Related papers: On the Approximability of Presidential Type Predic…
A predicate f:{-1,1}^k -> {0,1} with \rho(f) = \frac{|f^{-1}(1)|}{2^k} is called {\it approximation resistant} if given a near-satisfiable instance of CSP(f), it is computationally hard to find an assignment that satisfies at least…
We analyze the sketching approximability of constraint satisfaction problems on Boolean domains, where the constraints are balanced linear threshold functions applied to literals. In~particular, we explore the approximability of…
Motivated by the pervasiveness of strong inapproximability results for Max-CSPs, we introduce a relaxed notion of an approximate solution of a Max-CSP. In this relaxed version, loosely speaking, the algorithm is allowed to replace the…
A constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is said to be \emph{approximation resistant} if it is hard to approximate better than the trivial algorithm which picks a uniformly random assignment. Assuming the Unique Games Conjecture, we give a…
Maximum satisfiability is a canonical NP-hard optimization problem that appears empirically hard for random instances. Let us say that a Conjunctive normal form (CNF) formula consisting of $k$-clauses is $p$-satisfiable if there exists a…
Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) consist of a set of variables taking values from some finite domain and a set of local constraints on these variables. The objective is to find an assignment to the variables that maximizes the…
Raghavendra (STOC 2008) gave an elegant and surprising result: if Khot's Unique Games Conjecture (STOC 2002) is true, then for every constraint satisfaction problem (CSP), the best approximation ratio is attained by a certain simple…
This thesis investigates the extent to which the optimal value of a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) can be approximated by some sentence of fixed point logic with counting (FPC). It is known that, assuming $\mathsf{P} \neq…
We study the approximability of predicates on $k$ variables from a domain $[q]$, and give a new sufficient condition for such predicates to be approximation resistant under the Unique Games Conjecture. Specifically, we show that a predicate…
A $\mu$-biased Max-CSP instance with predicate $\psi:\{0,1\}^r \to \{0,1\}$ is an instance of Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) where the objective is to find a labeling of relative weight at most $\mu$ which satisfies the maximum…
We show that for every $k\in\mathbb{N}$ and $\varepsilon>0$, for large enough alphabet $R$, given a $k$-CSP with alphabet size $R$, it is NP-hard to distinguish between the case that there is an assignment satisfying at least…
We study the computational complexity of approximating general constrained Markov decision processes. Our primary contribution is the design of a polynomial time $(0,\epsilon)$-additive bicriteria approximation algorithm for finding optimal…
The subspace approximation problem Subspace($k$,$p$) asks for a $k$-dimensional linear subspace that fits a given set of points optimally, where the error for fitting is a generalization of the least squares fit and uses the $\ell_{p}$ norm…
We study approximability of regular constraint satisfaction problems, i.e., CSPs where each variable in an instance has the same number of occurrences. In particular, we show that for any CSP $\Lambda$, existence of an $\alpha$…
We determine the exact threshold of satisfiability for random instances of a particular NP-complete constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). This is the first random CSP model for which we have determined a precise linear satisfiability…
Many problems are NP-hard and, unless P = NP, do not admit polynomial-time exact algorithms. The fastest known exact algorithms exactly usually take time exponential in the input size. Much research effort has gone into obtaining faster…
We consider the Low Rank Approximation problem, where the input consists of a matrix $A \in \mathbb{R}^{n_R \times n_C}$ and an integer $k$, and the goal is to find a matrix $B$ of rank at most $k$ that minimizes $\| A - B \|_0$, which is…
In the maximum constraint satisfaction problem (MAX CSP), one is given a finite collection of (possibly weighted) constraints on overlapping sets of variables, and the goal is to assign values from a given finite domain to the variables so…
The promise constraint satisfaction problem (PCSP) is a recently introduced vast generalisation of the constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) that captures approximability of satisfiable instances. A PCSP instance comes with two forms of…
In the maximum constraint satisfaction problem (Max CSP), one is given a finite collection of (possibly weighted) constraints on overlapping sets of variables, and the goal is to assign values from a given domain to the variables so as to…