On <Emphasis Type="Italic">m</Emphasis>-Near-Resolvable Block Designs and <Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis>-ary Constant-Weight Codes

We introduce m-near-resolvable block designs. We establish a correspondence between such block designs and a subclass of (optimal equidistant) q-ary constant-weight codes meeting the Johnson bound. We present constructions of m-near-resolvable block designs, in particular based on Steiner systems and super-simple t-designs.     

Pseudo-Randomness of Certain Sequences of <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis> Symbols with Length <Emphasis Type="Italic">pq</Emphasis>

The theory of finite pseudo-random binary sequences was built by C. Mauduit and A. Sárközy and later extended to sequences of k symbols (or k-ary sequences). Certain constructions of pseudo-random sequences of k symbols were presented over finite fields in the literature. In this paper, two families of sequences of k symbols are constructed by using the integers modulo pq for distinct odd primes p and q. The upper bounds on the well-distribution measure and the correlation measure of the families sequences are presented in terms of certain character sums over modulo pq residue class rings. And low bounds on the linear complexity profile are also estimated.     

Parallel <Emphasis Type="Italic">LL</Emphasis> parsing

A deterministic parallel LL parsing algorithm is presented. The algorithm is based on a transformation from a parsing problem to parallel reduction. First, a nondeterministic version of a parallel LL parser is introduced. Then, it is transformed into the deterministic version—the LLP parser. The deterministic LLP(q,k) parser uses two kinds of information to select the next operation — a lookahead string of length up to k symbols and a lookback string of length up to q symbols. Deterministic parsing is available for LLP grammars, a subclass of LL grammars. Since the presented deterministic and nondeterministic parallel parsers are both based on parallel reduction, they are suitable for most parallel architectures.     

Sparse Support Vector Machine with <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis></Subscript> Penalty for Feature Selection

We study the strategies in feature selection with sparse support vector machine (SVM). Recently, the socalled L _p -SVM (0 < p < 1) has attracted much attention because it can encourage better sparsity than the widely used L ₁-SVM. However, L _p -SVM is a non-convex and non-Lipschitz optimization problem. Solving this problem numerically is challenging. In this paper, we reformulate the L _p -SVM into an optimization model with linear objective function and smooth constraints (LOSC-SVM) so that it can be solved by numerical methods for smooth constrained optimization. Our numerical experiments on artificial datasets show that LOSC-SVM (0 < p < 1) can improve the classification performance in both feature selection and classification by choosing a suitable parameter p. We also apply it to some real-life datasets and experimental results show that it is superior to L ₁-SVM.     

Heidegger on technology and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gelassenheit</Emphasis>: <Emphasis Type="Italic">wabi</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">sabi</Emphasis> and the art of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Verfallenheit</Emphasis>

The question of the contemporary relevance of Heidegger’s reflections on technology to today’s advanced technology is here explored with reference to the notion of “entanglement” towards a review of Heidegger’s understanding of technology and media, including the entertainment industry and modern digital life. Heidegger’s reflections on Gelassenheit have been connected with the aesthetics of the tea ceremony, disputing the material aesthetics of porcelain versus plastic. Here by approaching the art of wabi-sabi as the art of Verfallenheit, I argue that Gelassenheit may be understood in these terms.     

Efficient <Emphasis Type="Italic">l</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis></Subscript> norm based sparse subspace clustering via smooth IRLS and ADMM

Recently, sparse subspace clustering, as a subspace learning technique, has been successfully applied to several computer vision applications, e.g. face clustering and motion segmentation. The main idea of sparse subspace clustering is to learn an effective sparse representation that are used to construct an affinity matrix for spectral clustering. While most of existing sparse subspace clustering algorithms and its extensions seek the forms of convex relaxation, the use of non-convex and non-smooth l _q (0 < q < 1) norm has demonstrated better recovery performance. In this paper we propose an l _q norm based Sparse Subspace Clustering method (lqSSC), which is motivated by the recent work that l _q norm can enhance the sparsity and make better approximation to l ₀ than l ₁. However, the optimization of l _q norm with multiple constraints is much difficult. To solve this non-convex problem, we make use of the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) for solving the l _q norm optimization, updating the variables in an alternating minimization way. ADMM splits the unconstrained optimization into multiple terms, such that the l _q norm term can be solved via Smooth Iterative Reweighted Least Square (SIRLS), which converges with guarantee. Different from traditional IRLS algorithms, the proposed algorithm is based on gradient descent with adaptive weight, making it well suit for general sparse subspace clustering problem. Experiments on computer vision tasks (synthetic data, face clustering and motion segmentation) demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves considerable improvement of clustering accuracy than the convex based subspace clustering methods.     

