Achieving New Upper Bounds for the Hypergraph Duality Problem through Logic

The hypergraph duality problem DUAL is defined as follows: given two simple hypergraphs $\mathcal{G}$ and $\mathcal{H}$, decide whether $\mathcal{H}$ consists precisely of all minimal transversals of $\mathcal{G}$ (in which case we say that $\mathcal{G}$ is the dual of $\mathcal{H}$). This problem is equivalent to deciding whether two given non-redundant monotone DNFs are dual. It is known that non-DUAL, the complementary problem to DUAL, is in $\mathrm{GC}(\log^2 n,\mathrm{PTIME})$, where $\mathrm{GC}(f(n),\mathcal{C})$ denotes the complexity class of all problems that after a nondeterministic guess of $O(f(n))$ bits can be decided (checked) within complexity class $\mathcal{C}$. It was conjectured that non-DUAL is in $\mathrm{GC}(\log^2 n,\mathrm{LOGSPACE})$. In this paper we prove this conjecture and actually place the non-DUAL problem into the complexity class $\mathrm{GC}(\log^2 n,\mathrm{TC}^0)$ which is a subclass of $\mathrm{GC}(\log^2 n,\mathrm{LOGSPACE})$. We here refer to the logtime-uniform version of $\mathrm{TC}^0$, which corresponds to $\mathrm{FO(COUNT)}$, i.e., first order logic augmented by counting quantifiers. We achieve the latter bound in two steps. First, based on existing problem decomposition methods, we develop a new nondeterministic algorithm for non-DUAL that requires to guess $O(\log^2 n)$ bits. We then proceed by a logical analysis of this algorithm, allowing us to formulate its deterministic part in $\mathrm{FO(COUNT)}$. From this result, by the well known inclusion $\mathrm{TC}^0\subseteq\mathrm{LOGSPACE}$, it follows that DUAL belongs also to $\mathrm{DSPACE}[\log^2 n]$. Finally, by exploiting the principles on which the proposed nondeterministic algorithm is based, we devise a deterministic algorithm that, given two hypergraphs $\mathcal{G}$ and $\mathcal{H}$, computes in quadratic logspace a transversal of $\mathcal{G}$ missing in $\mathcal{H}$.Comment: Restructured the presentation in order to be the extended version of a paper that will shortly appear in SIAM Journal on Computin

Enriched Stone-type dualities

A common feature of many duality results is that the involved equivalence functors are liftings of hom-functors into the two-element space resp. lattice. Due to this fact, we can only expect dualities for categories cogenerated by the two-element set with an appropriate structure. A prime example of such a situation is Stone's duality theorem for Boolean algebras and Boolean spaces,the latter being precisely those compact Hausdorff spaces which are cogenerated by the two-element discrete space. In this paper we aim for a systematic way of extending this duality theorem to categories including all compact Hausdorff spaces. To achieve this goal, we combine duality theory and quantale-enriched category theory. Our main idea is that, when passing from the two-element discrete space to a cogenerator of the category of compact Hausdorff spaces, all other involved structures should be substituted by corresponding enriched versions. Accordingly, we work with the unit interval $[0,1]$ and present duality theory for ordered and metric compact Hausdorff spaces and (suitably defined) finitely cocomplete categories enriched in $[0,1]$

Enriched Stone-type dualities

A common feature of many duality results is that the involved equivalence functors are liftings of hom-functors into the two-element space resp. lattice. Due to this fact, we can only expect dualities for categories cogenerated by the two-element set with an appropriate structure. A prime example of such a situation is Stone's duality theorem for Boolean algebras and Boolean spaces, the latter being precisely those compact Hausdorff spaces which are cogenerated by the two-element discrete space. In this paper we aim for a systematic way of extending this duality theorem to categories including all compact Hausdorff spaces. To achieve this goal, we combine duality theory and quantale-enriched category theory. Our main idea is that, when passing from the two-element discrete space to a cogenerator of the category of compact Hausdorff spaces, all other involved structures should be substituted by corresponding enriched versions. Accordingly, we work with the unit interval [0, 1] and present duality theory for ordered and metric compact Hausdorff spaces and (suitably defined) finitely cocomplete categories enriched in [0, 1].publishe

