Steiner systems <Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">v,k, k</Emphasis> − 1): Components and rank

For an arbitrary Steiner system S(v, k, t), we introduce the concept of a component as a subset of a system which can be transformed (changed by another subset) without losing the property for the resulting system to be a Steiner system S(v, k, t). Thus, a component allows one to build new Steiner systems with the same parameters as an initial system. For an arbitrary Steiner system S(v, k, k − 1), we provide two recursive construction methods for infinite families of components (for both a fixed and growing k). Examples of such components are considered for Steiner triple systems S(v, 3, 2) and Steiner quadruple systems S(v, 4, 3). For such systems and for a special type of so-called normal components, we find a necessary and sufficient condition for the 2-rank of a system (i.e., its rank over \mathbbF₂\mathbb{F}_2) to grow under switching of a component. It is proved that for k ≥ 5 arbitrary Steiner systems S(v, k, k − 1) and S(v, k, k − 2) have maximum possible 2-ranks.     

Michell cantilevers constructed within trapezoidal domains—Part I: geometry of Hencky nets

The present paper is the first part of the four-part work on Michell cantilevers transmitting a given point load to a given segment of a straight-line support, the feasible domain being a part of the half-plane contained between two fixed half-lines. The axial stress σ in the optimal cantilevers is assumed to be bounded by −σ _C ≤σ≤σ _T , where σ _C and σ _T represent the allowable compressive and tensile stresses, respectively. The work provides generalization of the results of the article of Lewiński et al. (Int J Mech Sci 36:375–398, 1994a) to the case of σ _T ≠σ _C . The present, first part of the work concerns the analytical formation of the Hencky nets or the lines of fibres filling up the interior of the optimal cantilevers corresponding to an arbitrary position of the point of application of the given concentrated force.     

Measures on MV-algebras

 We study sequentially continuous measures on semisimple M V-algebras. Let A be a semisimple M V-algebra and let I be the interval [0,1] carrying the usual Łukasiewicz M V-algebra structure and the natural sequential convergence. Each separating set H of M V-algebra homomorphisms of A into I induces on A an initial sequential convergence. Semisimple M V-algebras carrying an initial sequential convergence induced by a separating set of M V-algebra homomorphisms into I are called I-sequential and, together with sequentially continuous M V-algebra homomorphisms, they form a category SM(I). We describe its epireflective subcategory ASM(I) consisting of absolutely sequentially closed objects and we prove that the epireflection sends A into its distinguished σ-completion σ _H (A). The epireflection is the maximal object in SM(I) which contains A as a dense subobject and over which all sequentially continuous measures can be continuously extended. We discuss some properties of σ _H (A) depending on the choice of H. We show that the coproducts in the category of D-posets [9] of suitable families of I-sequential M V-algebras yield a natural model of probability spaces having a quantum nature. The motivation comes from probability: H plays the role of elementary events, the embedding of A into σ _H (A) generalizes the embedding of a field of events A into the generated σ-field σ(A), and it can be viewed as a fuzzyfication of the corresponding results for Boolean algebras in [8, 11, 14]. Sequentially continuous homomorphisms are dual to generalized measurable maps between the underlying sets of suitable bold algebras [13] and, unlike in the Loomis–Sikorski Theorem, objects in ASM(I) correspond to the generated tribes (no quotient is needed, no information about the elementary events is lost). Finally, D-poset coproducts lift fuzzy events, random functions and probability measures to events, random functions and probability measures of a quantum nature. Supported by VEGA Grant 2/7193/01     

A Better Constant-Factor Approximation for Selected-Internal Steiner Minimum Tree

The selected-internal Steiner minimum tree problem is a generalization of original Steiner minimum tree problem. Given a weighted complete graph G=(V,E) with weight function c, and two subsets R ^′ ⊊ R⊆V with |R−R ^′|≥2, selected-internal Steiner minimum tree problem is to find a minimum subtree T of G interconnecting R such that any leaf of T does not belong to R ^′. In this paper, suppose c is metric, we obtain a (1+ρ)-approximation algorithm for this problem, where ρ is the best-known approximation ratio for the Steiner minimum tree problem.     

