Related papers: Maximizing a combinatorial expression arising from…

Some class of sums which naturally include the sums of powers of integers is considered. A number of conjectures concerning a representation of these sums is made.

We consider the problem of estimating a function $s$ on $[-1,1]^{k}$ for large values of $k$ by looking for some best approximation by composite functions of the form $g\circ u$. Our solution is based on model selection and leads to a very…

Maximum likelihood estimators are often of limited practical use due to the intensive computation they require. We propose a family of alternative estimators that maximize a stochastic variation of the composite likelihood function. Each of…

Many combinatorial optimization problems are often considered intractable to solve exactly or by approximation. An example of such problem is maximum clique which -- under standard assumptions in complexity theory -- cannot be solved in…

Let A be a class of objects, equipped with an integer size such that for all n the number a(n) of objects of size n is finite. We are interested in the case where the generating fucntion sum_n a(n) t^n is rational, or more generally…

We study how well a real number can be approximated by sums of two or more rational numbers with denominators up to a certain size.

A set of sets is called a family. Two families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of sets are said to be cross-intersecting if each member of $\mathcal{A}$ intersects each member of $\mathcal{B}$. For any two integers $n$ and $k$ with $1 \leq…

We consider the fundamental problem of selecting $k$ out of $n$ random variables in a way that the expected highest or second-highest value is maximized. This question captures several applications where we have uncertainty about the…

We consider the problem of globally minimizing the sum of many rational functions over a given compact semialgebraic set. The number of terms can be large (10 to 100), the degree of each term should be small (up to 10), and the number of…

Given a numerical semigroup $S = < a_1, a_2,..., a_t>$ and $s\in S$, we consider the factorization $s = c_1 a_1 + c_2 a_2 +... + c_t a_t$ where $c_i\ge0$. Such a factorization is {\em maximal} if $c_1+c_2+...+c_t$ is a maximum over all such…

We report the results of a game-theoretic experiment with human players who solve the problems of increasing complexity by cooperating in groups of increasing size. Our experimental environment is set up to make it complicated for players…

In classic robust optimization, it is assumed that a set of possible parameter realizations, the uncertainty set, is modeled in a previous step and part of the input. As recent work has shown, finding the most suitable uncertainty set is in…

Maximum subarray is a classical problem in computer science that given an array of numbers aims to find a contiguous subarray with the largest sum. We focus on its use for a noisy statistical problem of localizing an interval with a mean…

Writing for a general mathematical audience, we provide elementary upper and lower bounds on the growth (as a function of N) of the sum \sum_{n=1}^N (-1)^{\floor{n x}} for various fixed x. For example, if x is a quadratic irrational, then…

In this paper, we study the "sum composition problem" between two lists $A$ and $B$ of positive integers. We start by saying that $B$ is "sum composition" of $A$ when there exists an ordered $m$-partition $[A_1,\ldots,A_m]$ of $A$ where $m$…

Let $r$ be any positive integer, and let $x_1, x_2$ be indeterminates. We consider the sequence $\{x_n\}$ defined by the recursive relation $$ x_{n+1} =(x_n^r +1)/{x_{n-1}} $$ for any integer $n$. Finding a combinatorial expression for…

Maximin fairness is the ideal that the worst-off group (or individual) should be treated as well as possible. Literature on maximin fairness in various decision-making settings has grown in recent years, but theoretical results are sparse.…

We study the space requirements of a sorting algorithm where only items that at the end will be adjacent are kept together. This is equivalent to the following combinatorial problem: Consider a string of fixed length n that starts as a…

We study the following problem: given a class of logic programs C, determine the maximum number of stable models of a program from C. We establish the maximum for the class of all logic programs with at most n clauses, and for the class of…

We compute the integral of a function or the expectation of a random variable with minimal cost and use, for our new algorithm and for upper bounds of the complexity, i.i.d. samples. Under certain assumptions it is possible to select a…