The Singular Value Decomposition over Completed Idempotent Semifields

In this paper, we provide a basic technique for Lattice Computing: an analogue of the Singular Value Decomposition for rectangular matrices over complete idempotent semifields (i-SVD). These algebras are already complete lattices and many of their instances—the complete schedule algebra or completed max-plus semifield, the tropical algebra, and the max-times algebra—are useful in a range of applications, e.g., morphological processing. We further the task of eliciting the relation between i-SVD and the extension of Formal Concept Analysis to complete idempotent semifields (K-FCA) started in a prior work. We find out that for a matrix with entries considered in a complete idempotent semifield, the Galois connection at the heart of K-FCA provides two basis of left- and right-singular vectors to choose from, for reconstructing the matrix. These are join-dense or meet-dense sets of object or attribute concepts of the concept lattice created by the connection, and they are almost surely not pairwise orthogonal. We conclude with an attempt analogue of the fundamental theorem of linear algebra that gathers all results and discuss it in the wider setting of matrix factorization.This research was funded by the Spanish Government-MinECo project TEC2017-84395-P and the Dept. of Research and Innovation of Madrid Regional Authority project EMPATIA-CM (Y2018/TCS-5046)

Data mining and knowledge discovery: a guided approach base on monotone boolean functions

This dissertation deals with an important problem in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (DM & KD), and Information Technology (IT) in general. It addresses the problem of efficiently learning monotone Boolean functions via membership queries to oracles. The monotone Boolean function can be thought of as a phenomenon, such as breast cancer or a computer crash, together with a set of predictor variables. The oracle can be thought of as an entity that knows the underlying monotone Boolean function, and provides a Boolean response to each query. In practice, it may take the shape of a human expert, or it may be the outcome of performing tasks such as running experiments or searching large databases. Monotone Boolean functions have a general knowledge representation power and are inherently frequent in applications. A key goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate the wide spectrum of important real-life applications that can be analyzed by using the new proposed computational approaches. The applications of breast cancer diagnosis, computer crashing, college acceptance policies, and record linkage in databases are here used to demonstrate this point and illustrate the algorithmic details. Monotone Boolean functions have the added benefit of being intuitive. This property is perhaps the most important in learning environments, especially when human interaction is involved, since people tend to make better use of knowledge they can easily interpret, understand, validate, and remember. The main goal of this dissertation is to design new algorithms that can minimize the average number of queries used to completely reconstruct monotone Boolean functions defined on a finite set of vectors V = {0,1}^n. The optimal query selections are found via a recursive algorithm in exponential time (in the size of V). The optimality conditions are then summarized in the simple form of evaluative criteria, which are near optimal and only take polynomial time to compute. Extensive unbiased empirical results show that the evaluative criterion approach is far superior to any of the existing methods. In fact, the reduction in average number of queries increases exponentially with the number of variables n, and faster than exponentially with the oracle\u27s error rate

Boundary Algebra: A Simple Notation for Boolean Algebra and the Truth Functors

Boundary algebra [BA] is a simpler notation for Spencer-Brown’s (1969) primary algebra [pa], the Boolean algebra 2, and the truth functors. The primary arithmetic [PA] consists of the atoms ‘()’ and the blank page, concatenation, and enclosure between ‘(‘ and ‘)’, denoting the primitive notion of distinction. Inserting letters denoting the presence or absence of () into a PA formula yields a BA formula. The BA axioms are "()()=()" (A1), and "(()) [=?] may be written or erased at will” (A2). Repeated application of these axioms to a PA formula yields a member of B= {(),?} called its simplification. (a) has two intended interpretations: (a) ? a? (Boolean algebra 2), and (a) ? ~a (sentential logic). BA is self-dual: () ? 1 [dually 0] so that B is the carrier for 2, ab ? a?b [a?b], and (a)b [(a(b))] ? a=b, so that ?=() [()=?] follows trivially and B is a poset. The BA basis abc= bca (Dilworth 1938), a(ab)= a(b), and a()=() (Bricken 2002) facilitates clausal reasoning and proof by calculation. BA also simplifies normal forms and Quine’s (1982) truth value analysis. () ? true [false] yields boundary logic.G. Spencer Brown; boundary algebra; boundary logic; primary algebra; primary arithmetic; Boolean algebra; calculation proof; C.S. Peirce; existential graphs.