Exact solution of two classes of prudent polygons

Prudent walks are self-avoiding walks on the square lattice which never step into the direction of an already occupied vertex. We study the closed version of these walks, called prudent polygons, where the last vertex is adjacent to the first one. More precisely, we give the half-perimeter generating functions of two subclasses of prudent polygons, which turn out to be algebraic and non-D-finite, respectively.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; 14 pages, 4 figures, improved exposition, additional figure; 23 pages, 12 figures, additional section and figure

Limit laws for discrete excursions and meanders and linear functional equations with a catalytic variable

We study limit distributions for random variables defined in terms of coefficients of a power series which is determined by a certain linear functional equation. Our technique combines the method of moments with the kernel method of algebraic combinatorics. As limiting distributions the area distributions of the Brownian excursion and meander occur. As combinatorial applications we compute the area laws for discrete excursions and meanders with an arbitrary finite set of steps and the area distribution of column convex polyominoes. As a by-product of our approach we find the joint distribution of area and final altitude for meanders with an arbitrary step set, and for unconstrained Bernoulli walks (and hence for Brownian Motion) the joint distribution of signed areas and final altitude. We give these distributions in terms of their moments.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figur

The Connectivity of Boolean Satisfiability: Dichotomies for Formulas and Circuits

For Boolean satisfiability problems, the structure of the solution space is characterized by the solution graph, where the vertices are the solutions, and two solutions are connected iff they differ in exactly one variable. In 2006, Gopalan et al. studied connectivity properties of the solution graph and related complexity issues for CSPs, motivated mainly by research on satisfiability algorithms and the satisfiability threshold. They proved dichotomies for the diameter of connected components and for the complexity of the st-connectivity question, and conjectured a trichotomy for the connectivity question. Recently, we were able to establish the trichotomy [arXiv:1312.4524]. Here, we consider connectivity issues of satisfiability problems defined by Boolean circuits and propositional formulas that use gates, resp. connectives, from a fixed set of Boolean functions. We obtain dichotomies for the diameter and the two connectivity problems: on one side, the diameter is linear in the number of variables, and both problems are in P, while on the other side, the diameter can be exponential, and the problems are PSPACE-complete. For partially quantified formulas, we show an analogous dichotomy.Comment: 20 pages, several improvement

The Connectivity of Boolean Satisfiability: No-Constants and Quantified Variants

For Boolean satisfiability problems, the structure of the solution space is characterized by the solution graph, where the vertices are the solutions, and two solutions are connected iff they differ in exactly one variable. Motivated by research on heuristics and the satisfiability threshold, Gopalan et al. in 2006 studied connectivity properties of the solution graph and related complexity issues for constraint satisfaction problems in Schaefer's framework. They found dichotomies for the diameter of connected components and for the complexity of the st-connectivity question, and conjectured a trichotomy for the connectivity question that we recently were able to prove. While Gopalan et al. considered CNF(S)-formulas with constants, we here look at two important variants: CNF(S)-formulas without constants, and partially quantified formulas. For the diameter and the st-connectivity question, we prove dichotomies analogous to those of Gopalan et al. in these settings. While we cannot give a complete classification for the connectivity problem yet, we identify fragments where it is in P, where it is coNP-complete, and where it is PSPACE-complete, in analogy to Gopalan et al.'s trichotomy.Comment: superseded by chapter 3 of arXiv:1510.0670

Glycocalyx production in teleosts [Translation from: Verhandlungen der Deutschen Zoologischen Gesellschaft, p.286, 1970]

Shielding the organism against harmful effects from the environment is one of the most important tasks of the outer covering of all animals. The epidermis of primarily aquatic organisms and the epithelia of organs which are exposed to water, such as the digestive or the urinary system, possess a film of glycoproteins and mucopolysaccharides, the glycocalyx. This short paper examines the relationship of the mucus cells with the glycocalyx

N=4 Multi-Particle Mechanics, WDVV Equation and Roots

We review the relation of N=4 superconformal multi-particle models on the real line to the WDVV equation and an associated linear equation for two prepotentials, F and U. The superspace treatment gives another variant of the integrability problem, which we also reformulate as a search for closed flat Yang-Mills connections. Three- and four-particle solutions are presented. The covector ansatz turns the WDVV equation into an algebraic condition, for which we give a formulation in terms of partial isometries. Three ideas for classifying WDVV solutions are developed: ortho-polytopes, hypergraphs, and matroids. Various examples and counterexamples are displayed