@inproceedings{1691, abstract = {We consider a case study of the problem of deploying an autonomous air vehicle in a partially observable, dynamic, indoor environment from a specification given as a linear temporal logic (LTL) formula over regions of interest. We model the motion and sensing capabilities of the vehicle as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). We adapt recent results for solving POMDPs with parity objectives to generate a control policy. We also extend the existing framework with a policy minimization technique to obtain a better implementable policy, while preserving its correctness. The proposed techniques are illustrated in an experimental setup involving an autonomous quadrotor performing surveillance in a dynamic environment.}, author = {Svoreňová, Mária and Chmelik, Martin and Leahy, Kevin and Eniser, Hasan and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Cěrná, Ivana and Belta, Cǎlin}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control}, location = {Seattle, WA, United States}, pages = {233 -- 238}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Temporal logic motion planning using POMDPs with parity objectives: Case study paper}}, doi = {10.1145/2728606.2728617}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1692, abstract = {Computing an approximation of the reachable states of a hybrid system is a challenge, mainly because overapproximating the solutions of ODEs with a finite number of sets does not scale well. Using template polyhedra can greatly reduce the computational complexity, since it replaces complex operations on sets with a small number of optimization problems. However, the use of templates may make the over-approximation too conservative. Spurious transitions, which are falsely considered reachable, are particularly detrimental to performance and accuracy, and may exacerbate the state explosion problem. In this paper, we examine how spurious transitions can be avoided with minimal computational effort. To this end, detecting spurious transitions is reduced to the well-known problem of showing that two convex sets are disjoint by finding a hyperplane that separates them. We generalize this to owpipes by considering hyperplanes that evolve with time in correspondence to the dynamics of the system. The approach is implemented in the model checker SpaceEx and demonstrated on examples.}, author = {Frehse, Goran and Bogomolov, Sergiy and Greitschus, Marius and Strump, Thomas and Podelski, Andreas}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control}, isbn = {978-1-4503-3433-4}, location = {Seattle, WA, United States}, pages = {149 -- 158}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Eliminating spurious transitions in reachability with support functions}}, doi = {10.1145/2728606.2728622}, year = {2015}, } @article{1693, abstract = {Quantum interference between energetically close states is theoretically investigated, with the state structure being observed via laser spectroscopy. In this work, we focus on hyperfine states of selected hydrogenic muonic isotopes, and on how quantum interference affects the measured Lamb shift. The process of photon excitation and subsequent photon decay is implemented within the framework of nonrelativistic second-order perturbation theory. Due to its experimental interest, calculations are performed for muonic hydrogen, deuterium, and helium-3. We restrict our analysis to the case of photon scattering by incident linear polarized photons and the polarization of the scattered photons not being observed. We conclude that while quantum interference effects can be safely neglected in muonic hydrogen and helium-3, in the case of muonic deuterium there are resonances with close proximity, where quantum interference effects can induce shifts up to a few percent of the linewidth, assuming a pointlike detector. However, by taking into account the geometry of the setup used by the CREMA collaboration, this effect is reduced to less than 0.2% of the linewidth in all possible cases, which makes it irrelevant at the present level of accuracy. © 2015 American Physical Society.}, author = {Amaro, Pedro and Franke, Beatrice and Krauth, Julian and Diepold, Marc and Fratini, Filippo and Safari, Laleh and Machado, Jorge and Antognini, Aldo and Kottmann, Franz and Indelicato, Paul and Pohl, Randolf and Santos, José}, journal = {Physical Review A}, number = {2}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Quantum interference effects in laser spectroscopy of muonic hydrogen, deuterium, and helium-3}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevA.92.022514}, volume = {92}, year = {2015}, } @article{1694, abstract = { We introduce quantitative timed refinement and timed simulation (directed) metrics, incorporating zenoness checks, for timed systems. These metrics assign positive real numbers which quantify the timing mismatches between two timed systems, amongst non-zeno runs. We quantify timing mismatches in three ways: (1) the maximal timing mismatch that can arise, (2) the “steady-state” maximal timing mismatches, where initial transient timing mismatches are ignored; and (3) the (long-run) average timing mismatches amongst two systems. These three kinds of mismatches constitute three important types of timing differences. Our event times are