6,595 research outputs found
On the hardness of learning sparse parities
This work investigates the hardness of computing sparse solutions to systems
of linear equations over F_2. Consider the k-EvenSet problem: given a
homogeneous system of linear equations over F_2 on n variables, decide if there
exists a nonzero solution of Hamming weight at most k (i.e. a k-sparse
solution). While there is a simple O(n^{k/2})-time algorithm for it,
establishing fixed parameter intractability for k-EvenSet has been a notorious
open problem. Towards this goal, we show that unless k-Clique can be solved in
n^{o(k)} time, k-EvenSet has no poly(n)2^{o(sqrt{k})} time algorithm and no
polynomial time algorithm when k = (log n)^{2+eta} for any eta > 0.
Our work also shows that the non-homogeneous generalization of the problem --
which we call k-VectorSum -- is W[1]-hard on instances where the number of
equations is O(k log n), improving on previous reductions which produced
Omega(n) equations. We also show that for any constant eps > 0, given a system
of O(exp(O(k))log n) linear equations, it is W[1]-hard to decide if there is a
k-sparse linear form satisfying all the equations or if every function on at
most k-variables (k-junta) satisfies at most (1/2 + eps)-fraction of the
equations. In the setting of computational learning, this shows hardness of
approximate non-proper learning of k-parities. In a similar vein, we use the
hardness of k-EvenSet to show that that for any constant d, unless k-Clique can
be solved in n^{o(k)} time there is no poly(m, n)2^{o(sqrt{k}) time algorithm
to decide whether a given set of m points in F_2^n satisfies: (i) there exists
a non-trivial k-sparse homogeneous linear form evaluating to 0 on all the
points, or (ii) any non-trivial degree d polynomial P supported on at most k
variables evaluates to zero on approx. Pr_{F_2^n}[P(z) = 0] fraction of the
points i.e., P is fooled by the set of points
Agnostic Learning of Disjunctions on Symmetric Distributions
We consider the problem of approximating and learning disjunctions (or
equivalently, conjunctions) on symmetric distributions over .
Symmetric distributions are distributions whose PDF is invariant under any
permutation of the variables. We give a simple proof that for every symmetric
distribution , there exists a set of
functions , such that for every disjunction , there is function
, expressible as a linear combination of functions in , such
that -approximates in distance on or
. This directly
gives an agnostic learning algorithm for disjunctions on symmetric
distributions that runs in time . The best known
previous bound is and follows from approximation of the
more general class of halfspaces (Wimmer, 2010). We also show that there exists
a symmetric distribution , such that the minimum degree of a
polynomial that -approximates the disjunction of all variables is
distance on is . Therefore the
learning result above cannot be achieved via -regression with a
polynomial basis used in most other agnostic learning algorithms.
Our technique also gives a simple proof that for any product distribution
and every disjunction , there exists a polynomial of
degree such that -approximates in
distance on . This was first proved by Blais et al.
(2008) via a more involved argument
Sub-linear Upper Bounds on Fourier dimension of Boolean Functions in terms of Fourier sparsity
We prove that the Fourier dimension of any Boolean function with Fourier
sparsity is at most . Our proof method yields an
improved bound of assuming a conjecture of
Tsang~\etal~\cite{tsang}, that for every Boolean function of sparsity there
is an affine subspace of of co-dimension O(\poly\log s)
restricted to which the function is constant. This conjectured bound is tight
upto poly-logarithmic factors as the Fourier dimension and sparsity of the
address function are quadratically separated. We obtain these bounds by
observing that the Fourier dimension of a Boolean function is equivalent to its
non-adaptive parity decision tree complexity, and then bounding the latter
Tailoring a coherent control solution landscape by linear transforms of spectral phase basis
Finding an optimal phase pattern in a multidimensional solution landscape becomes easier and faster if local optima are suppressed and contour lines are tailored towards closed convex patterns. Using wideband second harmonic generation as a coherent control test case, we show that a linear combination of spectral phase basis functions can result in such improvements and also in separable phase terms, each of which can be found independently. The improved shapes are attributed to a suppressed nonlinear shear, changing the relative orientation of contour lines. The first order approximation of the process shows a simple relation between input and output phase profiles, useful for pulse shaping at ultraviolet wavelengths
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