A directed graph is oriented if it can be obtained by orienting the edges of a simple, undirected graph. For an oriented graph $G$, let $\beta(G)$ denote the size of a minimum feedback arc set, a smallest subset of edges whose deletion leaves an acyclic subgraph. A simple consequence of a result of Berger and Shor is that any oriented graph $G$ with $m$ edges satisfies $\beta(G) = m/2 - \Omega(m^{3/4})$. We observe that if an oriented graph $G$ has a fixed forbidden subgraph $B$, the upper bound of $\beta(G) = m/2 - \Omega(m^{3/4})$ is best possible as a function of the number of edges if $B$ is not bipartite, but the exponent $3/4$ in the lower order term can be improved if $B$ is bipartite. We also show that for every rational number $r$ between $3/4$ and $1$, there is a finite collection of digraphs $\mathcal{B}$ such that every $\mathcal{B}$-free digraph $G$ with $m$ edges satisfies $\beta(G) = m/2 - \Omega(m^r)$, and this bound is best possible up to the implied constant factor. The proof uses a connection to Tur\'an numbers and a result of Bukh and Conlon. Both of our upper bounds come equipped with randomized linear-time algorithms that construct feedback arc sets achieving those bounds. Finally, we give a characterization of quasirandom directed graphs via minimum feedback arc sets.
We study efficient preprocessing for the undirected Feedback Vertex Set problem, a fundamental problem in graph theory which asks for a minimum-sized vertex set whose removal yields an acyclic graph. More precisely, we aim to determine for which parameterizations this problem admits a polynomial kernel. While a characterization is known for the related Vertex Cover problem based on the recently introduced notion of bridge-depth, it remained an open problem whether this could be generalized to Feedback Vertex Set. The answer turns out to be negative; the existence of polynomial kernels for structural parameterizations for Feedback Vertex Set is governed by the elimination distance to a forest. Under the standard assumption that NP is not a subset of coNP/poly, we prove that for any minor-closed graph class $\mathcal G$, Feedback Vertex Set parameterized by the size of a modulator to $\mathcal G$ has a polynomial kernel if and only if $\mathcal G$ has bounded elimination distance to a forest. This captures and generalizes all existing kernels for structural parameterizations of the Feedback Vertex Set problem.
Many future technologies rely on neural networks, but verifying the correctness of their behavior remains a major challenge. It is known that neural networks can be fragile in the presence of even small input perturbations, yielding unpredictable outputs. The verification of neural networks is therefore vital to their adoption, and a number of approaches have been proposed in recent years. In this paper we focus on semidefinite programming (SDP) based techniques for neural network verification, which are particularly attractive because they can encode expressive behaviors while ensuring a polynomial time decision. Our starting point is the DeepSDP framework proposed by Fazlyab et al, which uses quadratic constraints to abstract the verification problem into a large-scale SDP. When the size of the neural network grows, however, solving this SDP quickly becomes intractable. Our key observation is that by leveraging chordal sparsity and specific parametrizations of DeepSDP, we can decompose the primary computational bottleneck of DeepSDP -- a large linear matrix inequality (LMI) -- into an equivalent collection of smaller LMIs. Our parametrization admits a tunable parameter, allowing us to trade-off efficiency and accuracy in the verification procedure. We call our formulation Chordal-DeepSDP, and provide experimental evaluation to show that it can: (1) effectively increase accuracy with the tunable parameter and (2) outperform DeepSDP on deeper networks.
Temporal hyperproperties are system properties that relate multiple execution traces. For (finite-state) hardware, temporal hyperproperties are supported by model checking algorithms, and tools for general temporal logics like HyperLTL exist. For (infinite-state) software, the analysis of temporal hyperproperties has, so far, been limited to $k$-safety properties, i.e., properties that stipulate the absence of a bad interaction between any $k$ traces. In this paper, we present an automated method for the verification of $\forall^k\exists^l$-safety properties in infinite-state systems. A $\forall^k\exists^l$-safety property stipulates that for any $k$ traces, there exist $l$ traces such that the resulting $k+l$ traces do not interact badly. This combination of universal and existential quantification allows us to express many properties beyond $k$-safety, including, for example, generalized non-interference or program refinement. Our method is based on a strategy-based instantiation of existential trace quantification combined with a program reduction, both in the context of a fixed predicate abstraction. Importantly, our framework allows for mutual dependence of strategy and reduction.
Internet ad auctions have evolved from a few lines of text to richer informational layouts that include images, sitelinks, videos, etc. Ads in these new formats occupy varying amounts of space, and an advertiser can provide multiple formats, only one of which can be shown. The seller is now faced with a multi-parameter mechanism design problem. Computing an efficient allocation is computationally intractable, and therefore the standard Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) auction, while truthful and welfare-optimal, is impractical. In this paper, we tackle a fundamental problem in the design of modern ad auctions. We adopt a ``Myersonian'' approach and study allocation rules that are monotone both in the bid and set of rich ads. We show that such rules can be paired with a payment function to give a truthful auction. Our main technical challenge is designing a monotone rule that yields a good approximation to the optimal welfare. Monotonicity doesn't hold for standard algorithms, e.g. the incremental bang-per-buck order, that give good approximations to ``knapsack-like'' problems such as ours. In fact, we show that no deterministic monotone rule can approximate the optimal welfare within a factor better than $2$ (while there is a non-monotone FPTAS). Our main result is a new, simple, greedy and monotone allocation rule that guarantees a $3$ approximation. In ad auctions in practice, monotone allocation rules are often paired with the so-called Generalized Second Price (GSP) payment rule, which charges the minimum threshold price below which the allocation changes. We prove that, even though our monotone allocation rule paired with GSP is not truthful, its Price of Anarchy (PoA) is bounded. Under standard no overbidding assumption, we prove a pure PoA bound of $6$ and a Bayes-Nash PoA bound of $\frac{6}{(1 - \frac{1}{e})}$. Finally, we experimentally test our algorithms on real-world data.
