Combinatorial search methods often exhibit a large variability in performance. We study the cost prooles of combinatorial search procedures. Our study reveals some intriguing properties of such cost prooles. The distributions are often characterized by very long tails or \heavy tails". We will show that these distributions are best characterized by a general class of distributions that have no ...

We introduce smooth entropy as a measure for the number of almost uniform random bits that can be extracted from a source by probabilistic algorithms. The extraction process should be universal in the sense that it does not require the distribution of the source to be known. Rather, it should work for all sources with a certain structural property, such as a bound on the maximal probability of ...

We consider the question of how well a given distribution can be approximated with probabilistic graphical models. We introduce a new parameter, effective treewidth, that captures the degree of approximability as a tradeoff between the accuracy and the complexity of approximation. We present a simple approach to analyzing achievable tradeoffs that exploits the threshold behavior of monotone gra...

In this paper we discuss a general methodology for estimating the distribution of individual growth rates in a size-structured population using aggregate population data. The method, for which rigorous theoretical formulations have been developed, is presented in the context of an inverse problem methodology and its use is illustrated with application to mosquitoosh, Gambusia aanis, population ...

Probability distributions which can be obtained from superpositions of Gaussian distributions of different variances v=sigma;{2} play a favored role in quantum theory and financial markets. Such superpositions need not necessarily obey the Chapman-Kolmogorov semigroup relation for Markovian processes because they may introduce memory effects. We derive the general form of the smearing distribut...

1 Preamble Our article analyzes complexity of extracting information from fuzzy data. Such process can be properly viewed as contributing information, hence also alleviating uncertainty about the result of the process itself. Notion of information has been utilized frequently, both formally and informally. In the formal vein, Shannon entropy of probabilistic distributions is foremost, followed ...

While modern computers are fast, there still many important practical situations in which we need even faster computations. It turns out that, due to the fact that speed of all communications is limited by light, only way make drastically decrease size computer’s components. When their sizes comparable with micro-sizes individual molecules, it becomes necessary take into account specific physic...

The use of expert systems can be helpful to improve the transparency and repeatability of assessments in areas of risk analysis with limited data available. In this field, human reliability analysis (HRA) is no exception, and, in particular, dependence analysis is an HRA task strongly based on analyst judgement. The analysis of dependence among Human Failure Events refers to the assessment of t...