B ecause genetic events do not fossilize, we are forced to deduce the evolution of bacterial genomes by comparing the features of contemporary organisms. This comparative approach has exposed many of the alterations endured by bacterial genomes (bouts of expansion and contraction or changes in base compositions), but such reconstructions are often imprecise, and sometimes incorrect, because the...

We prove that general merge-and-shrink representations are strictly more powerful than linear ones by showing that there exist problem families that can be represented compactly with general merge-and-shrink representations but not with linear ones. We also give a precise bound that quantifies the necessary blowup incurred by conversions from general merge-and-shrink representations to linear r...

Shrink is an OLAM (On-Line Analytical Mining) operator based on hierarchical clustering, and it has been previously proposed in mono-dimensional form to balance precision with size in the visualization of cubes via pivot tables during OLAP analyses. It can be applied to the cube resulting from a query to decrease its size while controlling the approximation introduced; the idea is to fuse simil...

Shrink-fitting, a common bonding technique in metal assemblies, was used for mortise and tenon wood joints. The joints had considerable strength. Shrink-fitting yielded joint strengths comparable to those obtained by using several welded dowels. Increasing the number of welded dowels, however, produced joints of higher strength than those bonded just by shrink-fitting. Combining in the same joi...