3,376 research outputs found
Sharpened lower bounds for cut elimination
We present sharpened lower bounds on the size of cut free proofs for first-order logic. Prior lower bounds for eliminating cuts from a proof established superexponential lower bounds as a stack of exponentials, with the height of the stack proportional to the maximum depth d of the formulas in the original proof. Our new lower bounds remove the constant of proportionality, giving an exponential stack of height equal to d − O(1). The proof method is based on more efficiently expressing the Gentzen-Solovay cut formulas as low depth formulas
On the convergence of reduction-based and model-based methods in proof theory
In the recent past, the reduction-based and the model-based methods to prove
cut elimination have converged, so that they now appear just as two sides of
the same coin. This paper details some of the steps of this transformation
A new exact algorithm for the multi-depot vehicle routing problem under capacity and route length constraints
This article presents an exact algorithm for the multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP) under capacity and route length constraints. The MDVRP is formulated using a vehicle-flow and a set-partitioning formulation, both of which are exploited at different stages of the algorithm. The lower bound computed with the vehicle-flow formulation is used to eliminate non-promising edges, thus reducing the complexity of the pricing subproblem used to solve the set-partitioning formulation. Several classes of valid inequalities are added to strengthen both formulations, including a new family of valid inequalities used to forbid cycles of an arbitrary length. To validate our approach, we also consider the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) as a particular case of the MDVRP, and conduct extensive computational experiments on several instances from the literature to show its effectiveness. The computational results show that the proposed algorithm is competitive against stateof-the-art methods for these two classes of vehicle routing problems, and is able to solve to optimality some previously open instances. Moreover, for the instances that cannot be solved by the proposed algorithm, the final lower bounds prove stronger than those obtained by earlier methods
The Multivariate Resultant is NP-hard in any Characteristic
The multivariate resultant is a fundamental tool of computational algebraic
geometry. It can in particular be used to decide whether a system of n
homogeneous equations in n variables is satisfiable (the resultant is a
polynomial in the system's coefficients which vanishes if and only if the
system is satisfiable). In this paper we present several NP-hardness results
for testing whether a multivariate resultant vanishes, or equivalently for
deciding whether a square system of homogeneous equations is satisfiable. Our
main result is that testing the resultant for zero is NP-hard under
deterministic reductions in any characteristic, for systems of low-degree
polynomials with coefficients in the ground field (rather than in an
extension). We also observe that in characteristic zero, this problem is in the
Arthur-Merlin class AM if the generalized Riemann hypothesis holds true. In
positive characteristic, the best upper bound remains PSPACE.Comment: 13 page
User-friendly tail bounds for sums of random matrices
This paper presents new probability inequalities for sums of independent,
random, self-adjoint matrices. These results place simple and easily verifiable
hypotheses on the summands, and they deliver strong conclusions about the
large-deviation behavior of the maximum eigenvalue of the sum. Tail bounds for
the norm of a sum of random rectangular matrices follow as an immediate
corollary. The proof techniques also yield some information about matrix-valued
martingales.
In other words, this paper provides noncommutative generalizations of the
classical bounds associated with the names Azuma, Bennett, Bernstein, Chernoff,
Hoeffding, and McDiarmid. The matrix inequalities promise the same diversity of
application, ease of use, and strength of conclusion that have made the scalar
inequalities so valuable.Comment: Current paper is the version of record. The material on Freedman's
inequality has been moved to a separate note; other martingale bounds are
described in Caltech ACM Report 2011-0
The computational complexity of convex bodies
We discuss how well a given convex body B in a real d-dimensional vector
space V can be approximated by a set X for which the membership question:
``given an x in V, does x belong to X?'' can be answered efficiently (in time
polynomial in d). We discuss approximations of a convex body by an ellipsoid,
by an algebraic hypersurface, by a projection of a polytope with a controlled
number of facets, and by a section of the cone of positive semidefinite
quadratic forms. We illustrate some of the results on the Traveling Salesman
Polytope, an example of a complicated convex body studied in combinatorial
optimization.Comment: 24 page
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