Related papers: Decision trees and influences of variables over pr…
We prove that for any decision tree calculating a boolean function $f:\{-1,1\}^n\to\{-1,1\}$, \[ \Var[f] \le \sum_{i=1}^n \delta_i \Inf_i(f), \] where $\delta_i$ is the probability that the $i$th input variable is read and $\Inf_i(f)$ is…
We show that on every product probability space, Boolean functions with small total influences are essentially the ones that are almost measurable with respect to certain natural sub-sigma algebras. This theorem in particular describes the…
Consider the following heuristic for building a decision tree for a function $f : \{0,1\}^n \to \{\pm 1\}$. Place the most influential variable $x_i$ of $f$ at the root, and recurse on the subfunctions $f_{x_i=0}$ and $f_{x_i=1}$ on the…
Given $f:\{-1, 1\}^n \rightarrow \{-1, 1\}$, define the \emph{spectral distribution} of $f$ to be the distribution on subsets of $[n]$ in which the set $S$ is sampled with probability $\widehat{f}(S)^2$. Then the Fourier Entropy-Influence…
The influence of the $k$'th coordinate on a Boolean function $f:\{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}$ is the probability that flipping $x_k$ changes the value $f(x)$. The total influence $I(f)$ is the sum of influences of the coordinates. The…
We consider Boolean functions f:{-1,1}^n->{-1,1} that are close to a sum of independent functions on mutually exclusive subsets of the variables. We prove that any such function is close to just a single function on a single subset. We also…
The Fourier Entropy-Influence (FEI) conjecture of Friedgut and Kalai [FK96] seeks to relate two fundamental measures of Boolean function complexity: it states that $H[f] \leq C Inf[f]$ holds for every Boolean function $f$, where $H[f]$…
The total influence of a function is a central notion in analysis of Boolean functions, and characterizing functions that have small total influence is one of the most fundamental questions associated with it. The KKL theorem and the…
In this paper, we prove that most of the boolean functions, $f : \{-1,1\}^n \rightarrow \{-1,1\}$ satisfy the Fourier Entropy Influence (FEI) Conjecture due to Friedgut and Kalai (Proc. AMS'96). The conjecture says that the Entropy of a…
We study the problem of estimating a monotone function $f:\{0,1\}^d\to[0,1]$ from noisy observations at uniformly random vertices of the Boolean hypercube. As a measure of complexity for the target~$f$, we use the total $L^1$-influence…
We prove two main results on how arbitrary linear threshold functions $f(x) = \sign(w\cdot x - \theta)$ over the $n$-dimensional Boolean hypercube can be approximated by simple threshold functions. Our first result shows that every…
The Fourier Entropy-Influence (FEI) Conjecture of Friedgut and Kalai states that ${\bf H}[f] \leq C \cdot {\bf I}[f]$ holds for every Boolean function $f$, where ${\bf H}[f]$ denotes the spectral entropy of $f$, ${\bf I}[f]$ is its total…
The {\em Total Influence} ({\em Average Sensitivity) of a discrete function is one of its fundamental measures. We study the problem of approximating the total influence of a monotone Boolean function \ifnum\plusminus=1 $f: \{\pm1\}^n…
A theorem of Hoischen states that given a positive continuous function $\varepsilon:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$, an integer $n\geq 0$, and a closed discrete set $E\subseteq\mathbb{R}$, any $C^n$ function $f:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}$ can be…
The Fourier-Walsh expansion of a Boolean function $f \colon \{0,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}$ is its unique representation as a multilinear polynomial. The Kindler-Safra theorem (2002) asserts that if in the expansion of $f$, the total weight…
We show that if G is a finite group and f is a {0,1}-valued function on G with Fourier algebra norm at most M then f may be computed by a coset decision tree (that is a decision tree in which at each vertex we query membership of a given…
A Boolean function $f:\{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ is said to be noise sensitive if inserting a small random error in its argument makes the value of the function almost unpredictable. Benjamini, Kalai and Schramm showed that if the sum of…
In this paper, we study learning and testing decision tree of size and depth that are significantly smaller than the number of attributes $n$. Our main result addresses the problem of poly$(n,1/\epsilon)$ time algorithms with…
We propose a simple extension of top-down decision tree learning heuristics such as ID3, C4.5, and CART. Our algorithm achieves provable guarantees for all target functions $f: \{-1,1\}^n \to \{-1,1\}$ with respect to the uniform…
Given a Boolean function $f:\{-1,1\}^n\to \{-1,1\}$, the Fourier distribution assigns probability $\widehat{f}(S)^2$ to $S\subseteq [n]$. The Fourier Entropy-Influence (FEI) conjecture of Friedgut and Kalai asks if there exist a universal…