Related papers: Comparing Beliefs, Surveys and Random Walks

Message passing algorithms have proved surprisingly successful in solving hard constraint satisfaction problems on sparse random graphs. In such applications, variables are fixed sequentially to satisfy the constraints. Message passing is…

In this paper we study biased random K-SAT problems in which each logical variable is negated with probability $p$. This generalization provides us a crossover from easy to hard problems and would help us in a better understanding of the…

Local search algorithms are well-known methods for solving large, hard instances of the satisfiability problem (SAT). The performance of these algorithms crucially depends on heuristics for setting noise parameters and scoring variables.…

We propose a polynomially bounded, in time and space, method to decide whether a given 3-SAT formula is satisfiable or not. The tools we use here are, in fact, very simple. We first decide satisfiability for a particular 3-SAT formula,…

Let F be a uniformly distributed random k-SAT formula with n variables and m clauses. Non-rigorous statistical mechanics ideas have inspired a message passing algorithm called Belief Propagation Guided Decimation for finding satisfying…

We present a new structural (or syntatic) approach for estimating the satisfiability threshold of random 3-SAT formulae. We show its efficiency in obtaining a jump from the previous upper bounds, lowering them to 4.506. The method combines…

This paper develops methods of distributed Bayesian hypothesis tests for fault detection and diagnosis that are based on belief propagation and optimization in graphical models. The main challenges in developing distributed statistical…

The solution-space structure of the 3-Satisfiability Problem (3-SAT) is studied as a function of the control parameter alpha (ratio of number of clauses to the number of variables) using numerical simulations. For this purpose, one has to…

Let F be a uniformly distributed random k-SAT formula with n variables and m clauses. Non-constructive arguments show that F is satisfiable for clause/variable ratios m/n< r(k)~2^k ln 2 with high probability. Yet no efficient algorithm is…

We apply the splitting method to three well-known counting problems, namely 3-SAT, random graphs with prescribed degrees, and binary contingency tables. We present an enhanced version of the splitting method based on the capture-recapture…

We study the structure of the solution space and behavior of local search methods on random 3-SAT problems close to the SAT/UNSAT transition. Using the overlap measure of similarity between different solutions found on the same problem…

In an influential article Papadimitriou [FOCS 1991] proved that a local search algorithm called WalkSAT finds a satisfying assignment of a satisfiable 2-CNF with $n$ variables in $O(n^2)$ expected time. Variants of the WalkSAT algorithm…

A variational approach to finite connectivity spin-glass-like models is developed and applied to describe the structure of optimal solutions in random satisfiability problems. Our variational scheme accurately reproduces the known replica…

We analyse the performance of Belief Propagation Guided Decimation, a physics-inspired message passing algorithm, on the random $k$-XORSAT problem. Specifically, we derive an explicit threshold up to which the algorithm succeeds with a…

The solution space of a K-satisfiability (K-SAT) formula is a collection of solution clusters, each of which contains all the solutions that are mutually reachable through a sequence of single-spin flips. Knowledge of the statistical…

We analyze to what extent the random SAT and Max-SAT problems differ in their properties. Our findings suggest that for random $k$-CNF with ratio in a certain range, Max-SAT can be solved by any SAT algorithm with subexponential slowdown,…

Probabilistic graphical models are a powerful concept for modeling high-dimensional distributions. Besides modeling distributions, probabilistic graphical models also provide an elegant framework for performing statistical inference;…

Many natural optimization problems are NP-hard, which implies that they are probably hard to solve exactly in the worst-case. However, it suffices to get reasonably good solutions for all (or even most) instances in practice. This paper…

The Poisson distribution arises naturally when dealing with data involving counts, and it has found many applications in inverse problems and imaging. In this work, we develop an approximate Bayesian inference technique based on expectation…

We study the structure of satisfying assignments of a random 3-SAT formula. In particular, we show that a random formula of density 4.453 or higher almost surely has no non-trivial "core" assignments. Core assignments are certain partial…