A factor graph is a bipartite graph that expresses how a "global" function of many variables factors into a product of "local" functions. Factor graphs subsume many other graphical models including Bayesian networks, Markov random fields, and Tanner graphs. Following one simple computational rule, the sum-product algorithm operates in factor graphs to compute---either exactly or approximately---various marginal functions by distributed message-passing in the graph. A wide variety of algorithms developed in artificial intelligence, signal processing, and digital communications can be derived as specific instances of the sum-product algorithm, including the forward/backward algorithm, the Viterbi algorithm, the iterative "turbo" decoding algorithm, Pearl's belief propagation algorithm for Bayesian networks, the Kalman filter, and certain fast Fourier transform algorithms.

Consider a set of shared objects in a distributed network, where several copies of each object may exist at any given time. To ensure both fast access to the objects as well as efficient utilization of network resources, it is desirable that each access request be satisfied by a copy "close " to the requesting node. Unfortunately, it is not clear how to efficiently achieve this goal in a dynamic, distributed environment in which large numbers of objects are continuously being created, replicated, and destroyed. In this paper

We consider the indexable dictionary problem, which consists of storing a set S ⊆ {0,...,m − 1} for some integer m, while supporting the operations of rank(x), which returns the number of elements in S that are less than x if x ∈ S, and −1 otherwise; and select(i) which returns the i-th smallest element in S. We give a data structure that supports both operations in O(1) time on the RAM model and requires B(n,m)+ o(n)+O(lg lg m) bits to store a set of size n, where B(n,m) = ⌈ lg ( m) ⌉ n is the minimum number of bits required to store any n-element subset from a universe of size m. Previous dictionaries taking this space only supported (yes/no) membership queries in O(1) time. In the cell probe model we can remove the O(lg lg m) additive term in the space bound, answering a question raised by Fich and Miltersen, and Pagh. We present extensions and applications of our indexable dictionary data structure, including: • an information-theoretically optimal representation of a k-ary cardinal tree that supports standard operations in constant time, • a representation of a multiset of size n from {0,...,m − 1} in B(n,m+n) + o(n) bits that supports (appropriate generalizations of) rank and select operations in constant time, and • a representation of a sequence of n non-negative integers summing up to m in B(n,m + n) + o(n) bits that supports prefix sum queries in constant time. 1

An algorithm for de6nite hypergeometric summation is given. It is based, in a non-obvious way, on Gosper's algorithm for definite hypergeometric summation, and its theoretical justification relies on Bernstein's theory of holonomic systems. 1.

Effective memory hierarchy utilization is critical to the performance of modern multiprocessor architectures. We havedeveloped the first compiler system that fully automatically parallelizes sequential programs and changes the original array layouts to improve memory system performance. Our optimization algorithm consists of two steps. The first step chooses the parallelization and computation assignment such that synchronization and data sharing are minimized. The second step then restructures the layout of the data in the shared address space with an algorithm that is based on a new data transformation framework. We ran our compiler on a set of application programs and measured their performance on the Stanford DASH multiprocessor. Our results show that the compiler can effectively optimize parallelism in conjunction with memory subsystem performance. 1 Introduction In the last decade, microprocessor speeds have been steadily improving at a rate of 50% to 100% every year[16]. Meanwh...

We describe the gfun package which contains functions for manipulating sequences, linear recurrences or di erential equations and generating functions of various types. This document isintended both as an elementary introduction to the subject and as a reference manual for the package.

Many applications compute aggregate functions...

We define and analyze quantum computational variants of random walks on one-dimensional lattices. In particular, we analyze a quantum analog of the symmetric random walk, which we call the Hadamard walk. Several striking differences between the quantum and classical cases are observed. For example, when unrestricted in either direction, the Hadamard walk has position that is nearly uniformly distributed in the range [\Gamma t= p

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Abstract—Motivated by the study of peer-to-peer file swarming systems à la BitTorrent, we introduce a probabilistic model of coupon replication systems. These systems consist of users, aiming to complete a collection of distinct coupons. Users are characterised by their current collection of coupons, and leave the system once they complete their coupon collection. The system evolution is then specified by describing how users of distinct types meet, and which coupons get replicated upon such encounters. For open systems, with exogenous user arrivals, we derive necessary and sufficient stability conditions in a layered scenario, where encounters are between users holding the same number of coupons. We also consider a system where encounters are between users chosen uniformly at random from the whole population. We show that performance, captured by sojourn time, is asymptotically optimal in both systems as the number of coupon types becomes large. We also consider closed systems with no exogenous user arrivals. In a special scenario where users have only one missing coupon, we evaluate the size of the population ultimately remaining in the system, as the initial number of users, N, goes to infinity. We show that this decreases geometrically with the number of coupons, K. In particular, when the ratio K / log(N) is above a critical threshold, we prove that this number of left-overs is of order log(log(N)). These results suggest that performance of file swarming systems does not depend critically on either altruistic user behavior, or on load balancing strategies such as rarest first. 1.