Borodin, Linial, and Saks introduce a general model for online systems in [Borodin et al. 1992] called metrical task systems. In this paper, the unfair two state problem, a natural generalization of the two state metrical task system problem, is studied. A randomized algorithm for this problem is presented, and it is shown that this algorithm is optimal. Using the analysis of unfair two state p...

S timulating occupational expertise and employability of employees appears to be advantageous for both organizational and employee outcomes (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004; Van Dam, 2004). Highly employable workers (Van Dam, 2004) are necessary for organizations in order to meet fluctuating demands for numerical and functional flexibility (Marginson, 1989; Valverde, Tregaskis, & Brewster, 20...

Born in the small town of Scandiano in northern Italy on 10 January 1729, Spallanzani grew up in a large, wealthy family and attended local schools until he was fifteen. He then studied at a Jesuit seminary in Reggio Emilia where his intellectual abilities earned him the nickname ?the astrologer.? He matriculated in 1749 at the University of Bologna [7] and began working toward a degree in juri...

The present paper provides the solution of two problems recently posed by Bencherif, Belbachir and Szalay. For example, they conjectured that any sequence of binomial coefficients lying along a ray in Pascal’s triangle is unimodal. Research supported by LAID3 Laboratory of USTHB University and by TASSILI CMEP Accord 05 MDU641b. Research supported by a János Bolyai Scholarship of HAS, and by Hun...

This paper shows that shared coin algorithms can be combined to optimize several complexity measures, even in the presence of a strong adversary. By combining shared coins of Bracha and Rachman [10] and of Aspnes and Waarts [7], this yields a shared coin algorithm, and hence, a randomized consensus algorithm, with O(n log n) individual work and O(n log n) total work, using single-writer registe...

In 1963, the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz published a paper (Lorenz 1963 J. Atmos. Sci. 20, 130-141) that changed the way scientists think about the prediction of geophysical systems, by introducing the ideas of chaos, attractors, sensitivity to initial conditions and the limitations to forecasting nonlinear systems. Three years earlier, the mathematician and engineer Rudolf Ka...

In a recent issue of this MONTHLY, Fred Richman [8] discussed existence proofs. Richman’s conclusion, as I understood it, was that once a mathematician sees the distinction between constructive and nonconstructive mathematics, he or she will choose the former. That conclusion, if extrapolated further than Professor Richman intended, suggests that any mathematician can learn constructivism easil...

“Jack Edmonds has been one of the creators of the field of combinatorial optimization and polyhedral combinatorics. His 1965 paper ‘Paths, Trees, and Flowers’ [1] was one of the first papers to suggest the possibility of establishing a mathematical theory of efficient combinatorial algorithms . . . ” [from the award citation of the 1985 John von Neumann Theory Prize, awarded annually since 1975...