A partition $\mathcal{P}$ of $\mathbb{R}^d$ is called a $(k,\varepsilon)$-secluded partition if, for every $\vec{p} \in \mathbb{R}^d$, the ball $\overline{B}_{\infty}(\varepsilon, \vec{p})$ intersects at most $k$ members of $\mathcal{P}$. A goal in designing such secluded partitions is to minimize $k$ while making $\varepsilon$ as large as possible. This partition problem has connections to a diverse range of topics, including deterministic rounding schemes, pseudodeterminism, replicability, as well as Sperner/KKM-type results. In this work, we establish near-optimal relationships between $k$ and $\varepsilon$. We show that, for any bounded measure partitions and for any $d\geq 1$, it must be that $k\geq(1+2\varepsilon)^d$. Thus, when $k=k(d)$ is restricted to ${\rm poly}(d)$, it follows that $\varepsilon=\varepsilon(d)\in O\left(\frac{\ln d}{d}\right)$. This bound is tight up to log factors, as it is known that there exist secluded partitions with $k(d)=d+1$ and $\varepsilon(d)=\frac{1}{2d}$. We also provide new constructions of secluded partitions that work for a broad spectrum of $k(d)$ and $\varepsilon(d)$ parameters. Specifically, we prove that, for any $f:\mathbb{N}\rightarrow\mathbb{N}$, there is a secluded partition with $k(d)=(f(d)+1)^{\lceil\frac{d}{f(d)}\rceil}$ and $\varepsilon(d)=\frac{1}{2f(d)}$. These new partitions are optimal up to $O(\log d)$ factors for various choices of $k(d)$ and $\varepsilon(d)$. Based on the lower bound result, we establish a new neighborhood version of Sperner's lemma over hypercubes, which is of independent interest. In addition, we prove a no-free-lunch theorem about the limitations of rounding schemes in the context of pseudodeterministic/replicable algorithms.
For a positive integer $k$, a proper $k$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a mapping $f: V(G) \rightarrow \{1,2, \ldots, k\}$ such that $f(u) \neq f(v)$ for each edge $uv \in E(G)$. The smallest integer $k$ for which there is a proper $k$-coloring of $G$ is called chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $\chi(G)$. A \emph{locally identifying coloring} (for short, lid-coloring) of a graph $G$ is a proper $k$-coloring of $G$ such that every pair of adjacent vertices with distinct closed neighborhoods has distinct set of colors in their closed neighborhoods. The smallest integer $k$ such that $G$ has a lid-coloring with $k$ colors is called \emph{locally identifying chromatic number} (for short, \emph{lid-chromatic number}) of $G$, denoted by $\chi_{lid}(G)$. In this paper, we study lid-coloring of Cartesian product and tensor product of two graphs. We prove that if $G$ and $H$ are two connected graphs having at least two vertices then (a) $\chi_{lid}(G \square H) \leq \chi(G) \chi(H)-1$ and (b) $\chi_{lid}(G \times H) \leq \chi(G) \chi(H)$. Here $G \square H$ and $G \times H$ denote the Cartesian and tensor products of $G$ and $H$ respectively. We also give exact values of lid-chromatic number of Cartesian product (resp. tensor product) of two paths, a cycle and a path, and two cycles.
We prove new upper and lower bounds on the number of iterations the $k$-dimensional Weisfeiler-Leman algorithm ($k$-WL) requires until stabilization. For $k \geq 3$, we show that $k$-WL stabilizes after at most $O(kn^{k-1}\log n)$ iterations (where $n$ denotes the number of vertices of the input structures), obtaining the first improvement over the trivial upper bound of $n^{k}-1$ and extending a previous upper bound of $O(n \log n)$ for $k=2$ [Lichter et al., LICS 2019]. We complement our upper bounds by constructing $k$-ary relational structures on which $k$-WL requires at least $n^{\Omega(k)}$ iterations to stabilize. This improves over a previous lower bound of $n^{\Omega(k / \log k)}$ [Berkholz, Nordstr\"{o}m, LICS 2016]. We also investigate tradeoffs between the dimension and the iteration number of WL, and show that $d$-WL, where $d = \lceil\frac{3(k+1)}{2}\rceil$, can simulate the $k$-WL algorithm using only $O(k^2 \cdot n^{\lfloor k/2\rfloor + 1} \log n)$ many iterations, but still requires at least $n^{\Omega(k)}$ iterations for any $d$ (that is sufficiently smaller than $n$). The number of iterations required by $k$-WL to distinguish two structures corresponds to the quantifier rank of a sentence distinguishing them in the $(k + 1)$-variable fragment $C_{k+1}$ of first-order logic with counting quantifiers. Hence, our results also imply new upper and lower bounds on the quantifier rank required in the logic $C_{k+1}$, as well as tradeoffs between variable number and quantifier rank.
