Related papers: Coset decision trees and the Fourier algebra
We study parity decision trees for Boolean functions. The motivation of our study is the log-rank conjecture for XOR functions and its connection to Fourier analysis and parity decision tree complexity. Let f be a Boolean function with…
We give an 'arithmetic regularity lemma' for groups definable in finite fields, analogous to Tao's 'algebraic regularity lemma' for graphs definable in finite fields. More specifically, we show that, for any $M>0$, any finite field…
Fix an integer h>=1. In the universe of coloured trees of height at most h, we prove that for any graph decision problem defined by an MSO formula with r quantifiers, there exists a set of kernels, each of size bounded by an elementary…
In this paper we prove results regarding Boolean functions with small spectral norm (the spectral norm of f is $\|\hat{f}\|_1=\sum_{\alpha}|\hat{f}(\alpha)|$). Specifically, we prove the following results for functions $f:\{0,1\}^n \to…
Algorithmic meta-theorems, stating that graph properties expressible in some particular logic can be decided efficiently in graph classes having some specific structural properties, are now standard in sequential graph algorithms. One of…
We show that if $G$ is a finite Abelian group and $f$ is an integer-valued map on $G$ with algebra norm at most $M$ then there is some $L < \exp(M^{4+o(1)})$, cosets of (possibly different) subgroups $W_1,...,W_L$, and $s_1,...,s_L \in…
Decision trees have been a very popular class of predictive models for decades due to their interpretability and good performance on categorical features. However, they are not always robust and tend to overfit the data. Additionally, if…
Consider the following heuristic for building a decision tree for a function $f : \{0,1\}^n \to \{\pm 1\}$. Place the most influential variable $x_i$ of $f$ at the root, and recurse on the subfunctions $f_{x_i=0}$ and $f_{x_i=1}$ on the…
A decision tree recursively splits a feature space $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ and then assigns class labels based on the resulting partition. Decision trees have been part of the basic machine-learning toolkit for decades. A large body of work treats…
The classical paradox of social choice theory asserts that there is no fair way to deterministically select a winner in an election among more than two candidates; the only definite collective preferences are between individual pairs of…
We completely characterise the complexity in the decision tree model of computing composite relations of the form h = g(f^1,...,f^n), where each relation f^i is boolean-valued. Immediate corollaries include a direct sum theorem for decision…
Let $P$ and $S$ be two disjoint sets of $n$ and $m$ points in the plane, respectively. We consider the problem of computing a Steiner tree whose Steiner vertices belong to $S$, in which each point of $P$ is a leaf, and whose longest edge…
A "tree-partition" of a graph $G$ is a partition of $V(G)$ such that identifying the vertices in each part gives a tree. It is known that every graph with treewidth $k$ and maximum degree $\Delta$ has a tree-partition with parts of size…
A celebrated theorem of Friedgut says that every function $f:\{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ can be approximated by a function $g:\{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ with $\|f-g\|_2^2 \le \epsilon$ which depends only on $e^{O(I_f/\epsilon)}$ variables where…
We prove that for every parity decision tree of depth $d$ on $n$ variables, the sum of absolute values of Fourier coefficients at level $\ell$ is at most $d^{\ell/2} \cdot O(\ell \cdot \log(n))^\ell$. Our result is nearly tight for small…
We study the Fourier spectrum of functions $f\colon \{0,1\}^{mk} \to \{-1,0,1\}$ which can be written as a product of $k$ Boolean functions $f_i$ on disjoint $m$-bit inputs. We prove that for every positive integer $d$, \[ \sum_{S \subseteq…
A linear forest is a collection of vertex-disjoint paths. The Linear Arboricity Conjecture states that every graph of maximum degree $\Delta$ can be decomposed into at most $\lceil(\Delta+1)/2\rceil$ linear forests. We prove that $\Delta/2…
In this note we compare two measures of the complexity of a class $\mathcal F$ of Boolean functions studied in (unconditional) pseudorandomness: $\mathcal F$'s ability to distinguish between biased and uniform coins (the coin problem), and…
A chief problem in phylogenetics and database theory is the computation of a maximum consistent tree from a set of rooted or unrooted trees. A standard input are triplets, rooted binary trees on three leaves, or quartets, unrooted binary…
The cogrowth of a subgroup is defined as the growth of a set of coset representatives which are of minimal length. A subgroup is essential if it intersects non-trivially every non-trivial subgroup. The main result of this paper is that…