On the Power of Non-Adaptive Learning Graphs

We introduce a notion of the quantum query complexity of a certificate structure. This is a formalisation of a well-known observation that many quantum query algorithms only require the knowledge of the disposition of possible certificates in the input string, not the precise values therein. Next, we derive a dual formulation of the complexity of a non-adaptive learning graph, and use it to show that non-adaptive learning graphs are tight for all certificate structures. By this, we mean that there exists a function possessing the certificate structure and such that a learning graph gives an optimal quantum query algorithm for it. For a special case of certificate structures generated by certificates of bounded size, we construct a relatively general class of functions having this property. The construction is based on orthogonal arrays, and generalizes the quantum query lower bound for the $k$-sum problem derived recently in arXiv:1206.6528. Finally, we use these results to show that the learning graph for the triangle problem from arXiv:1210.1014 is almost optimal in these settings. This also gives a quantum query lower bound for the triangle-sum problem.Comment: 16 pages, 1.5 figures v2: the main result generalised for all certificate structures, a bug in the proof of Proposition 17 fixe

On the Power of Non-adaptive Learning Graphs

We introduce a notion of the quantum query complexity of a certificate structure. This is a formalization of a well-known observation that many quantum query algorithms only require the knowledge of the position of possible certificates in the input string, not the precise values therein. Next, we derive a dual formulation of the complexity of a non-adaptive learning graph and use it to show that non-adaptive learning graphs are tight for all certificate structures. By this, we mean that there exists a function possessing the certificate structure such that a learning graph gives an optimal quantum query algorithm for it. For a special case of certificate structures generated by certificates of bounded size, we construct a relatively general class of functions having this property. The construction is based on orthogonal arrays and generalizes the quantum query lower bound for the k-sum problem derived recently by Belovs and Špalek (Proceeding of 4th ACM ITCS, 323–328, 2013). Finally, we use these results to show that the learning graph for the triangle problem by Lee et al. (Proceeding of 24th ACM-SIAM SODA, 1486–1502, 2013) is almost optimal in the above settings. This also gives a quantum query lower bound for the triangle sum problem.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Scott Aaronson’s Alan T. Waterman Award

Lower Bounds on Quantum Query and Learning Graph Complexities

In this thesis we study the power of quantum query algorithms and learning graphs; the latter essentially being very specialized quantum query algorithms themselves. We almost exclusively focus on proving lower bounds for these computational models. First, we study lower bounds on learning graph complexity. We consider two types of learning graphs: adaptive and, more restricted, non-adaptive learning graphs. We express both adaptive and non-adaptive learning graph complexities of Boolean-valued functions (i.e., decision problems) as semidefinite minimization problems, and derive their dual problems. For various functions, we construct feasible solutions to these dual problems, thereby obtaining lower bounds on the learning graph complexity of the functions. Most notably, we prove an almost optimal Omega(n^(9/7)/sqrt(log n)) lower bound on the non-adaptive learning graph complexity of the Triangle problem. We also prove an Omega(n^(1-2^(k-2)/(2^k-1))) lower bound on the adaptive learning graph complexity of the k-Distinctness problem, which matches the complexity of the best known quantum query algorithm for this problem. Second, we construct optimal adversary lower bounds for various decision problems. Our main procedure for constructing them is to embed the adversary matrix into a larger matrix whose properties are easier to analyze. This embedding procedure imposes certain requirements on the size of the input alphabet. We prove optimal Omega(n^(1/3)) adversary lower bounds for the Collision and Set Equality problems, provided that the alphabet size is at least Omega(n^2). An optimal lower bound for Collision was previously proven using the polynomial method, while our lower bound for Set Equality is new. (An optimal lower bound for Set Equality was also independently and at about the same time proven by Zhandry using the polynomial method [arXiv, 2013].) We compare the power of non-adaptive learning graphs and quantum query algorithms that only utilize the knowledge on the possible positions of certificates in the input string. To do that, we introduce a notion of a certificate structure of a decision problem. Using the adversary method and the dual formulation of the learning graph complexity, we show that, for every certificate structure, there exists a decision problem possessing this certificate structure such that its non-adaptive learning graph and quantum query complexities differ by at most a constant multiplicative factor. For a special case of certificate structures, we construct a relatively general class of problems having this property. This construction generalizes the adversary lower bound for the k-Sum problem derived recently by Belovs and Spalek [ACM ITCS, 2013]. We also construct an optimal Omega(n^(2/3)) adversary lower bound for the Element Distinctness problem with minimal non-trivial alphabet size, which equals the length of the input. Due to the strict requirement on the alphabet size, here we cannot use the embedding procedure, and the construction of the adversary matrix heavily relies on the representation theory of the symmetric group. While an optimal lower bound for Element Distinctness using the polynomial method had been proven for any input alphabet, an optimal adversary construction was previously only known for alphabets of size at least Omega(n^2). Finally, we introduce the Enhanced Find-Two problem and we study its query complexity. The Enhanced Find-Two problem is, given n elements such that exactly k of them are marked, find two distinct marked elements using the following resources: (1) one initial copy of the uniform superposition over all marked elements, (2) an oracle that reflects across this superposition, and (3) an oracle that tests if an element is marked. This relational problem arises in the study of quantum proofs of knowledge. We prove that its query complexity is Theta(min{sqrt(n/k),sqrt(k)})