In the literature of high-dimensional central limit theorems, there is a gap between results for general limiting correlation matrix $\Sigma$ and the strongly non-degenerate case. For the general case where $\Sigma$ may be degenerate, under certain light-tail conditions, when approximating a normalized sum of $n$ independent random vectors by the Gaussian distribution $N(0,\Sigma)$ in multivariate Kolmogorov distance, the best-known error rate has been $O(n^{-1/4})$, subject to logarithmic factors of the dimension. For the strongly non-degenerate case, that is, when the minimum eigenvalue of $\Sigma$ is bounded away from 0, the error rate can be improved to $O(n^{-1/2})$ up to a $\log n$ factor. In this paper, we show that the $O(n^{-1/2})$ rate up to a $\log n$ factor can still be achieved in the degenerate case, provided that the minimum eigenvalue of the limiting correlation matrix of any three components is bounded away from 0. We prove our main results using Stein's method in conjunction with previously unexplored inequalities for the integral of the first three derivatives of the standard Gaussian density over convex polytopes. These inequalities were previously known only for hyperrectangles. Our proof demonstrates the connection between the three-components condition and the third moment Berry--Esseen bound.
In this work we develop new finite element discretisations of the shear-deformable Reissner--Mindlin plate problem based on the Hellinger-Reissner principle of symmetric stresses. Specifically, we use conforming Hu-Zhang elements to discretise the bending moments in the space of symmetric square integrable fields with a square integrable divergence $\boldsymbol{M} \in \mathcal{HZ} \subset H^{\mathrm{sym}}(\mathrm{Div})$. The latter results in highly accurate approximations of the bending moments $\boldsymbol{M}$ and in the rotation field being in the discontinuous Lebesgue space $\boldsymbol{\phi} \in [L]^2$, such that the Kirchhoff-Love constraint can be satisfied for $t \to 0$. In order to preserve optimal convergence rates across all variables for the case $t \to 0$, we present an extension of the formulation using Raviart-Thomas elements for the shear stress $\mathbf{q} \in \mathcal{RT} \subset H(\mathrm{div})$. We prove existence and uniqueness in the continuous setting and rely on exact complexes for inheritance of well-posedness in the discrete setting. This work introduces an efficient construction of the Hu-Zhang base functions on the reference element via the polytopal template methodology and Legendre polynomials, making it applicable to hp-FEM. The base functions on the reference element are then mapped to the physical element using novel polytopal transformations, which are suitable also for curved geometries. The robustness of the formulations and the construction of the Hu-Zhang element are tested for shear-locking, curved geometries and an L-shaped domain with a singularity in the bending moments $\boldsymbol{M}$. Further, we compare the performance of the novel formulations with the primal-, MITC- and recently introduced TDNNS methods.
