Applications of Derandomization Theory in Coding

Randomized techniques play a fundamental role in theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics, in particular for the design of efficient algorithms and construction of combinatorial objects. The basic goal in derandomization theory is to eliminate or reduce the need for randomness in such randomized constructions. In this thesis, we explore some applications of the fundamental notions in derandomization theory to problems outside the core of theoretical computer science, and in particular, certain problems related to coding theory. First, we consider the wiretap channel problem which involves a communication system in which an intruder can eavesdrop a limited portion of the transmissions, and construct efficient and information-theoretically optimal communication protocols for this model. Then we consider the combinatorial group testing problem. In this classical problem, one aims to determine a set of defective items within a large population by asking a number of queries, where each query reveals whether a defective item is present within a specified group of items. We use randomness condensers to explicitly construct optimal, or nearly optimal, group testing schemes for a setting where the query outcomes can be highly unreliable, as well as the threshold model where a query returns positive if the number of defectives pass a certain threshold. Finally, we design ensembles of error-correcting codes that achieve the information-theoretic capacity of a large class of communication channels, and then use the obtained ensembles for construction of explicit capacity achieving codes. [This is a shortened version of the actual abstract in the thesis.]Comment: EPFL Phd Thesi

Improved Pseudorandom Generators from Pseudorandom Multi-Switching Lemmas

We give the best known pseudorandom generators for two touchstone classes in unconditional derandomization: an $\varepsilon$-PRG for the class of size-$M$ depth-$d$ $\mathsf{AC}^0$ circuits with seed length $\log(M)^{d+O(1)}\cdot \log(1/\varepsilon)$, and an $\varepsilon$-PRG for the class of $S$-sparse $\mathbb{F}_2$ polynomials with seed length $2^{O(\sqrt{\log S})}\cdot \log(1/\varepsilon)$. These results bring the state of the art for unconditional derandomization of these classes into sharp alignment with the state of the art for computational hardness for all parameter settings: improving on the seed lengths of either PRG would require breakthrough progress on longstanding and notorious circuit lower bounds. The key enabling ingredient in our approach is a new \emph{pseudorandom multi-switching lemma}. We derandomize recently-developed \emph{multi}-switching lemmas, which are powerful generalizations of H{\aa}stad's switching lemma that deal with \emph{families} of depth-two circuits. Our pseudorandom multi-switching lemma---a randomness-efficient algorithm for sampling restrictions that simultaneously simplify all circuits in a family---achieves the parameters obtained by the (full randomness) multi-switching lemmas of Impagliazzo, Matthews, and Paturi [IMP12] and H{\aa}stad [H{\aa}s14]. This optimality of our derandomization translates into the optimality (given current circuit lower bounds) of our PRGs for $\mathsf{AC}^0$ and sparse $\mathbb{F}_2$ polynomials

Peak Power Reduction of OFDM Signals with Sign Adjustment

It has recently been shown that significant reduction in the peak to mean envelope power (PMEPR) can be obtained by altering the sign of each subcarrier in a multicarrier system with n subcarriers. However, finding the best sign not only requires a search over 2n possible signs but also may lead to a substantial rate loss for small size constellations. In this paper, we first propose a greedy algorithm to choose the signs based on p-norm minimization and prove that the resulting PMEPR is guaranteed to be less than c log n where c is a constant independent of n for any n. This approach has lower complexity in each iteration compared to the derandomization approach of while achieving similar PMEPR reduction. We further improve the performance of the proposed algorithm by enlarging the search space using pruning. Simulation results show that PMEPR of a multicarrier signal with 128 subcarriers can be reduced to within 1.6 dB of the PMEPR of a single carrier system. In the second part of the paper, we address the rate loss by proposing a block coding scheme in which only one sign vector is chosen for K different modulating vectors. The sign vector can be computed using the greedy algorithm in n iterations. We show that the multi-symbol encoding approach can reduce the rate loss by a factor of K while achieving the PMEPR of c logKn, i.e., only logarithmic growth in K. Simulation results show that the rate loss can be made smaller than %10 at the cost of only 1 db increase in the resulting PMEPR for a system with 128 subcarriers

The Minrank of Random Graphs

The minrank of a graph $G$ is the minimum rank of a matrix $M$ that can be obtained from the adjacency matrix of $G$ by switching some ones to zeros (i.e., deleting edges) and then setting all diagonal entries to one. This quantity is closely related to the fundamental information-theoretic problems of (linear) index coding (Bar-Yossef et al., FOCS'06), network coding and distributed storage, and to Valiant's approach for proving superlinear circuit lower bounds (Valiant, Boolean Function Complexity '92). We prove tight bounds on the minrank of random Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi graphs $G(n,p)$ for all regimes of $p\in[0,1]$. In particular, for any constant $p$, we show that $\mathsf{minrk}(G) = \Theta(n/\log n)$ with high probability, where $G$ is chosen from $G(n,p)$. This bound gives a near quadratic improvement over the previous best lower bound of $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$ (Haviv and Langberg, ISIT'12), and partially settles an open problem raised by Lubetzky and Stav (FOCS '07). Our lower bound matches the well-known upper bound obtained by the "clique covering" solution, and settles the linear index coding problem for random graphs. Finally, our result suggests a new avenue of attack, via derandomization, on Valiant's approach for proving superlinear lower bounds for logarithmic-depth semilinear circuits

Existence of codes with constant PMEPR and related design

Recently, several coding methods have been proposed to reduce the high peak-to-mean envelope ratio (PMEPR) of multicarrier signals. It has also been shown that with probability one, the PMEPR of any random codeword chosen from a symmetric quadrature amplitude modulation/phase shift keying (QAM/PSK) constellation is logn for large n, where n is the number of subcarriers. Therefore, the question is how much reduction beyond logn can one asymptotically achieve with coding, and what is the price in terms of the rate loss? In this paper, by optimally choosing the sign of each subcarrier, we prove the existence of q-ary codes of constant PMEPR for sufficiently large n and with a rate loss of at most log/sub q/2. We also obtain a Varsharmov-Gilbert-type upper bound on the rate of a code, given its minimum Hamming distance with constant PMEPR, for large n. Since ours is an existence result, we also study the problem of designing signs for PMEPR reduction. Motivated by a derandomization algorithm suggested by Spencer, we propose a deterministic and efficient algorithm to design signs such that the PMEPR of the resulting codeword is less than clogn for any n, where c is a constant independent of n. For symmetric q-ary constellations, this algorithm constructs a code with rate 1-log/sub q/2 and with PMEPR of clogn with simple encoding and decoding. Simulation results for our algorithm are presented

Derandomization and Group Testing

The rapid development of derandomization theory, which is a fundamental area in theoretical computer science, has recently led to many surprising applications outside its initial intention. We will review some recent such developments related to combinatorial group testing. In its most basic setting, the aim of group testing is to identify a set of "positive" individuals in a population of items by taking groups of items and asking whether there is a positive in each group. In particular, we will discuss explicit constructions of optimal or nearly-optimal group testing schemes using "randomness-conducting" functions. Among such developments are constructions of error-correcting group testing schemes using randomness extractors and condensers, as well as threshold group testing schemes from lossless condensers.Comment: Invited Paper in Proceedings of 48th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, 201