We present deterministic algorithms for the Hidden Subgroup Problem. The first algorithm, for abelian groups, achieves the same asymptotic worst-case query complexity as the optimal randomized algorithm, namely O($\sqrt{ n}\,$), where $n$ is the order of the group. The analogous algorithm for non-abelian groups comes within a $\sqrt{ \log n}$ factor of the optimal randomized query complexity. The best known randomized algorithm for the Hidden Subgroup Problem has expected query complexity that is sensitive to the input, namely O($\sqrt{ n/m}\,$), where $m$ is the order of the hidden subgroup. In the first version of this article (arXiv:2104.14436v1 [cs.DS]), we asked if there is a deterministic algorithm whose query complexity has a similar dependence on the order of the hidden subgroup. Prompted by this question, Ye and Li (arXiv:2110.00827v1 [cs.DS]) present deterministic algorithms for abelian groups which solve the problem with O($\sqrt{ n/m }\,$ ) queries, and find the hidden subgroup with O($\sqrt{ n (\log m) / m} + \log m$) queries. Moreover, they exhibit instances which show that in general, the deterministic query complexity of the problem may be o($\sqrt{ n/m } \,$), and that of finding the entire subgroup may also be o($\sqrt{ n/m } \,$) or even $\omega(\sqrt{ n/m } \,)$. We present a different deterministic algorithm for the Hidden Subgroup Problem that also has query complexity O($\sqrt{ n/m }\,$) for abelian groups. The algorithm is arguably simpler. Moreover, it works for non-abelian groups, and has query complexity O($\sqrt{ (n/m) \log (n/m) }\,$) for a large class of instances, such as those over supersolvable groups. We build on this to design deterministic algorithms to find the hidden subgroup for all abelian and some non-abelian instances, at the cost of a $\log m$ multiplicative factor increase in the query complexity.
We study the facility location problems where agents are located on a real line and divided into groups based on criteria such as ethnicity or age. Our aim is to design mechanisms to locate a facility to approximately minimize the costs of groups of agents to the facility fairly while eliciting the agents' locations truthfully. We first explore various well-motivated group fairness cost objectives for the problems and show that many natural objectives have an unbounded approximation ratio. We then consider minimizing the maximum total group cost and minimizing the average group cost objectives. For these objectives, we show that existing classical mechanisms (e.g., median) and new group-based mechanisms provide bounded approximation ratios, where the group-based mechanisms can achieve better ratios. We also provide lower bounds for both objectives. To measure fairness between groups and within each group, we study a new notion of intergroup and intragroup fairness (IIF) . We consider two IIF objectives and provide mechanisms with tight approximation ratios.
Given polynomials $f_0,\dots, f_k$ the Ideal Membership Problem, IMP for short, asks if $f_0$ belongs to the ideal generated by $f_1,\dots, f_k$. In the search version of this problem the task is to find a proof of this fact. The IMP is a well-known fundamental problem with numerous applications, for instance, it underlies many proof systems based on polynomials such as Nullstellensatz, Polynomial Calculus, and Sum-of-Squares. Although the IMP is in general intractable, in many important cases it can be efficiently solved. Mastrolilli [SODA'19] initiated a systematic study of IMPs for ideals arising from Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs), parameterized by constraint languages, denoted IMP($\Gamma$). The ultimate goal of this line of research is to classify all such IMPs accordingly to their complexity. Mastrolilli achieved this goal for IMPs arising from CSP($\Gamma$) where $\Gamma$ is a Boolean constraint language, while Bulatov and Rafiey [ArXiv'21] advanced these results to several cases of CSPs over finite domains. In this paper we consider IMPs arising from CSPs over `affine' constraint languages, in which constraints are subgroups (or their cosets) of direct products of Abelian groups. This kind of CSPs include systems of linear equations and are considered one of the most important types of tractable CSPs. Some special cases of the problem have been considered before by Bharathi and Mastrolilli [MFCS'21] for linear equation modulo 2, and by Bulatov and Rafiey [ArXiv'21] to systems of linear equations over $GF(p)$, $p$ prime. Here we prove that if $\Gamma$ is an affine constraint language then IMP($\Gamma$) is solvable in polynomial time assuming the input polynomial has bounded degree.
