On the Value of a Random Minimum Weight Steiner Tree

Consider a complete graph on n vertices with edge weights chosen randomly and independently from an exponential distribution with parameter 1. Fix k vertices and consider the minimum weight Steiner tree which contains these vertices. We prove that with high probability the weight of this tree is (1+o(1))(k-1)(log n-log k)/n when k =o(n) and n.* Research supported in part by NSF grant DSM9971788 Research supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0106589, CCR-9987845 and by the State of New Jersey. Part of this research was done while visiting IBM T. J. Watson Research Center.     

On arrangements of Jordan arcs with three intersections per pair

Motivated by a number of motion-planning questions, we investigate in this paper some general topological and combinatorial properties of the boundary of the union ofn regions bounded by Jordan curves in the plane. We show that, under some fairly weak conditions, a simply connected surface can be constructed that exactly covers this union and whose boundary has combinatorial complexity that is nearly linear, even though the covered region can have quadratic complexity. In the case where our regions are delimited by Jordan acrs in the upper halfplane starting and ending on thex-axis such that any pair of arcs intersect in at most three points, we prove that the total number of subarcs that appear on the boundary of the union is only (n(n)), where(n) is the extremely slowly growing functional inverse of Ackermann's function.The first author is pleased to acknowledge the support of Amoco Fnd. Fac. Dev. Comput. Sci. 1-6-44862 and National Science Foundation Grant CCR-8714565. Work on this paper by the fourth and seventh authors has been supported by Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-87-K-0129, by National Science Foundation Grant NSF-DCR-83-20085, and by grants from the Digital Equipment Corporation and the IBM Corporation. The seventh author in addition wishes to acknowledge support by a research grant from the NCRD—the Israeli National Council for Research and Development. The fifth author would like to acknowledge support in part by NSF grant DMS-8501947. Finally, the eighth author was supported in part by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.     

Collapsed Riemannian manifolds with bounded diameter and bounded covering geometry

We study the class ofn-Riemannian manifolds in the title such that the torsion elements in the fundamental group have a definite bound on their orders. Our main result asserts the existence of a kind of generalized Seifert fiber structure onM ⁿ , for which the fundamental group of fibers injects into that ofM ⁿ . This provides a necessary and sufficient topological condition for a manifold to admit a sufficiently collapsed metric in our class. Among other consequences we obtain a strengthened version of the gap conjecture in this context.The work of the first author is partially supported by NSF Grant DMS 9303999. The work of the second author is supported by MSRI through NSF grant DMS 9022140 and partially supported by NSF Grant DMS 9204095.     

How large delays build up in a GI/G/1 queue

LetW _k denote the waiting time of customerk, k 0, in an initially empty GI/G/1 queue. Fixa> 0. We prove weak limit theorems describing the behaviour ofW _k /n, 0kn, given W_n >na. LetX have the distribution of the difference between the service and interarrival distributions. We consider queues for which Cramer type conditions hold forX, and queues for whichX has regularly varying positive tail.The results can also be interpreted as conditional limit theorems, conditional on large maxima in the partial sums of random walks with negative drift.Research supported by the NSF under Grant NCR 8710840 and under the PYI Award NCR 8857731.     

An optimal lower bound on the number of variables for graph identification

In this paper we show that (n) variables are needed for first-order logic with counting to identify graphs onn vertices. Thek-variable language with counting is equivalent to the (k–1)-dimensional Weisfeiler-Lehman method. We thus settle a long-standing open problem. Previously it was an open question whether or not 4 variables suffice. Our lower bound remains true over a set of graphs of color class size 4. This contrasts sharply with the fact that 3 variables suffice to identify all graphs of color class size 3, and 2 variables suffice to identify almost all graphs. Our lower bound is optimal up to multiplication by a constant becausen variables obviously suffice to identify graphs onn vertices.Research supported by NSF grant CCR-8709818.Research supported by NSF grant CCR-8805978 and Pennsylvania State University Research Initiation grant 428-45.Research supported by NSF grants DCR-8603346 and CCR-8806308.     

A family of multiply extended grids

We construct an infinite family{ _n}_n=5 of finite connected graphs _n that are multiple extensions of the well-known extended grid discovered in [1] (which is isomorphic to ₅). The graphs _n are locally _n–1 forn > 5, and have the following property: the automorphism groupG(n) of _n permutes transitively the maximal cliques of _n (which aren-cliques) and the stabilizer of somen-clique of _n inG(n) induces _n on the vertices of. Furthermore we show that the clique complexes of the graphs _n are simply connected.     

