Related papers: An Optimal Algorithm for Certifying Monotone Funct…
We consider submodular function minimization in the oracle model: given black-box access to a submodular set function $f:2^{[n]}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$, find an element of $\arg\min_S \{f(S)\}$ using as few queries to $f(\cdot)$ as…
Submodular function minimization (SFM) is a fundamental discrete optimization problem which generalizes many well known problems, has applications in various fields, and can be solved in polynomial time. Owing to applications in computer…
We study dynamic algorithms for the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function over a stream of $n$ insertions and deletions. We show that any algorithm that maintains a $(0.5+\epsilon)$-approximate solution under a cardinality…
In monotone submodular function maximization, approximation guarantees based on the curvature of the objective function have been extensively studied in the literature. However, the notion of curvature is often pessimistic, and we rarely…
In large-data applications, it is desirable to design algorithms with a high degree of parallelization. In the context of submodular optimization, adaptive complexity has become a widely-used measure of an algorithm's "sequentiality".…
We give a $2^{\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n}/\epsilon)}$-time algorithm for properly learning monotone Boolean functions under the uniform distribution over $\{0,1\}^n$. Our algorithm is robust to adversarial label noise and has a running time nearly…
Control Invariant (CI) sets are instrumental in certifying the safety of dynamical systems. Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) are effective tools to compute such sets, since the zero sublevel sets of CBFs are CI sets. However, computing CBFs…
We study the Minimum Latency Submodular Cover problem (MLSC), which consists of a metric $(V,d)$ with source $r\in V$ and $m$ monotone submodular functions $f_1, f_2, ..., f_m: 2^V \rightarrow [0,1]$. The goal is to find a path originating…
In the property testing model, the task is to distinguish objects possessing some property from the objects that are far from it. One of such properties is monotonicity, when the objects are functions from one poset to another. This is an…
The approximate degree of a Boolean function is the minimum degree of real polynomial that approximates it pointwise. For any Boolean function, its approximate degree serves as a lower bound on its quantum query complexity, and generically…
We provide new query complexity separations against sensitivity for total Boolean functions: a power $3$ separation between deterministic (and even randomized or quantum) query complexity and sensitivity, and a power $2.22$ separation…
One of the most ubiquitous problems in optimization is that of finding all the elements of a finite set at which a function $f$ attains its minimum (or maximum). When the codomain of $f$ is equipped with a total order, it is easy to…
Given a machine $U$, a $c$-short program for $x$ is a string $p$ such that $U(p)=x$ and the length of $p$ is bounded by $c$ + (the length of a shortest program for $x$). We show that for any standard Turing machine, it is possible to…
Many problems in interprocedural program analysis can be modeled as the context-free language (CFL) reachability problem on graphs and can be solved in cubic time. Despite years of efforts, there are no known truly sub-cubic algorithms for…
Let G be an undirected simple graph having n vertices and let f be a function defined to be f:V(G) -> {0,..., n-1}. An f-factor of G is a spanning subgraph H such that degree of a vertex v in H is f(v) for every vertex v in V(G). The…
Let $c(H)$ be the smallest value for which $e(G)/|G|\geq c(H)$ implies $H$ is a minor of $G$. We show a new upper bound on $c(H)$, which improves previous bounds for graphs with a vertex partition where some pairs of parts have many more…
Given an $n$-bit Boolean function with a complexity measure (such as block sensitivity, query complexity, etc.) $M(f) = k$, the hardness condensation question asks whether $f$ can be restricted to $O(k)$ variables such that the complexity…
A theorem of Hoischen states that given a positive continuous function $\varepsilon:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$, an integer $n\geq 0$, and a closed discrete set $E\subseteq\mathbb{R}$, any $C^n$ function $f:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$ can be…
We present a simple new algorithm for finding a Tarski fixed point of a monotone function $F : [N]^3 \rightarrow [N]^3$. Our algorithm runs in $O(\log^2 N)$ time and makes $O(\log^2 N)$ queries to $F$, matching the $\Omega(\log^2 N)$ query…
We give a new construction of algebraic codes which are efficiently list decodable from a fraction $1-R-\eps$ of adversarial errors where $R$ is the rate of the code, for any desired positive constant $\eps$. The worst-case list size output…