1,379 research outputs found
Short proofs on the matching polyhedron
AbstractA short proof of Edmonds' matching polyhedron theorem and the total dual integrality of the associated system of linear inequalities, proved first by W. H. Cunningham and A. B. Marsh (Math. Programming Stud. 8 (1978), 50–72), is given
Mathematical practice, crowdsourcing, and social machines
The highest level of mathematics has traditionally been seen as a solitary
endeavour, to produce a proof for review and acceptance by research peers.
Mathematics is now at a remarkable inflexion point, with new technology
radically extending the power and limits of individuals. Crowdsourcing pulls
together diverse experts to solve problems; symbolic computation tackles huge
routine calculations; and computers check proofs too long and complicated for
humans to comprehend.
Mathematical practice is an emerging interdisciplinary field which draws on
philosophy and social science to understand how mathematics is produced. Online
mathematical activity provides a novel and rich source of data for empirical
investigation of mathematical practice - for example the community question
answering system {\it mathoverflow} contains around 40,000 mathematical
conversations, and {\it polymath} collaborations provide transcripts of the
process of discovering proofs. Our preliminary investigations have demonstrated
the importance of "soft" aspects such as analogy and creativity, alongside
deduction and proof, in the production of mathematics, and have given us new
ways to think about the roles of people and machines in creating new
mathematical knowledge. We discuss further investigation of these resources and
what it might reveal.
Crowdsourced mathematical activity is an example of a "social machine", a new
paradigm, identified by Berners-Lee, for viewing a combination of people and
computers as a single problem-solving entity, and the subject of major
international research endeavours. We outline a future research agenda for
mathematics social machines, a combination of people, computers, and
mathematical archives to create and apply mathematics, with the potential to
change the way people do mathematics, and to transform the reach, pace, and
impact of mathematics research.Comment: To appear, Springer LNCS, Proceedings of Conferences on Intelligent
Computer Mathematics, CICM 2013, July 2013 Bath, U
Lifting Linear Extension Complexity Bounds to the Mixed-Integer Setting
Mixed-integer mathematical programs are among the most commonly used models
for a wide set of problems in Operations Research and related fields. However,
there is still very little known about what can be expressed by small
mixed-integer programs. In particular, prior to this work, it was open whether
some classical problems, like the minimum odd-cut problem, can be expressed by
a compact mixed-integer program with few (even constantly many) integer
variables. This is in stark contrast to linear formulations, where recent
breakthroughs in the field of extended formulations have shown that many
polytopes associated to classical combinatorial optimization problems do not
even admit approximate extended formulations of sub-exponential size.
We provide a general framework for lifting inapproximability results of
extended formulations to the setting of mixed-integer extended formulations,
and obtain almost tight lower bounds on the number of integer variables needed
to describe a variety of classical combinatorial optimization problems. Among
the implications we obtain, we show that any mixed-integer extended formulation
of sub-exponential size for the matching polytope, cut polytope, traveling
salesman polytope or dominant of the odd-cut polytope, needs many integer variables, where is the number of vertices of the
underlying graph. Conversely, the above-mentioned polyhedra admit
polynomial-size mixed-integer formulations with only or (for the traveling salesman polytope) many integer variables.
Our results build upon a new decomposition technique that, for any convex set
, allows for approximating any mixed-integer description of by the
intersection of with the union of a small number of affine subspaces.Comment: A conference version of this paper will be presented at SODA 201
On Multiphase-Linear Ranking Functions
Multiphase ranking functions () were proposed as a means
to prove the termination of a loop in which the computation progresses through
a number of "phases", and the progress of each phase is described by a
different linear ranking function. Our work provides new insights regarding
such functions for loops described by a conjunction of linear constraints
(single-path loops). We provide a complete polynomial-time solution to the
problem of existence and of synthesis of of bounded depth
(number of phases), when variables range over rational or real numbers; a
complete solution for the (harder) case that variables are integer, with a
matching lower-bound proof, showing that the problem is coNP-complete; and a
new theorem which bounds the number of iterations for loops with
. Surprisingly, the bound is linear, even when the
variables involved change in non-linear way. We also consider a type of
lexicographic ranking functions, , more expressive than types
of lexicographic functions for which complete solutions have been given so far.
We prove that for the above type of loops, lexicographic functions can be
reduced to , and thus the questions of complexity of
detection and synthesis, and of resulting iteration bounds, are also answered
for this class.Comment: typos correcte
The Salesman's Improved Tours for Fundamental Classes
Finding the exact integrality gap for the LP relaxation of the
metric Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) has been an open problem for over
thirty years, with little progress made. It is known that , and a famous conjecture states . For this problem,
essentially two "fundamental" classes of instances have been proposed. This
fundamental property means that in order to show that the integrality gap is at
most for all instances of metric TSP, it is sufficient to show it only
for the instances in the fundamental class. However, despite the importance and
the simplicity of such classes, no apparent effort has been deployed for
improving the integrality gap bounds for them. In this paper we take a natural
first step in this endeavour, and consider the -integer points of one such
class. We successfully improve the upper bound for the integrality gap from
to for a superclass of these points, as well as prove a lower
bound of for the superclass. Our methods involve innovative applications
of tools from combinatorial optimization which have the potential to be more
broadly applied
Symmetry Matters for Sizes of Extended Formulations
In 1991, Yannakakis (J. Comput. System Sci., 1991) proved that no symmetric
extended formulation for the matching polytope of the complete graph K_n with n
nodes has a number of variables and constraints that is bounded
subexponentially in n. Here, symmetric means that the formulation remains
invariant under all permutations of the nodes of K_n. It was also conjectured
in the paper mentioned above that "asymmetry does not help much," but no
corresponding result for general extended formulations has been found so far.
In this paper we show that for the polytopes associated with the matchings in
K_n with log(n) (rounded down) edges there are non-symmetric extended
formulations of polynomial size, while nevertheless no symmetric extended
formulations of polynomial size exist. We furthermore prove similar statements
for the polytopes associated with cycles of length log(n) (rounded down). Thus,
with respect to the question for smallest possible extended formulations, in
general symmetry requirements may matter a lot. Compared to the extended
abtract that has appeared in the Proceedings of IPCO XIV at Lausanne, this
paper does not only contain proofs that had been ommitted there, but it also
presents slightly generalized and sharpened lower bounds.Comment: 24 pages; incorporated referees' comments; to appear in: SIAM Journal
on Discrete Mathematic
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