Improved computation of plane Steiner Minimal Trees

ASteiner Minimal Tree (SMT) for a given setA = {a ₁,...,a _n } in the plane is a tree which interconnects these points and whose total length, i.e., the sum of lengths of the branches, is minimum. To achieve the minimum, the tree may contain other points (Steiner points) besidesa ₁,...,a _n . Various improvements are presented to an earlier computer program of the authors for plane SMTs. These changes have radically reduced machine times. The existing program was limited in application to aboutn = 30, while the innovations have facilitated solution of many randomly generated 100-point problems in reasonable processing times.This work was supported by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Council under Grant Numbers A-7544 and A-7558.     

A special case of the single-machine total tardiness problem is NP-hard

In this paper, it is shown that the special case B-1 of the single-machine total tardiness problem 1 ∥ ΣT _j is NP-hard in the ordinary sense. For this case, there exists a pseudo-polynomial algorithm with run time O(n σp _j). Published in Russian in Izvestiya Akademii Nauk. Teoriya i Sistemy Upravleniya, 2006, No. 3, pp. 120–128. Article was translated by the authors.     

Exact Algorithms for the Bottleneck Steiner Tree Problem

Given n points, called terminals, in the plane ℝ² and a positive integer k, the bottleneck Steiner tree problem is to find k Steiner points from ℝ² and a spanning tree on the n+k points that minimizes its longest edge length. Edge length is measured by an underlying distance function on ℝ², usually, the Euclidean or the L ₁ metric. This problem is known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we study this problem in the L _p metric for any 1≤p≤∞, and aim to find an exact algorithm which is efficient for small fixed k. We present the first fixed-parameter tractable algorithm running in f(k)⋅nlog ² n time for the L ₁ and the L _∞ metrics, and the first exact algorithm for the L _p metric for any fixed rational p with 1<p<∞ whose time complexity is f(k)⋅(n ^k +nlog n), where f(k) is a function dependent only on k. Note that prior to this paper there was no known exact algorithm even for the L ₂ metric.     

New PCG based algorithms for the solution of Hermitian Toeplitz systems

In order to solve Toeplitz linear systems A_n(f)x=b generated by a nonnegative integrable function f, through use of the preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) method, several authors have proposed A_n(g) as preconditioner in the case where g is a trigonometric polynomial [10, 14, 27, 12, 28]. In preceding works, we studied the distribution and the extremal properties of the spectrum of the preconditioned matrix G=A _n ⁻¹ (g) A_n(f). In this paper we prove that the union of the spectra of all the G_n is dense on the essential range of f/g, i.e.,ER(f/g) and we obtain asymptotic information about the rate of convergence of the smallest eigenvalue λ _l ⁿ of G_n to r (and of λ _n ⁿ to R). As a consequence of this second order result, it is possible to handle the case where f has zeros of any order θ, through the PCG methods proposed in [10, 14]. This is a noteworthy extension since the techniques developed in [10, 14, 27, 12, 28] are shown to be effective only when f has zeros of even orders. The cost of this procedure is O(n^1+c(θ) log n) arithmetic operations (ops) where the quantity c(θ) belongs to interval [0,2⁻¹] and takes the maximum value 2⁻¹ when f has a zero of odd order. Finally, for the special case of zeros of odd orders, we propose a further algorithm which makes use of the PCG techniques proposed in [10, 14, 27, 12, 28] for theeven order case, reducing the cost to O(n long n) ops.     

Approximation Algorithm for Bottleneck Steiner Tree Problem in the Euclidean Plane

A special case of thebottleneck Steiner tree problem in the Euclidean plane was considered in this paper. The problem has applications in the design of wireless communication networks, multifacility location, VLSI routing and network routing. For the special case which requires that there should be no edge connecting any two Steiner points in the optimal solution, a 3-restricted Steiner tree can be found indicating the existence of the performance ratio √2. In this paper, the special case of the problem is proved to beNP-hard and cannot be approximated within ratio √2. First a simple polynomial time approximation algorithm with performance ratio √2 is presented. Then based on this algorithm and the existence of the 3-restricted Steiner tree, a polynomial time approximation algorithm with performance ratio—√2+∈ is proposed, for any ∈>0. Supported partially by Shandong Province Excellent Middle-Aged and Young Scientists Encouragement Fund (Grant No.03BS004) and the Ministry of Education Study Abroad Returnees Research Start-up Fund, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.60273032).     

