A matrix S = (sij) ∈ R n×n is said to determine a transitional measure for a digraph Γ on n vertices if for all i, j, k ∈ {1, . . . , n}, the transition inequality sij sjk ≤ sik sjj holds and reduces to the equality (called the graph bottleneck identity) if and only if every path in Γ from i to k contains j. We show that every positive transitional measure produces a distance by means of a loga...

The term ‘bottleneck’ has been extensively used in operations management literature. Management paradigms like the Theory of Constraints focus on the identification and exploitation of bottlenecks. Yet, we show that the term has not been rigorously defined. We provide a classification of bottleneck definitions available in literature and discuss several myths associated with the concept of bott...

We describe the diagnosis and treatment of bottlenecks in computer systems using decison theoretic techniques. The techniques rely on a high-level functional model of the interaction between application workloads, the operating system (Windows NT), and system hardware. Given a workload description, the model predicts the values of system counters observable with the Windows NT performance monit...

We present an extension of the well-known information bottleneck framework, called conditional information bottleneck, which takes negative relevance information into account by maximizing a conditional mutual information score. This general approach can be utilized in a data mining context to extract relevant information that is at the same time novel relative to known properties or structures...

This paper introduces a bottleneck game with finite sets of commuters and departing time slots as an extension of congestion games by Milchtaich (1996). After characterizing Nash equilibrium of the game, we provide sufficient conditions for which the equivalence between Nash and strong equilibria holds. Somewhat surprisingly, unlike in congestion games, a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies may...

We define the relevant information in a signal x ∈ X as being the information that this signal provides about another signal y ∈ Y . Examples include the information that face images provide about the names of the people portrayed, or the information that speech sounds provide about the words spoken. Understanding the signal x requires more than just predicting y, it also requires specifying wh...