Given is a 1.5D terrain $\mathcal{T}$, i.e., an $x$-monotone polygonal chain in $\mathbb{R}^2$. For a given $2\le k\le n$, our objective is to approximate the largest area or perimeter convex polygon of exactly or at most $k$ vertices inside $\mathcal{T}$. For a constant $k>3$, we design an FPTAS that efficiently approximates the largest convex polygons with at most $k$ vertices, within a factor $(1-\epsilon)$. For the case where $k=2$, we design an $O(n)$ time exact algorithm for computing the longest line segment in $\mathcal{T}$, and for $k=3$, we design an $O(n \log n)$ time exact algorithm for computing the largest-perimeter triangle that lies within $\mathcal{T}$.
Temporal logics for hyperproperties like HyperLTL use trace quantifiers to express properties that relate multiple system runs. In practice, the verification of such specifications is mostly limited to formulas without quantifier alternation, where verification can be reduced to checking a trace property over the self-composition of the system. Quantifier alternations like $\forall \pi. \exists \pi'. \phi$, can either be solved by complementation or with an interpretation as a two-person game between a $\forall$-player, who incrementally constructs the trace $\pi$, and an $\exists$-player, who constructs $\pi'$ in such a way that $\pi$ and $\pi'$ together satisfy $\phi$. The game-based approach is significantly cheaper but incomplete because the $\exists$-player does not know the future moves of the $\forall$-player. In this paper, we establish that the game-based approach can be made complete by adding ($\omega$-regular) temporal prophecies. Our proof is constructive, yielding an effective algorithm for the generation of a complete set of prophecies.
An L-system (for lossless compression) is a CPD0L-system extended with two parameters $d$ and $n$, which determines unambiguously a string $w = \tau(\varphi^d(s))[1:n]$, where $\varphi$ is the morphism of the system, $s$ is its axiom, and $\tau$ is its coding. The length of the shortest description of an L-system generating $w$ is known as $\ell$, and is arguably a relevant measure of repetitiveness that builds on the self-similarities that arise in the sequence. In this paper we deepen the study of the measure $\ell$ and its relation with $\delta$, a better established lower bound that builds on substring complexity. Our results show that $\ell$ and $\delta$ are largely orthogonal, in the sense that one can be much larger than the other depending on the case. This suggests that both sources of repetitiveness are mostly unrelated. We also show that the recently introduced NU-systems, which combine the capabilities of L-systems with bidirectional macro-schemes, can be asymptotically strictly smaller than both mechanisms, which makes the size $\nu$ of the smallest NU-system the unique smallest reachable repetitiveness measure to date.
Graphs can model real-world, complex systems by representing entities and their interactions in terms of nodes and edges. To better exploit the graph structure, graph neural networks have been developed, which learn entity and edge embeddings for tasks such as node classification and link prediction. These models achieve good performance with respect to accuracy, but the confidence scores associated with the predictions might not be calibrated. That means that the scores might not reflect the ground-truth probabilities of the predicted events, which would be especially important for safety-critical applications. Even though graph neural networks are used for a wide range of tasks, the calibration thereof has not been sufficiently explored yet. We investigate the calibration of graph neural networks for node classification, study the effect of existing post-processing calibration methods, and analyze the influence of model capacity, graph density, and a new loss function on calibration. Further, we propose a topology-aware calibration method that takes the neighboring nodes into account and yields improved calibration compared to baseline methods.
In this paper, we study the problem of fair sequential decision making with biased linear bandit feedback. At each round, a player selects an action described by a covariate and by a sensitive attribute. The perceived reward is a linear combination of the covariates of the chosen action, but the player only observes a biased evaluation of this reward, depending on the sensitive attribute. To characterize the difficulty of this problem, we design a phased elimination algorithm that corrects the unfair evaluations, and establish upper bounds on its regret. We show that the worst-case regret is smaller than $\mathcal{O}(\kappa_*^{1/3}\log(T)^{1/3}T^{2/3})$, where $\kappa_*$ is an explicit geometrical constant characterizing the difficulty of bias estimation. We prove lower bounds on the worst-case regret for some sets of actions showing that this rate is tight up to a possible sub-logarithmic factor. We also derive gap-dependent upper bounds on the regret, and matching lower bounds for some problem instance.Interestingly, these results reveal a transition between a regime where the problem is as difficult as its unbiased counterpart, and a regime where it can be much harder.
In this letter, we consider a Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control system where feedback occurs over a noiseless binary channel and derive lower bounds on the minimum communication cost (quantified via the channel bitrate) required to attain a given control performance. We assume that at every time step an encoder can convey a packet containing a variable number of bits over the channel to a decoder at the controller. Our system model provides for the possibility that the encoder and decoder have shared randomness, as is the case in systems using dithered quantizers. We define two extremal prefix-free requirements that may be imposed on the message packets; such constraints are useful in that they allow the decoder, and potentially other agents to uniquely identify the end of a transmission in an online fashion. We then derive a lower bound on the rate of prefix-free coding in terms of directed information; in particular we show that a previously known bound still holds in the case with shared randomness. We generalize the bound for when prefix constraints are relaxed, and conclude with a rate-distortion formulation.