Related papers: Superconstant Inapproximability of Decision Tree L…
We show that the class of strongly connected graphical models with treewidth at most k can be properly efficiently PAC-learnt with respect to the Kullback-Leibler Divergence. Previous approaches to this problem, such as those of Chow ([1]),…
Motivated by an application where we try to make proofs for Description Logic inferences smaller by rewriting, we consider the following decision problem, which we call the small term reachability problem: given a term rewriting system $R$,…
It is well-known that an algorithm exists which approximates the NP-complete problem of Set Cover within a factor of ln(n), and it was recently proven that this approximation ratio is optimal unless P = NP. This optimality result is the…
We study a new class of NP search problems, those which can be proved total using standard combinatorial reasoning based on approximate counting. Our model for this kind of reasoning is the bounded arithmetic theory $\mathrm{APC}_2$ of…
We give a number of approximation metatheorems for monotone maximization problems expressible in the first-order logic, in substantially more general settings than the previously known. We obtain * constant-factor approximation algorithm in…
We consider the classic problem of Network Reliability. A network is given together with a source vertex, one or more target vertices, and probabilities assigned to each of the edges. Each edge appears in the network with its associated…
We study the consensus-halving problem of dividing an object into two portions, such that each of $n$ agents has equal valuation for the two portions. The $\epsilon$-approximate consensus-halving problem allows each agent to have an…
Let $G$ be a complete edge-weighted graph on $n$ vertices. To each subset of vertices of $G$ assign the cost of the minimum spanning tree of the subset as its weight. Suppose that $n$ is a multiple of some fixed positive integer $k$. The…
We study the problem of learning to partition users into groups, where one must learn the compatibilities between the users to achieve optimal groupings. We define four natural objectives that optimize for average and worst case…
Understanding the evolution of a set of genes or species is a fundamental problem in evolutionary biology. The problem we study here takes as input a set of trees describing {possibly discordant} evolutionary scenarios for a given set of…
Given an approximation algorithm $A$, we want to find the input with the worst approximation ratio, i.e., the input for which $A$'s output's objective value is the worst possible compared to the optimal solution's objective value. Such hard…
Broadcasting on trees is a fundamental model from statistical physics that plays an important role in information theory, noisy computation and phylogenetic reconstruction within computational biology and linguistics. While this model…
The growing amount of applications that generate vast amount of data in short time scales render the problem of partial monitoring, coupled with prediction, a rather fundamental one. We study the aforementioned canonical problem under the…
Several recent works have proposed instance-dependent upper bounds on the number of episodes needed to identify, with probability $1-\delta$, an $\varepsilon$-optimal policy in finite-horizon tabular Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). These…
We construct near optimal linear decision trees for a variety of decision problems in combinatorics and discrete geometry. For example, for any constant $k$, we construct linear decision trees that solve the $k$-SUM problem on $n$ elements…
We study parity decision trees for Boolean functions. The motivation of our study is the log-rank conjecture for XOR functions and its connection to Fourier analysis and parity decision tree complexity. Let f be a Boolean function with…
We identify a sufficient condition, treewidth-pliability, that gives a polynomial-time algorithm for an arbitrarily good approximation of the optimal value in a large class of Max-2-CSPs parameterised by the class of allowed constraint…
We investigate the tractability of a simple fusion of two fundamental structures on graphs, a spanning tree and a perfect matching. Specifically, we consider the following problem: given an edge-weighted graph, find a minimum-weight…
Block Sorting is a well studied problem, motivated by its applications in Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and Computational Biology. Block Sorting has been shown to be NP-Hard, and two separate polynomial time 2-approximation…
We investigate the problem of active learning on a given tree whose nodes are assigned binary labels in an adversarial way. Inspired by recent results by Guillory and Bilmes, we characterize (up to constant factors) the optimal placement of…