Thinking and Turing's test

The questions raised by A. M. Turing in his paper on thought and machines are discussed. Human thought is considered in turn as a concept of normal language usage, as a basic concept of psychology, and as the basis of intellectual activity. It is concluded that neither of these notions of thought identifies something specific that a human being can or cannot do. The imitation game proposed by Turing for deciding whether a machine can think is found to result from an arbitrary empoverishment of the channel of communication between the interrogator and the item under investigation. Turing's notions of thinking are shown to lead to logical difficulties. An alternative view of consciousness, that would place it beyond the reach of any finite test, is finally discussed.     

A real algorithm for the Hermitian eigenvalue decomposition

Modifying complex plane rotations, we derive a new Jacobi-type algorithm for the Hermitian eigendecomposition, which uses only real arithmetic. When the fast-scaled rotations are incorporated, the new algorithm brings a substantial reduction in computational costs. The new method has the same convergence properties and parallelism as the symmetric Jacobi algorithm. Computational test results show that it produces accurate eigenvalues and eigenvectors and achieves great reduction in computational time.The work of this author was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant CCR-8813493 and by the University of Minnesota Army High Performance Computing Research Center contract DAAL 03-89-C-0038.The work of this author was supported in part by the University of Minnesota Army High Performance Computing Research Center contract DAAL 03-89-C-0038.     

Diffusing particles with electrostatic repulsion

Summary. We study a diffusion model of an interacting particles system with general drift and diffusion coefficients, and electrostatic inter-particles repulsion. More precisely, the finite particle system is shown to be well defined thanks to recent results on multivalued stochastic differential equations (see [2]), and then we consider the behaviour of this system when the number of particles goes to infinity (through the empirical measure process). In the particular case of affine drift and constant diffusion coefficient, we prove that a limiting measure-valued process exists and is the unique solution of a deterministic PDE. Our treatment of the convergence problem (as ) is partly similar to that of T. Chan [3] and L.C.G. Rogers - Z. Shi [5], except we consider here a more general case allowing collisions between particles, which leads to a second-order limiting PDE. Received: 5 August 1996 / In revised form: 17 October 1996     

Strong approximation ofGSBV functions by piecewise smooth functions

Let Ω be an open and bounded subset ofR ⁿ with locally Lipschitz boundary. We prove that the functionsv∈SBV(Ω,R ^m ) whose jump setS _vis essentially closed and polyhedral and which are of classW ^{k, ∞} (S _v,R ^m) for every integerk are strongly dense inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ), in the sense that every functionu inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ) is approximated inL ^p(Ω,R ^m ) by a sequence of functions {v _k{_j∈N with the described regularity such that the approximate gradients ∇v _jconverge inL ^p(Ω,R ^nm ) to the approximate gradient ∇u and the (n−1)-dimensional measure of the jump setsS _{v j} converges to the (n−1)-dimensional measure ofS _u. The structure ofS _v can be further improved in casep≤2.

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Sunto Sia Ω un aperto limitato diR ⁿ con frontiera localmente Lipschitziana. In questo lavoro si dimostra che le funzioniv∈SBV(Ω,R ^m ) con insieme di saltoS _v essenzialmente chiuso e poliedrale che sono di classeW ^{k, ∞} (S _v,R ^m ) per ogni interok sono fortemente dense inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ), nel senso che ogni funzioneu∈GSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ) è approssimata inL ^p(Ω,R ^m ) da una successione di funzioni {v _j}_j∈N con la regolaritá descritta tali che i gradienti approssimati ∇v _jconvergono inL ^p(Ω,R ^nm ) al gradiente approssimato ∇u e la misura (n−1)-dimensionale degli insiemi di saltoS _{v j}converge alla misura (n−1)-dimensionale diS _u. La struttura diS _vpuó essere migliorata nel caso in cuip≤2.

     

Functional equations on abelian groups with involution

Summary We produce complete solution formulas of selected functional equations of the formf(x +y) ±f(x + σ (ν)) = Σ _I ² =₁ g _l (x)h _l (y),x, y∈G, where the functionsf,g ₁,h ₁ to be determined are complex valued functions on an abelian groupG and where σ:G→G is an involution ofG. The special case of σ=−I encompasses classical functional equations like d’Alembert’s, Wilson’s first generalization of it, Jensen’s equation and the quadratic equation. We solve these equations, the equation for symmetric second differences in product form and similar functional equations for a general involution σ.     

Regularity of multiwavelets

The motivation for this paper is an interesting observation made by Plonka concerning the factorization of the matrix symbol associated with the refinement equation for B-splines with equally spaced multiple knots at integers and subsequent developments which relate this factorization to regularity of refinable vector fields over the real line. Our intention is to contribute to this train of ideas which is partially driven by the importance of refinable vector fields in the construction of multiwavelets. The use of subdivision methods will allow us to consider the problem almost entirely in the spatial domain and leads to exact characterizations of differentiability and Hölder regularity in arbitrary L _p spaces. We first study the close relationship between vector subdivision schemes and a generalized notion of scalar subdivision schemes based on bi-infinite matrices with certain periodicity properties. For the latter type of subdivision scheme we will derive criteria for convergence and Hölder regularity of the limit function, which mainly depend on the spectral radius of a bi-infinite matrix induced by the subdivision operator, and we will show that differentiability of the limit functions can be characterized by factorization properties of the subdivision operator. By switching back to vector subdivision we will transfer these results to refinable vectors fields and obtain characterizations of regularity by factorization and spectral radius properties of the symbol associated to the refinable vector field. Finally, we point out how multiwavelets can be generated from orthonormal refinable bi-infinite vector fields.     

Poincaré’s inequalities and Talagrand’s concentration phenomenon for the exponential distribution

Summary. We present a simple proof, based on modified logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, of Talagrand’s concentration inequality for the exponential distribution. We actually observe that every measure satisfying a Poincaré inequality shares the same concentration phenomenon. We also discuss exponential integrability under Poincaré inequalities and its consequence to sharp diameter upper bounds on spectral gaps. Received: 10 June 1996 / In revised form: 9 August 1996