Related papers: Approximately Optimal Search on a Higher-dimension…
An important goal in algorithm design is determining the best running time for solving a problem (approximately). For some problems, we know the optimal running time, assuming certain conditional lower bounds. In this work, we study the…
We introduce higher-dimensional cubical sliding puzzles that are inspired by the classical 15 Puzzle from the 1880s. In our puzzles, on a $d$-dimensional cube, a labeled token can be slid from one vertex to another if it is topologically…
We study a new search problem on the plane involving a robot and an immobile treasure, initially placed at distance $1$ from each other. The length $\beta$ of an arc (a fence) within the perimeter of the corresponding circle, as well as the…
In this paper, we study the fundamental open question of finding the optimal high-order algorithm for solving smooth convex minimization problems. Arjevani et al. (2019) established the lower bound $\Omega\left(\epsilon^{-2/(3p+1)}\right)$…
A landmark result of non-smooth convex optimization is that gradient descent is an optimal algorithm whenever the number of computed gradients is smaller than the dimension $d$. In this paper we study the extension of this result to the…
Multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is a ubiquitous problem in computational biology. Although it is NP-hard to find an optimal solution for an arbitrary number of sequences, due to the importance of this problem researchers are trying to…
Solving Sudoku puzzles is one of the most popular pastimes in the world. Puzzles range in difficulty from easy to very challenging; the hardest puzzles tend to have the most empty cells. The current paper explains and compares three…
The Generalized Sliding-Tile Puzzle (GSTP), allowing many square tiles on a board to move in parallel while enforcing natural geometric collision constraints on the movement of neighboring tiles, provide a high-fidelity mathematical model…
Heuristic search-based planning techniques are commonly used for motion planning on discretized spaces. The performance of these algorithms is heavily affected by the resolution at which the search space is discretized. Typically a fixed…
This work studies rearrangement problems involving the sorting of robots or objects in stack-like containers, which can be accessed only from one side. Two scenarios are considered: one where every robot or object needs to reach a…
We define a search problem on trees that closely captures the backtracking behavior of all current practical graph isomorphism algorithms. Given two trees with colored leaves, the goal is to find two leaves of matching color, one in each of…
Lattice rules are among the most prominently studied quasi-Monte Carlo methods to approximate multivariate integrals. A rank-1 lattice rule to approximate an $s$-dimensional integral is fully specified by its generating vector $\mathbf{z}…
Clustering-based nearest neighbor search is an effective method in which points are partitioned into geometric shards to form an index, with only a few shards searched during query processing to find a set of top-$k$ vectors. Even though…
Finding a maximum or minimum is a fundamental building block in many mathematical models. Compared with classical algorithms, Durr, Hoyer's quantum algorithm (DHA) achieves quadratic speed. However, its key step, the quantum exponential…
While multi-joint continuum robots are highly dexterous and flexible, designing an optimal robot can be challenging due to its kinematics involving curvatures. Hence, the current work presents a computational method developed to find…
We study the three-dimensional Knapsack (3DK) problem, in which we are given a set of axis-aligned cuboids with associated profits and an axis-aligned cube knapsack. The objective is to find a non-overlapping axis-aligned packing (by…
Hierarchical clustering is a critical task in numerous domains. Many approaches are based on heuristics and the properties of the resulting clusterings are studied post hoc. However, in several applications, there is a natural cost function…
We study the Rendezvous problem for 2 autonomous mobile robots in asynchronous settings with persistent memory called light. It is well known that Rendezvous is impossible in a basic model when robots have no lights, even if the system is…
In the area of statistical planning, there is a large body of theoretical knowledge and computational experience concerning so-called optimal approximate designs of experiments. However, for an approximate design to be executed in practice,…
Edge-matching problems, also called edge matching puzzles, are abstractions of placement problems with neighborhood conditions. Pieces with colored edges have to be placed on a board such that adjacent edges have the same color. The problem…