Related papers: Lower bounds for finding the maximum and minimum e…

Ranking objects is a simple and natural procedure for organizing data. It is often performed by assigning a quality score to each object according to its relevance to the problem at hand. Ranking is widely used for object selection, when…

An open problem that is widely regarded as one of the most important in quantum query complexity is to resolve the quantum query complexity of the k-distinctness function on inputs of size N. While the case of k=2 (also called Element…

We let $\mathcal{F}$ be a finite family of sets closed under taking unions and $\emptyset \not \in \mathcal{F}$, and call an element abundant if it belongs to more than half of the sets of $\mathcal{F}$. In this notation, the classical…

In this paper we revisit the well known set-maxima problem in the oblivious setting. Let $X=\{x_1,\ldots, x_n\}$ be a set of $n$ elements with an underlying total order. Let $\mathcal{S}=\{S_1,\ldots,S_m\}$ be a collection of $m$ distinct…

We consider the problem of approximate $K$-means clustering with outliers and side information provided by same-cluster queries and possibly noisy answers. Our solution shows that, under some mild assumptions on the smallest cluster size,…

Let $n>2r>0$ be integers. We consider families $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of an $n$-element set, in which the union of any two members has size at most $2r$. One of our results states that for $n\geq 6r$ the number of members of size…

We study the weighted $k$-Set Packing problem: Given a collection $S$ of sets, each of cardinality at most $k$, together with a positive weight function $w:\mathcal{S}\rightarrow\mathbb{Q}_{>0}$, the task is to compute a disjoint…

Let $C\subseteq \{1,\ldots,k\}^n$ be such that for any $k$ distinct elements of $C$ there exists a coordinate where they all differ simultaneously. Fredman and Koml\'os studied upper and lower bounds on the largest cardinality of such a set…

A $(k,\ell )$ partial partition of an $n$-element set is a collection of $\ell $ pairwise disjoint $k$-element subsets. It is proved that, if $n$ is large enough, one can find $\left\lfloor {n\choose k}/{\ell}\right\rfloor$ such partial…

This paper studies the sample complexity (aka number of comparisons) bounds for the active best-$k$ items selection from pairwise comparisons. From a given set of items, the learner can make pairwise comparisons on every pair of items, and…

In this paper, we investigate a problem concerning quartets, which are a particular type of tree on four leaves. Loosely speaking, a set of quartets is said to be `definitive' if it completely encapsulates the structure of some larger tree,…

We consider the following problem: Given a set S of at most n elements from a universe of size m, represent it in memory as a bit string so that membership queries of the form "Is x in S?" can be answered by making at most t probes into the…

We prove that any set of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$, any three of which form an angle less than $\frac{\pi}{3} + c$, has size $(1+\Theta(c))^d$ for sufficiently small $c>0$. The proof is based on a refinement of an approach by Erd\H{o}s and…

Group testing is an approach aimed at identifying up to $d$ defective items among a total of $n$ elements. This is accomplished by examining subsets to determine if at least one defective item is present. In our study, we focus on the…

We give improved lower bounds on the minimum number of $k$-holes (empty convex $k$-gons) in a set of $n$ points in general position in the plane, for $k=5,6$.

Efficiently counting or detecting defective items is a crucial task in various fields ranging from biological testing to quality control to streaming algorithms. The \emph{group testing estimation problem} concerns estimating the number of…

We explore the fundamental problem of sorting through the lens of learning-augmented algorithms, where algorithms can leverage possibly erroneous predictions to improve their efficiency. We consider two different settings: In the first…

Given a set $X$, a collection $\mathcal{F}\subseteq\mathcal{P}(X)$ is said to be $k$-Sperner if it does not contain a chain of length $k+1$ under set inclusion and it is saturated if it is maximal with respect to this property. Gerbner et…

For positive integers $n\geq k\geq t$, a collection $ \mathcal{B} $ of $k$-subsets of an $n$-set $ X $ is called a $t$-packing if every $t$-subset of $ X $ appears in at most one set in $\mathcal{B}$. In this paper, we give some upper and…

In the classical combinatorial (adaptive) group testing problem, one is given two integers \(d\) and \(n\), where \(0\le d\le n\), and a population of \(n\) items, exactly \(d\) of which are known to be defective. The question is to devise…