Dominique Bontemps, Stephane Boucheron, Elisabeth Gassiat
This paper sheds light on universal coding with respect to classes of memoryless sources over a countable alphabet defined by an envelope function with finite and non-decreasing hazard rate. We prove that the auto-censuring (AC) code introduced by Bontemps (2011) is adaptive with respect to the collection of such classes. The analysis builds on the tight characterization of universal redundancy rate in terms of metric entropy by Haussler and Opper (1997) and on a careful analysis of the performance of the AC-coding algorithm. The latter relies on non-asymptotic bounds for maxima of samples from discrete distributions with finite and non-decreasing hazard rate.
Many parameters of trees are additive in the sense that they can be computed recursively from the sum of the branches plus a certain toll function. For instance, such parameters occur very frequently in the analysis of divide-and-conquer algorithms. Here we are interested in the situation that the toll function is small (the average over all trees of a given size $n$ decreases exponentially with $n$). We prove a general central limit theorem for random labelled trees and apply it to a number of examples. The main motivation is the study of the number of subtrees in a random labelled tree, but it also applies to classical instances such as the number of leaves.
Michael Drmota, Bernhard Gittenberger, Johannes F. Morgenbesser
In this paper infinite systems of functional equations in finitely or infinitely many random variables arising in combinatorial enumeration problems are studied. We prove sufficient conditions under which the combinatorial random variables encoded in the generating function of the system tend to a finite or infinite dimensional limiting distribution.
Permutation tableaux are new objects that were introduced by Postnikov in the context of enumeration of the totally positive Grassmannian cells. They are known to be in bijection with permutations and recently, they have been connected to PASEP model used in statistical physics. Properties of permutation tableaux became a focus of a considerable research activity. In this paper we study properties of basic statistics defined on permutation tableaux. We present a simple and unified approach based on probabilistic techniques and use it to compute the expected values of basic statistics defined on permutation tableaux. We also provide a non―bijective and very simple proof that there are n! permutation tableaux of length n.
It is well known that many distributions that arise in the analysis of algorithms have an asymptotically fluctuating behaviour in the sense that we do not have 'full' convergence, but only convergence along suitable subsequences as the size of the input to the algorithm tends to infinity. We are interested in constructions that display such behaviour via an ordinarily convergent background process in the sense that the periodicities arise from this process by deterministic transformations, typically involving discretization as a decisive step. This leads to structural representations of the resulting family of limit distributions along subsequences, which in turn may give access to their properties, such as the tail behaviour (unsuccessful search in digital search trees) or the dependence on parameters of the algorithm (success probability in a selection algorithm).
Random Apollonian networks have been recently introduced for representing real graphs. In this paper we study a modified version: random Apollonian network structures (RANS), which preserve the interesting properties of real graphs and can be handled with powerful tools of random generation. We exhibit a bijection between RANS and ternary trees, that transforms the degree of nodes in a RANS into the size of particular subtrees. The distribution of degrees in RANS can thus be analysed within a bivariate Boltzmann model for the generation of random trees, and we show that it has a Catalan form which reduces to a power law with an exponential cutoff: $α ^k k^{-3/2}$, with $α = 8/9$. We also show analogous distributions for the degree in RANS of higher dimension, related to trees of higher arity.
A two-parameter family of random permutations of $[n]$ is introduced, with distribution conditionally uniform given the counts of upper and lower records. The family interpolates between two versions of Ewens' distribution. A distinguished role of the family is determined by the fact that every sequence of coherent permutations $(π _n,n=1,2,\ldots)$ with the indicated kind of sufficiency is obtainable by randomisation of the parameters. Generating algorithms and asymptotic properties of the permutations follow from the representation via initial ranks.
We consider samples of n geometric random variables $(Γ _1, Γ _2, \dots Γ _n)$ where $\mathbb{P}\{Γ _j=i\}=pq^{i-1}$, for $1≤j ≤n$, with $p+q=1$. The parameter we study is the position of the first occurrence of the maximum value in a such a sample. We derive a probability generating function for this position with which we compute the first two (factorial) moments. The asymptotic technique known as Rice's method then yields the main terms as well as the Fourier expansions of the fluctuating functions arising in the expected value and the variance.
Let $\sigma$ be a random permutation chosen uniformly over the symmetric group $\mathfrak{S}_n$. We study a new "process-valued" statistic of $\sigma$, which appears in the domain of computational biology to construct tests of similarity between ordered lists of genes. More precisely, we consider the following "partial sums": $Y^{(n)}_{p,q} = \mathrm{card} \{1 \leq i \leq p : \sigma_i \leq q \}$ for $0 \leq p,q \leq n$. We show that a suitable normalization of $Y^{(n)}$ converges weakly to a bivariate tied down brownian bridge on $[0,1]^2$, i.e. a continuous centered gaussian process $X^{\infty}_{s,t}$ of covariance: $\mathbb{E}[X^{\infty}_{s,t}X^{\infty}_{s',t'}] = (min(s,s')-ss')(min(t,t')-tt')$.
In 1992, A. Ehrenfeucht and J. Mycielski defined a seemingly pseudorandom binary sequence which has since been termed the EM-sequence. The balance conjecture for the EM-sequence, still open, is the conjecture that the sequence of EM-sequence initial segment averages converges to $1/2$. In this paper, we do not prove the balance conjecture but we do make some progress concerning it, namely, we prove that every limit point of the aforementioned sequence of averages lies in the interval $[1/4,3/4]$, improving the best previous result that every such limit point belongs to the interval $[0.11,0.89]$. Our approach is novel and exploits an analysis of the growth behavior as $n \to \infty$ of the rooted tree formed by the binary strings appearing at least twice as substrings of the length $n$ initial segment of the EM-sequence.
Perinatal mortality is five times higher in twins than in singletons. This increased risk is mainly owing to factors unrelated to mode of delivery. Nevertheless, vaginal birth of twins at term is well recognised as a high‐risk area. It is associated with increased rates of perinatal death and a depressed Apgar score, primarily because of intrapartum asphyxia of the second twin. It is plausible that planned caesarean section may have a protective effect on these outcomes but there is a lack of direct evidence in this area. This review outlines some issues to raise when counselling and planning twin birth at term.
In this paper, we provide the first study of the sand pile model SPM(0) where we assume that all the grains are numbered with a distinct integer.We obtain a lower bound on the number of terminal sand piles by establishing a bijection between a subset of these sand piles and the set of shifted Young tableaux. We then prove that this number is at least factorial.
The Chip Firing Game (CFG) is a discrete dynamical model used in physics, computer science and economics. It is known that the set of configurationsreachable from an initial configuration (this set is called the \textitconfiguration space) can be ordered as a lattice. We first present a structural result about this model, which allows us to introduce some useful tools for describing those lattices. Then we establish that the class of lattices that are the configuration space of a CFG is strictly between the class of distributive lattices and the class of upper locally distributive (or ULD) lattices. Finally we propose an extension of the model, the \textitcoloured Chip Firing Game, which generates exactly the class of ULD lattices.
The distribution for the number of searches needed to find k of n lost objects is expressed in terms of a refinement of the q-Eulerian polynomials, for which formulae are developed involving homogeneous symmetric polynomials. In the case when k=n and the find probability remains constant, relatively simple and efficient formulas are obtained.From our main theorem, we further (1) deduce the inverse absorption distribution and (2) determine the expected number of times the survivor pulls the trigger in an n-player game of Russian roulette.