Zimand [24] presented simple constructions of locally computable strong extractors whose analysis relies on the direct product theorem for one-way functions and on the Blum-Micali-Yao generator. For N -bit sources of entropy γN , his extractor has seed O(logN) and extracts N random bits. We show that his construction can be analyzed based solely on the direct product theorem for general functio...

Recent work has demonstrated that it is possible to boost the efficiency of combinatorial search procedures via the use of principled restart policies. We present a coupling of machine learning and dynamic programming that extends prior efforts by endowing restart policies with knowledge of the hardness of the specific instance being solved. This ability allows a restart policy to take into con...

This article accompanies the talk given by the author at the International Congress of Mathematicians, 2014. The article sketches some connections between approximability of NP-complete problems, analysis and geometry, and the role played by the Unique Games Conjecture in facilitating these connections. For a more extensive introduction to the topic, the reader is referred to survey articles [3...

statement of problem: there are controversial reports regarding physical and mechanical properties of resin composites and glass ionomer cements. some revealed higher strength and hardness for resin composites while others showed a comparable value for glass ionomer cements. evaluation of mechanical properties of different types of resin composites in comparison with resin modified glass ionome...

Biotic Ligand Models (BLMs) for metals are widely applied in ecological risk assessments and in the development of regulatory water quality guidelines in Europe, and in 2007 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) recommended BLM-based water quality criteria (WQC) for Cu in freshwater. However, to-date, few states have adopted BLM-based Cu criteria into their water quality sta...

To examine the relationships between masticatory force, electromyogram (EMG) of masticatory muscles, and jaw movement pattern, we quantitatively evaluated the effects of changing hardness of a chewing substance on these three variables. Cortically induced rhythmic jaw movements of a crescent-shaped pattern were induced by electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortical masticatory area in the a...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of home-use bleaching agent containing 16% Carbamide Peroxide (CP) and in-office bleaching agent containing 38% Hydrogen Peroxide (HP) on enamel micro-hardness. STUDY DESIGN An in vitroexperimental study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Department of Operative Dentistry and Science of Dental Materials at Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan Institute of Oral Health Sciences,...

The graph coloring problem is a notoriously hard problem, for which we do not have efficient algorithms. A coloring of a graph is an assignment of colors to its vertices such that the end points of every edge have different colors. A k-coloring is a coloring that uses at most k distinct colors. The graph coloring problem is to find a coloring that uses the minimum number of colors. Given a 3-co...

Mastermind is a popular board game released in 1971, where a codemaker chooses a secret pattern of colored pegs, and a codebreaker has to guess it in several trials. After each attempt, the codebreaker gets a response from the codemaker containing some information on the number of correctly guessed pegs. The search space is thus reduced at each turn, and the game continues until the codebreaker...