The number of edges of many faces in a line segment arrangement

We show that the maximum number of edges boundingm faces in an arrangement ofn line segments in the plane isO(m ^2/3 n ^2/3+n(n)+nlogm). This improves a previous upper bound of Edelsbrunner et al. [5] and almost matches the best known lower bound which is (m ^2/3 n ^2/3+n(n)). In addition, we show that the number of edges bounding anym faces in an arrangement ofn line segments with a total oft intersecting pairs isO(m ^2/3 t ^1/3+n(t/n)+nmin{logm,logt/n}), almost matching the lower bound of (m ^2/3 t ^1/3+n(t/n)) demonstrated in this paper.Work on this paper by the first and fourth authors has been partially supported by Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-87-K-0129, by National Science Foundation Grants DCR-83-20085 and CCR-89-01484. Work by the first author has also been supported by an AT&T Bell Laboratories Ph.D. scholarship at New York University and by DIMACS (Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center (NSF-STC88-09648). Work by the second author has been supported by NSF under Grants CCR-87-14565 and CCR-89-21421. Work by the fourth author has additionally been supported by grants from the U.S.-Israeli Binational Science Foundation, the NCRD (the Israeli National Council for Research and Development) and the Fund for Basic Research in Electronics, Computers and Communication, administered by the Israeli National Academy of Sciences.     

Dual bin packing with items of random sizes

Given a collection of items and a number of unit size bins, the dual bin packing problem requires finding the largest number of items that can be packed in these bins. In our stochastic model, the item sizesX ₁,,X _n are independent identically distributed according to a given probability measure. Denote byN _n =N _n (X ₁,,X _n ) the largest number of these items that can be packed in an bins, where 0<a<1 is a constant. We show thatb = lim _n E(N _n )/n exists, and that the random variable (N _n –nb)/ converges in distribution. The limit is identified as the distribution of the supremum of a certain Gaussian process cannonically attached to. This research is in part supported by NSF grant CCR-8801517 and CCR-9000611.This research is in part supported by NSF grant DMS-8801180.     

Norming operators for generalized domains of attraction

A sequence of independent and identically distributed random vectorsX _n on ^k is said to belong to the generalized domain of attraction of a nondegenerate random vectorY on ^k provided that there exist linear operatorsA _n on ^k and nonrandom constantsb _n ^k such that the centered and normalized partial sumsA _n (X ₁++X _n –b _n converge in distribution toY. In this paper we show that the sequence of norming operatorsA _n can always be chosen to vary regularly.Partially supported by NSF Grant DMS-91-03131 at Albion College.     

Points and triangles in the plane and halving planes in space

We prove that for any setS ofn points in the plane andn ^3−α triangles spanned by the points inS there exists a point (not necessarily inS) contained in at leastn ^3−3α/(c log⁵ n) of the triangles. This implies that any set ofn points in three-dimensional space defines at most halving planes. Work on this paper by Boris Aronov and Rephael Wenger has been supported by DIMACS under NSF Grant STC-88-09648. Work on this paper by Bernard Chazelle has been supported by NSF Grant CCR-87-00917. Work by Herbert Edelsbrunner has been supported by NSF Grant CCR-87-14565. Micha Sharir has been supported by ONR Grant N00014-87-K-0129, by NSF Grant CCR-89-01484, and by grants from the U.S.-Israeli Binational Science Foundation, the Israeli National Council for Research and Development, and the Fund for Basic Research administered by the Israeli Academy of Sciences.     

On sparse spanners of weighted graphs

Given a graphG, a subgraphG' is at-spanner ofG if, for everyu,v V, the distance fromu tov inG' is at mostt times longer than the distance inG. In this paper we give a simple algorithm for constructing sparse spanners for arbitrary weighted graphs. We then apply this algorithm to obtain specific results for planar graphs and Euclidean graphs. We discuss the optimality of our results and present several nearly matching lower bounds.The work of G. Das and D. Joseph was supported by NSF PYI Grant DCR-8402375. The work of D. Dobkin was supported by NSF Grant CCR-8700917. The work of J. Soares was supported by CNPq proc 203039/87.4 (Brazil) and NSF Grant CCR-9014562. This research was accomplished while G. Das was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A preliminary version was presented at the Second Scandinavian Workshop on Algorithm Theory, Bergen, Norway, 1990, under the title Generating Sparse Spanners for Weighted Graphs, and proceedings appear in the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag. The preliminary version also appears as Princeton University Technical Report CS-TR-261-90, and as University of Wisconsin-Madison Computer Sciences Technical Report 882.     

An explicit calculation of the mean of the perimeter of the convex hull of a plane random walk

If (X _n ) _n ⁼¹ is a sequence of i.i.d. random variables in the Euclidean plane such that we compute the mean of the perimeter of theconvex hull ofX ₁++X _k; 0kn}.     

Near Optimal Separation Of Tree-Like And General Resolution

We present the best known separation between tree-like and general resolution, improving on the recent exp(n ) separation of [2]. This is done by constructing a natural family of contradictions, of size n, that have O(n)-size resolution refutations, but only exp((n/log n))- size tree-like refutations. This result implies that the most commonly used automated theorem procedures, which produce tree-like resolution refutations, will perform badly on some inputs, while other simple procedures, that produce general resolution refutations, will have polynomial run-time on these very same inputs. We show, furthermore that the gap we present is nearly optimal. Specifically, if S (S _T ) is the minimal size of a (tree-like) refutation, we prove that S _T = exp(O(S log log S/log S)).* This research was supported by Clore Foundation Doctoral Scholarship. Research supported by NSF Award CCR-0098197 and USA–Israel BSF Grant 97-00188. This research was supported by grant number 69/96 of the Israel Science Foundation, founded by the Israel Academy for Sciences and Humanities.     