(<Emphasis Type="Italic">a</Emphasis>, <Emphasis Type="Italic">d</Emphasis>)-Distance Antimagic Labeling of Some Types of Graphs

We analyze the necessary existence conditions for (a, d)-distance antimagic labeling of a graph G = (V, E) of order n. We obtain theorems that expand the family of not (a, d) -distance antimagic graphs. In particular, we prove that the crown P _n ○ P ₁ does not admit an (a, 1)-distance antimagic labeling for n ≥ 2 if a ≥ 2. We determine the values of a at which path P _n can be an (a, 1)-distance antimagic graph. Among regular graphs, we investigate the case of a circulant graph.     

Multiple <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis> nearest neighbor search

The problem of kNN (k Nearest Neighbor) queries has received considerable attention in the database and information retrieval communities. Given a dataset D and a kNN query q, the k nearest neighbor algorithm finds the closest k data points to q. The applications of kNN queries are board, not only in spatio-temporal databases but also in many areas. For example, they can be used in multimedia databases, data mining, scientific databases and video retrieval. The past studies of kNN query processing did not consider the case that the server may receive multiple kNN queries at one time. Their algorithms process queries independently. Thus, the server will be busy with continuously reaccessing the database to obtain the data that have already been acquired. This results in wasting I/O costs and degrading the performance of the whole system. In this paper, we focus on this problem and propose an algorithm named COrrelated kNN query Evaluation (COKE). The main idea of COKE is an “information sharing” strategy whereby the server reuses the query results of previously executed queries for efficiently processing subsequent queries. We conduct a comprehensive set of experiments to analyze the performance of COKE and compare it with the Best-First Search (BFS) algorithm. Empirical studies indicate that COKE outperforms BFS, and achieves lower I/O costs and less running time.     

Novel steganographic method based on generalized <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis>-distance <Emphasis Type="Italic">N</Emphasis>-dimensional pixel matching

In this paper, a steganographic scheme adopting the concept of the generalized K _d -distance N-dimensional pixel matching is proposed. The generalized pixel matching embeds a B-ary digit (B is a function of K and N) into a cover vector of length N, where the order-d Minkowski distance-measured embedding distortion is no larger than K. In contrast to other pixel matching-based schemes, a N-dimensional reference table is used. By choosing d, K, and N adaptively, an embedding strategy which is suitable for arbitrary relative capacity can be developed. Additionally, an optimization algorithm, namely successive iteration algorithm (SIA), is proposed to optimize the codeword assignment in the reference table. Benefited from the high dimensional embedding and the optimization algorithm, nearly maximal embedding efficiency is achieved. Compared with other content-free steganographic schemes, the proposed scheme provides better image quality and statistical security. Moreover, the proposed scheme performs comparable to state-of-the-art content-based approaches after combining with image models.     

On the <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-accessibility of cores of <Emphasis Type="Italic">TU</Emphasis>-cooperative games

This paper proposes a strengthening of the author’s core-accessibility theorem for balanced TU-cooperative games. The obtained strengthening relaxes the influence of the nontransitivity of classical domination αv on the quality of the sequential improvement of dominated imputations in a game v. More specifically, we establish the k-accessibility of the core C(α _v ) of any balanced TU-cooperative game v for all natural numbers k: for each dominated imputation x, there exists a converging sequence of imputations x₀, x₁,..., such that x₀ = x, lim x _r ∈ C(α _v ) and x_r?m is dominated by any successive imputation x _r with m ∈ [1, k] and r ≥ m. For showing that the TU-property is essential to provide the k-accessibility of the core, we give an example of an NTU-cooperative game G with a ”black hole” representing a nonempty closed subset B ? G(N) of dominated imputations that contains all the α _G -monotonic sequential improvement trajectories originating at any point x ∈ B.     

