Related papers: Parameterized Complexity of Elimination Distance t…
First-order logic has been established as an important tool for modeling and verifying intricate systems such as distributed protocols and concurrent systems. These systems are parametric in the number of nodes in the network or the number…
This paper discusses the formalization of proofs "by diagram chasing", a standard technique for proving properties in abelian categories. We discuss how the essence of diagram chases can be captured by a simple many-sorted first-order…
We study various aspects of the first-order transduction quasi-order on graph classes, which provides a way of measuring the relative complexity of graph classes based on whether one can encode the other using a formula of first-order (FO)…
Front-door adjustment gives a simple closed-form identification formula under the classical front-door criterion, but its applicability is often viewed as narrow. By contrast, the general ID algorithm can identify many more causal effects…
We introduce a new logic, called \emph{cluster first-order logic}, a restricted fragment of first-order logic specifically designed to study order invariance. An order-invariant formula is one on a vocabulary that contains an order;…
We revisit the classical Unit Distance Problem posed by Erd\H{o}s in 1946. While the upper bound of $O(n^{4/3})$ established by Spencer, Szemer'edi, and Trotter (1984) is tight for systems of pseudo-circles, it fails to account for the…
We use model-theoretic tools originating from stability theory to derive a result we call the Finitary Substitute Lemma, which intuitively says the following. Suppose we work in a stable graph class C, and using a first-order formula {\phi}…
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…
The editing of a combinatorial object is the alteration of some of its elements such that the resulting object satisfies a certain fixed property. The edit problem for graphs, when the edges are added or deleted, was first studied…
We study the fixed-parameter tractability of the following fundamental problem: given two directed graphs $\vec H$ and $\vec G$, count the number of copies of $\vec H$ in $\vec G$. The standard setting, where the tractability is well…
We generalize the structure theorem of Robertson and Seymour for graphs excluding a fixed graph $H$ as a minor to graphs excluding $H$ as a topological subgraph. We prove that for a fixed $H$, every graph excluding $H$ as a topological…
Important data mining problems such as nearest-neighbor search and clustering admit theoretical guarantees when restricted to objects embedded in a metric space. Graphs are ubiquitous, and clustering and classification over graphs arise in…
We systematically investigate the complexity of model checking the existential positive fragment of first-order logic. In particular, for a set of existential positive sentences, we consider model checking where the sentence is restricted…
We design a deterministic algorithm that, given $n$ points in a \emph{typical} constant degree regular~graph, queries $O(n)$ distances to output a constant factor approximation to the average distance among those points, thus answering a…
Over the past two decades several fragments of first-order logic have been identified and shown to have good computational and algorithmic properties, to a great extent as a result of appropriately describing the image of the standard…
A well-studied continuous model of graphs considers each edge as a continuous unit-length interval of points. In the problem $\delta$-Tour defined within this model, the objective to find a shortest tour that comes within a distance of…
A successor-invariant first-order formula is a formula that has access to an auxiliary successor relation on a structure's universe, but the model relation is independent of the particular interpretation of this relation. It is well known…
We define a general variant of the graph clustering problem where the criterion of density for the clusters is (high) connectivity. In {\sc Clustering to Given Connectivities}, we are given an $n$-vertex graph $G$, an integer $k$, and a…
We define and study exact, efficient representations of realization spaces Euclidean Distance Constraint Systems (EDCS), which includes Linkages and Frameworks. Each representation corresponds to a choice of Cayley parameters and yields a…
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph. An ordering of $G$ is a bijection $\alpha: V\dom \{1,2,..., |V|\}.$ For a vertex $v$ in $G$, its closed neighborhood is $N[v]=\{u\in V: uv\in E\}\cup \{v\}.$ The profile of an ordering $\alpha$ of $G$ is…