An Approximation Algorithm for the Fault Tolerant Metric Facility Location Problem

We consider a fault tolerant version of the metric facility location problem in which every city, j, is required to be connected to r _j facilities. We give the first non-trivial approximation algorithm for this problem, having an approximation guarantee of 3 · H _k , where k is the maximum requirement and H _k is the kth harmonic number. Our algorithm is along the lines of [2] for the generalized Steiner network problem. It runs in phases, and each phase, using a generalization of the primal–dual algorithm of [5] for the metric facility location problem, reduces the maximum residual requirement by one.     

Optimal strategies against a liar

We consider the following scenario: There are two individuals, say Q (Questioner) and R (Responder), involved in a search game. Player R chooses a number, say x, from the set S={1,…,M}. Player Q has to find out x by asking questions of type: “which one of the sets A₁,A₂,…,A_q, does x belong to?”, where the sets A₁,…,A_q constitute a partition of S. Player R answers “i” to indicate that the number x belongs to A_i. We are interested in the least number of questions player Q has to ask in order to be always able to correctly guess the number x, provided that R can lie at most e times. The case e=0 obviously reduces to the classical q-ary search, and the necessary number of questions is [log_qM]. The case q=2 and e1 has been widely studied, and it is generally referred to as Ulam's game. In this paper we consider the general case of arbitrary q2. Under the assumption that player R is allowed to lie at most twice throughout the game, we determine the minimum number of questions Q needs to ask in order to successfully search for x in a set of cardinality M=qⁱ, for any i1. As a corollary, we obtain a counterexample to a recently proposed conjecture of Aigner, for the case of an arbitrary number of lies. We also exactly solve the problem when player R is allowed to lie a fixed but otherwise arbitrary number of times e, and M=qⁱ, with i not too large with respect to q. For the general case of arbitrary M, we give fairly tight upper and lower bounds on the number of the necessary questions.     

On the partial terminal Steiner tree problem

We investigate a practical variant of the well-known graph Steiner tree problem. For a complete graph G = ( V,E ) with length function l:E → R ⁺ and two vertex subsets R ⊂ V and R ′ ⊆ R, a partial terminal Steiner tree is a Steiner tree which contains all vertices in R such that all vertices in R ∖ R ′ belong to the leaves of this Steiner tree. The partial terminal Steiner tree problem is to find a partial terminal Steiner tree T whose total lengths ∑ _{(u,v) ∈T} l ( u,v ) is minimum. In this paper, we show that the problem is both NP-complete and MAX SNP-hard when the lengths of edges are restricted to either 1 or 2. We also provide an approximation algorithm for the problem.

Border Correlations of Partial Words

Partial words are finite sequences over a finite alphabet A that may contain a number of “do not know” symbols denoted by ?’s. Setting $A_{\diamond}=A\cup\lbrace{\diamond}\rbracePartial words are finite sequences over a finite alphabet A that may contain a number of “do not know” symbols denoted by ⋄’s. Setting A_à=Aè{à}A_{\diamond}=A\cup\lbrace{\diamond}\rbrace , A _⋄ ^* denotes the set of all partial words over A. In this paper, we investigate the border correlation function b:A_à^*?{a,b}^*\beta:A_{\diamond}^{*}\rightarrow\lbrace a,b\rbrace^{*} that specifies which conjugates (cyclic shifts) of a given partial word w of length n are bordered, that is, β(w)=c ₀ c ₁…c _n−1 where c _i =a or c _i =b according to whether the ith cyclic shift σ ⁱ (w) of w is unbordered or bordered. A partial word w is bordered if a proper prefix x ₁ of w is compatible with a proper suffix x ₂ of w, in which case any partial word x containing both x ₁ and x ₂ is called a border of w. In addition to β, we investigate an extension β′:A _⋄ ^*→ℕ^* that maps a partial word w of length n to m ₀ m ₁…m _n−1 where m _i is the length of a shortest border of σ ⁱ (w). Our results extend those of Harju and Nowotka.     