the global times, measured from the start of the system execution, not just the time durations of individual steps. We present algorithms over timed automata for computing the three quantitative simulation distances to within any desired degree of accuracy. In order to compute the values of the quantitative simulation distances, we use a game theoretic formulation. We introduce two new kinds of objectives for two player games on finite-state game graphs: (1) eventual debit-sum level objectives, and (2) average debit-sum level objectives. We present algorithms for computing the optimal values for these objectives in graph games, and then use these algorithms to compute the values of the timed simulation distances over timed automata. }, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Prabhu, Vinayak}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control}, number = {9}, pages = {2291 -- 2306}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {{Quantitative temporal simulation and refinement distances for timed systems}}, doi = {10.1109/TAC.2015.2404612}, volume = {60}, year = {2015}, } @article{1695, abstract = {We give a comprehensive introduction into a diagrammatic method that allows for the evaluation of Gutzwiller wave functions in finite spatial dimensions. We discuss in detail some numerical schemes that turned out to be useful in the real-space evaluation of the diagrams. The method is applied to the problem of d-wave superconductivity in a two-dimensional single-band Hubbard model. Here, we discuss in particular the role of long-range contributions in our diagrammatic expansion. We further reconsider our previous analysis on the kinetic energy gain in the superconducting state.}, author = {Kaczmarczyk, Jan and Schickling, Tobias and Bünemann, Jörg}, journal = {Physica Status Solidi (B): Basic Solid State Physics}, number = {9}, pages = {2059 -- 2071}, publisher = {Wiley}, title = {{Evaluation techniques for Gutzwiller wave functions in finite dimensions}}, doi = {10.1002/pssb.201552082}, volume = {252}, year = {2015}, } @article{1696, abstract = {The recently proposed diagrammatic expansion (DE) technique for the full Gutzwiller wave function (GWF) is applied to the Anderson lattice model. This approach allows for a systematic evaluation of the expectation values with full Gutzwiller wave function in finite-dimensional systems. It introduces results extending in an essential manner those obtained by means of the standard Gutzwiller approximation (GA), which is variationally exact only in infinite dimensions. Within the DE-GWF approach we discuss the principal paramagnetic properties and their relevance to heavy-fermion systems. We demonstrate the formation of an effective, narrow f band originating from atomic f-electron states and subsequently interpret this behavior as a direct itineracy of f electrons; it represents a combined effect of both the hybridization and the correlations induced by the Coulomb repulsive interaction. Such a feature is absent on the level of GA, which is equivalent to the zeroth order of our expansion. Formation of the hybridization- and electron-concentration-dependent narrow f band rationalizes the common assumption of such dispersion of f levels in the phenomenological modeling of the band structure of CeCoIn5. Moreover, it is shown that the emerging f-electron direct itineracy leads in a natural manner to three physically distinct regimes within a single model that are frequently discussed for 4f- or 5f-electron compounds as separate model situations. We identify these regimes as (i) the mixed-valence regime, (ii) Kondo/almost-Kondo insulating regime, and (iii) the Kondo-lattice limit when the f-electron occupancy is very close to the f-state half filling, ⟨nˆf⟩→1. The nonstandard features of the emerging correlated quantum liquid state are stressed.}, author = {Wysokiński, Marcin and Kaczmarczyk, Jan and Spałek, Jozef}, journal = {Physical Review B}, number = {12}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Gutzwiller wave function solution for Anderson lattice model: Emerging universal regimes of heavy quasiparticle states}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.92.125135}, volume = {92}, year = {2015}, } @article{1697, abstract = {Motion tracking is a challenge the visual system has to solve by reading out the retinal population. It is still unclear how the information from different neurons can be combined together to estimate the position of an object. Here we recorded a large population of ganglion cells in a dense patch of salamander and guinea pig retinas while displaying a bar moving diffusively. We show that the bar’s position can be reconstructed from retinal activity with a precision in the hyperacuity regime using a linear decoder acting on 100+ cells. We then took advantage of this unprecedented precision to explore the spatial structure of the retina’s population code. The classical view would have suggested that the firing rates of the cells form a moving hill of activity tracking the bar’s position. Instead, we found that most ganglion cells in the salamander fired sparsely and idiosyncratically, so that their neural image did not track the bar. Furthermore, ganglion cell activity spanned an area much larger than predicted by their receptive fields, with cells coding for motion far in their surround. As a result, population redundancy was high, and we could find multiple, disjoint subsets of neurons that encoded the trajectory with high precision. This organization allows for diverse collections of ganglion cells to represent high-accuracy motion information in a form easily read out by downstream neural circuits.