577 research outputs found
Time-Space Tradeoffs for the Memory Game
A single-player game of Memory is played with distinct pairs of cards,
with the cards in each pair bearing identical pictures. The cards are laid
face-down. A move consists of revealing two cards, chosen adaptively. If these
cards match, i.e., they bear the same picture, they are removed from play;
otherwise, they are turned back to face down. The object of the game is to
clear all cards while minimizing the number of moves. Past works have
thoroughly studied the expected number of moves required, assuming optimal play
by a player has that has perfect memory. In this work, we study the Memory game
in a space-bounded setting.
We prove two time-space tradeoff lower bounds on algorithms (strategies for
the player) that clear all cards in moves while using at most bits of
memory. First, in a simple model where the pictures on the cards may only be
compared for equality, we prove that . This is tight:
it is easy to achieve essentially everywhere on this
tradeoff curve. Second, in a more general model that allows arbitrary
computations, we prove that . We prove this latter tradeoff
by modeling strategies as branching programs and extending a classic counting
argument of Borodin and Cook with a novel probabilistic argument. We conjecture
that the stronger tradeoff in fact holds even in
this general model
The satisfiability problem for probabilistic ordered branching programs
We show that the satisfiability problem for bounded-error probabilistic ordered branching programs is \NP -complete. If the error is very small, however (more precisely, if the error is bounded by the reciprocal of the width of the branching program), then we have a polynomial-time algorithm for the satisfiability problem
Quantum vs. Classical Read-once Branching Programs
The paper presents the first nontrivial upper and lower bounds for
(non-oblivious) quantum read-once branching programs. It is shown that the
computational power of quantum and classical read-once branching programs is
incomparable in the following sense: (i) A simple, explicit boolean function on
2n input bits is presented that is computable by error-free quantum read-once
branching programs of size O(n^3), while each classical randomized read-once
branching program and each quantum OBDD for this function with bounded
two-sided error requires size 2^{\Omega(n)}. (ii) Quantum branching programs
reading each input variable exactly once are shown to require size
2^{\Omega(n)} for computing the set-disjointness function DISJ_n from
communication complexity theory with two-sided error bounded by a constant
smaller than 1/2-2\sqrt{3}/7. This function is trivially computable even by
deterministic OBDDs of linear size. The technically most involved part is the
proof of the lower bound in (ii). For this, a new model of quantum
multi-partition communication protocols is introduced and a suitable extension
of the information cost technique of Jain, Radhakrishnan, and Sen (2003) to
this model is presented.Comment: 35 pages. Lower bound for disjointness: Error in application of info
theory corrected and regularity of quantum read-once BPs (each variable at
least once) added as additional assumption of the theorem. Some more informal
explanations adde
Element Distinctness, Frequency Moments, and Sliding Windows
We derive new time-space tradeoff lower bounds and algorithms for exactly
computing statistics of input data, including frequency moments, element
distinctness, and order statistics, that are simple to calculate for sorted
data. We develop a randomized algorithm for the element distinctness problem
whose time T and space S satisfy T in O (n^{3/2}/S^{1/2}), smaller than
previous lower bounds for comparison-based algorithms, showing that element
distinctness is strictly easier than sorting for randomized branching programs.
This algorithm is based on a new time and space efficient algorithm for finding
all collisions of a function f from a finite set to itself that are reachable
by iterating f from a given set of starting points. We further show that our
element distinctness algorithm can be extended at only a polylogarithmic factor
cost to solve the element distinctness problem over sliding windows, where the
task is to take an input of length 2n-1 and produce an output for each window
of length n, giving n outputs in total. In contrast, we show a time-space
tradeoff lower bound of T in Omega(n^2/S) for randomized branching programs to
compute the number of distinct elements over sliding windows. The same lower
bound holds for computing the low-order bit of F_0 and computing any frequency
moment F_k, k neq 1. This shows that those frequency moments and the decision
problem F_0 mod 2 are strictly harder than element distinctness. We complement
this lower bound with a T in O(n^2/S) comparison-based deterministic RAM
algorithm for exactly computing F_k over sliding windows, nearly matching both
our lower bound for the sliding-window version and the comparison-based lower
bounds for the single-window version. We further exhibit a quantum algorithm
for F_0 over sliding windows with T in O(n^{3/2}/S^{1/2}). Finally, we consider
the computations of order statistics over sliding windows.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1212.437
Optimal Error Pseudodistributions for Read-Once Branching Programs
In a seminal work, Nisan (Combinatorica'92) constructed a pseudorandom
generator for length and width read-once branching programs with seed
length and error
. It remains a central question to reduce the seed length to
, which would prove that .
However, there has been no improvement on Nisan's construction for the case
, which is most relevant to space-bounded derandomization.
Recently, in a beautiful work, Braverman, Cohen and Garg (STOC'18) introduced
the notion of a pseudorandom pseudo-distribution (PRPD) and gave an explicit
construction of a PRPD with seed length . A PRPD is a relaxation of a pseudorandom
generator, which suffices for derandomizing and also implies a
hitting set. Unfortunately, their construction is quite involved and
complicated. Hoza and Zuckerman (FOCS'18) later constructed a much simpler
hitting set generator with seed length , but their techniques are restricted to hitting
sets.
In this work, we construct a PRPD with seed length This improves upon the
construction in [BCG18] by a factor, and is
optimal in the small error regime. In addition, we believe our construction and
analysis to be simpler than the work of Braverman, Cohen and Garg
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