Related papers: Finding passwords by random walks: How long does i…
We study the classic Text-to-Pattern Hamming Distances problem: given a pattern $P$ of length $m$ and a text $T$ of length $n$, both over a polynomial-size alphabet, compute the Hamming distance between $P$ and $T[i\, .\, . \, i+m-1]$ for…
Finding efficient algorithms to explore large networks with the aim of recovering information about their structure is an open problem. Here, we investigate this challenge by proposing a model in which random walkers with previously…
Assume that letters (from a finite alphabet) in a text form a Markov chain. We track two distinct words, $U$ and $D$. A gambler gains 1 point for each occurrence of $U$ (including overlapping occurrences) and loses 1 point for each…
In this paper we introduce a new family of string processing problems. We are given two or more strings and we are asked to compute a factor common to all strings that preserves a specific property and has maximal length. Here we consider…
For a stationary stochastic process $\{X_n\}$ with values in some set $A$, a finite word $w \in A^K$ is called a memory word if the conditional probability of $X_0$ given the past is constant on the cylinder set defined by $X_{-K}^{-1}=w$.…
We find generating functions for the number of words avoiding certain patterns or sets of patterns on at most 2 distinct letters and determine which of them are equally avoided. We also find the exact number of words avoiding certain…
An optimal binary search tree for an access sequence on elements is a static tree that minimizes the total search cost. Constructing perfectly optimal binary search trees is expensive so the most efficient algorithms construct almost…
A pattern $\alpha$ is a string of variables and terminal letters. We say that $\alpha$ matches a word $w$, consisting only of terminal letters, if $w$ can be obtained by replacing the variables of $\alpha$ by terminal words. The matching…
To learn a semantic parser from denotations, a learning algorithm must search over a combinatorially large space of logical forms for ones consistent with the annotated denotations. We propose a new online learning algorithm that searches…
Based on data from a large-scale experiment with human subjects, we conclude that the logarithm of probability to guess a word in context (unpredictability) depends linearly on the word length. This result holds both for poetry and prose,…
Passwords are widely used for user authentication and, despite their weaknesses, will likely remain in use in the foreseeable future. Human-generated passwords typically have a rich structure, which makes them susceptible to guessing…
We address the generic problem of random search for a point-like target on a line. Using the measures of search reliability and efficiency to quantify the random search quality, we compare Brownian search with L\'evy search based on…
Given a pattern x of length m and a text y of length n, both over an ordered alphabet, the order-preserving pattern matching problem consists in finding all substrings of the text with the same relative order as the pattern. It is an…
The syntactic structure of a sentence is often represented using syntactic dependency trees. The sum of the distances between syntactically related words has been in the limelight for the past decades. Research on dependency distances led…
Approximate string matching is the problem of finding all factors of a text t of length n that are at a distance at most k from a pattern x of length m. Approximate circular string matching is the problem of finding all factors of t that…
There are two methods for counting the number of occurrences of a string in another large string. One is to count the number of places where the string is found. The other is to determine how many pieces of string can be extracted without…
In this work we explore the ability of the Google search engine to find results for random N-letter strings. These random strings, dense over the set of possible N-letter words, address the existence of typos, acronyms, and other words…
Frequent pattern mining is a flagship problem in data mining. In its most basic form, it asks for the set of substrings of a given string $S$ of length $n$ that occur at least $\tau$ times in $S$, for some integer $\tau\in[1,n]$. We…
Keyphrases provide a simple way of describing a document, giving the reader some clues about its contents. Keyphrases can be useful in a various applications such as retrieval engines, browsing interfaces, thesaurus construction, text…
In this article, a large data set containing every course taken by every undergraduate student in a major university in Canada over 10 years is analysed. Modern machine learning algorithms can use large data sets to build useful tools for…