}, author = {Marre, Olivier and Botella Soler, Vicente and Simmons, Kristina and Mora, Thierry and Tkacik, Gasper and Berry, Michael}, journal = {PLoS Computational Biology}, number = {7}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {{High accuracy decoding of dynamical motion from a large retinal population}}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004304}, volume = {11}, year = {2015}, } @article{1698, abstract = {In mean-payoff games, the objective of the protagonist is to ensure that the limit average of an infinite sequence of numeric weights is nonnegative. In energy games, the objective is to ensure that the running sum of weights is always nonnegative. Multi-mean-payoff and multi-energy games replace individual weights by tuples, and the limit average (resp., running sum) of each coordinate must be (resp., remain) nonnegative. We prove finite-memory determinacy of multi-energy games and show inter-reducibility of multi-mean-payoff and multi-energy games for finite-memory strategies. We improve the computational complexity for solving both classes with finite-memory strategies: we prove coNP-completeness improving the previous known EXPSPACE bound. For memoryless strategies, we show that deciding the existence of a winning strategy for the protagonist is NP-complete. We present the first solution of multi-mean-payoff games with infinite-memory strategies: we show that mean-payoff-sup objectives can be decided in NP∩coNP, whereas mean-payoff-inf objectives are coNP-complete.}, author = {Velner, Yaron and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Doyen, Laurent and Henzinger, Thomas A and Rabinovich, Alexander and Raskin, Jean}, journal = {Information and Computation}, number = {4}, pages = {177 -- 196}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{The complexity of multi-mean-payoff and multi-energy games}}, doi = {10.1016/j.ic.2015.03.001}, volume = {241}, year = {2015}, } @article{1699, abstract = {By hybridization and backcrossing, alleles can surmount species boundaries and be incorporated into the genome of a related species. This introgression of genes is of particular evolutionary relevance if it involves the transfer of adaptations between populations. However, any beneficial allele will typically be associated with other alien alleles that are often deleterious and hamper the introgression process. In order to describe the introgression of an adaptive allele, we set up a stochastic model with an explicit genetic makeup of linked and unlinked deleterious alleles. Based on the theory of reducible multitype branching processes, we derive a recursive expression for the establishment probability of the beneficial allele after a single hybridization event. We furthermore study the probability that slightly deleterious alleles hitchhike to fixation. The key to the analysis is a split of the process into a stochastic phase in which the advantageous alleles establishes and a deterministic phase in which it sweeps to fixation. We thereafter apply the theory to a set of biologically relevant scenarios such as introgression in the presence of many unlinked or few closely linked deleterious alleles. A comparison to computer simulations shows that the approximations work well over a large parameter range.}, author = {Uecker, Hildegard and Setter, Derek and Hermisson, Joachim}, journal = {Journal of Mathematical Biology}, number = {7}, pages = {1523 -- 1580}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Adaptive gene introgression after secondary contact}}, doi = {10.1007/s00285-014-0802-y}, volume = {70}, year = {2015}, } @article{1700, abstract = {We use the dual boson approach to reveal the phase diagram of the Fermi-Hubbard model with long-range dipole-dipole interactions. By using a large-scale finite-temperature calculation on a 64×64 square lattice we demonstrate the existence of a novel phase, possessing an "ultralong-range" order. The fingerprint of this phase - the density correlation function - features a nontrivial behavior on a scale of tens of lattice sites. We study the properties and the stability of the ultralong-range-ordered phase, and show that it is accessible in modern experiments with ultracold polar molecules and magnetic atoms.