Related papers: Superconstant Inapproximability of Decision Tree L…
We unconditionally prove that it is NP-hard to compute a constant multiplicative approximation to the QUANTUM MAX-CUT problem on an unweighted graph of constant bounded degree. The proof works in two stages: first we demonstrate a generic…
We study the electrical distribution network reconfiguration problem, defined as follows. We are given an undirected graph with a root vertex, demand at each non-root vertex, and resistance on each edge. Then, we want to find a spanning…
This work considers a number of optimization problems and reductive relations between them. The two main problems we are interested in are the \emph{Optimal Decision Tree} and \emph{Set Cover}. We study these two fundamental tasks under…
Given a set of leaf-labeled trees with identical leaf sets, the well-known "Maximum Agreement SubTree" problem (MAST) consists of finding a subtree homeomorphically included in all input trees and with the largest number of leaves. Its…
In the laminar-constrained spanning tree problem, the goal is to find a minimum-cost spanning tree which respects upper bounds on the number of times each cut in a given laminar family is crossed. This generalizes the well-studied…
Decision trees are popular classification models, providing high accuracy and intuitive explanations. However, as the tree size grows the model interpretability deteriorates. Traditional tree-induction algorithms, such as C4.5 and CART,…
Given an undirected graph $G = (V, E)$ and a weight function $w:E \to \mathbb{R}$, the \textsc{Minimum Dominating Tree} problem asks to find a minimum weight sub-tree of $G$, $T = (U, F)$, such that every $v \in V \setminus U$ is adjacent…
In the Continuous Steiner Tree problem (CST), we are given as input a set of points (called terminals) in a metric space and ask for the minimum-cost tree connecting them. Additional points (called Steiner points) from the metric space can…
We show that Closest Substring, one of the most important problems in the field of biological sequence analysis, is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the number k of input strings (and remains so, even over a binary alphabet). This problem is…
In the $L_0$ Fitting Tree Metrics problem, we are given all pairwise distances among the elements of a set $V$ and our output is a tree metric on $V$. The goal is to minimize the number of pairwise distance disagreements between the input…
Computing an optimal classification tree that provably maximizes training performance within a given size limit, is NP-hard, and in practice, most state-of-the-art methods do not scale beyond computing optimal trees of depth three.…
What is the power of polynomial-time quantum computation with access to an NP oracle? In this work, we focus on two fundamental tasks from the study of Boolean satisfiability (SAT) problems: search-to-decision reductions, and approximate…
The maximum common subtree isomorphism problem asks for the largest possible isomorphism between subtrees of two given input trees. This problem is a natural restriction of the maximum common subgraph problem, which is ${\sf NP}$-hard in…
We show a close connection between structural hardness for $k$-partite graphs and tight inapproximability results for scheduling problems with precedence constraints. Assuming a natural but nontrivial generalisation of the bipartite…
The problem of computing minimally sparse solutions of under-determined linear systems is $NP$ hard in general. Subsets with extra properties, may allow efficient algorithms, most notably problems with the restricted isometry property (RIP)…
Consider a set of labels $L$ and a set of trees ${\mathcal T} = \{{\mathcal T}^{(1), {\mathcal T}^{(2), ..., {\mathcal T}^{(k) \$ where each tree ${\mathcal T}^{(i)$ is distinctly leaf-labeled by some subset of $L$. One fundamental problem…
Given a metric space on n points, an {\alpha}-approximate universal algorithm for the Steiner tree problem outputs a distribution over rooted spanning trees such that for any subset X of vertices containing the root, the expected cost of…
We prove a strong inapproximability result for the Balanced Minimum Evolution Problem. Our proof also implies that the problem remains NP-hard even when restricted to metric instances. Furthermore, we give a MST-based 2-approximation…
Interpreting three-leaf binary trees or {\em rooted triples} as constraints yields an entailment relation, whereby binary trees satisfying some rooted triples must also thus satisfy others, and thence a closure operator, which is known to…
This paper is about the recent notion of computably probably approximately correct learning, which lies between the statistical learning theory where there is no computational requirement on the learner and efficient PAC where the learner…