Let $\mathcal{D}$ be a set of $n$ disks in the plane. The disk graph $G_\mathcal{D}$ for $\mathcal{D}$ is the undirected graph with vertex set $\mathcal{D}$ in which two disks are joined by an edge if and only if they intersect. The directed transmission graph $G^{\rightarrow}_\mathcal{D}$ for $\mathcal{D}$ is the directed graph with vertex set $\mathcal{D}$ in which there is an edge from a disk $D_1 \in \mathcal{D}$ to a disk $D_2 \in \mathcal{D}$ if and only if $D_1$ contains the center of $D_2$. Given $\mathcal{D}$ and two non-intersecting disks $s, t \in \mathcal{D}$, we show that a minimum $s$-$t$ vertex cut in $G_\mathcal{D}$ or in $G^{\rightarrow}_\mathcal{D}$ can be found in $O(n^{3/2}\text{polylog} n)$ expected time. To obtain our result, we combine an algorithm for the maximum flow problem in general graphs with dynamic geometric data structures to manipulate the disks. As an application, we consider the barrier resilience problem in a rectangular domain. In this problem, we have a vertical strip $S$ bounded by two vertical lines, $L_\ell$ and $L_r$, and a collection $\mathcal{D}$ of disks. Let $a$ be a point in $S$ above all disks of $\mathcal{D}$, and let $b$ a point in $S$ below all disks of $\mathcal{D}$. The task is to find a curve from $a$ to $b$ that lies in $S$ and that intersects as few disks of $\mathcal{D}$ as possible. Using our improved algorithm for minimum cuts in disk graphs, we can solve the barrier resilience problem in $O(n^{3/2}\text{polylog} n)$ expected time.
Prefix aggregation operation (also called scan), and its particular case, prefix summation, is an important parallel primitive and enjoys a lot of attention in the research literature. It is also used in many algorithms as one of the steps. Aggregation over dominated points in $\mathbb{R}^m$ is a multidimensional generalisation of prefix aggregation. It is also intensively researched, both as a parallel primitive and as a practical problem, encountered in computational geometry, spatial databases and data warehouses. In this paper we show that, for a constant dimension $m$, aggregation over dominated points in $\mathbb{R}^m$ can be computed by $O(1)$ basic operations that include sorting the whole dataset, zipping sorted lists of elements, computing prefix aggregations of lists of elements and flat maps, which expand the data size from initial $n$ to $n\log^{m-1}n$. Thereby we establish that prefix aggregation suffices to express aggregation over dominated points in more dimensions, even though the latter is a far-reaching generalisation of the former. Many problems known to be expressible by aggregation over dominated points become expressible by prefix aggregation, too. We rely on a small set of primitive operations which guarantee an easy transfer to various distributed architectures and some desired properties of the implementation.
Covert communication over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with finite block length is investigated in this paper. The attention is on the covert criterion, which has not been considered in finite block length circumstance. As an accurate quantity metric of discrimination, the variation distance with given finite block length n and signal-noise ratio (snr) is obtained. We give both its analytic solution and expansions which can be easily evaluated. It is shown that K-L distance, which is frequently adopted as the metric of discrimination at the adversary in asymptotic regime, is not convincing in finite block length regime compared with the total variation distance. Moreover, the convergence rate of the total variation with different snr is analyzed when the block length tends to infinity. The results will be very helpful for understanding the behavior of the total variation distance and practical covert communication.
The paper revisits the robust $s$-$t$ path problem, one of the most fundamental problems in robust optimization. In the problem, we are given a directed graph with $n$ vertices and $k$ distinct cost functions (scenarios) defined over edges, and aim to choose an $s$-$t$ path such that the total cost of the path is always provable no matter which scenario is realized. With the view of each cost function being associated with an agent, our goal is to find a common $s$-$t$ path minimizing the maximum objective among all agents, and thus create a fair solution for them. The problem is hard to approximate within $o(\log k)$ by any quasi-polynomial time algorithm unless $\mathrm{NP} \subseteq \mathrm{DTIME}(n^{\mathrm{poly}\log n})$, and the best approximation ratio known to date is $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{n})$ which is based on the natural flow linear program. A longstanding open question is whether we can achieve a polylogarithmic approximation even when a quasi-polynomial running time is allowed. We give the first polylogarithmic approximation for robust $s$-$t$ path since the problem was proposed more than two decades ago. In particular, we introduce a $O(\log n \log k)$-approximate algorithm running in quasi-polynomial time. The algorithm is built on a novel linear program formulation for a decision-tree-type structure which enables us to get rid of the $\Omega(\max\{k,\sqrt{n}\})$ integrality gap of the natural flow LP. Further, we also consider some well-known graph classes, e.g., graphs with bounded treewidth, and show that the polylogarithmic approximation can be achieved polynomially on these graphs. We hope the new proposed techniques in the paper can offer new insights into the robust $s$-$t$ path problem and related problems in robust optimization.
