147 research outputs found
A Sound and Complete Axiomatization of Majority-n Logic
Manipulating logic functions via majority operators recently drew the
attention of researchers in computer science. For example, circuit optimization
based on majority operators enables superior results as compared to traditional
logic systems. Also, the Boolean satisfiability problem finds new solving
approaches when described in terms of majority decisions. To support computer
logic applications based on majority a sound and complete set of axioms is
required. Most of the recent advances in majority logic deal only with ternary
majority (MAJ- 3) operators because the axiomatization with solely MAJ-3 and
complementation operators is well understood. However, it is of interest
extending such axiomatization to n-ary majority operators (MAJ-n) from both the
theoretical and practical perspective. In this work, we address this issue by
introducing a sound and complete axiomatization of MAJ-n logic. Our
axiomatization naturally includes existing majority logic systems. Based on
this general set of axioms, computer applications can now fully exploit the
expressive power of majority logic.Comment: Accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Computer
Schaefer's theorem for graphs
Schaefer's theorem is a complexity classification result for so-called
Boolean constraint satisfaction problems: it states that every Boolean
constraint satisfaction problem is either contained in one out of six classes
and can be solved in polynomial time, or is NP-complete.
We present an analog of this dichotomy result for the propositional logic of
graphs instead of Boolean logic. In this generalization of Schaefer's result,
the input consists of a set W of variables and a conjunction \Phi\ of
statements ("constraints") about these variables in the language of graphs,
where each statement is taken from a fixed finite set \Psi\ of allowed
quantifier-free first-order formulas; the question is whether \Phi\ is
satisfiable in a graph.
We prove that either \Psi\ is contained in one out of 17 classes of graph
formulas and the corresponding problem can be solved in polynomial time, or the
problem is NP-complete. This is achieved by a universal-algebraic approach,
which in turn allows us to use structural Ramsey theory. To apply the
universal-algebraic approach, we formulate the computational problems under
consideration as constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) whose templates are
first-order definable in the countably infinite random graph. Our method to
classify the computational complexity of those CSPs is based on a
Ramsey-theoretic analysis of functions acting on the random graph, and we
develop general tools suitable for such an analysis which are of independent
mathematical interest.Comment: 54 page
The quantum adversary method and classical formula size lower bounds
We introduce two new complexity measures for Boolean functions, or more
generally for functions of the form f:S->T. We call these measures sumPI and
maxPI. The quantity sumPI has been emerging through a line of research on
quantum query complexity lower bounds via the so-called quantum adversary
method [Amb02, Amb03, BSS03, Zha04, LM04], culminating in [SS04] with the
realization that these many different formulations are in fact equivalent.
Given that sumPI turns out to be such a robust invariant of a function, we
begin to investigate this quantity in its own right and see that it also has
applications to classical complexity theory.
As a surprising application we show that sumPI^2(f) is a lower bound on the
formula size, and even, up to a constant multiplicative factor, the
probabilistic formula size of f. We show that several formula size lower bounds
in the literature, specifically Khrapchenko and its extensions [Khr71, Kou93],
including a key lemma of [Has98], are in fact special cases of our method.
The second quantity we introduce, maxPI(f), is always at least as large as
sumPI(f), and is derived from sumPI in such a way that maxPI^2(f) remains a
lower bound on formula size. While sumPI(f) is always a lower bound on the
quantum query complexity of f, this is not the case in general for maxPI(f). A
strong advantage of sumPI(f) is that it has both primal and dual
characterizations, and thus it is relatively easy to give both upper and lower
bounds on the sumPI complexity of functions. To demonstrate this, we look at a
few concrete examples, for three functions: recursive majority of three, a
function defined by Ambainis, and the collision problem.Comment: Appears in Conference on Computational Complexity 200
"Mathématique Sociale" and Mathematics. A case study: Condorcet's effect and medians
The "effet Condorcet" refers to the fact that the application of the pair-wise majority rule to individual preference orderings can generate a collective preference containing cycles. Condorcet's solution to deal with this disturbing fact has been recognized as the search for a median in a certain metric space. We describe the many areas of "applied" or "pure" mathematics where the notion of (metric) median has appeared. If it were actually necessary to give examples proving that "social mathematics" is mathematics, the median case would provide a convincing example.Condorcet's effect ; Fermat's point ; majority rule ; "Mathématique sociale" ; median algebra ; metric space ; permutohedron
Decentralization in open quorum systems: Limitative results for ripple and stellar
Decentralisation is one of the promises introduced by blockchain technologies: fair and secure interaction amongst peers with no dominant positions, single points of failure or censorship. Decentralisation, however, appears difficult to be formally defined, possibly a continuum property of systems that can be more or less decentralised, or can tend to decentralisation in their lifetime. In this paper we focus on decentralisation in quorum-based approaches to open (permissionless) consensus as illustrated in influential protocols such as the Ripple and Stellar protocols. Drawing from game theory and computational complexity, we establish limiting results concerning the decentralisation vs. safety trade-off in Ripple and Stellar, and we propose a novel methodology to formalise and quantitatively analyse decentralisation in this type of blockchains
Metric and latticial medians
This paper presents the -linked- notions of metric and latticial medians and it explains what is the median procedure for the consensus problems, in particular in the case of the aggregation of linear orders. First we consider the medians of a v-tuple of arbitrary or particular binary relations.. Then we study in depth the difficult (in fact NP-difficult) problem of finding the median orders of a profile of linear orders. More generally, we consider the medians of v-tuples of elements of a semilattice and we describe the median semilattices, i.e. the semilattices were medians are easily computable.Ce texte présente les notions -reliées- de médianes métriques et latticielles et explique le rôle de la procédure médiane dans les problèmes de consensus, notamment dans le cas de l'agrégation d'ordres totaux.. Après avoir étudié les médianes d'un v-uple de relations binaires arbitraires ou particulières, on étudie en détail le problème -difficile (NP-difficile)- d'obtention des ordres médians d'un profil d'ordres totaux. Plus généralement on considère les médianes de v-uples d'éléments d'un demi-treillis (ou d'un treillis) et l'on décrit les demi-treillis à médianes,i.e. ceux où l'obtention des médianes est aisée
Consistency for counting quantifiers.
We apply the algebraic approach for Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) with counting quantifiers, developed by Bulatov and Hedayaty, for the first time to obtain classifications for computational complexity. We develop the consistency approach for expanding polymorphisms to deduce that, if H has an expanding majority polymorphism, then the corresponding CSP with counting quantifiers is tractable. We elaborate some applications of our result, in particular deriving a complexity classification for partially reflexive graphs endowed with all unary relations. For each such structure, either the corresponding CSP with counting quantifiers is in P, or it is NP-hard
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