Related papers: Testing convexity of functions over finite domains

Logconcave functions represent the current frontier of efficient algorithms for sampling, optimization and integration in R^n. Efficient sampling algorithms to sample according to a probability density (to which the other two problems can…

Recently, there has been significant work studying distribution testing under the Conditional Sampling model. In this model, a query specifies a subset $S$ of the domain, and the output received is a sample drawn from the distribution…

We extend the standard notion of self-concordance to non-convex optimization and develop a family of second-order algorithms with global convergence guarantees. In particular, two function classes -- \textit{weakly self-concordant}…

A set N is called a "weak epsilon-net" (with respect to convex sets) for a finite set X in R^d if N intersects every convex set that contains at least epsilon*|X| points of X. For every fixed d>=2 and every r>=1 we construct sets X in R^d…

We give nearly optimal bounds on the sample complexity of $(\widetilde{\Omega}(\epsilon),\epsilon)$-tolerant testing the $\rho$-independent set property in the dense graph setting. In particular, we give an algorithm that inspects a random…

The simplex method for linear programming is known to be highly efficient in practice, and understanding its performance from a theoretical perspective is an active research topic. The framework of smoothed analysis, first introduced by…

We study the problem of testing conductance in the setting of distributed computing and give a two-sided tester that takes $\mathcal{O}(\log(n) / (\epsilon \Phi^2))$ rounds to decide if a graph has conductance at least $\Phi$ or is…

We consider a broad class of first-order optimization algorithms which are \emph{oblivious}, in the sense that their step sizes are scheduled regardless of the function under consideration, except for limited side-information such as…

We study the equivalence testing problem where the goal is to determine if the given two unknown distributions on $[n]$ are equal or $\epsilon$-far in the total variation distance in the conditional sampling model (CFGM, SICOMP16; CRS,…

We show that for all integers $t\geq 8$ and arbitrarily small $\epsilon>0$, there exists a graph property $\Pi$ (which depends on $\epsilon$) such that $\epsilon$-testing $\Pi$ has non-adaptive query complexity $Q=\~{\Theta}(q^{2-2/t})$,…

In the setup of i.i.d.~observations and a real valued differentiable functional~$T$, locally asymptotic upper bounds are derived for the power of one-sided tests (simple, versus large values of~$T$)and for the confidence probability of…

Recent advances in randomized incremental methods for minimizing $L$-smooth $\mu$-strongly convex finite sums have culminated in tight complexity of $\tilde{O}((n+\sqrt{n L/\mu})\log(1/\epsilon))$ and $O(n+\sqrt{nL/\epsilon})$, where…

Given observations from a circular random variable contaminated by an additive measurement error, we consider the problem of minimax optimal goodness-of-fit testing in a non-asymptotic framework. We propose direct and indirect testing…

We revisit the relation between two fundamental property testing models for bounded-degree directed graphs: the bidirectional model in which the algorithms are allowed to query both the outgoing edges and incoming edges of a vertex, and the…

We propose a new algorithm that finds an $\varepsilon$-approximate fixed point of a smooth function from the $n$-dimensional $\ell_2$ unit ball to itself. We use the general framework of finding approximate solutions to a variational…

In partial function extension, we are given a partial function consisting of $n$ points from a domain and a function value at each point. Our objective is to determine if this partial function can be extended to a function defined on the…

We show that on graphs with n vertices, the 2-dimensional Weisfeiler-Leman algorithm requires at most O(n^2/log(n)) iterations to reach stabilization. This in particular shows that the previously best, trivial upper bound of O(n^2) is…

Many problems of theoretical and practical interest involve finding an optimum over a family of convex functions. For instance, finding the projection on the convex functions in $H^k(\Omega)$, and optimizing functionals arising from some…

We study the problem of {\sl certification}: given queries to a function $f : \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ with certificate complexity $\le k$ and an input $x^\star$, output a size-$k$ certificate for $f$'s value on $x^\star$. This abstractly…

We introduce the concept of strong high-order approximate minimizers for nonconvex optimization problems. These apply in both standard smooth and composite non-smooth settings, and additionally allow convex or inexpensive constraints. An…