Noncommutativity in the analysis of piecewise discrete-time dynamical systems

In this paper, we present a new method for the analysis of piecewise dynamical systems that are similar to the Collatz conjecture in regard to certain properties of the commutator of their sub-functions. We use the fact that the commutator of polynomials $E(n)=n/2$ and $O(n)=(3n+1)/2$ is constant to study rearrangements of compositions of $E(n)$ and $O(n)$. Our main result is that for any positive rational number $n$, if $(E^{e_1} \circ O^{o_1} \circ E^{e_2} \circ \dotsb \circ O^{o_l} \circ E^{e_{l+1}})(n)=1$, then $(E^{e_1} \circ O^{o_1} \circ E^{e_2} \circ \dotsb \circ O^{o_l} \circ E^{e_{l+1}})(n) = \lceil(E^{e_1 + \dotsb + e_{l+1}} \circ O^{o_1 + \dotsb + o_{l}})(n)\rceil$, where exponentiation is used to denote repeated composition and $e_i$ and $o_i$ are positive integers. Composition sequences of this form have significance in the context of the Collatz conjecture. The techniques used to derive this result can be used to produce similar results for a wide variety of repeatedly composed piecewise functions.Comment: 7 page

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

The SCIP optimization suite 5.0

This article describes new features and enhanced algorithms made available in version 5.0 of the SCIP Optimization Suite. In its central component, the constraint integer programming solver SCIP, remarkable performance improvements have been achieved for solving mixed-integer linear and nonlinear programs. On MIPs, SCIP 5.0 is about 41 % faster than SCIP 4.0 and over twice as fast on instances that take at least 100 seconds to solve. For MINLP, SCIP 5.0 is about 17 % faster overall and 23 % faster on instances that take at least 100 seconds to solve. This boost is due to algorithmic advances in several parts of the solver such as cutting plane generation and management, a new adaptive coordination of large neighborhood search heuristics, symmetry handling, and strengthened McCormick relaxations for bilinear terms in MINLPs. Besides discussing the theoretical background and the implementational aspects of these developments, the report describes recent additions for the other software packages connected to SCIP, in particular for the LP solver SoPlex, the Steiner tree solver SCIP-Jack, the MISDP solver SCIP-SDP, and the parallelization framework UG