Questions tagged [packing-and-covering]
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213 questions
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Packing problems where parts of objects are allowed to intersect
I'm interested in packing problems where the objects are allowed to intersect.
For a simple example, consider stacking 1×2 tiles on a nxn chessboard. Each 1×2 tiles consists of part X and Y (both 1×1)....
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Metric entropy of an ellipsoid
Let $B^d_2$ denote the unit ball of $\ell_2^d$ and let $T$ be an invertible linear map.
Consider the function
$$
H(T) := \log M(TB_2^d, B_2^d),
$$
which is the packing entropy for $TB_2^d$ by $B_2^d$....
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Question about coverings of zero Hausdorff measure compact sets
Consider a compact set $E\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ ad assume that ${\cal H}^{n-1}(E)=0$.
If $\epsilon>0$, there is a finite covering of $E$ made of $N_\epsilon$ open balls $B_{r_{\epsilon,k}}(x_{\...
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Stable gap-less packing of a box with boxes
define a box packing as gap-less if
all inner boxes have disjoint interior
the sum of volumes of the inner box equals that of the outer box
the sum of the extents of the inner boxes in each principal ...
- 13.2k
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Inner regularity property of covering number of metric spaces
Let $(X,d)$ be a complete metric space and $n\in\mathbb N$. Suppose that every finite subset $F\subset X$ can be covered by $n$ closed balls of $X$ (that is, $N(Y,d,1)\le n$, in terms of covering ...
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Maximum coverage of an orthogonal polygon using $k$ rectangles
I have an orthogonal polygon (all edges are horizontal or vertical) which is convex (no holes in any row of column of the polygon).
I would like to cover as much as possible of this orthogonal polygon ...
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Show that there are infinitely many well-separated grids from a fixed set of points
I have stumbled upon a question which naturally arises when trying to bin a set of $n$ points into equispaced bins such that they are sufficiently well separated from the bin edges.
Take $n$ points $...
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Do the $\ell^{\infty}$ and $\ell^1$ norms yield minimal doubling constants amongst all norms on $\mathbb{R}^n$?
Setting:
Let $X:=\mathbb{R}^n$ for some positive integer $n$. For each $1\le p\le \infty$ let $d_p$ denote the metric induced by the $\ell^p_n$ norm thereon.
Note that, the doubling constant of a ...
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Random covering on rectangles
Let $\mathrm{Rect}$ denote the class of axis-parallel rectangles $r: \mathbb{R}^2 \to \{0,1\}$, assigning $1$ if the point is inside the rectangle and $0$ otherwise. Let $\mathcal{D}$ be a ...
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Enumerating the directed vertex-disjoint cycle covers of digraphs
A directed cycle-cover of a digraph $D$ is in the sense of this post equivalent to a perfect matching in the related undirected biadjacency graph $B$ in which the edges connect a vertex $u$ of $D$ in ...
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Who contributed [GT13] to "Computers and Intractability"?
This is a followup to my question How does the complexity of calculating the Permanent imply the NP completeness of directed 3-cycle cover?
Question:
who contributed problem [GT13] PARTITION INTO ...
- 13.2k
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Do lattices with small covering radius have sublattices with small covering radius?
For me a lattice is a discrete subgroup of $\mathbb R^n$. The linear span of a lattice, written $\Lambda \otimes \mathbb R$, is the $\mathbb R$-vector subspace of $\mathbb R^n$ generated by $\Lambda$. ...
- 148k
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Is the maximal packing density of identical circles in a circle always an algebraic number?
There is a lot of interest in the maximal density of equal circle packing in a circle. And I thought that knowing whether or not the solution is always algebraic or not would be useful.
My original ...
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How many unit cubes are needed to 'hide' a unit cube fully in 3D?
Question: What is the smallest number of nonoverlapping unit cubes that can hide a unit cube C - in the sense that every ray emanating from the boundary of C meets the interior or the boundary of one ...
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Packing an upwards equilateral triangle efficiently by downwards equilateral triangles
Consider the problem of packing an upwards-pointing unit equilateral triangle "efficiently" by downwards-pointing equilateral triangles, where "efficiently" means that there is ...
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Covering base sets $X$ with a subset family satisfying a "partial covering property"
Let $X$ be an $n$ element base set. Suppose I have a subset family $\mathscr{F} \subset 2^X$ satisfying the following property:
(*) For any subset $Y \subset X$, we can find an element $F \in \mathscr{...
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Fractal sets and dimensions
Can we construct two sets $E$ and $F$ meeting the following criteria
$\dim_H(E) = \dim_H(F) = \dim_H(E ∩ F)$
$\dim_P(E), \dim_P(F)$, and $\dim_P(E ∩ F)$ are distinct?