Approximation Algorithms for Degree-Constrained Minimum-Cost Network-Design Problems

We study network-design problems with two different design objectives: the total cost of the edges and nodes in the network and the maximum degree of any node in the network. A prototypical example is the degree-constrained node-weighted Steiner tree problem: We are given an undirected graph G(V,E) , with a nonnegative integral function d that specifies an upper bound d(v) on the degree of each vertex v ∈ V in the Steiner tree to be constructed, nonnegative costs on the nodes, and a subset of k nodes called terminals. The goal is to construct a Steiner tree T containing all the terminals such that the degree of any node v in T is at most the specified upper bound d(v) and the total cost of the nodes in T is minimum. Our main result is a bicriteria approximation algorithm whose output is approximate in terms of both the degree and cost criteria—the degree of any node v ∈ V in the output Steiner tree is O(d(v) log k) and the cost of the tree is O(log k) times that of a minimum-cost Steiner tree that obeys the degree bound d(v) for each node v . Our result extends to the more general problem of constructing one-connected networks such as generalized Steiner forests. We also consider the special case in which the edge costs obey the triangle inequality and present simple approximation algorithms with better performance guarantees. Received December 21, 1998; revised September 24, 1999.     

An Approximation Algorithm for the Fault Tolerant Metric Facility Location Problem

We consider a fault tolerant version of the metric facility location problem in which every city, j, is required to be connected to r _j facilities. We give the first non-trivial approximation algorithm for this problem, having an approximation guarantee of 3 · H _k , where k is the maximum requirement and H _k is the kth harmonic number. Our algorithm is along the lines of [2] for the generalized Steiner network problem. It runs in phases, and each phase, using a generalization of the primal–dual algorithm of [5] for the metric facility location problem, reduces the maximum residual requirement by one.     

Implementing mapping composition

Mapping composition is a fundamental operation in metadata driven applications. Given a mapping over schemas σ₁ and σ₂ and a mapping over schemas σ₂ and σ₃, the composition problem is to compute an equivalent mapping over σ₁ and σ₃. We describe a new composition algorithm that targets practical applications. It incorporates view unfolding. It eliminates as many σ₂ symbols as possible, even if not all can be eliminated. It covers constraints expressed using arbitrary monotone relational operators and, to a lesser extent, non-monotone operators. And it introduces the new technique of left composition. We describe our implementation, explain how to extend it to support user-defined operators, and present experimental results which validate its effectiveness. T.J. Green and A. Nash’s work was performed during an internship at Microsoft Research. A preliminary version of this work was published in the VLDB 2006 conference proceedings.     

Michell cantilevers constructed within a half strip. Tabulation of selected benchmark results

The paper delivers the benchmark results for the Michell cantilevers constructed within a half strip, for selected values of the σ _T /σ _C ratio, σ _T , σ _C being the admissible stresses in tension and compression, respectively.     

Linear Data Structures for Fast Ray-Shooting amidst Convex Polyhedra

We consider the problem of ray shooting in a three-dimensional scene consisting of k (possibly intersecting) convex polyhedra with a total of n facets. That is, we want to preprocess them into a data structure, so that the first intersection point of a query ray and the given polyhedra can be determined quickly. We describe data structures that require preprocessing time and storage (where the notation hides polylogarithmic factors), and have polylogarithmic query time, for several special instances of the problem. These include the case when the ray origins are restricted to lie on a fixed line ℓ ₀, but the directions of the rays are arbitrary, the more general case when the supporting lines of the rays pass through ℓ ₀, and the case of rays orthogonal to some fixed line with arbitrary origins and orientations. We also present a simpler solution for the case of vertical ray-shooting with arbitrary origins. In all cases, this is a significant improvement over previously known techniques (which require Ω(n ²) storage, even when k ≪ n). Work by Haim Kaplan and Natan Rubin has been supported by Grant 975/06 from the Israel Science Fund. Work by Micha Sharir and Natan Rubin was partially supported by NSF Grant CCF-05-14079, by a grant from the U.S.–Israeli Binational Science Foundation, by grant 155/05 from the Israel Science Fund, Israeli Academy of Sciences, by a grant from the AFIRST French–Israeli program, and by the Hermann Minkowski–MINERVA Center for Geometry at Tel Aviv University. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Proc. 15th Annu. Europ. Sympos. Alg. (2007), 287–298.     

Controllability for Discrete Systems with a Finite Control Set

In this paper we consider the problem of controllability for a discrete linear control system x _k+1=Ax _k+Bu _k, u _k∈U, where (A,B) is controllable and U is a finite set. We prove the existence of a finite set U ensuring density for the reachable set from the origin under the necessary assumptions that the pair (A,B) is controllable and A has eigenvalues with modulus greater than or equal to 1. In the case of A only invertible we obtain density on compact sets. We also provide uniformity results with respect to the matrix A and the initial condition. In the one-dimensional case the matrix A reduces to a scalar λ and for λ>1 the reachable set R(0,U) from the origin is?