80 research outputs found
The Niceness of Unique Sink Orientations
Random Edge is the most natural randomized pivot rule for the simplex
algorithm. Considerable progress has been made recently towards fully
understanding its behavior. Back in 2001, Welzl introduced the concepts of
\emph{reachmaps} and \emph{niceness} of Unique Sink Orientations (USO), in an
effort to better understand the behavior of Random Edge. In this paper, we
initiate the systematic study of these concepts. We settle the questions that
were asked by Welzl about the niceness of (acyclic) USO. Niceness implies
natural upper bounds for Random Edge and we provide evidence that these are
tight or almost tight in many interesting cases. Moreover, we show that Random
Edge is polynomial on at least many (possibly cyclic) USO. As
a bonus, we describe a derandomization of Random Edge which achieves the same
asymptotic upper bounds with respect to niceness and discuss some algorithmic
properties of the reachmap.Comment: An extended abstract appears in the proceedings of Approx/Random 201
The Niceness of Unique Sink Orientations
Random Edge is the most natural randomized pivot rule for the simplex algorithm. Considerable progress has been made recently towards fully understanding its behavior. Back in 2001, Welzl introduced the concepts of reachmaps and niceness of Unique Sink Orientations (USO), in an effort to better understand the behavior of Random Edge. In this paper, we initiate the systematic study of these concepts. We settle the questions that were asked by Welzl about the niceness of (acyclic) USO. Niceness implies natural upper bounds for Random Edge and we provide evidence that these are tight or almost tight in many interesting cases. Moreover, we show that Random Edge is polynomial on at least n^{Omega(2^n)} many (possibly cyclic) USO. As a bonus, we describe a derandomization of Random Edge which achieves the same asymptotic upper bounds with respect to niceness
Three Puzzles on Mathematics, Computation, and Games
In this lecture I will talk about three mathematical puzzles involving
mathematics and computation that have preoccupied me over the years. The first
puzzle is to understand the amazing success of the simplex algorithm for linear
programming. The second puzzle is about errors made when votes are counted
during elections. The third puzzle is: are quantum computers possible?Comment: ICM 2018 plenary lecture, Rio de Janeiro, 36 pages, 7 Figure
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