1,969 research outputs found
Conflict-Free Coloring Made Stronger
In FOCS 2002, Even et al. showed that any set of discs in the plane can
be Conflict-Free colored with a total of at most colors. That is,
it can be colored with colors such that for any (covered) point
there is some disc whose color is distinct from all other colors of discs
containing . They also showed that this bound is asymptotically tight. In
this paper we prove the following stronger results:
\begin{enumerate} \item [(i)] Any set of discs in the plane can be
colored with a total of at most colors such that (a) for any
point that is covered by at least discs, there are at least
distinct discs each of which is colored by a color distinct from all other
discs containing and (b) for any point covered by at most discs,
all discs covering are colored distinctively. We call such a coloring a
{\em -Strong Conflict-Free} coloring. We extend this result to pseudo-discs
and arbitrary regions with linear union-complexity.
\item [(ii)] More generally, for families of simple closed Jordan regions
with union-complexity bounded by , we prove that there exists
a -Strong Conflict-Free coloring with at most colors.
\item [(iii)] We prove that any set of axis-parallel rectangles can be
-Strong Conflict-Free colored with at most colors.
\item [(iv)] We provide a general framework for -Strong Conflict-Free
coloring arbitrary hypergraphs. This framework relates the notion of -Strong
Conflict-Free coloring and the recently studied notion of -colorful
coloring. \end{enumerate}
All of our proofs are constructive. That is, there exist polynomial time
algorithms for computing such colorings
Graph-Embedding Empowered Entity Retrieval
In this research, we improve upon the current state of the art in entity
retrieval by re-ranking the result list using graph embeddings. The paper shows
that graph embeddings are useful for entity-oriented search tasks. We
demonstrate empirically that encoding information from the knowledge graph into
(graph) embeddings contributes to a higher increase in effectiveness of entity
retrieval results than using plain word embeddings. We analyze the impact of
the accuracy of the entity linker on the overall retrieval effectiveness. Our
analysis further deploys the cluster hypothesis to explain the observed
advantages of graph embeddings over the more widely used word embeddings, for
user tasks involving ranking entities
Short cavity InGaAsP/InP lasers with dielectric mirrors
Short cavity length (38 µm) lasers have been fabricated using a recently developed microcleavage technique. SiO2-amorphous Si multilayer coatings have been evaported on the lasers to obtain high reflectivity mirrors. The lasers have current thresholds as low as 3.8 mA with 85% reflecting front mirror and high reflectivity rear mirror and 2.9 mA with two high reflectivity mirrors. Single longitudinal mode operation is observed over a wide range of driving currents and temperatures
Microbiological influences on fracture surfaces of intact mudstone and the implications for geological disposal of radioactive waste
The significance of the potential impacts of microbial activity on the transport properties of host rocks for geological repositories is an area of active research. Most recent work has focused on granitic environments. This paper describes pilot studies investigating changes in transport properties that are produced by microbial activity in sedimentary rock environments in northern Japan. For the first time, these short experiments (39 days maximum) have shown that the denitrifying bacteria, Pseudomonas denitrificans, can survive and thrive when injected into flow-through column experiments containing fractured diatomaceous mudstone and synthetic groundwater under pressurized conditions. Although there were few significant changes in the fluid chemistry, changes in the permeability of the biotic column, which can be explained by the observed biofilm formation, were quantitatively monitored. These same methodologies could also be adapted to obtain information from cores originating from a variety of geological environments including oil reservoirs, aquifers and toxic waste disposal sites to provide an understanding of the impact of microbial activity on the transport of a range of solutes, such as groundwater contaminants and gases (e.g. injected carbon dioxide)
Utilising semantic technologies for intelligent indexing and retrieval of digital images
The proliferation of digital media has led to a huge interest in classifying and indexing media objects for generic search and usage. In particular, we are witnessing colossal growth in digital image repositories that are difficult to navigate using free-text search mechanisms, which often return inaccurate matches as they in principle rely on statistical analysis of query keyword recurrence in the image annotation or surrounding text. In this paper we present a semantically-enabled image annotation and retrieval engine that is designed to satisfy the requirements of the commercial image collections market in terms of both accuracy and efficiency of the retrieval process. Our search engine relies on methodically structured ontologies for image annotation, thus allowing for more intelligent reasoning about the image content and subsequently obtaining a more accurate set of results and a richer set of alternatives matchmaking the original query. We also show how our well-analysed and designed domain ontology contributes to the implicit expansion of user queries as well as the exploitation of lexical databases for explicit semantic-based query expansion
Unzipping Kinetics of Double-Stranded DNA in a Nanopore
We studied the unzipping kinetics of single molecules of double-stranded DNA
by pulling one of their two strands through a narrow protein pore. PCR analysis
yielded the first direct proof of DNA unzipping in such a system. The time to
unzip each molecule was inferred from the ionic current signature of DNA
traversal. The distribution of times to unzip under various experimental
conditions fit a simple kinetic model. Using this model, we estimated the
enthalpy barriers to unzipping and the effective charge of a nucleotide in the
pore, which was considerably smaller than previously assumed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, Accepted: Physics Review Letter
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