Annalisa Calvi | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Optimal Unlabeled Pebble Motion on Trees and its Application to Multi-Agent Path Finding

Given a tree, a set of pebbles initially stationed at some nodes of the tree, and a set of target nodes, the Unlabeled Pebble Motion on Trees problem (UPMT) asks to find a plan to move the pebbles one-at-a-time from the starting nodes to the target nodes along the edges of the tree while minimizing the number of moves. This paper proposes the first optimal algorithm for UPMT that is asymptotically as fast as possible, as it runs in a time linear in the size of the input (the tree) and the size of the output (the optimal plan). We extend this to solve unlabeled Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) in trees, providing novel bounds on optimal makespan, sum of costs, and pebble motion plan length.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2025

Is this normal? A new projection pursuit index to assess a sample against a multivariate null distribution

Many data problems contain some reference or normal conditions, upon which to compare newly collected data. This scenario occurs in data collected as part of clinical trials to detect adverse events, or for measuring climate change against historical norms. The data is typically multivariate, and often the normal ranges are specified by a multivariate normal distribution. The work presented in this paper develops methods to compare the new sample against the reference distribution with high-dimensional visualisation. It uses a projection pursuit guided tour to produce a sequence of low-dimensional projections steered towards those where the new sample is most different from the reference. A new projection pursuit index is defined for this purpose. The tour visualisation also includes drawing of the projected ellipse, which is computed analytically, corresponding to the reference distribution. The methods are implemented in the R package, tourr.

stat.ME↗