The set union problem with dynamic weighted backtracking

We consider an extension of the set union problem, in which dynamic weighted backtracking over sequences of unions is permitted. We present a new data structure which can support each operation inO(logn) time in the worst case. We prove that this bound is tight for pointer based algorithms. Furthermore, we design a different data structure to achieve better amortized bounds. The space complexity of both our data structures isO(n). Motivations for studying this problem arise in logic programming memory management.Work partially supported by NSF Grant CCR-88-14977, by the ESPRIT II Basic Research Actions Program of the EC under contract No. 3075 (Project ALCOM), and by the Italian MURST Project Algoritmi e Strutture di Calcolo.Partially supported by an IBM Graduate Fellowship.     

Random k-Sat: A Tight Threshold For Moderately Growing k

We consider a random instance I of k-SAT with n variables and m clauses, where k=k(n) satisfies k—log₂ n. Let m ₀=2 ^k nln2 and let =(n)>0 be such that n. We prove that

Extended large deviations

LetX ₁,X ₂,..., be a sequence ofi.i.d. random variables with a moment generating function finite in a neighborhood of 0. Further, for each integern1, letS _n denote the sum of the firstn terms in this sequence. We study the extended large deviation of such sums, meaning,P{S _n >n _n }, where _n is any sequence converging to infinity. We also derive functional extended large deviation theorems and then apply them to obtain functional versions of the Erdös-Rényi strong law of large numbers.Research partially supported by an NSF Grant.     

Graphs drawn with few crossings per edge

We show that if a graph ofv vertices can be drawn in the plane so that every edge crosses at mostk>0 others, then its number of edges cannot exceed 4.108kv. Fork4, we establish a better bound, (k+3)(v–2), which is tight fork=1 and 2. We apply these estimates to improve a result of Ajtai et al. and Leighton, providing a general lower bound for the crossing number of a graph in terms of its number of vertices and edges.Supported by NSF grant CCR-94-24398 and PSC-CUNY Research Award 667339.Supported by OTKA-T-020914, OTKA-F-22234 and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.     

The empirical process of a short-range dependent stationary sequence under Gaussian subordination

Summary Consider the stationary sequenceX ₁=G(Z ₁),X ₂=G(Z ₂),..., whereG(·) is an arbitrary Borel function andZ ₁,Z ₂,... is a mean-zero stationary Gaussian sequence with covariance functionr(k)=E(Z ₁ Z _k+1) satisfyingr(0)=1 and _k=1 |r(k)| ^m < , where, withI{·} denoting the indicator function andF(·) the continuous marginal distribution function of the sequence {X _n }, the integerm is the Hermite rank of the family {I{G(·) x} –F(x):xR}. LetF _n (·) be the empirical distribution function ofX ₁,...,X _n . We prove that, asn, the empirical processn ^1/2{F _n (·)-F(·)} converges in distribution to a Gaussian process in the spaceD[–,].Partially supported by NSF Grant DMS-9208067     

Extremal eigenvalue problems for composite membranes,II

Given an open bounded connected set R ^N and a prescribed amount of two homogeneous materials of different density, for smallk we characterize the distribution of the two materials in that extremizes thekth eigenvalue of the resulting clamped membrane. We show that these extremizers vary continuously with the proportion of the two constituents. The characterization of the extremizers in terms of level sets of associated eigenfunctions provides geometric information on their respective interfaces. Each of these results generalizes toN dimensions the now classical one-dimensional work of M. G. Krein.The work of the first author was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-8201719 (A. Manitius, P. I.), an IBM fellowship, a GE teaching incentive, and DARPA Contract F49620-87-C-0065. That of the second author was supported in part by ONR Grant N00014-84-5-516, AFOSR Grant AFOSR-86-0180, and NSF Grant DMS-8713722.     

Extremal eigenvalue problems for composite membranes,I

Given an open bounded connected set R ^N and a prescribed amount of two homogeneous materials of different density, for smallk we characterize the distribution of the two materials in that extremizes thekth eigenvalue of the resulting clamped membrane. We show that these extremizers vary continuously with the proportion of the two constituents. The characterization of the extremizers in terms of level sets of associated eigenfunctions provides geometric information on their respective interfaces. Each of these results generalizes toN dimensions the now classical one-dimensional work of M. G. Krein.The work of the first author was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-8201719 (A. Manitius, P. I.), an IBM fellowship, a GE teaching incentive, and DARPA Contract F49620-87-C-0065. That of the second author was supported in part by ONR Grant N00014-84-5-516, AFOSR Grant AFOSR-86-0180, and NSF Grant DMS-8713722.