We consider a class of statistical estimation problems in which we are given a random data matrix ${\boldsymbol X}\in {\mathbb R}^{n\times d}$ (and possibly some labels ${\boldsymbol y}\in{\mathbb R}^n$) and would like to estimate a coefficient vector ${\boldsymbol \theta}\in{\mathbb R}^d$ (or possibly a constant number of such vectors). Special cases include low-rank matrix estimation and regularized estimation in generalized linear models (e.g., sparse regression). First order methods proceed by iteratively multiplying current estimates by ${\boldsymbol X}$ or its transpose. Examples include gradient descent or its accelerated variants. Celentano, Montanari, Wu proved that for any constant number of iterations (matrix vector multiplications), the optimal first order algorithm is a specific approximate message passing algorithm (known as `Bayes AMP'). The error of this estimator can be characterized in the high-dimensional asymptotics $n,d\to\infty$, $n/d\to\delta$, and provides a lower bound to the estimation error of any first order algorithm. Here we present a simpler proof of the same result, and generalize it to broader classes of data distributions and of first order algorithms, including algorithms with non-separable nonlinearities. Most importantly, the new proof technique does not require to construct an equivalent tree-structured estimation problem, and is therefore susceptible of a broader range of applications.
In this paper, we consider the graph alignment problem, which is the problem of recovering, given two graphs, a one-to-one mapping between nodes that maximizes edge overlap. This problem can be viewed as a noisy version of the well-known graph isomorphism problem and appears in many applications, including social network deanonymization and cellular biology. Our focus here is on partial recovery, i.e., we look for a one-to-one mapping which is correct on a fraction of the nodes of the graph rather than on all of them, and we assume that the two input graphs to the problem are correlated Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi graphs of parameters $(n,q,s)$. Our main contribution is then to give necessary and sufficient conditions on $(n,q,s)$ under which partial recovery is possible with high probability as the number of nodes $n$ goes to infinity. In particular, we show that it is possible to achieve partial recovery in the $nqs=\Theta(1)$ regime under certain additional assumptions.
This paper uses the concept of algorithmic efficiency to present a unified theory of intelligence. Intelligence is defined informally, formally, and computationally. I introduce the concept of Dimensional complexity in algorithmic efficiency and deduce that an optimally efficient algorithm has zero Time complexity, zero Space complexity, and an infinite Dimensional complexity. This algorithm is then used to generate the number line.
We study the problem of learning in the stochastic shortest path (SSP) setting, where an agent seeks to minimize the expected cost accumulated before reaching a goal state. We design a novel model-based algorithm EB-SSP that carefully skews the empirical transitions and perturbs the empirical costs with an exploration bonus to guarantee both optimism and convergence of the associated value iteration scheme. We prove that EB-SSP achieves the minimax regret rate $\widetilde{O}(B_{\star} \sqrt{S A K})$, where $K$ is the number of episodes, $S$ is the number of states, $A$ is the number of actions and $B_{\star}$ bounds the expected cumulative cost of the optimal policy from any state, thus closing the gap with the lower bound. Interestingly, EB-SSP obtains this result while being parameter-free, i.e., it does not require any prior knowledge of $B_{\star}$, nor of $T_{\star}$ which bounds the expected time-to-goal of the optimal policy from any state. Furthermore, we illustrate various cases (e.g., positive costs, or general costs when an order-accurate estimate of $T_{\star}$ is available) where the regret only contains a logarithmic dependence on $T_{\star}$, thus yielding the first horizon-free regret bound beyond the finite-horizon MDP setting.
