856 research outputs found
Longest Common Extensions in Sublinear Space
The longest common extension problem (LCE problem) is to construct a data
structure for an input string of length that supports LCE
queries. Such a query returns the length of the longest common prefix of the
suffixes starting at positions and in . This classic problem has a
well-known solution that uses space and query time. In this paper
we show that for any trade-off parameter , the problem can
be solved in space and query time. This
significantly improves the previously best known time-space trade-offs, and
almost matches the best known time-space product lower bound.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper has been accepted to CPM 201
Transition Property For Cube-Free Words
We study cube-free words over arbitrary non-unary finite alphabets and prove
the following structural property: for every pair of -ary cube-free
words, if can be infinitely extended to the right and can be infinitely
extended to the left respecting the cube-freeness property, then there exists a
"transition" word over the same alphabet such that is cube free. The
crucial case is the case of the binary alphabet, analyzed in the central part
of the paper.
The obtained "transition property", together with the developed technique,
allowed us to solve cube-free versions of three old open problems by Restivo
and Salemi. Besides, it has some further implications for combinatorics on
words; e.g., it implies the existence of infinite cube-free words of very big
subword (factor) complexity.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure
The dynamics of measles in sub-Saharan Africa.
Although vaccination has almost eliminated measles in parts of the world, the disease remains a major killer in some high birth rate countries of the Sahel. On the basis of measles dynamics for industrialized countries, high birth rate regions should experience regular annual epidemics. Here, however, we show that measles epidemics in Niger are highly episodic, particularly in the capital Niamey. Models demonstrate that this variability arises from powerful seasonality in transmission-generating high amplitude epidemics-within the chaotic domain of deterministic dynamics. In practice, this leads to frequent stochastic fadeouts, interspersed with irregular, large epidemics. A metapopulation model illustrates how increased vaccine coverage, but still below the local elimination threshold, could lead to increasingly variable major outbreaks in highly seasonally forced contexts. Such erratic dynamics emphasize the importance both of control strategies that address build-up of susceptible individuals and efforts to mitigate the impact of large outbreaks when they occur
Mixing patterns and the spread of close-contact infectious diseases
Surprisingly little is known regarding the human mixing patterns relevant to the spread of close-contact infections, such as measles, influenza and meningococcal disease. This study aims to estimate the number of partnerships that individuals make, their stability and the degree to which mixing is assortative with respect to age. We defined four levels of putative at-risk events from casual (physical contact without conversation) to intimate (contact of a sexual nature), and asked university student volunteers to record details on those they contacted at these levels on three separate days. We found that intimate contacts are stable over short time periods whereas there was no evidence of repeat casual contacts with the same individuals. The contacts were increasingly assortative as intimacy increased. Such information will aid the development and parameterisation of models of close contact diseases, and may have direct use in outbreak investigations
Drawing Boundaries
In “On Drawing Lines on a Map” (1995), I suggested that the different ways we have of drawing lines on maps open up a new perspective on ontology, resting on a distinction between two sorts of boundaries: fiat and bona fide. “Fiat” means, roughly: human-demarcation-induced. “Bona fide” means, again roughly: a boundary constituted by some real physical discontinuity. I presented a general typology of boundaries based on this opposition and showed how it generates a corresponding typology of the different sorts of objects which boundaries determine or demarcate. In this paper, I describe how the theory of fiat boundaries has evolved since 1995, how it has been applied in areas such as property law and political geography, and how it is being used in contemporary work in formal and applied ontology, especially within the framework of Basic Formal Ontology
The Virtues of Thisness Presentism
Presentists believe that only present things exist. But opponents insist this view has unacceptable implications: if only present things exist, we can’t express singular propositions about the past, since the obvious propositional constituents don’t exist, nor can we account for temporal passage, or the openness of the future. According to such opponents, and in spite of the apparent ‘common sense’ status of the view, presentism should be rejected on the basis of these unacceptable implications. In this paper, I present and defend a version of presentism (‘Thisness Presentism’) that avoids the unacceptable implications. The basic strategy I employ is familiar—I postulate presently existing entities to serve as surrogates (or ‘proxies’) for non-present entities—but some of the details of my proposal are more novel, and their application to these problems is certainly novel. One overarching thesis of this paper is that Thisness Presentism is preferable to other versions of presentism since it solves important problems facing standard iterations of the view. And I assume that this is a good positive reason in favour of the underlying thisness ontology
A Qualified Kolmogorovian Account of Probabilistic Contextuality
We describe a mathematical language for determining all possible patterns of
contextuality in the dependence of stochastic outputs of a system on its
deterministic inputs. The central notion is that of all possible couplings for
stochastically unrelated outputs indexed by mutually incompatible values of
inputs. A system is characterized by a pattern of which outputs can be
"directly influenced" by which inputs (a primitive relation, hypothetical or
normative), and by certain constraints imposed on the outputs (such as
Bell-type inequalities or their quantum analogues). The set of couplings
compatible with these constraints represents a form of contextuality in the
dependence of outputs on inputs with respect to the declared pattern of direct
influences.Comment: Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8369, 201-212 (2014
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