Upper bound on the minimum distance of LDPC codes over <Emphasis Type="Italic">GF</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis>) based on counting the number of syndromes

In [1] a syndrome counting based upper bound on the minimum distance of regular binary LDPC codes is given. In this paper we extend the bound to the case of irregular and generalized LDPC codes over GF(q). A comparison with the lower bound for LDPC codes over GF(q), upper bound for the codes over GF(q), and the shortening upper bound for LDPC codes is made. The new bound is shown to lie under the Gilbert–Varshamov bound at high rates.     

Motion of spin-half particles in the axially symmetric field of naked singularities of the static <Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis>-metric

Quantum-mechanical motion of a spin-half particle is examined in the axially symmetric fields of static naked singularities formed by a mass distribution with a quadrupole moment (q-metric). The analysis is performed by means of the method of effective potentials of the Dirac equation generalized to the case where radial and angular variables are not separated. If ?1 < q < qlim, |qlim| ? 1, where q is the quadrupolemoment in proper units, the naked singularities do not exclude the existence of stationary bound states of Dirac particles for a prolate mass distribution in the q-metric along the axial axis. For an oblate mass distribution, the naked singularities of the q-metric are separated from a Dirac particle by infinitely large repulsive barriers followed by a potential well which deepens while moving apart from the equator (from θ = θ _min or θ = π ? θ _min) toward the poles. The poles make an exception, and at 0 < q < q*, there are some points θ _i for particle states with j ≥ 3/2.     

(1+4)-dimensional spherically symmetric black holes in <Emphasis Type="Italic">f</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis>)

New non-vacuum spherically symmetric solutions in (1+4)-dimensional space-time are derived using the field equations of f(T) theory, where T is the torsion scalar defined as \(T\mathop = \limits^{def} {T^\mu }_{\nu \rho }S_\mu ^{\nu \rho }\). The energy density, radial and transversal pressures in these solutions are shown to satisfy the energy conditions. Other interesting solutions are obtained under the constraint of vanishing radial pressure for different choices of f(T). Impositions are provided to reproduce the (1+4)-dimensional AdS-Schwarzschild solution. In the quadratic case, i.e., f(T) ∝ T ², other impositions are derived and have shown to satisfy the non-diagonal components of the field equations of f(T) theory. The physics relevant to the resulting models is discussed.     

Testing list <Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis>-homomorphisms

In the List H- Homomorphism Problem, for a graph H that is a parameter of the problem, an instance consists of an undirected graph G with a list constraint \({L(v) \subseteq V(H)}\) for each variable \({v \in V(G)}\), and the objective is to determine whether there is a list H-homomorphism \({f:V(G) \to V(H)}\), that is, \({f(v) \in L(v)}\) for every \({v \in V(G)}\) and \({(f(u),f(v)) \in E(H)}\) whenever \({(u,v) \in E(G)}\).We consider the problem of testing list H-homomorphisms in the following weighted setting: An instance consists of an undirected graph G, list constraints L, weights imposed on the vertices of G, and a map \({f:V(G) \to V(H)}\) given as an oracle access. The objective is to determine whether f is a list H-homomorphism or far from any list H-homomorphism. The farness is measured by the total weight of vertices \({v \in V(G)}\) for which f(v) must be changed so as to make f a list H-homomorphism. In this paper, we classify graphs H with respect to the number of queries to f required to test the list H-homomorphisms. Specifically, we show that (i) list H-homomorphisms are testable with a constant number of queries if and only if H is a reflexive complete graph or an irreflexive complete bipartite graph and (ii) list H-homomorphisms are testable with a sublinear number of queries if and only if H is a bi-arc graph.     

On Interval Systems [<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis>] = [<Emphasis Type="Italic">A</Emphasis>][<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis>] + [<Emphasis Type="Italic">b</Emphasis>] and the Powers of Interval Matrices in Complex Interval Arithmetics

For the interval system of equations defined by [x] = [A][x] + [b] we derive necessary and sufficient criteria for the existence of solutions [x]. Furthermore we give necessary and sufficient criteria for the convergence of powers of [A]. In contrast to former results we treat complex interval arithmetics.     

