3,451 research outputs found
Stability and Invariant Random Subgroups
Consider , endowed with the normalized Hamming metric
. A finitely-generated group is \emph{P-stable} if every almost
homomorphism (i.e.,
for every , ) is close to an actual
homomorphism .
Glebsky and Rivera observed that finite groups are P-stable, while Arzhantseva
and P\u{a}unescu showed the same for abelian groups and raised many questions,
especially about P-stability of amenable groups. We develop P-stability in
general, and in particular for amenable groups. Our main tool is the theory of
invariant random subgroups (IRS), which enables us to give a characterization
of P-stability among amenable groups, and to deduce stability and instability
of various families of amenable groups.Comment: 24 pages; v2 includes minor updates and new reference
Politicians' Outside Earnings and Electoral Competition
This paper deals with the impact of electoral competition on politicians' outside earnings. We propose a simple theoretical model with politicians facing a tradeoff between allocating their time to political effort or to an alternative use generating outside earnings. The model has a testable implication stating that the amount of time spent on outside work is negatively related to the degree of electoral competition. We test this implication using a new dataset on outside earnings of members of the German
federal assembly. Taking into account the potential endogeneity of measures of political competition that depend on past election outcomes, we find that politicians facing low competition have substantially higher outside earnings
Politicians' outside earnings and electoral competition
This paper deals with the impact of electoral competition on politicians´ outside earnings. We propose a simple theoretical model with politicians facing a tradeoff between allocating their time to political effort or to an alternative use generating outside earnings. The model has a testable implication stating that the amount of time spent on outside work is negatively related to the degree of electoral competition. We test this implication using a new dataset on outside earnings of members of the German federal assembly. Taking into account the potential endogeneity of measures of political competition that depend on past election outcomes, we find that politicians facing low competition have substantially higher outside earnings. --Political competition,outside earnings,political rents
Near-Optimal Approximate Shortest Paths and Transshipment in Distributed and Streaming Models
We present a method for solving the transshipment problem - also known as
uncapacitated minimum cost flow - up to a multiplicative error of in undirected graphs with non-negative edge weights using a
tailored gradient descent algorithm. Using to hide
polylogarithmic factors in (the number of nodes in the graph), our gradient
descent algorithm takes iterations, and in each
iteration it solves an instance of the transshipment problem up to a
multiplicative error of . In particular, this allows
us to perform a single iteration by computing a solution on a sparse spanner of
logarithmic stretch. Using a randomized rounding scheme, we can further extend
the method to finding approximate solutions for the single-source shortest
paths (SSSP) problem. As a consequence, we improve upon prior work by obtaining
the following results: (1) Broadcast CONGEST model: -approximate SSSP using rounds, where is the (hop) diameter of the network.
(2) Broadcast congested clique model: -approximate
transshipment and SSSP using rounds. (3)
Multipass streaming model: -approximate transshipment and
SSSP using space and passes. The
previously fastest SSSP algorithms for these models leverage sparse hop sets.
We bypass the hop set construction; computing a spanner is sufficient with our
method. The above bounds assume non-negative edge weights that are polynomially
bounded in ; for general non-negative weights, running times scale with the
logarithm of the maximum ratio between non-zero weights.Comment: Accepted to SIAM Journal on Computing. Preliminary version in DISC
2017. Abstract shortened to fit arXiv's limitation to 1920 character
Which One is Me?: Identifying Oneself on Public Displays
While user representations are extensively used on public displays, it remains unclear how well users can recognize their own representation among those of surrounding users. We study the most widely used representations: abstract objects, skeletons, silhouettes and mirrors. In a prestudy (N=12), we identify five strategies that users follow to recognize themselves on public displays. In a second study (N=19), we quantify the users' recognition time and accuracy with respect to each representation type. Our findings suggest that there is a significant effect of (1) the representation type, (2) the strategies performed by users, and (3) the combination of both on recognition time and accuracy. We discuss the suitability of each representation for different settings and provide specific recommendations as to how user representations should be applied in multi-user scenarios. These recommendations guide practitioners and researchers in selecting the representation that optimizes the most for the deployment's requirements, and for the user strategies that are feasible in that environment
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