}, author = {Van Loon, Erik and Katsnelson, Mikhail and Lemeshko, Mikhail}, journal = {Physical Review B}, number = {8}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Ultralong-range order in the Fermi-Hubbard model with long-range interactions}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.92.081106}, volume = {92}, year = {2015}, } @article{1701, abstract = {The activity of a neural network is defined by patterns of spiking and silence from the individual neurons. Because spikes are (relatively) sparse, patterns of activity with increasing numbers of spikes are less probable, but, with more spikes, the number of possible patterns increases. This tradeoff between probability and numerosity is mathematically equivalent to the relationship between entropy and energy in statistical physics. We construct this relationship for populations of up to N = 160 neurons in a small patch of the vertebrate retina, using a combination of direct and model-based analyses of experiments on the response of this network to naturalistic movies. We see signs of a thermodynamic limit, where the entropy per neuron approaches a smooth function of the energy per neuron as N increases. The form of this function corresponds to the distribution of activity being poised near an unusual kind of critical point. We suggest further tests of criticality, and give a brief discussion of its functional significance. }, author = {Tkacik, Gasper and Mora, Thierry and Marre, Olivier and Amodei, Dario and Palmer, Stephanie and Berry Ii, Michael and Bialek, William}, journal = {PNAS}, number = {37}, pages = {11508 -- 11513}, publisher = {National Academy of Sciences}, title = {{Thermodynamics and signatures of criticality in a network of neurons}}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1514188112}, volume = {112}, year = {2015}, } @article{1703, abstract = {Vegetation clearing and land-use change have depleted many natural plant communities to the point where restoration is required. A major impediment to the success of rebuilding complex vegetation communities is having regular access to sufficient quantities of high-quality seed. Seed-production areas (SPAs) can help generate this seed, but these must be underpinned by a broad genetic base to maximise the evolutionary potential of restored populations. However, genetic bottlenecks can occur at the collection, establishment and production stages in SPAs, requiring genetic evaluation. This is especially relevant for species that may take many years before a return on SPA investment is realised. Two recently established yellow box (Eucalyptus melliodora A.Cunn. ex Schauer, Myrtaceae) SPAs were evaluated to determine whether genetic bottlenecks had occurred between seed collection and SPA establishment. No evidence was found to suggest that a significant loss of genetic diversity had occurred at this stage, although there was a significant difference in diversity between the two SPAs. Complex population genetic structure was also observed in the seed used to source the SPAs, with up to eight groups identified. Plant survival in the SPAs was influenced by seed collection location but not by SPA location and was not associated with genetic diversity. There were also no associations between genetic diversity and plant growth. These data highlighted the importance of chance events when establishing SPAs and indicated that the two yellow box SPAs are likely to provide genetically diverse seed sources for future restoration projects, especially by pooling seed from both SPAs.}, author = {Broadhurst, Linda and Fifield, Graham and Vanzella, Bindi and Pickup, Melinda}, journal = {Australian Journal of Botany}, number = {5}, pages = {455 -- 466}, publisher = {CSIRO}, title = {{An evaluation of the genetic structure of seed sources and the maintenance of genetic diversity during establishment of two yellow box (Eucalyptus melliodora) seed-production areas}}, doi = {10.1071/BT15023}, volume = {63}, year = {2015}, } @article{1704, abstract = {Given a convex function (Formula presented.) and two hermitian matrices A and B, Lewin and Sabin study in (Lett Math Phys 104:691–705, 2014) the relative entropy defined by (Formula presented.). Among other things, they prove that the so-defined quantity is monotone if and only if (Formula presented.) is operator monotone. The monotonicity is then used to properly define (Formula presented.) for bounded self-adjoint operators acting on an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space by a limiting procedure. More precisely, for an increasing sequence of finite-dimensional projections (Formula presented.) with (Formula presented.) strongly, the limit (Formula presented.) is shown to exist and to be independent of the sequence of projections (Formula presented.). The question whether this sequence converges to its "obvious" limit, namely (Formula presented.), has been left open. We answer this question in principle affirmatively and show that (Formula presented.). If the operators A and B are regular enough, that is (A − B), (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) are trace-class, the identity (Formula presented.) holds.}, author = {Deuchert, Andreas and Hainzl, Christian and Seiringer, Robert}, journal = {Letters in Mathematical Physics}, number = {10}, pages = {1449 -- 1466}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Note on a family of monotone quantum relative entropies}}, doi = {10.1007/s11005-015-0787-5}, volume = {105}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1706, abstract = {We consider a problem of learning kernels for use in SVM classification in the multi-task and lifelong scenarios and provide generalization bounds on the error of a large margin classifier. Our results show that, under mild conditions on the family of kernels used for learning, solving several related tasks simultaneously is beneficial over single task learning. In particular, as the number of observed tasks grows, assuming that in the considered family of kernels there exists one that yields low approximation error on all tasks, the overhead associated with learning such a kernel vanishes and the complexity converges to that of learning when this good kernel is given to the learner.