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We study beyond worst-case dimensionality reduction for $s$-sparse vectors. Our work is divided into two parts, each focusing on a different facet of beyond worst-case analysis: We first consider average-case guarantees. A folklore upper…
The Densest $k$-Subgraph (D$k$S) problem, and its corresponding minimization problem Smallest $p$-Edge Subgraph (S$p$ES), have come to play a central role in approximation algorithms. This is due both to their practical importance, and…
We prove a tight quantum query lower bound $\Omega(n^{k/(k+1)})$ for the problem of deciding whether there exist $k$ numbers among $n$ that sum up to a prescribed number, provided that the alphabet size is sufficiently large. This is an…
Given vectors $\mathbb{v}_1, \ldots, \mathbb{v}_n \in \mathbb{R}^d$ with Euclidean norm at most $1$ and $\mathbb{x}_0 \in [-1,1]^n$, our goal is to sample a random signing $\mathbb{x} \in \{\pm 1\}^n$ with $\mathbb{E}[\mathbb{x}] =…
In the noisy $k$-XOR problem, one is given $y \in \mathbb{F}_2^M$ and must distinguish between $y$ uniform and $y = A x + e$, where $A$ is the adjacency matrix of a $k$-left-regular bipartite graph with $N$ variables and $M$ constraints,…
The $k$-ExactCover problem is a parameterized version of the ExactCover problem, in which we are given a universe $U$, a collection $S$ of subsets of $U$, and an integer $k$, and the task is to determine whether $U$ can be partitioned into…
The problem of identifying a planted assignment given a random $k$-SAT formula consistent with the assignment exhibits a large algorithmic gap: while the planted solution becomes unique and can be identified given a formula with $O(n\log…
It has been hypothesized that $k$-SAT is hard to solve for randomly chosen instances near the "critical threshold", where the clause-to-variable ratio is $2^k \ln 2-\theta(1)$. Feige's hypothesis for $k$-SAT says that for all sufficiently…
Inspired by fast algorithms in natural language processing, we study low rank approximation in the entrywise transformed setting where we want to find a good rank $k$ approximation to $f(U \cdot V)$, where $U, V^\top \in \mathbb{R}^{n…
We consider the equal sum partition problem, motivated by distance magic graph labeling: Given $n,k \in \N$ such that $k\, | \sum_{i=1}^ni$ and a partition $p_1+\cdots+p_k=n$, when is it possible to find a partition of the set…
We consider a non-homogeneous generalised Burgers equation: $$ \frac{\partial u}{\partial t} + f'(u)\frac{\partial u}{\partial x} - \nu \frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial x^2} = \eta^{\omega},\quad t \in \R,\ x \in S^1. $$ Here, \nu is small and…
The dramatic improvements in combinatorial optimization algorithms over the last decades have had a major impact in artificial intelligence, operations research, and beyond, but the output of current state-of-the-art solvers is often hard…
Given items of different sizes and a fixed bin capacity, the bin-packing problem is to pack these items into a minimum number of bins such that the sum of item sizes in a bin does not exceed the capacity. We define a new variant called…
The 3SUM problem is one of the cornerstones of fine-grained complexity. Its study has led to countless lower bounds, but as has been sporadically observed before -- and as we will demonstrate again -- insights on 3SUM can also lead to…
More than 40 years ago, Schroeppel and Shamir presented an algorithm that solves the Subset Sum problem for $n$ integers in time $O^*(2^{0.5n})$ and space $O^*(2^{0.25n})$. The time upper bound remains unbeaten, but the space upper bound…
The k-means method is a widely used clustering algorithm. One of its distinguished features is its speed in practice. Its worst-case running-time, however, is exponential, leaving a gap between practical and theoretical performance. Arthur…
We present a series of almost settled inapproximability results for three fundamental problems. The first in our series is the subexponential-time inapproximability of the maximum independent set problem, a question studied in the area of…
The Optimal Morse Matching (OMM) problem asks for a discrete gradient vector field on a simplicial complex that minimizes the number of critical simplices. It is NP-hard and has been studied extensively in heuristic, approximation, and…
This thesis is divided in two parts. The first presents an overview of known results in statistical mechanics of disordered systems and its approach to random combinatorial optimization problems. The second part is a discussion of two…
A line of work initiated by Fortnow in 1997 has proven model-independent time-space lower bounds for the $\mathsf{SAT}$ problem and related problems within the polynomial-time hierarchy. For example, for the $\mathsf{SAT}$ problem, the…