361 research outputs found
Sharp Thresholds for Monotone Non Boolean Functions and Social Choice Theory
A key fact in the theory of Boolean functions is
that they often undergo sharp thresholds. For example: if the function is monotone and symmetric under a transitive action with
\E_p[f] = \eps and \E_q[f] = 1-\eps then as .
Here \E_p denotes the product probability measure on where each
coordinate takes the value independently with probability . The fact
that symmetric functions undergo sharp thresholds is important in the study of
random graphs and constraint satisfaction problems as well as in social
choice.In this paper we prove sharp thresholds for monotone functions taking
values in an arbitrary finite sets. We also provide examples of applications of
the results to social choice and to random graph problems. Among the
applications is an analog for Condorcet's jury theorem and an indeterminacy
result for a large class of social choice functions
A stability result for the cube edge isoperimetric inequality
We prove the following stability version of the edge isoperimetric inequality
for the cube: any subset of the cube with average boundary degree within of
the minimum possible is -close to a union of disjoint cubes,
where is independent of the dimension. This extends
a stability result of Ellis, and can viewed as a dimension-free version of
Friedgut's junta theorem.Comment: 12 page
Probabilistic and analytic aspects of Boolean functions
This thesis will focus on the study of Boolean functions. In point of fact, they can be represented with a Fourier expansion and many of the definitions and results for these functions can be rewritten in terms of the Fourier coefficients. The definition of Boolean functions is simple, this implies that they have a natural interpretation and hence have applications in many areas of scientific research. Specifically, in this thesis we will see applications in Social Choice Theory, Theoretical Computer Science and Combinatorics. For the first area, we will see and prove with Fourier analysis Arrow's theorem and KKL theorem in order to show that it is not possible to define a perfect voting election system from an ethical standpoint. Additionally, we will translate the proof presented by Arrow for his own theorem in terms of mathematical language. The work for the second application will follow the steps to prove Sensitivity Conjecture which, although it has remained unsolved for 30 years, Huang has presented a brilliant short proof in a paper published at Annals of Mathematics very recently (2019). For the last area we will present the strange phenomena of thresholds in Random Graph properties and we will show Margulis-Russo Formula to study this event in terms of Boolean functions Fourier analysis
Majority Dynamics and Aggregation of Information in Social Networks
Consider n individuals who, by popular vote, choose among q >= 2
alternatives, one of which is "better" than the others. Assume that each
individual votes independently at random, and that the probability of voting
for the better alternative is larger than the probability of voting for any
other. It follows from the law of large numbers that a plurality vote among the
n individuals would result in the correct outcome, with probability approaching
one exponentially quickly as n tends to infinity. Our interest in this paper is
in a variant of the process above where, after forming their initial opinions,
the voters update their decisions based on some interaction with their
neighbors in a social network. Our main example is "majority dynamics", in
which each voter adopts the most popular opinion among its friends. The
interaction repeats for some number of rounds and is then followed by a
population-wide plurality vote.
The question we tackle is that of "efficient aggregation of information": in
which cases is the better alternative chosen with probability approaching one
as n tends to infinity? Conversely, for which sequences of growing graphs does
aggregation fail, so that the wrong alternative gets chosen with probability
bounded away from zero? We construct a family of examples in which interaction
prevents efficient aggregation of information, and give a condition on the
social network which ensures that aggregation occurs. For the case of majority
dynamics we also investigate the question of unanimity in the limit. In
particular, if the voters' social network is an expander graph, we show that if
the initial population is sufficiently biased towards a particular alternative
then that alternative will eventually become the unanimous preference of the
entire population.Comment: 22 page
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