Adaptive Graph Signal Processing: Algorithms and Optimal Sampling Strategies

The goal of this paper is to propose novel strategies for adaptive learning of signals defined over graphs, which are observed over a (randomly time-varying) subset of vertices. We recast two classical adaptive algorithms in the graph signal processing framework, namely, the least mean squares (LMS) and the recursive least squares (RLS) adaptive estimation strategies. For both methods, a detailed mean-square analysis illustrates the effect of random sampling on the adaptive reconstruction capability and the steady-state performance. Then, several probabilistic sampling strategies are proposed to design the sampling probability at each node in the graph, with the aim of optimizing the tradeoff between steady-state performance, graph sampling rate, and convergence rate of the adaptive algorithms. Finally, a distributed RLS strategy is derived and is shown to be convergent to its centralized counterpart. Numerical simulations carried out over both synthetic and real data illustrate the good performance of the proposed sampling and reconstruction strategies for (possibly distributed) adaptive learning of signals defined over graphs.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, September 201

Distributed Adaptive Learning of Graph Signals

The aim of this paper is to propose distributed strategies for adaptive learning of signals defined over graphs. Assuming the graph signal to be bandlimited, the method enables distributed reconstruction, with guaranteed performance in terms of mean-square error, and tracking from a limited number of sampled observations taken from a subset of vertices. A detailed mean square analysis is carried out and illustrates the role played by the sampling strategy on the performance of the proposed method. Finally, some useful strategies for distributed selection of the sampling set are provided. Several numerical results validate our theoretical findings, and illustrate the performance of the proposed method for distributed adaptive learning of signals defined over graphs.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 201

Using Graph Properties to Speed-up GPU-based Graph Traversal: A Model-driven Approach

While it is well-known and acknowledged that the performance of graph algorithms is heavily dependent on the input data, there has been surprisingly little research to quantify and predict the impact the graph structure has on performance. Parallel graph algorithms, running on many-core systems such as GPUs, are no exception: most research has focused on how to efficiently implement and tune different graph operations on a specific GPU. However, the performance impact of the input graph has only been taken into account indirectly as a result of the graphs used to benchmark the system. In this work, we present a case study investigating how to use the properties of the input graph to improve the performance of the breadth-first search (BFS) graph traversal. To do so, we first study the performance variation of 15 different BFS implementations across 248 graphs. Using this performance data, we show that significant speed-up can be achieved by combining the best implementation for each level of the traversal. To make use of this data-dependent optimization, we must correctly predict the relative performance of algorithms per graph level, and enable dynamic switching to the optimal algorithm for each level at runtime. We use the collected performance data to train a binary decision tree, to enable high-accuracy predictions and fast switching. We demonstrate empirically that our decision tree is both fast enough to allow dynamic switching between implementations, without noticeable overhead, and accurate enough in its prediction to enable significant BFS speedup. We conclude that our model-driven approach (1) enables BFS to outperform state of the art GPU algorithms, and (2) can be adapted for other BFS variants, other algorithms, or more specific datasets