11,541 research outputs found
The intractability of resolution
AbstractWe prove that, for infinitely many disjunctive normal form propositional calculus tautologies ξ, the length of the shortest resolution proof of ξ cannot be bounded by any polynomial of the length of ξ. The tautologies we use were introduced by Cook and Reckhow (1979) and encode the pigeonhole principle. Extended resolution can furnish polynomial length proofs of these formulas
Appeals to evidence for the resolution of wicked problems: the origins and mechanisms of evidentiary bias
Wicked policy problems are often said to be characterized by their ‘intractability’, whereby appeals to evidence are unable to provide policy resolution. Advocates for ‘Evidence Based Policy’ (EBP) often lament these situations as representing the misuse of evidence for strategic ends, while critical policy studies authors counter that policy decisions are fundamentally about competing values, with the (blind) embrace of technical evidence depoliticizing political decisions. This paper aims to help resolve these conflicts and, in doing so, consider how to address this particular feature of problem wickedness. Specifically the paper delineates two forms of evidentiary bias that drive intractability, each of which is reflected by contrasting positions in the EBP debates: ‘technical bias’ - referring to invalid uses of evidence; and ‘issue bias’ - referring to how pieces of evidence direct policy agendas to particular concerns. Drawing on the fields of policy studies and cognitive psychology, the paper explores the ways in which competing interests and values manifest in these forms of bias, and shape evidence utilization through different mechanisms. The paper presents a conceptual framework reflecting on how the nature of policy problems in terms of their complexity, contestation, and polarization can help identify the potential origins and mechanisms of evidentiary bias leading to intractability in some wicked policy debates. The discussion reflects on whether being better informed about such mechanisms permit future work that may lead to strategies to mitigate or overcome such intractability in the future
Average-Case Complexity
We survey the average-case complexity of problems in NP.
We discuss various notions of good-on-average algorithms, and present
completeness results due to Impagliazzo and Levin. Such completeness results
establish the fact that if a certain specific (but somewhat artificial) NP
problem is easy-on-average with respect to the uniform distribution, then all
problems in NP are easy-on-average with respect to all samplable distributions.
Applying the theory to natural distributional problems remain an outstanding
open question. We review some natural distributional problems whose
average-case complexity is of particular interest and that do not yet fit into
this theory.
A major open question whether the existence of hard-on-average problems in NP
can be based on the PNP assumption or on related worst-case assumptions.
We review negative results showing that certain proof techniques cannot prove
such a result. While the relation between worst-case and average-case
complexity for general NP problems remains open, there has been progress in
understanding the relation between different ``degrees'' of average-case
complexity. We discuss some of these ``hardness amplification'' results
Revisiting Shor's quantum algorithm for computing general discrete logarithms
We heuristically demonstrate that Shor's algorithm for computing general
discrete logarithms, modified to allow the semi-classical Fourier transform to
be used with control qubit recycling, achieves a success probability of
approximately 60% to 82% in a single run. By slightly increasing the number of
group operations that are evaluated quantumly, and by performing a limited
search in the classical post-processing, we furthermore show how the algorithm
can be modified to achieve a success probability exceeding 99% in a single run.
We provide concrete heuristic estimates of the success probability of the
modified algorithm, as a function of the group order, the size of the search
space in the classical post-processing, and the additional number of group
operations evaluated quantumly. In analogy with our earlier works, we show how
the modified quantum algorithm may be simulated classically when the logarithm
and group order are both known. Furthermore, we show how slightly better
tradeoffs may be achieved, compared to our earlier works, if the group order is
known when computing the logarithm.Comment: The pre-print has been extended to show how slightly better tradeoffs
may be achieved, compared to our earlier works, if the group order is known.
A minor issue with an integration limit, that lead us to give a rough success
probability estimate of 60% to 70%, as opposed to 60% to 82%, has been
corrected. The heuristic and results reported in the original pre-print are
otherwise unaffecte
Image recognition with an adiabatic quantum computer I. Mapping to quadratic unconstrained binary optimization
Many artificial intelligence (AI) problems naturally map to NP-hard
optimization problems. This has the interesting consequence that enabling
human-level capability in machines often requires systems that can handle
formally intractable problems. This issue can sometimes (but possibly not
always) be resolved by building special-purpose heuristic algorithms, tailored
to the problem in question. Because of the continued difficulties in automating
certain tasks that are natural for humans, there remains a strong motivation
for AI researchers to investigate and apply new algorithms and techniques to
hard AI problems. Recently a novel class of relevant algorithms that require
quantum mechanical hardware have been proposed. These algorithms, referred to
as quantum adiabatic algorithms, represent a new approach to designing both
complete and heuristic solvers for NP-hard optimization problems. In this work
we describe how to formulate image recognition, which is a canonical NP-hard AI
problem, as a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problem. The
QUBO format corresponds to the input format required for D-Wave superconducting
adiabatic quantum computing (AQC) processors.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
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