On the Complexity of #CSP^d

Counting CSP^d is the counting constraint satisfaction problem (#CSP in short) restricted to the instances where every variable occurs a multiple of d times. This paper revisits tractable structures in #CSP and gives a complexity classification theorem for #CSP^d with algebraic complex weights. The result unifies affine functions (stabilizer states in quantum information theory) and related variants such as the local affine functions, the discovery of which leads to all the recent progress on the complexity of Holant problems. The Holant is a framework that generalizes counting CSP. In the literature on Holant problems, weighted constraints are often expressed as tensors (vectors) such that projections and linear transformations help analyze the structure. This paper gives an example showing that different classes of tensors distinguished by these algebraic operations may share the same closure property under tensor product and contraction

Towards a complexity theory for the congested clique

The congested clique model of distributed computing has been receiving attention as a model for densely connected distributed systems. While there has been significant progress on the side of upper bounds, we have very little in terms of lower bounds for the congested clique; indeed, it is now know that proving explicit congested clique lower bounds is as difficult as proving circuit lower bounds. In this work, we use various more traditional complexity-theoretic tools to build a clearer picture of the complexity landscape of the congested clique: -- Nondeterminism and beyond: We introduce the nondeterministic congested clique model (analogous to NP) and show that there is a natural canonical problem family that captures all problems solvable in constant time with nondeterministic algorithms. We further generalise these notions by introducing the constant-round decision hierarchy (analogous to the polynomial hierarchy). -- Non-constructive lower bounds: We lift the prior non-uniform counting arguments to a general technique for proving non-constructive uniform lower bounds for the congested clique. In particular, we prove a time hierarchy theorem for the congested clique, showing that there are decision problems of essentially all complexities, both in the deterministic and nondeterministic settings. -- Fine-grained complexity: We map out relationships between various natural problems in the congested clique model, arguing that a reduction-based complexity theory currently gives us a fairly good picture of the complexity landscape of the congested clique

String Synchronizing Sets: Sublinear-Time BWT Construction and Optimal LCE Data Structure

Burrows-Wheeler transform (BWT) is an invertible text transformation that, given a text $T$ of length $n$, permutes its symbols according to the lexicographic order of suffixes of $T$. BWT is one of the most heavily studied algorithms in data compression with numerous applications in indexing, sequence analysis, and bioinformatics. Its construction is a bottleneck in many scenarios, and settling the complexity of this task is one of the most important unsolved problems in sequence analysis that has remained open for 25 years. Given a binary string of length $n$, occupying $O(n/\log n)$ machine words, the BWT construction algorithm due to Hon et al. (SIAM J. Comput., 2009) runs in $O(n)$ time and $O(n/\log n)$ space. Recent advancements (Belazzougui, STOC 2014, and Munro et al., SODA 2017) focus on removing the alphabet-size dependency in the time complexity, but they still require $\Omega(n)$ time. In this paper, we propose the first algorithm that breaks the $O(n)$-time barrier for BWT construction. Given a binary string of length $n$, our procedure builds the Burrows-Wheeler transform in $O(n/\sqrt{\log n})$ time and $O(n/\log n)$ space. We complement this result with a conditional lower bound proving that any further progress in the time complexity of BWT construction would yield faster algorithms for the very well studied problem of counting inversions: it would improve the state-of-the-art $O(m\sqrt{\log m})$-time solution by Chan and P\v{a}tra\c{s}cu (SODA 2010). Our algorithm is based on a novel concept of string synchronizing sets, which is of independent interest. As one of the applications, we show that this technique lets us design a data structure of the optimal size $O(n/\log n)$ that answers Longest Common Extension queries (LCE queries) in $O(1)$ time and, furthermore, can be deterministically constructed in the optimal $O(n/\log n)$ time.Comment: Full version of a paper accepted to STOC 201

A closer look at the sanitation ladder: issues of monitoring the sector

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) reports progress in sanitation by looking at the use of a set of pre-defined sanitation technologies. A technology-based approach offers several advantages, but it does not effectively deal with such problems as hygienic conditions of infrastructure and equity. In this study the monitoring strategy employed by the JMP is reviewed with reference to experience in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Although findings may not accurately represent the complexity of the sanitation status worldwide, a comparison of the two cases shows that many of the issues to effective monitoring are generic. On the basis of this analysis, two recommendations are identified for further study: (i) to extend list of criteria when assessing improved sanitation by considering aspects related with hygienic condition of the latrine; and (ii) to review and validate those aspects that prevent shared latrines from counting towards improved sanitation

The parameterised complexity of counting even and odd induced subgraphs

We consider the problem of counting, in a given graph, the number of induced k-vertex subgraphs which have an even number of edges, and also the complementary problem of counting the k-vertex induced subgraphs having an odd number of edges. We demonstrate that both problems are #W[1]-hard when parameterised by k, in fact proving a somewhat stronger result about counting subgraphs with a property that only holds for some subset of k-vertex subgraphs which have an even (respectively odd) number of edges. On the other hand, we show that each of the problems admits an FPTRAS. These approximation schemes are based on a surprising structural result, which exploits ideas from Ramsey theory

Obstructions to combinatorial formulas for plethysm

Motivated by questions of Mulmuley and Stanley we investigate quasi-polynomials arising in formulas for plethysm. We demonstrate, on the examples of $S^3(S^k)$ and $S^k(S^3)$, that these need not be counting functions of inhomogeneous polytopes of dimension equal to the degree of the quasi-polynomial. It follows that these functions are not, in general, counting functions of lattice points in any scaled convex bodies, even when restricted to single rays. Our results also apply to special rectangular Kronecker coefficients.Comment: 7 pages; v2: Improved version with further reaching counterexamples; v3: final version as in Electronic Journal of Combinatoric