This paper addresses the problem of formally verifying desirable properties of neural networks, i.e., obtaining provable guarantees that neural networks satisfy specifications relating their inputs and outputs (robustness to bounded norm adversarial perturbations, for example). Most previous work on this topic was limited in its applicability by the size of the network, network architecture and the complexity of properties to be verified. In contrast, our framework applies to a general class of activation functions and specifications on neural network inputs and outputs. We formulate verification as an optimization problem (seeking to find the largest violation of the specification) and solve a Lagrangian relaxation of the optimization problem to obtain an upper bound on the worst case violation of the specification being verified. Our approach is anytime i.e. it can be stopped at any time and a valid bound on the maximum violation can be obtained. We develop specialized verification algorithms with provable tightness guarantees under special assumptions and demonstrate the practical significance of our general verification approach on a variety of verification tasks.
Many resource allocation problems in the cloud can be described as a basic Virtual Network Embedding Problem (VNEP): finding mappings of request graphs (describing the workloads) onto a substrate graph (describing the physical infrastructure). In the offline setting, the two natural objectives are profit maximization, i.e., embedding a maximal number of request graphs subject to the resource constraints, and cost minimization, i.e., embedding all requests at minimal overall cost. The VNEP can be seen as a generalization of classic routing and call admission problems, in which requests are arbitrary graphs whose communication endpoints are not fixed. Due to its applications, the problem has been studied intensively in the networking community. However, the underlying algorithmic problem is hardly understood. This paper presents the first fixed-parameter tractable approximation algorithms for the VNEP. Our algorithms are based on randomized rounding. Due to the flexible mapping options and the arbitrary request graph topologies, we show that a novel linear program formulation is required. Only using this novel formulation the computation of convex combinations of valid mappings is enabled, as the formulation needs to account for the structure of the request graphs. Accordingly, to capture the structure of request graphs, we introduce the graph-theoretic notion of extraction orders and extraction width and show that our algorithms have exponential runtime in the request graphs' maximal width. Hence, for request graphs of fixed extraction width, we obtain the first polynomial-time approximations. Studying the new notion of extraction orders we show that (i) computing extraction orders of minimal width is NP-hard and (ii) that computing decomposable LP solutions is in general NP-hard, even when restricting request graphs to planar ones.
We consider the task of learning the parameters of a {\em single} component of a mixture model, for the case when we are given {\em side information} about that component, we call this the "search problem" in mixture models. We would like to solve this with computational and sample complexity lower than solving the overall original problem, where one learns parameters of all components. Our main contributions are the development of a simple but general model for the notion of side information, and a corresponding simple matrix-based algorithm for solving the search problem in this general setting. We then specialize this model and algorithm to four common scenarios: Gaussian mixture models, LDA topic models, subspace clustering, and mixed linear regression. For each one of these we show that if (and only if) the side information is informative, we obtain parameter estimates with greater accuracy, and also improved computation complexity than existing moment based mixture model algorithms (e.g. tensor methods). We also illustrate several natural ways one can obtain such side information, for specific problem instances. Our experiments on real data sets (NY Times, Yelp, BSDS500) further demonstrate the practicality of our algorithms showing significant improvement in runtime and accuracy.
In this paper, we study the optimal convergence rate for distributed convex optimization problems in networks. We model the communication restrictions imposed by the network as a set of affine constraints and provide optimal complexity bounds for four different setups, namely: the function $F(\xb) \triangleq \sum_{i=1}^{m}f_i(\xb)$ is strongly convex and smooth, either strongly convex or smooth or just convex. Our results show that Nesterov's accelerated gradient descent on the dual problem can be executed in a distributed manner and obtains the same optimal rates as in the centralized version of the problem (up to constant or logarithmic factors) with an additional cost related to the spectral gap of the interaction matrix. Finally, we discuss some extensions to the proposed setup such as proximal friendly functions, time-varying graphs, improvement of the condition numbers.