Here $\dim_H$ denotes the ...
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Packing number lower bound for sparse vectors
Let $t \in (0, 1)$ and define $P_t(k)$ to be cardinality of the largest set of $t$-separated points (i.e., for any distinct pair of points, the Euclidean distance is strictly larger than $t > 0$) ...
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What are known tightest bounds on packing number over hypothesis class with semi-metric distance?
Let $\mathcal{H}$ denotes a hypothesis class we define the semi-metric on $\mathcal {H}$:
$\|h_1 - h_2 \|_{\mathcal{L}_1} = \underset{x \sim \mathcal{D}}{\mathbb{P}}[h_1(x) \neq h_2(x)]$.
Are there ...
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Optimal covering trails for every $k$-dimensional cubic lattice $\mathbb{N}^k := \{(x_1, x_2, \dots, x_n) : x_i \in \mathbb{N} \wedge n \geq 3\}$
After a dozen years spent investigating this particular class of problems, I finally give up and I wish to ask you if any improvement is achievable from here on.
The general problem is as follows:
Let ...
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Electricity division and bin packing
In the electricity division problem, there is a powerhouse that supplies $s$ kilowatt of electricity. There are $n$ households. The connection size of household $i$ is $d_i$.
The problem is that $s &...
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How many non-orthogonal vectors fit into a complex vector space?
I am sitting on a problem, where I have a complex vector space of dimension $D$ and a set of normalized vectors $\{v_k\}$, $k\in\{1,2,\dots,N\}$ that are supposed to satisfy
$$\lvert\langle v_j\vert ...
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Smallest sphere containing three tetrahedra?
What is the smallest possible radius of a sphere which contains 3 identical plastic tetrahedra with side length 1?
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Covering convex regions with disks optimizing on area and perimeter
Question: Are there planar convex regions $R$ and integers $n$ with the property: if $R$ is covered by $n$ disks of possibly different sizes such that (1) the total area of the covering disks is ...
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Another variant of the Malfatti problem
We try to add to A Variant of the Malfatti Problem
As stated in the Wikipedia entry on Malfatti circles, it is an open problem to decide, given a number $n$ and any triangle, whether a greedy method ...
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A comparison between packing and covering as classes of problems
We continue from Bounds for the Dispersal Problem in convex regions and Bounds for minimax facility location in a convex region
Let us consider the classes of problems:
Given a convex region $R$ and ...
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The problem of finding the smallest number of copies of a certain shape that can be placed into a space to make fitting another copy impossible
Packing problems often ask for the largest number of some identical shape that can fit in a given space without overlapping, if they are placed optimally.
I'm interested in the opposite question:
Q. ...
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Lower bounding the infimum of a random process
Let $X_{t}=\sum_{i=1}^n(1+s\cdot w_i)t_i\sin(t_i)$ where $t\in T=[-\pi/2,\pi/2]^n/\{\vec 0\}$, $w_i$ are iid standard gaussian variables, $s$ is a scalar denoting the strength of Gaussian noise.
How ...
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the infimum of a random process
Let $X_{t}=\sum_{i=1}^n(1+s\cdot w)\sin(t_i)$ where $t\in T=[-\pi/2,\pi/2]^n/\{\vec 0\}$, $w\sim\mathbb{N}(0,1)$, $s$ is a scalar denoting the strength of Gaussian noise. How to find the condition on $...
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Bounding random process
Def
$\{X_t\}_{t\in T}$ is called Lipschitz for metric $d$ on $T$ if there exists a random variable $C$ such that
$$|X_t-X_s|\leq Cd(t,s),\text{ for all }t,s\in T.$$
Lemma
Suppose $\{X_t\}_{t\in T}$ is ...
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You have $n$ rectangles of area $1$ and variable height. Pack as many as possible in a semicircle of area $n$. How many leftovers will there be?
You have $n$ rectangles of area $1$ and variable height. Pack as many of these rectangles as possible in a semicircle of area $n$. How many leftover rectangles will there be, in terms of $n$?
How to ...
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A variation of Set Cover
Suppose we have $n$ sets $\{S_i\}_{i=1}^n$, each containing exactly $k$ of the numbers from $1,...,n$. The union of all these sets will cover $1,...,n$. We know $i \in S_i$ for all $i$. We need to ...
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If $X,X'$ have the same $\varepsilon$-packing numbers and $f:X \to X'$ surjective $1$-Lipschitz, then $f$ is an isometry
Let $(X, d)$ be a compact metric space.
We say that $\{x_1, \cdots, x_n\} \subseteq X$ is an $\varepsilon$-covering of $X$ if for any $x \in X$, there exists $i \in \{1, \ldots, n\}$ such that $d(x, ...
