT
We study the appearance of anomalies of the Master Ward Identity, which is a
universal renormalization condition in perturbative QFT. The main insight of
the present paper is that any violation of the Master Ward Identity can be
expressed as a LOCAL interacting field; this is a version of the well-known
Quantum Action Principle of Lowenstein and Lam. Proceeding in a proper field
formalism by induction on the order in , this knowledge about the
structure of possible anomalies as well as techniques of algebraic
renormalization are used to remove possible anomalies by finite
renormalizations. As an example the method is applied to prove the Ward
identities of the O(N) scalar field model.Comment: 51 pages. v2: a few formulations improved, one reference added. v3: a
few mistakes corrected and one additional reference. v4: version to be
printed in Reviews in Mathematical Physic
Changing Bases: Multistage Optimization for Matroids and Matchings
This paper is motivated by the fact that many systems need to be maintained
continually while the underlying costs change over time. The challenge is to
continually maintain near-optimal solutions to the underlying optimization
problems, without creating too much churn in the solution itself. We model this
as a multistage combinatorial optimization problem where the input is a
sequence of cost functions (one for each time step); while we can change the
solution from step to step, we incur an additional cost for every such change.
We study the multistage matroid maintenance problem, where we need to maintain
a base of a matroid in each time step under the changing cost functions and
acquisition costs for adding new elements. The online version of this problem
generalizes online paging. E.g., given a graph, we need to maintain a spanning
tree at each step: we pay for the cost of the tree at time
, and also for the number of edges changed at
this step. Our main result is an -approximation, where is
the number of elements/edges and is the rank of the matroid. We also give
an approximation for the offline version of the problem. These
bounds hold when the acquisition costs are non-uniform, in which caseboth these
results are the best possible unless P=NP.
We also study the perfect matching version of the problem, where we must
maintain a perfect matching at each step under changing cost functions and
costs for adding new elements. Surprisingly, the hardness drastically
increases: for any constant , there is no
-approximation to the multistage matching maintenance
problem, even in the offline case
Online unit clustering in higher dimensions
We revisit the online Unit Clustering and Unit Covering problems in higher
dimensions: Given a set of points in a metric space, that arrive one by
one, Unit Clustering asks to partition the points into the minimum number of
clusters (subsets) of diameter at most one; while Unit Covering asks to cover
all points by the minimum number of balls of unit radius. In this paper, we
work in using the norm.
We show that the competitive ratio of any online algorithm (deterministic or
randomized) for Unit Clustering must depend on the dimension . We also give
a randomized online algorithm with competitive ratio for Unit
Clustering}of integer points (i.e., points in , , under norm). We show that the competitive ratio of
any deterministic online algorithm for Unit Covering is at least . This
ratio is the best possible, as it can be attained by a simple deterministic
algorithm that assigns points to a predefined set of unit cubes. We complement
these results with some additional lower bounds for related problems in higher
dimensions.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. A preliminary version appeared in the
Proceedings of the 15th Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms (WAOA
2017
Relating on-shell and off-shell formalism in perturbative quantum field theory
In the on-shell formalism (mostly used in perturbative quantum field theory)
the entries of the time ordered product T are on-shell fields (i.e. the basic
fields satisfy the free field equations). With that, (multi)linearity of T is
incompatible with the Action Ward identity. This can be circumvented by using
the off-shell formalism in which the entries of T are off-shell fields. To
relate on- and off-shell formalism correctly, a map sigma from on-shell fields
to off-shell fields was introduced axiomatically by Duetsch and Fredenhagen. In
that paper it was shown that, in the case of one real scalar field in N=4
dimensional Minkowski space, these axioms have a unique solution. However, this
solution was given there only recursively. We solve this recurrence relation
and give a fully explicit expression for sigma in the cases of the scalar,
Dirac and gauge fields for arbitrary values of the dimension N.Comment: The case of gauge fields was added. 16 page
Negative Energy Density States for the Dirac Field in Flat Spacetime
Negative energy densities in the Dirac field produced by state vectors that
are the superposition of two single particle electron states are examined. I
show that for such states the energy density of the field is not bounded from
below and that the quantum inequalities derived for scalar fields are
satisfied. I also show that it is not possible to produce negative energy
densities in a scalar field using state vectors that are arbitrary
superpositions of single particle states.Comment: 11 pages, LaTe
Frontostriatal Maturation Predicts Cognitive Control Failure to Appetitive Cues in Adolescents
Adolescent risk-taking is a public health issue that increases the odds of poor lifetime outcomes. One factor thought to influence adolescents' propensity for risk-taking is an enhanced sensitivity to appetitive cues, relative to an immature capacity to exert sufficient cognitive control. We tested this hypothesis by characterizing interactions among ventral striatal, dorsal striatal, and prefrontal cortical regions with varying appetitive load using fMRI scanning. Child, teen, and adult participants performed a go/no-go task with appetitive (happy faces) and neutral cues (calm faces). Impulse control to neutral cues showed linear improvement with age, whereas teens showed a nonlinear reduction in impulse control to appetitive cues. This performance decrement in teens was paralleled by enhanced activity in the ventral striatum. Prefrontal cortical recruitment correlated with overall accuracy and showed a linear response with age for no-go versus go trials. Connectivity analyses identified a ventral frontostriatal circuit including the inferior frontal gyrus and dorsal striatum during no-go versus go trials. Examining recruitment developmentally showed that teens had greater between-subject ventral-dorsal striatal coactivation relative to children and adults for happy no-go versus go trials. These findings implicate exaggerated ventral striatal representation of appetitive cues in adolescents relative to an intermediary cognitive control response. Connectivity and coactivity data suggest these systems communicate at the level of the dorsal striatum differentially across development. Biased responding in this system is one possible mechanism underlying heightened risk-taking during adolescence
EPP in T: More Controversial Subjects
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72351/1/j.1467-9612.2005.00075.x.pd
Vacuum polarization around stars: nonlocal approximation
We compute the vacuum polarization associated with quantum massless fields
around stars with spherical symmetry. The nonlocal contribution to the vacuum
polarization is dominant in the weak field limit, and induces quantum
corrections to the exterior metric that depend on the inner structure of the
star. It also violates the null energy conditions. We argue that similar
results also hold in the low energy limit of quantum gravity. Previous
calculations of the vacuum polarization in spherically symmetric spacetimes,
based on local approximations, are not adequate for newtonian stars.Comment: 8 pages, no figure
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