}, author = {Pentina, Anastasia and Ben David, Shai}, location = {Banff, AB, Canada}, pages = {194 -- 208}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Multi-task and lifelong learning of kernels}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-24486-0_13}, volume = {9355}, year = {2015}, } @article{1709, abstract = {The competition for resources among cells, individuals or species is a fundamental characteristic of evolution. Biological all-pay auctions have been used to model situations where multiple individuals compete for a single resource. However, in many situations multiple resources with various values exist and single reward auctions are not applicable. We generalize the model to multiple rewards and study the evolution of strategies. In biological all-pay auctions the bid of an individual corresponds to its strategy and is equivalent to its payment in the auction. The decreasingly ordered rewards are distributed according to the decreasingly ordered bids of the participating individuals. The reproductive success of an individual is proportional to its fitness given by the sum of the rewards won minus its payments. Hence, successful bidding strategies spread in the population. We find that the results for the multiple reward case are very different from the single reward case. While the mixed strategy equilibrium in the single reward case with more than two players consists of mostly low-bidding individuals, we show that the equilibrium can convert to many high-bidding individuals and a few low-bidding individuals in the multiple reward case. Some reward values lead to a specialization among the individuals where one subpopulation competes for the rewards and the other subpopulation largely avoids costly competitions. Whether the mixed strategy equilibrium is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) depends on the specific values of the rewards.}, author = {Reiter, Johannes and Kanodia, Ayush and Gupta, Raghav and Nowak, Martin and Chatterjee, Krishnendu}, journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B Biological Sciences}, number = {1812}, publisher = {Royal Society}, title = {{Biological auctions with multiple rewards}}, doi = {10.1098/rspb.2015.1041}, volume = {282}, year = {2015}, } @article{1710, abstract = {We consider the hollow on the half-plane {(x, y) : y ≤ 0} ⊂ ℝ2 defined by a function u : (-1, 1) → ℝ, u(x) < 0, and a vertical flow of point particles incident on the hollow. It is assumed that u satisfies the so-called single impact condition (SIC): each incident particle is elastically reflected by graph(u) and goes away without hitting the graph of u anymore. We solve the problem: find the function u minimizing the force of resistance created by the flow. We show that the graph of the minimizer is formed by two arcs of parabolas symmetric to each other with respect to the y-axis. Assuming that the resistance of u ≡ 0 equals 1, we show that the minimal resistance equals π/2 - 2arctan(1/2) ≈ 0.6435. This result completes the previously obtained result [SIAM J. Math. Anal., 46 (2014), pp. 2730-2742] stating in particular that the minimal resistance of a hollow in higher dimensions equals 0.5. We additionally consider a similar problem of minimal resistance, where the hollow in the half-space {(x1,...,xd,y) : y ≤ 0} ⊂ ℝd+1 is defined by a radial function U satisfying the SIC, U(x) = u(|x|), with x = (x1,...,xd), u(ξ) < 0 for 0 ≤ ξ < 1, and u(ξ) = 0 for ξ ≥ 1, and the flow is parallel to the y-axis. The minimal resistance is greater than 0.5 (and coincides with 0.6435 when d = 1) and converges to 0.5 as d → ∞.}, author = {Akopyan, Arseniy and Plakhov, Alexander}, journal = {Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics}, number = {4}, pages = {2754 -- 2769}, publisher = {SIAM}, title = {{Minimal resistance of curves under the single impact assumption}}, doi = {10.1137/140993843}, volume = {47}, year = {2015}, } @article{1712, abstract = {The majority of immune cells in Drosophila melanogaster are plasmatocytes; they carry out similar functions to vertebrate macrophages, influencing development as well as protecting against infection and cancer. Plasmatocytes, sometimes referred to with the broader term of hemocytes, migrate widely during embryonic development and cycle in the larvae between sessile and circulating positions. Here we discuss the similarities of plasmatocyte developmental migration and its functions to that of vertebrate macrophages, considering the recent controversy regarding the functions of Drosophila PDGF/VEGF related ligands. We also examine recent findings on the significance of adhesion for plasmatocyte migration in the embryo, as well as proliferation, trans-differentiation, and tumor responses in the larva. We spotlight parallels throughout to vertebrate immune responses.