48,111 research outputs found
Inapproximability of Combinatorial Optimization Problems
We survey results on the hardness of approximating combinatorial optimization
problems
The 2CNF Boolean Formula Satisfiability Problem and the Linear Space Hypothesis
We aim at investigating the solvability/insolvability of nondeterministic
logarithmic-space (NL) decision, search, and optimization problems
parameterized by size parameters using simultaneously polynomial time and
sub-linear space on multi-tape deterministic Turing machines. We are
particularly focused on a special NL-complete problem, 2SAT---the 2CNF Boolean
formula satisfiability problem---parameterized by the number of Boolean
variables. It is shown that 2SAT with variables and clauses can be
solved simultaneously polynomial time and space for an absolute constant . This fact inspires us to
propose a new, practical working hypothesis, called the linear space hypothesis
(LSH), which states that 2SAT---a restricted variant of 2SAT in which each
variable of a given 2CNF formula appears at most 3 times in the form of
literals---cannot be solved simultaneously in polynomial time using strictly
"sub-linear" (i.e., for a certain constant
) space on all instances . An immediate consequence of
this working hypothesis is . Moreover, we use our
hypothesis as a plausible basis to lead to the insolvability of various NL
search problems as well as the nonapproximability of NL optimization problems.
For our investigation, since standard logarithmic-space reductions may no
longer preserve polynomial-time sub-linear-space complexity, we need to
introduce a new, practical notion of "short reduction." It turns out that,
parameterized with the number of variables, is
complete for a syntactically restricted version of NL, called Syntactic
NL, under such short reductions. This fact supports the legitimacy
of our working hypothesis.Comment: (A4, 10pt, 25 pages) This current article extends and corrects its
preliminary report in the Proc. of the 42nd International Symposium on
Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2017), August 21-25, 2017,
Aalborg, Denmark, Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs),
Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik 2017, vol. 83, pp.
62:1-62:14, 201
The Sigma-Semantics: A Comprehensive Semantics for Functional Programs
A comprehensive semantics for functional programs is presented, which generalizes the well-known call-by-value and call-by-name semantics. By permitting a separate choice between call-by value and call-by-name for every argument position of every function and parameterizing the semantics by this choice we abstract from the parameter-passing mechanism. Thus common and distinguishing features of all instances of the sigma-semantics, especially call-by-value and call-by-name semantics, are highlighted. Furthermore, a property can be validated for all instances of the sigma-semantics by a single proof. This is employed for proving the equivalence of the given denotational (fixed-point based) and two operational (reduction based) definitions of the sigma-semantics. We present and apply means for very simple proofs of equivalence with the denotational sigma-semantics for a large class of reduction-based sigma-semantics. Our basis are simple first-order constructor-based functional programs with patterns
A New View on Worst-Case to Average-Case Reductions for NP Problems
We study the result by Bogdanov and Trevisan (FOCS, 2003), who show that
under reasonable assumptions, there is no non-adaptive worst-case to
average-case reduction that bases the average-case hardness of an NP-problem on
the worst-case complexity of an NP-complete problem. We replace the hiding and
the heavy samples protocol in [BT03] by employing the histogram verification
protocol of Haitner, Mahmoody and Xiao (CCC, 2010), which proves to be very
useful in this context. Once the histogram is verified, our hiding protocol is
directly public-coin, whereas the intuition behind the original protocol
inherently relies on private coins
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