Related papers: Fast synchronization of inhomogenous random automa…
For online matching with the line metric, we present a lower bound of $\Omega(\log n)$ on the approximation ratio of any online (possibly randomized) algorithm. This beats the previous best lower bound of $\Omega(\sqrt{\log n})$ and matches…
The Gap-Hamming-Distance problem arose in the context of proving space lower bounds for a number of key problems in the data stream model. In this problem, Alice and Bob have to decide whether the Hamming distance between their $n$-bit…
We continue the study of selection and sorting of $n$ numbers under the adversarial comparator model, where comparisons can be adversarially tampered with if the arguments are sufficiently close. We derive a randomized sorting algorithm…
We present a new and surprisingly simple analysis of random-shift decompositions -- originally proposed by Miller, Peng, and Xu [SPAA'13]: We show that decompositions for exponentially growing scales $D = 2^0, 2^1, \ldots,…
Suppose that $P$ is a property that may be satisfied by a random code $C \subset \Sigma^n$. For example, for some $p \in (0,1)$, ${P}$ might be the property that there exist three elements of $C$ that lie in some Hamming ball of radius…
Automata over infinite words, also known as omega-automata, play a key role in the verification and synthesis of reactive systems. The spectrum of omega-automata is defined by two characteristics: the acceptance condition (e.g. B\"uchi or…
Many streaming algorithms provide only a high-probability relative approximation. These two relaxations, of allowing approximation and randomization, seem necessary -- for many streaming problems, both relaxations must be employed…
We study extremal and algorithmic questions of subset and careful synchronization in monotonic automata. We show that several synchronization problems that are hard in general automata can be solved in polynomial time in monotonic automata,…
We present an algorithm for the statistical learning setting with a bounded exp-concave loss in $d$ dimensions that obtains excess risk $O(d \log(1/\delta)/n)$ with probability at least $1 - \delta$. The core technique is to boost the…
This paper shows that, with high probability, randomly punctured Reed-Solomon codes over fields of polynomial size achieve the list decoding capacity. More specifically, we prove that for any $\epsilon>0$ and $R\in (0,1)$, with high…
The following game is played on a weighted graph: Alice selects a matching $M$ and Bob selects a number $k$. Alice's payoff is the ratio of the weight of the $k$ heaviest edges of $M$ to the maximum weight of a matching of size at most $k$.…
We consider two natural problems about nondeterministic finite automata. First, given such an automaton M of n states, and a length l, does M accept a word of length l? We show that the classic problem of triangle-free graph recognition…
We study dynamic $(1-\epsilon)$-approximate rounding of fractional matchings -- a key ingredient in numerous breakthroughs in the dynamic graph algorithms literature. Our first contribution is a surprisingly simple deterministic rounding…
One of the landmarks in approximation algorithms is the $O(\sqrt{\log n})$-approximation algorithm for the Uniform Sparsest Cut problem by Arora, Rao and Vazirani from 2004. The algorithm is based on a semidefinite program that finds an…
Permutation patterns and pattern avoidance have been intensively studied in combinatorics and computer science, going back at least to the seminal work of Knuth on stack-sorting (1968). Perhaps the most natural algorithmic question in this…
We present the first efficient averaging sampler that achieves asymptotically optimal randomness complexity and near-optimal sample complexity. For any $\delta < \varepsilon$ and any constant $\alpha > 0$, our sampler uses $m + O(\log (1 /…
We consider a (random permutation model) binary search tree with n nodes and give asymptotics on the loglog scale for the height H_n and saturation level h_n of the tree as n\to\infty, both almost surely and in probability. We then consider…
This paper is concerned with the problem of implementing an unbounded timestamp object from multi-writer atomic registers, in an asynchronous distributed system of n processors with distinct identifiers where timestamps are taken from an…
The repetition threshold is the smallest real number $\alpha$ such that there exists an infinite word over a $k$-letter alphabet that avoids repetition of exponent strictly greater than $\alpha$. This notion can be generalized to graph…
It was conjectured by \v{C}ern\'y in 1964, that a synchronizing DFA on $n$ states always has a synchronizing word of length at most $(n-1)^2$, and he gave a sequence of DFAs for which this bound is reached. Until now a full analysis of all…