Related papers: Inapproximability of a Pair of Forms Defining a Pa…
The approximate non-deterministic degree of a Boolean function $f$, denoted $\mathsf{ndeg}_\epsilon(f)$ (written $\mathsf{N}_\epsilon(f)$ for brevity), is the minimum degree of a real polynomial $p$ such that $0 \le |p(x)| \le \epsilon$…
We investigate the complexity of three optimization problems in Boolean propositional logic related to information theory: Given a conjunctive formula over a set of relations, find a satisfying assignment with minimal Hamming distance to a…
Stochastic Boolean Function Evaluation is the problem of determining the value of a given Boolean function f on an unknown input x, when each bit of x_i of x can only be determined by paying an associated cost c_i. The assumption is that x…
Suppose that f is a boolean function from F_2^n to {0,1} with spectral norm (that is the sum of the absolute values of its Fourier coefficients) at most M. We show that f may be expressed as +/- 1 combination of at most 2^(2^(O(M^4)))…
Representations of Boolean functions by real polynomials play an important role in complexity theory. Typically, one is interested in the least degree of a polynomial p(x_1,...,x_n) that approximates or sign-represents a given Boolean…
A fundamental problem in numerical analysis and approximation theory is approximating smooth functions by polynomials. A much harder version under recent consideration is to enforce bounds constraints on the approximating polynomial. In…
Makespan minimization on unrelated machines is a classic problem in approximation algorithms. No polynomial time $(2-\delta)$-approximation algorithm is known for the problem for constant $\delta> 0$. This is true even for certain special…
We consider the problem of covering multiple submodular constraints. Given a finite ground set $N$, a cost function $c: N \rightarrow \mathbb{R}_+$, $r$ monotone submodular functions $f_1,f_2,\ldots,f_r$ over $N$ and requirements…
We resolve a long-standing open question, about the existence of a constant-factor approximation algorithm for the average-case \textsc{Decision Tree} problem with uniform probability distribution over the hypotheses. We answer the question…
We consider the maximization problem in the value oracle model of functions defined on $k$-tuples of sets that are submodular in every orthant and $r$-wise monotone, where $k\geq 2$ and $1\leq r\leq k$. We give an analysis of a…
We develop a randomized approximation algorithm for the classical maximum coverage problem, which given a list of sets $A_1,A_2,\cdots, A_m$ and integer parameter $k$, select $k$ sets $A_{i_1}, A_{i_2},\cdots, A_{i_k}$ for maximum union…
We will study some important properties of Boolean functions based on newly introduced concepts called Special Decomposition of a Set and Special Covering of a Set. These concepts enable us to study important problems concerning Boolean…
A set family ${\cal F}$ is $uncrossable$ if $A \cap B,A \cup B \in {\cal F}$ or $A \setminus B,B \setminus A \in {\cal F}$ for any $A,B \in {\cal F}$. A classic result of Williamson, Goemans, Mihail, and Vazirani [STOC 1993:708-717] states…
We establish an explicit link between depth-3 formulas and one-sided approximation by depth-2 formulas, which were previously studied independently. Specifically, we show that the minimum size of depth-3 formulas is (up to a factor of n)…
We give improved and almost optimal testers for several classes of Boolean functions on $n$ inputs that have concise representation in the uniform and distribution-free model. Classes, such as $k$-junta, $k$-linear functions, $s$-term DNF,…
Let f:{-1,1}^n -> R be a real function on the hypercube, given by its discrete Fourier expansion, or, equivalently, represented as a multilinear polynomial. We say that it is Boolean if its image is in {-1,1}. We show that every function on…
For a function $g\colon\{0,1\}^m\to\{0,1\}$, a function $f\colon \{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}$ is called a $g$-polymorphism if their actions commute: $f(g(\mathsf{row}_1(Z)),\ldots,g(\mathsf{row}_n(Z))) =…
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 study the problem of abstracting a table of data about individuals so that no selection query can identify fewer than k individuals. We show that it is impossible to achieve arbitrarily good polynomial-time approximations for a number of…
The threshold degree of a Boolean function $f\colon\{0,1\}^n\to\{0,1\}$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial $p$ that represents $f$ in sign: $\mathrm{sgn}\; p(x)=(-1)^{f(x)}.$ A related notion is sign-rank, defined for a Boolean…