112,756 research outputs found
Algebraic and Combinatorial Methods in Computational Complexity
Computational Complexity is concerned with the resources that are required for algorithms to detect properties of combinatorial objects and structures. It has often proven true that the best way to argue about these combinatorial objects is by establishing a connection (perhaps approximate) to a more well-behaved algebraic setting. Indeed, many of the deepest and most powerful results in Computational Complexity rely on algebraic proof techniques. The Razborov-Smolensky polynomial-approximation method for proving constant-depth circuit lower bounds, the PCP characterization of NP, and the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena polynomial-time primality test are some of the most prominent examples. The algebraic theme continues in some of the most exciting recent progress in computational complexity. There have been significant recent advances in algebraic circuit lower bounds, and the so-called chasm at depth 4 suggests that the restricted models now being considered are not so far from ones that would lead to a general result. There have been similar successes concerning the related problems of polynomial identity testing and circuit reconstruction in the algebraic model (and these are tied to central questions regarding the power of randomness in computation). Another surprising connection is that the algebraic techniques invented to show lower bounds now prove useful to develop efficient algorithms. For example, Williams showed how to use the polynomial method to obtain faster all-pair-shortest-path algorithms. This emphases once again the central role of algebra in computer science. The seminar aims to capitalize on recent progress and bring together researchers who are using a diverse array of algebraic methods in a variety of settings. Researchers in these areas are relying on ever more sophisticated and specialized mathematics and this seminar can play an important role in educating a diverse community about the latest new techniques, spurring further progress
Lower Bounds for the Average and Smoothed Number of Pareto Optima
Smoothed analysis of multiobjective 0-1 linear optimization has drawn
considerable attention recently. The number of Pareto-optimal solutions (i.e.,
solutions with the property that no other solution is at least as good in all
the coordinates and better in at least one) for multiobjective optimization
problems is the central object of study. In this paper, we prove several lower
bounds for the expected number of Pareto optima. Our basic result is a lower
bound of \Omega_d(n^(d-1)) for optimization problems with d objectives and n
variables under fairly general conditions on the distributions of the linear
objectives. Our proof relates the problem of lower bounding the number of
Pareto optima to results in geometry connected to arrangements of hyperplanes.
We use our basic result to derive (1) To our knowledge, the first lower bound
for natural multiobjective optimization problems. We illustrate this for the
maximum spanning tree problem with randomly chosen edge weights. Our technique
is sufficiently flexible to yield such lower bounds for other standard
objective functions studied in this setting (such as, multiobjective shortest
path, TSP tour, matching). (2) Smoothed lower bound of min {\Omega_d(n^(d-1.5)
\phi^{(d-log d) (1-\Theta(1/\phi))}), 2^{\Theta(n)}}$ for the 0-1 knapsack
problem with d profits for phi-semirandom distributions for a version of the
knapsack problem. This improves the recent lower bound of Brunsch and Roeglin
Ptolemaic Indexing
This paper discusses a new family of bounds for use in similarity search,
related to those used in metric indexing, but based on Ptolemy's inequality,
rather than the metric axioms. Ptolemy's inequality holds for the well-known
Euclidean distance, but is also shown here to hold for quadratic form metrics
in general, with Mahalanobis distance as an important special case. The
inequality is examined empirically on both synthetic and real-world data sets
and is also found to hold approximately, with a very low degree of error, for
important distances such as the angular pseudometric and several Lp norms.
Indexing experiments demonstrate a highly increased filtering power compared to
existing, triangular methods. It is also shown that combining the Ptolemaic and
triangular filtering can lead to better results than using either approach on
its own
Polynomial Kernels for Weighted Problems
Kernelization is a formalization of efficient preprocessing for NP-hard
problems using the framework of parameterized complexity. Among open problems
in kernelization it has been asked many times whether there are deterministic
polynomial kernelizations for Subset Sum and Knapsack when parameterized by the
number of items.
We answer both questions affirmatively by using an algorithm for compressing
numbers due to Frank and Tardos (Combinatorica 1987). This result had been
first used by Marx and V\'egh (ICALP 2013) in the context of kernelization. We
further illustrate its applicability by giving polynomial kernels also for
weighted versions of several well-studied parameterized problems. Furthermore,
when parameterized by the different item sizes we obtain a polynomial
kernelization for Subset Sum and an exponential kernelization for Knapsack.
Finally, we also obtain kernelization results for polynomial integer programs
Minimum Makespan Multi-vehicle Dial-a-Ride
Dial a ride problems consist of a metric space (denoting travel time between
vertices) and a set of m objects represented as source-destination pairs, where
each object requires to be moved from its source to destination vertex. We
consider the multi-vehicle Dial a ride problem, with each vehicle having
capacity k and its own depot-vertex, where the objective is to minimize the
maximum completion time (makespan) of the vehicles. We study the "preemptive"
version of the problem, where an object may be left at intermediate vertices
and transported by more than one vehicle, while being moved from source to
destination. Our main results are an O(log^3 n)-approximation algorithm for
preemptive multi-vehicle Dial a ride, and an improved O(log t)-approximation
for its special case when there is no capacity constraint. We also show that
the approximation ratios improve by a log-factor when the underlying metric is
induced by a fixed-minor-free graph.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure. Preliminary version appeared in ESA 200
Combinatorial limitations of average-radius list-decoding
We study certain combinatorial aspects of list-decoding, motivated by the
exponential gap between the known upper bound (of ) and lower
bound (of ) for the list-size needed to decode up to
radius with rate away from capacity, i.e., 1-\h(p)-\gamma (here
and ). Our main result is the following:
We prove that in any binary code of rate
1-\h(p)-\gamma, there must exist a set of
codewords such that the average distance of the
points in from their centroid is at most . In other words,
there must exist codewords with low "average
radius." The standard notion of list-decoding corresponds to working with the
maximum distance of a collection of codewords from a center instead of average
distance. The average-radius form is in itself quite natural and is implied by
the classical Johnson bound.
The remaining results concern the standard notion of list-decoding, and help
clarify the combinatorial landscape of list-decoding:
1. We give a short simple proof, over all fixed alphabets, of the
above-mentioned lower bound. Earlier, this bound
followed from a complicated, more general result of Blinovsky.
2. We show that one {\em cannot} improve the
lower bound via techniques based on identifying the zero-rate regime for list
decoding of constant-weight codes.
3. We show a "reverse connection" showing that constant-weight codes for list
decoding imply general codes for list decoding with higher rate.
4. We give simple second moment based proofs of tight (up to constant
factors) lower bounds on the list-size needed for list decoding random codes
and random linear codes from errors as well as erasures.Comment: 28 pages. Extended abstract in RANDOM 201
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