}, author = {Ratheesh, Aparna and Belyaeva, Vera and Siekhaus, Daria E}, journal = {Current Opinion in Cell Biology}, number = {10}, pages = {71 -- 79}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {{Drosophila immune cell migration and adhesion during embryonic development and larval immune responses}}, doi = {10.1016/j.ceb.2015.07.003}, volume = {36}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1714, abstract = {We present a flexible framework for the automated competitive analysis of on-line scheduling algorithms for firm-deadline real-time tasks based on multi-objective graphs: Given a task set and an on-line scheduling algorithm specified as a labeled transition system, along with some optional safety, liveness, and/or limit-average constraints for the adversary, we automatically compute the competitive ratio of the algorithm w.r.t. A clairvoyant scheduler. We demonstrate the flexibility and power of our approach by comparing the competitive ratio of several on-line algorithms, including Dover, that have been proposed in the past, for various task sets. Our experimental results reveal that none of these algorithms is universally optimal, in the sense that there are task sets where other schedulers provide better performance. Our framework is hence a very useful design tool for selecting optimal algorithms for a given application.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Pavlogiannis, Andreas and Kößler, Alexander and Schmid, Ulrich}, booktitle = {Real-Time Systems Symposium}, location = {Rome, Italy}, number = {January}, pages = {118 -- 127}, publisher = {IEEE}, title = {{A framework for automated competitive analysis of on-line scheduling of firm-deadline tasks}}, doi = {10.1109/RTSS.2014.9}, volume = {2015}, year = {2015}, } @inproceedings{1729, abstract = {We present a computer-aided programming approach to concurrency. The approach allows programmers to program assuming a friendly, non-preemptive scheduler, and our synthesis procedure inserts synchronization to ensure that the final program works even with a preemptive scheduler. The correctness specification is implicit, inferred from the non-preemptive behavior. Let us consider sequences of calls that the program makes to an external interface. The specification requires that any such sequence produced under a preemptive scheduler should be included in the set of such sequences produced under a non-preemptive scheduler. The solution is based on a finitary abstraction, an algorithm for bounded language inclusion modulo an independence relation, and rules for inserting synchronization. We apply the approach to device-driver programming, where the driver threads call the software interface of the device and the API provided by the operating system. Our experiments demonstrate that our synthesis method is precise and efficient, and, since it does not require explicit specifications, is more practical than the conventional approach based on user-provided assertions.}, author = {Cerny, Pavol and Clarke, Edmund and Henzinger, Thomas A and Radhakrishna, Arjun and Ryzhyk, Leonid and Samanta, Roopsha and Tarrach, Thorsten}, location = {San Francisco, CA, United States}, pages = {180 -- 197}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{From non-preemptive to preemptive scheduling using synchronization synthesis}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-21668-3_11}, volume = {9207}, year = {2015}, } @article{1730, abstract = {How much cutting is needed to simplify the topology of a surface? We provide bounds for several instances of this question, for the minimum length of topologically non-trivial closed curves, pants decompositions, and cut graphs with a given combinatorial map in triangulated combinatorial surfaces (or their dual cross-metric counterpart). Our work builds upon Riemannian systolic inequalities, which bound the minimum length of non-trivial closed curves in terms of the genus and the area of the surface. We first describe a systematic way to translate Riemannian systolic inequalities to a discrete setting, and vice-versa. This implies a conjecture by Przytycka and Przytycki (Graph structure theory. Contemporary Mathematics, vol. 147, 1993), a number of new systolic inequalities in the discrete setting, and the fact that a theorem of Hutchinson on the edge-width of triangulated surfaces and Gromov’s systolic inequality for surfaces are essentially equivalent. We also discuss how these proofs generalize to higher dimensions. Then we focus on topological decompositions of surfaces. Relying on ideas of Buser, we prove the existence of pants decompositions of length O(g^(3/2)n^(1/2)) for any triangulated combinatorial surface of genus g with n triangles, and describe an O(gn)-time algorithm to compute such a decomposition. Finally, we consider the problem of embedding a cut graph (or more generally a cellular graph) with a given combinatorial map on a given surface. Using random triangulations, we prove (essentially) that, for any choice of a combinatorial map, there are some surfaces on which any cellular embedding with that combinatorial map has length superlinear in the number of triangles of the triangulated combinatorial surface. There is also a similar result for graphs embedded on polyhedral triangulations.}, author = {Colin De Verdière, Éric and Hubard, Alfredo and De Mesmay, Arnaud N}, journal = {Discrete & Computational Geometry}, number = {3}, pages = {587 -- 620}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Discrete systolic inequalities and decompositions of triangulated surfaces}}, doi = {10.1007/s00454-015-9679-9}, volume = {53}, year = {2015}, }