Given an $n$-vertex undirected graph $G=(V,E,w)$, and a parameter $k\geq1$, a path-reporting distance oracle (or PRDO) is a data structure of size $S(n,k)$, that given a query $(u,v)\in V^2$, returns an $f(k)$-approximate shortest $u-v$ path $P$ in $G$ within time $q(k)+O(|P|)$. Here $S(n,k)$, $f(k)$ and $q(k)$ are arbitrary functions. A landmark PRDO due to Thorup and Zwick, with an improvement of Wulff-Nilsen, has $S(n,k)=O(k\cdot n^{1+\frac{1}{k}})$, $f(k)=2k-1$ and $q(k)=O(\log k)$. The size of this oracle is $\Omega(n\log n)$ for all $k$. Elkin and Pettie and Neiman and Shabat devised much sparser PRDOs, but their stretch was polynomially larger than the optimal $2k-1$. On the other hand, for non-path-reporting distance oracles, Chechik devised a result with $S(n,k)=O(n^{1+\frac{1}{k}})$, $f(k)=2k-1$ and $q(k)=O(1)$. In this paper we make a dramatic progress in bridging the gap between path-reporting and non-path-reporting distance oracles. We devise a PRDO with size $S(n,k)=O(\lceil\frac{k\log\log n}{\log n}\rceil\cdot n^{1+\frac{1}{k}})$, stretch $f(k)=O(k)$ and query time $q(k)=O(\log\lceil\frac{k\log\log n}{\log n}\rceil)$. We can also have size $O(n^{1+\frac{1}{k}})$, stretch $O(k\cdot\lceil\frac{k\log\log n}{\log n}\rceil)$ and query time $q(k)=O(\log\lceil\frac{k\log\log n}{\log n}\rceil)$. Our results on PRDOs are based on novel constructions of approximate distance preservers, that we devise in this paper. Specifically, we show that for any $\epsilon>0$, any $k=1,2,...$, and any graph $G$ and a collection $\mathcal{P}$ of $p$ vertex pairs, there exists a $(1+\epsilon)$-approximate preserver with $O(\gamma(\epsilon,k)\cdot p+n\log k+n^{1+\frac{1}{k}})$ edges, where $\gamma(\epsilon,k)=(\frac{\log k}{\epsilon})^{O(\log k)}$. These new preservers are significantly sparser than the previous state-of-the-art approximate preservers due to Kogan and Parter.
We study various information-theoretic measures and the information geometry of the Poincar\'e distributions and the related hyperboloid distributions, and prove that their statistical mixture models are universal density estimators of smooth densities in hyperbolic spaces. The Poincar\'e and the hyperboloid distributions are two types of hyperbolic probability distributions defined using different models of hyperbolic geometry. Namely, the Poincar\'e distributions form a triparametric bivariate exponential family whose sample space is the hyperbolic Poincar\'e upper-half plane and natural parameter space is the open 3D convex cone of two-by-two positive-definite matrices. The family of hyperboloid distributions form another exponential family which has sample space the forward sheet of the two-sheeted unit hyperboloid modeling hyperbolic geometry. In the first part, we prove that all $f$-divergences between Poincar\'e distributions can be expressed using three canonical terms using Eaton's framework of maximal group invariance. We also show that the $f$-divergences between any two Poincar\'e distributions are asymmetric except when those distributions belong to a same leaf of a particular foliation of the parameter space. We report closed-form formula for the Fisher information matrix, the Shannon's differential entropy and the Kullback-Leibler divergence. and Bhattacharyya distances between such distributions using the framework of exponential families. In the second part, we state the corresponding results for the exponential family of hyperboloid distributions by highlighting a parameter correspondence between the Poincar\'e and the hyperboloid distributions. Finally, we describe a random generator to draw variates and present two Monte Carlo methods to stochastically estimate numerically $f$-divergences between hyperbolic distributions.