Related papers: Beating the random assignment on constraint satisf…

We consider the fundamental derandomization problem of deterministically finding a satisfying assignment to a CNF formula that has many satisfying assignments. We give a deterministic algorithm which, given an $n$-variable…

We prove a general result demonstrating the power of Lagrangian relaxation in solving constrained maximization problems with arbitrary objective functions. This yields a unified approach for solving a wide class of {\em subset selection}…

We prove that the Bounded Occurrence Ordering k-CSP Problem is not approximation resistant. We give a very simple local search algorithm that always performs better than the random assignment algorithm. Specifically, the expected value of…

Convex sample approximations of chance-constrained optimization problems are considered, in which chance constraints are replaced by sets of sampled constraints. We propose a randomized sample selection strategy that allows tight bounds to…

Let $\Phi$ be a random $k$-CNF formula on $n$ variables and $m$ clauses, where each clause is a disjunction of $k$ literals chosen independently and uniformly. Our goal is to sample an approximately uniform solution of $\Phi$ (or…

We consider the random regular $k$-NAE-SAT problem with $n$ variables each appearing in exactly $d$ clauses. For all $k$ exceeding an absolute constant $k_0$, we establish explicitly the satisfiability threshold $d_*=d_*(k)$. We prove that…

Random instances of Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP's) appear to be hard for all known algorithms, when the number of constraints per variable lies in a certain interval. Contributing to the general understanding of the structure of…

Classically, a mainstream approach for solving a convex-concave min-max problem is to instead solve the variational inequality problem arising from its first-order optimality conditions. Is it possible to solve min-max problems faster by…

The expected regret of any reinforcement learning algorithm is lower bounded by $\Omega\left(\sqrt{DXAT}\right)$ for undiscounted returns, where $D$ is the diameter of the Markov decision process, $X$ the size of the state space, $A$ the…

In this paper, we study a class of stochastic and finite-sum convex optimization problems with deterministic constraints. Existing methods typically aim to find an $\epsilon$-$expectedly\ feasible\ stochastic\ optimal$ solution, in which…

First-order methods (FOMs) have recently been applied and analyzed for solving problems with complicated functional constraints. Existing works show that FOMs for functional constrained problems have lower-order convergence rates than those…

We present a new feasible proximal gradient method for constrained optimization where both the objective and constraint functions are given by the summation of a smooth, possibly nonconvex function and a convex simple function. The…

We consider the task of training machine learning models with data-dependent constraints. Such constraints often arise as empirical versions of expected value constraints that enforce fairness or stability goals. We reformulate…

In this paper, we consider lower bounds on the query complexity for testing CSPs in the bounded-degree model. First, for any ``symmetric'' predicate $P:{0,1}^{k} \to {0,1}$ except \equ where $k\geq 3$, we show that every (randomized)…

Optimization problems under affine constraints appear in various areas of machine learning. We consider the task of minimizing a smooth strongly convex function F(x) under the affine constraint Kx=b, with an oracle providing evaluations of…

Let $\R(\cdot)$ stand for the bounded-error randomized query complexity. We show that for any relation $f \subseteq \{0,1\}^n \times \mathcal{S}$ and partial Boolean function $g \subseteq \{0,1\}^n \times \{0,1\}$, $\R_{1/3}(f \circ g^n) =…

We consider the optimization of a quadratic objective function whose gradients are only accessible through a stochastic oracle that returns the gradient at any given point plus a zero-mean finite variance random error. We present the first…

We study the problem of reaching agreement in a synchronous distributed system by $n$ autonomous parties, when the communication links from/to faulty parties can omit messages. The faulty parties are selected and controlled by an adaptive,…

In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm for solving a linear optimization problem with entropic constraints, a class of problems that arises in game theory and information theory. Our analysis distinguishes between the cases of…

Two of the most fundamental distributed symmetry-breaking problems are that of finding a maximal independent set (MIS) and a maximal matching (MM) in a graph. It is a major open question whether these problems can be solved in constant…