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Are two metric spaces isometric if they have the same $\varepsilon$-covering and $\varepsilon$-packing numbers for all $\varepsilon>0$?
Let $(X, d)$ be a compact metric space.
We say that $\{x_1, \cdots, x_n\} \subseteq X$ is an $\varepsilon$-covering of $X$ if for any $x \in X$, there exists $i \in \{1, \ldots, n\}$ such that $d(x, ...
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Are two metric spaces isometric if they have the same $\varepsilon$-covering numbers for all $\varepsilon>0$?
Let $(E, d)$ be a metric space. For $\varepsilon>0$, we define two notions of $\varepsilon$-covering number as follows, i.e.,
$N_\varepsilon^o (E)$ is the smallest number of open balls whose radii ...
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Regular covering of planar pointsets with convex polygons
Question:
What is known about the problem of covering a finite set of $\mathbb{P}$ of points in the plane with convex polygons
that have the same number $m$ of points from $\mathbb{P}$ as corners
and ...
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Packing number of sparse vectors
The packing number is defined as follows (defintion 4.2.4 here):
A subset $K$ of a normed space $(\mathbb{X},\Vert\cdot\Vert)$ is called $\epsilon$-separated, if $\Vert x-y\Vert> \epsilon$ for all ...
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Path cover with sets of nodes
I am considering the following variant of the path-cover problem. I have an acyclic directed graph G=(V,E). Moreover, the set V is partitioned into $V=V_1 \cup ... \cup V_k$ (these sets are pairwise ...
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Covering unit-radius balls with unit-diameter objects
Let $d$ be a norm-based metric in $\mathbb{R}^2$. We are given a $d$-ball with radius 1, and we would like to cover it with objects with diameter 1. How many objects are needed?
In the $\ell_1$ metric,...
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Hemisphere containing the maximum number of points scattered on a sphere
Consider a set of points $x_1, \ldots,x_n$ on $\mathbb{S}^{k-1}$ (the unit sphere in $\mathbb{R}^k$). The goal is finding the hemisphere which contains the maximum number of $x_i$'s. Basically, we ...
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Minimal overlap required to cover a sphere with caps is greater than expected for many caps
My question is derived from Covering the surface of a sphere with circles with least overlap on Math SE.
In the referenced question, the problem of completely covering a sphere with the smallest ...
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Which pyramids fill space?
Let us define a pyramid as a convex polyhedron with one quadrilateral face and four triangular faces.
Question: How many pyramids (or families of pyramids) are known that can fill 3D space without ...
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Dual equivalence of minimum feedback-vertex sets and cycle packing
it is known that the duals of feedback-set problems are set-packing problems; in the context of digraphs the feedback set are either a minimal set of vertices or edges that hit every oriented cycle; ...
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Does finite Hausdorff dimension imply finite packing dimension?
In other words, does there exist a metric space $(E,\rho)$ with finite Hausdorff dimension but infinite packing dimension?
Here are my thoughts:
I know that it is generally hard to relate Hausdorff ...
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Approximation of a convex shape in the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space for $d\gg 1$
We are given a convex shape $C$ lying inside the hypercube $[0,1]^d$ in the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space. Let the volume of $C$ be $\tfrac12$ (I guess nothing changes for any other fixed constant ...
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$d$-ball approximation for $d\gg 1$ with a convex hull of random points on its boundary
Given a $d$-ball $\mathcal{S}^{d}$, let $P_n$ a set of $n$ points selected uniformly at random on the boundary $\mathcal{S}^{d-1}$ of $\mathcal{S}^{d}$. Let $\mathcal{C}_n$ the convex hull of $P_n$. ...
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Packing number in finite-dimensional normed spaces
I am working on a paper and quoted the following result from these lecture notes.
Where can I find a reference to this result either in a book or a paper, that I can cite?
(I looked on the course ...
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Covering numbers for products of functions from two spaces?
Exercise (HW1): Let $\mathcal{F}$ and $\mathcal{G}$ be classes of measurable function. Then for any probability measure $Q$ and any $1 \leq r \leq \infty$,
(i) $N_{[]}\left(2 \epsilon, \mathcal{F}+\...
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Sudakov's lower bound type inequality for supremum of Chi-squared random variables
Let $\varepsilon$ be $n$-dimensional standard Gaussian veector, i.e., $\varepsilon \sim N_n(0, I_n)$. Let $\mathcal{P}$ be a subset of symmetric projection matrices in $\mathbb{R}^{n \times n}$ with $|...
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Covering/Bracketing number of monotone functions on $\mathbb{R}$ with uniformly bounded derivatives
I am interested in the $\| \cdot \|_{\infty}$-norm bracketing number or covering number of some collection of distribution functions on $\mathbb{R}$.
Let $\mathcal{F}$ consist of all distribution ...
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