Composition limits and separating examples for some boolean function complexity measures

Block sensitivity (bs(f)), certificate complexity (C(f)) and fractional certificate complexity (C*(f)) are three fundamental combinatorial measures of complexity of a boolean function f. It has long been known that bs(f) ≤ C*(f) ≤ C(f) = O(bs(f)²). We provide an infinite family of examples for which C(f) grows quadratically in C*(f) (and also bs(f)) giving optimal separations between these measures. Previously the biggest separation known was \(C(f) = C*(f)^{\log _{4,5} 5}\). We also give a family of examples for which C*(f)= Ω (bs(f)^3/2).These examples are obtained by composing boolean functions in various ways. Here the composition fog of f with g is obtained by substituting for each variable of f a copy of g on disjoint sets of variables. To construct and analyse these examples we systematically investigate the behaviour under function composition of these measures and also the sensitivity measure s(f). The measures s(f), C(f) and C*(f) behave nicely under composition: they are submultiplicative (where measure m is submultiplicative if m(fog) ≤ m(f)m(g)) with equality holding under some fairly general conditions. The measure bs(f) is qualitatively different: it is not submultiplicative. This qualitative difference was not noticed in the previous literature and we correct some errors that appeared in previous papers. We define the composition limit of a measure m at function f, m ^lim(f) to be the limit as k grows of m(f ^(k))^1/k , where f ^(k) is the iterated composition of f with itself k-times. For any function f we show that bs ^lim(f) = (C*)^lim(f) and characterize s ^lim(f); (C*)^lim(f), and C ^lim(f) in terms of the largest eigenvalue of a certain set of 2×2 matrices associated with f.     

Towards molecular simulations that are transparent,reproducible, usable by others,and extensible (TRUE)

ABSTRACT

Systems composed of soft matter (e.g. liquids, polymers, foams, gels, colloids, and most biological materials) are ubiquitous in science and engineering, but molecular simulations of such systems pose particular computational challenges, requiring time and/or ensemble-averaged data to be collected over long simulation trajectories for property evaluation. Performing a molecular simulation of a soft matter system involves multiple steps, which have traditionally been performed by researchers in a ‘bespoke’ fashion, resulting in many published soft matter simulations not being reproducible based on the information provided in the publications. To address the issue of reproducibility and to provide tools for computational screening, we have been developing the open-source Molecular Simulation and Design Framework (MoSDeF) software suite. In this paper, we propose a set of principles to create Transparent, Reproducible, Usable by others, and Extensible (TRUE) molecular simulations. MoSDeF facilitates the publication and dissemination of TRUE simulations by automating many of the critical steps in molecular simulation, thus enhancing their reproducibilitya. We provide several examples of TRUE molecular simulations: All of the steps involved in creating, running and extracting properties from the simulations are distributed on open-source platforms (within MoSDeF and on GitHub), thus meeting the definition of TRUE simulations.     

A local central limit theorem for triangles in a random graph

In this paper, we prove a local limit theorem for the distribution of the number of triangles in the Erdos‐Rényi random graph G(n, p), where is a fixed constant. Our proof is based on bounding the characteristic function of the number of triangles, and uses several different conditioning arguments for handling different ranges of t. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 48, 732–750, 2016     

A study of beryllium-hydrogencomplexes in silicon

Single-crystal silicon, containing the impurity beryllium, has been doped with hydrogen, using two different techniques. Some samples were implanted with 3 MeV protons as a hydrogen source, and others were heated in a hydrogen atmosphere up to temperatures of 1000°C. Infrared absorption spectra of these samples at low temperatures have revealed two new series of absorptions identified as acceptor levels 91 meV and about 73 meV above the valence band. Quenching and annealing studies indicate that these absorptions are due to beryllium-hydrogen pairs, a direct analog to the beryllium-lithium pairs. Also a new series of absorptions has been found in samples which have a very high beryllium concentration. These lines at 298, 324 and 345 cm^?1 disappear after short anneals at elevated temperatures and are believed to be an acceptor level associated with a more complex beryllium center.