First-order methods (FOMs) have recently been applied and analyzed for solving problems with complicated functional constraints. Existing works show that FOMs constrained lower-order convergence rates than those unconstrained problems. In particular, an FOM a smooth strongly convex problem can linear convergence, while it only converge sublinearly if the projection onto constraint set is prohib...

When is it okay to lie? And what constitutes a lie, anyway? This paper examines the notion of lying in agent-based systems, focusing on dialogues and situations where it is acceptable for agents to utter locutions that contradict their beliefs. We examine situations in human and animal behavior where lying — acting or making statements that contradict one’s set of beliefs — is considered to be ...

An efficient synthesis of the 1-hydroxy-2-(prop-2'-enyl)9-anthrone is described. Selective nitration of anthraquinone, reduction to the corresponding amine, diazotization and treatment by sulfuric acid solution afforded the 1-hydroxy-9,10-anthraquinone in good yield as the key intermediate. Reaction with allyl bromide/K2CO3 and subsequent selective reduction accompanie...

In this article, we report results of an experimental study on six iterative methods to compute the transient probabilities of large Markov models: full matrix exponentiation, forward Euler method, explicit Runge-Kutta methods of order 2 and 4 and Adams-Bashforth multi-steps methods of order 2 and 4. We suggest a simple but efficient implementation of these algorithms. We discuss how to tune th...

Derivational sequences and harmony scales are collections of relationships between phonological structures that are used to pick out a grammatical surface representation: a surface representation is the final form in a sequence in derivational phonology; it is the optimal form on a scale of relative harmony in optimality phonology. The two approaches would match still further if traversing alon...

A recent paper in PNAS (1) analyzed the evolution of metalloproteins and confirmed our earlier observation on the abundance of Zn-binding proteins among the most widespread – and evolutionarily oldest – protein folds (2). As that observation appeared to contradict the extremely low (<10 M) estimates of Zn levels in the primeval anoxic ocean (3), we had suggested that the first cells developed i...

Two main gene orders exist in birds: the ancestral gene order and the remnant control region (CR) 2 gene order. These gene orders differ by the presence of 1 or 2 copies of the CR, respectively. Among songbirds, Oscines were thought to follow the ancestral gene order, with the exception of the lyrebird and Phylloscopus warblers. Here, we determined the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of ...