Related papers: A Lower Bound for the Max Entropy Algorithm for TS…
We consider the problem of estimating a probability distribution that maximizes the entropy while satisfying a finite number of moment constraints, possibly corrupted by noise. Based on duality of convex programming, we present a novel…
In this paper, we study the approximability of the metric Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and prove new explicit inapproximability bounds for that problem. The best up to now known hardness of approximation bounds were 185/184 for the…
A promising approach for obtaining improved approximation algorithms for Steiner tree is to use the bidirected cut relaxation (BCR). The integrality gap of this relaxation is at least $36/31$, and it has long been conjectured that its true…
We present a fast combinatorial $3/4$-approximation algorithm for the maximum asymmetric TSP with weights zero and one. The approximation factor of this algorithm matches the currently best one given by Bl\"aser in 2004 and based on linear…
We study the problem of synthesizing a policy that maximizes the entropy of a Markov decision process (MDP) subject to a temporal logic constraint. Such a policy minimizes the predictability of the paths it generates, or dually, maximizes…
We define a one-parameter family of entropies, each assigning a real number to any probability measure on a compact metric space (or, more generally, a compact Hausdorff space with a notion of similarity between points). These entropies…
Coffman and Sethi proposed a heuristic algorithm, called LD, for multi-processor scheduling, to minimize makespan over flowtime-optimal schedules. LD algorithm is a natural extension of a very well-known list scheduling algorithm, Longest…
We consider fitting a bivariate spline regression model to data using a weighted least-squares cost function, with weights that sum to one to form a discrete probability distribution. By applying the principle of maximum entropy, the weight…
We provide an upper bound on the quasi-relative entropy in terms of the trace distance. The bound is derived for two cases: 1) any operator monotone decreasing function and full rank mixed qubit or classical states; 2) a large class of…
The well known maximum-entropy principle due to Jaynes, which states that given mean parameters, the maximum entropy distribution matching them is in an exponential family, has been very popular in machine learning due to its "Occam's…
We study the minimum number of constraints needed to formulate random instances of the maximum stable set problem via linear programs (LPs), in two distinct models. In the uniform model, the constraints of the LP are not allowed to depend…
The entropy accumulation theorem, and its subsequent generalized version, is a powerful tool in the security analysis of many device-dependent and device-independent cryptography protocols. However, it has the drawback that the finite-size…
We define a reduction mechanism for LP and SDP formulations that degrades approximation factors in a controlled fashion. Our reduction mechanism is a minor restriction of classical reductions establishing inapproximability in the context of…
We give a nearly linear time randomized approximation scheme for the Held-Karp bound [Held and Karp, 1970] for metric TSP. Formally, given an undirected edge-weighted graph $G$ on $m$ edges and $\epsilon > 0$, the algorithm outputs in $O(m…
The entropy accumulation theorem states that the smooth min-entropy of an $n$-partite system $A = (A_1, \ldots, A_n)$ is lower-bounded by the sum of the von Neumann entropies of suitably chosen conditional states up to corrections that are…
Maximum Entropy is a powerful concept that entails a sharp separation between relevant and irrelevant variables. It is typically invoked in inference, once an assumption is made on what the relevant variables are, in order to estimate a…
We study the NP-complete Maximum Outerplanar Subgraph problem. The previous best known approximation ratio for this problem is 2/3. We propose a new approximation algorithm which improves the ratio to 7/10.
The error exponent in lossy source coding characterizes the asymptotic decay rate of error probability with respect to blocklength. The Marton's error exponent provides the theoretically optimal bound on this rate. However, computation…
We discuss how the method of maximum entropy, MaxEnt, can be extended beyond its original scope, as a rule to assign a probability distribution, to a full-fledged method for inductive inference. The main concept is the (relative) entropy…
The subspace approximation problem Subspace($k$,$p$) asks for a $k$-dimensional linear subspace that fits a given set of points optimally, where the error for fitting is a generalization of the least squares fit and uses the $\ell_{p}$ norm…