This paper studies the recovery and state compression of low-rank Markov chains from empirical trajectories. We propose a non-convex estimator based on rank-constrained likelihood maximization. Statistical upper bounds are provided for the Kullback-Leiber divergence and the `2 risk between the estimator and the true transition matrix. The estimator reveals a compressed state space of the Markov...

most formidable of all competitors. Japanese companies do not plan or design for their local market but rather for the larger world markets. They realize that they must export to survive. Japan has even developed an expertise in the exporting of entire plants, amortized by the revenues generated in the marketing of products to mature economies. Currently, a Japanese builder is constructing a pe...

In this paper we propose an OCR system for Telugu based on the candidate search and elimination technique. The initial candidates for recognition are found by applying a zoning method on input glyphs. We propose cavities as a structural approach suited specifically for Telugu script, where cavity vectors are used to prune the candidates found by zoning. A final template matching stage using con...

Continued growth in international trade and the developing concepts of zoning and risk assessment demand effective assessment of national surveillance and monitoring systems for animal health. The ideal national epidemiological delivery system incorporates surveillance for disease agents, host monitoring and environmental assessment. An extensive veterinary infrastructure is necessary to suppor...

The tight junction is an intricate seal between adjoining epithelial cells that also separates the apical and basolateral membranes within these cells. A paper in this issue of Cell by Umeda et al. (2006) demonstrates that loss of the ZO scaffolding proteins prevents the formation of tight junctions but surprisingly does not perturb apico-basal polarity.