On <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis>-soft merotopies

The goal of this paper is to focus on the notions of merotopy and also merotopology in the soft universe. First of all, we propose L-soft merotopic (nearness) spaces and L-soft guild. Then, we study binary, contigual, regular merotopic spaces and also relations between them. We show that the category of binary L-soft nearness spaces is bireflective in the category of L-soft nearness spaces. Later, we define L-approach soft merotopological (nearness) spaces by giving several examples. Finally, we define a simpler characterization of L-approach soft grill merotopological space called grill-determined L-approach soft merotopological space. We investigate the categorical structures of these notions such as we prove that the category of grill-determined L-approach soft merotopological spaces is a topological category over the category of L-soft topological spaces. At the end, we define a partial order on the family of all L-approach soft grill merotopologies and show that this family is a completely distributive complete lattice with respect to the defined partial order.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">B</Emphasis><Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">dual</Emphasis></Superscript>-Tree: indexing moving objects by space filling curves in the dual space

Existing spatiotemporal indexes suffer from either large update cost or poor query performance, except for the B ^x -tree (the state-of-the-art), which consists of multiple B ⁺-trees indexing the 1D values transformed from the (multi-dimensional) moving objects based on a space filling curve (Hilbert, in particular). This curve, however, does not consider object velocities, and as a result, query processing with a B ^x -tree retrieves a large number of false hits, which seriously compromises its efficiency. It is natural to wonder “can we obtain better performance by capturing also the velocity information, using a Hilbert curve of a higher dimensionality?”. This paper provides a positive answer by developing the B ^dual -tree, a novel spatiotemporal access method leveraging pure relational methodology. We show, with theoretical evidence, that the B ^dual -tree indeed outperforms the B ^x -tree in most circum- stances. Furthermore, our technique can effectively answer progressive spatiotemporal queries, which are poorly supported by B ^x -trees.     

On new completely regular <Emphasis Type="Italic">q</Emphasis>-ary codes

In this paper, new completely regular q-ary codes are constructed from q-ary perfect codes. In particular, several new ternary completely regular codes are obtained from the ternary [11, 6, 5] Golay code. One of these codes with parameters [11, 5, 6] has covering radius ρ = 5 and intersection array (22, 20, 18, 2, 1; 1, 2, 9, 20, 22). This code is dual to the ternary perfect [11, 6, 5] Golay code. Another [10, 5, 5] code has covering radius ρ = 4 and intersection array (20, 18, 4, 1; 1, 2, 18, 20). This code is obtained by deleting one position of the former code. All together, the ternary Golay code results in eight completely regular codes, only four of which were previously known. Also, new infinite families of completely regular codes are constructed from q-ary Hamming codes.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-most suitable locations selection

Choosing the best location for starting a business or expanding an existing enterprize is an important issue. A number of location selection problems have been discussed in the literature. They often apply the Reverse Nearest Neighbor as the criterion for finding suitable locations. In this paper, we apply the Average Distance as the criterion and propose the so-called k-most suitable locations (k-MSL) selection problem. Given a positive integer k and three datasets: a set of customers, a set of existing facilities, and a set of potential locations. The k-MSL selection problem outputs k locations from the potential location set, such that the average distance between a customer and his nearest facility is minimized. In this paper, we formally define the k-MSL selection problem and show that it is NP-hard. We first propose a greedy algorithm which can quickly find an approximate result for users. Two exact algorithms are then proposed to find the optimal result. Several pruning rules are applied to increase computational efficiency. We evaluate the algorithms’ performance using both synthetic and real datasets. The results show that our algorithms are able to deal with the k-MSL selection problem efficiently.     

Emergence of anti-<Emphasis Type="Italic">F</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>) gravity in type-IV bouncing cosmology as due to <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Subscript>0</Subscript>-brane

Recently, some authors considered the origin of a type-IV singular bounce in modified gravity and obtained the explicit form of F(R) which can produce this type of cosmology. In this paper, we show that during the contracting branch of type-IV bouncing cosmology, the sign of gravity changes, and antigravity emerges. In our model, M0 branes get together and shape a universe, an anti-universe, and a wormhole which connects them. As time passes, this wormhole is dissolved in the universes, F(R) gravity emerges, and the universe expands. When the brane universes become close to each other, the squared energy of their system becomes negative, and some tachyonic states are produced. To remove these states, universes are assumed to be compact, the sign of compacted gravity changes, and anti-F(R) gravity arises, which causes getting away of the universes from each other. In this theory, a Type-IV singularity occurs at t = t _s , which is the time of producing tachyons between expansion and contraction branches.