Related papers: Minimum Entropy Orientations
We survey recent results on combinatorial optimization problems in which the objective function is the entropy of a discrete distribution. These include the minimum entropy set cover, minimum entropy orientation, and minimum entropy…
For the minimum cardinality vertex cover and maximum cardinality matching problems, the max-product form of belief propagation (BP) is known to perform poorly on general graphs. In this paper, we present an iterative loopy annealing BP…
We revisit the well-known problem of sorting under partial information: sort a finite set given the outcomes of comparisons between some pairs of elements. The input is a partially ordered set P, and solving the problem amounts to…
We prove essentially tight lower bounds, conditionally to the Exponential Time Hypothesis, for two fundamental but seemingly very different cutting problems on surface-embedded graphs: the Shortest Cut Graph problem and the Multiway Cut…
We propose practical algorithms for entrywise $\ell_p$-norm low-rank approximation, for $p = 1$ or $p = \infty$. The proposed framework, which is non-convex and gradient-based, is easy to implement and typically attains better…
We address a version of the set-cover problem where we do not know the sets initially (and hence referred to as covert) but we can query an element to find out which sets contain this element as well as query a set to know the elements. We…
We consider the general problem of finding the minimum weight $\bm$-matching on arbitrary graphs. We prove that, whenever the linear programming (LP) relaxation of the problem has no fractional solutions, then the belief propagation (BP)…
Minimizing the weight of an edge set satisfying parity constraints is a challenging branch of combinatorial optimization as witnessed by the binary hypergraph chapter of Alexander Schrijver's book ``Combinatorial Optimization" (Chapter 80).…
Fine-grained reductions have established equivalences between many core problems with $\tilde{O}(n^3)$-time algorithms on $n$-node weighted graphs, such as Shortest Cycle, All-Pairs Shortest Paths (APSP), Radius, Replacement Paths, Second…
We consider the Minimum Coverage Kernel problem: given a set $B$ of $d$-dimensional boxes, find a subset of $B$ of minimum size covering the same region as $B$. This problem is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard, but as for many $\mathsf{NP}$-hard problems…
In the minimum planarization problem, given some $n$-vertex graph, the goal is to find a set of vertices of minimum cardinality whose removal leaves a planar graph. This is a fundamental problem in topological graph theory. We present a…
In a series of papers, Avraham, Filtser, Kaplan, Katz, and Sharir (SoCG'14), Kaplan, Katz, Saban, and Sharir (ESA'23), and Katz, Saban, and Sharir (ESA'24) studied a class of geometric optimization problems -- including reverse shortest…
For sink-free orientations in graphs of minimum degree at least $3$, we show that there is a deterministic approximate counting algorithm that runs in time $O((n^{73}/\varepsilon^{72})\log(n/\varepsilon))$, a near-linear time sampling…
We propose a general framework for neural network compression that is motivated by the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle. For that we first derive an expression for the entropy of a neural network, which measures its complexity…
We study Sinkhorn's algorithm for solving the entropically regularized optimal transport problem. Its iterate $\pi_{t}$ is shown to satisfy $H(\pi_{t}|\pi_{*})+H(\pi_{*}|\pi_{t})=O(t^{-1})$ where $H$ denotes relative entropy and $\pi_{*}$…
We obtain hardness of approximation results for the $\ell_p$-Shortest Path problem, a variant of the classic Shortest Path problem with vector costs. For every integer $p \in [2,\infty)$, we show a hardness of $\Omega(p(\log n / \log^2\log…
Many applications in graph theory are motivated by routing or flow problems. Among these problems is Steiner Orientation: given a mixed graph G (having directed and undirected edges) and a set T of k terminal pairs in G, is there an…
We formulate and study the thinnest path problem in wireless ad hoc networks. The objective is to find a path from a source to its destination that results in the minimum number of nodes overhearing the message by a judicious choice of…
In this thesis, we design algorithms for several NP-hard problems in both worst and beyond worst case settings. In the first part of the thesis, we apply the traditional worst case methodology and design approximation algorithms for the Hub…
This work presents neural network based minimal entropy closures for the moment system of the Boltzmann equation, that preserve the inherent structure of the system of partial differential equations, such as entropy dissipation and…