arXiv subjects

Henry Simmons

Publications and source records attributed to Henry Simmons.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Simplifying Cyber Cat(astrophe)s with Cyber Kittens: Power Law Plausibility for Cyber Insurance Risks

Cyber insurance requires accurate modeling of worst-case catastrophic (cat) events, but the field lacks robust quantitative approaches for estimating upper-bound losses. Building on a recent dataset of 24 cyber cat events over 30 years, this work tests whether cyber economic losses follow a power law distribution. We analyze "cyber kittens" - sub-1B USD events distinguished from cat events (1B+ USD) only by magnitude - extracted via LLM from cyber insurance claims data (2020-2024). Using victim count (weighted by claim year) as a proxy for economic loss, we link kitten-sized events to known cat events to estimate losses. The kitten distribution proved consistent with the cat dataset, and power laws were statistically plausible: each order-of-magnitude increase in event size corresponds to a 5-7x drop in probability. Extrapolating, an event 100x the largest 2020-2024 cat event is expected roughly every 206 years, translating to 100-250B USD in losses - catastrophic, but not extraordinary relative to other insurance lines.

q-fin.RM↗

arXiv2026

On Agreement Subtrees in Multiple Phylogenetic Trees

Snir and Yuster [Discrete Appl. Math. 347 (2026) 160--171] asked for the least number $h(k)$ such that $k$ unrooted binary phylogenetic trees on the same $h(k)$ leaves always share a common quartet. We give a new upper bound for the $k$-tree version of the Maximum Agreement Subtree problem, namely an upper bound for the number of leaves, on which $k$ unrooted binary phylogenetic trees always share a common induced binary subtree on $n$ leaves, which is a four-times iterated exponential function. For $h(k)$, this implies a four-times iterated exponential upper bound. We also set an exponential lower bound for $h(k)$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Improved bounds on a generalization of Tuza's conjecture

For an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, let $ν^{(m)}(H)$ denote the maximum size of a set~$M$ of edges in $H$ such that every two edges in $M$ intersect in less than $m$ vertices, and let $τ^{(m)}(H)$ denote the minimum size of a collection $C$ of $m$-sets of vertices such that every edge in $H$ contains an element of $C$. The fractional analogues of these parameters are denoted by $ν^{*(m)}(H)$ and $τ^{*(m)}(H)$, respectively. Generalizing a famous conjecture of Tuza on covering triangles in a graph, Aharoni and Zerbib conjectured that for every $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, $τ^{(r-1)}(H)/ν^{(r-1)}(H) \leq \lceil{\frac{r+1}{2}}\rceil$. In this paper we prove bounds on the ratio between the parameters $τ^{(m)}$ and $ν^{(m)}$, and their fractional analogues. Our main result is that, for every $r$-uniform hypergraph~$H$, \[ τ^{*(r-1)}(H)/ν^{(r-1)}(H) \le \begin{cases} \frac{3}{4}r - \frac{r}{4(r+1)} &\text{for }r\text{ even,}\\ \frac{3}{4}r - \frac{r}{4(r+2)} &\text{for }r\text{ odd.} \\ \end{cases} \] This improves the known bound of $r-1$. We also prove that, for every $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, $τ^{(m)}(H)/ν^{*(m)}(H) \le \operatorname{ex}_m(r, m+1)$, where the Turán number $\operatorname{ex}_r(n, k)$ is the maximum number of edges in an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices that does not contain a copy of the complete $r$-uniform hypergraph on $k$ vertices. Finally, we prove further bounds in the special cases $(r,m)=(4,2)$ and $(r,m)=(4,3)$.

math.CO↗