Related papers: The query complexity of order-finding
We consider the problem of finding an edge in a hidden undirected graph $G = (V, E)$ with $n$ vertices, in a model where we only allowed queries that ask whether or not a subset of vertices contains an edge. We study the non-adaptive model…
This paper studies the sample complexity of searching over multiple populations. We consider a large number of populations, each corresponding to either distribution P0 or P1. The goal of the search problem studied here is to find one…
We give new approximation algorithms for the submodular joint replenishment problem and the inventory routing problem, using an iterative rounding approach. In both problems, we are given a set of $N$ items and a discrete time horizon of…
The reconstruction problem for permutations on $n$ elements from their erroneous patterns which are distorted by transpositions is presented in this paper. It is shown that for any $n \geq 3$ an unknown permutation is uniquely…
Grover's search algorithm searches a database of $N$ unsorted items in $O(\sqrt{N/M})$ steps where $M$ represents the number of solutions to the search problem. This paper proposes a scheme for searching a database of $N$ unsorted items in…
We consider a combinatorial question about searching for an unknown ideal $\mu$ within a known pointed poset $\lambda$. Elements of $\lambda$ may be queried for membership in $\mu$, but at most $k$ positive queries are permitted. We provide…
Nonparametric estimation of a mixing distribution based on data coming from a mixture model is a challenging problem. Beyond estimation, there is interest in uncertainty quantification, e.g., confidence intervals for features of the mixing…
We consider the "partial information decomposition" (PID) problem, which aims to decompose the information that a set of source random variables provide about a target random variable into separate redundant, synergistic, union, and unique…
Motivated by the difficulty of specifying complete ordinal preferences over a large set of $m$ candidates, we study voting rules that are computable by querying voters about $t < m$ candidates. Generalizing prior works that focused on…
In this work, we study the generalized sorting problem, where we are given a set of $n$ elements to be sorted, but only a subset of all possible pairwise element comparisons is allowed. We look at the problem from the perspective of the…
It is shown that the first $n$ prime numbers $p_1,...,p_n$ determine the next one by the recursion equation $$ p_{n+1} =\lim\limits_{s\to +\infty} [\prod\limits^n_{k=1} (1-\frac{1}{p^s_k}) \sum\limits^\infty_{j=1} \frac{1}{j^s} -1]^{-1/s}.…
The statistical physics approach to the number partioning problem, a classical NP-hard problem, is both simple and rewarding. Very basic notions and methods from statistical mechanics are enough to obtain analytical results for the phase…
The $\epsilon$-approximate degree of a function $f\colon X \to \{0, 1\}$ is the least degree of a multivariate real polynomial $p$ such that $|p(x)-f(x)| \leq \epsilon$ for all $x \in X$. We determine the $\epsilon$-approximate degree of…
The Hamming oracle returns the Hamming distance between an unknown binary $n$-vector $x$ and a binary query $n$-vector y. The objective is to determine $x$ uniquely using a sequence of $m$ queries. What are the minimum number of queries…
We describe an algorithm, implemented in Python, which can enumerate any permutation class with polynomial enumeration from a structural description of the class. In particular, this allows us to find formulas for the number of permutations…
It is a common contention that it is an ``impossible mission'' to exactly determine the minimum sample size for the estimation of a binomial parameter with prescribed margin of error and confidence level. In this paper, we investigate such…
In this paper we discuss reduced order models for the approximation of parametric eigenvalue problems. In particular, we are interested in the presence of intersections or clusters of eigenvalues. The singularities originating by these…
We consider the problem of inserting one item into a list of N-1 ordered items. We previously showed that no quantum algorithm could solve this problem in fewer than log N/(2 log log N) queries, for N large. We transform the problem into a…
Let $Q(x,y)$ be a quadratic form with discriminant $D\neq 0$. We obtain non trivial upper bound estimates for the number of solutions of the congruence $Q(x,y)\equiv\lambda \pmod{p}$, where $p$ is a prime and $x,y$ lie in certain intervals…
In this paper we study noisy sorting without re-sampling. In this problem there is an unknown order $a_{\pi(1)} < ... < a_{\pi(n)}$ where $\pi$ is a permutation on $n$ elements. The input is the status of $n \choose 2$ queries of the form…