In the storied Colonel Blotto game, two colonels allocate $a$ and $b$ troops, respectively, to $k$ distinct battlefields. A colonel wins a battle if they assign more troops to that particular battle, and each colonel seeks to maximize their total number of victories. Despite the problem's formulation in 1921, the first polynomial-time algorithm to compute Nash equilibrium (NE) strategies for this game was discovered only quite recently. In 2016, \citep{ahmadinejad_dehghani_hajiaghayi_lucier_mahini_seddighin_2019} formulated a breakthrough algorithm to compute NE strategies for the Colonel Blotto game in computational complexity $O(k^{14}\max\{a,b\}^{13})$, receiving substantial media coverage (e.g. \citep{Insider}, \citep{NSF}, \citep{ScienceDaily}). This is the only known provably efficient algorithm for the Colonel Blotto game with general parameters. In this work, we present the first known algorithm to compute $\epsilon$-approximate NE strategies in the two-player Colonel Blotto game in runtime $\widetilde{O}(\epsilon^{-4} k^8 \max\{a,b\})$ for arbitrary settings of these parameters. Moreover, this algorithm computes approximate coarse correlated equilibrium strategies in the multiplayer Colonel Blotto game (when there are $\ell > 2$ colonels) with runtime $\widetilde{O}(\ell \epsilon^{-4} k^8 n + \ell^2 \epsilon^{-2} k^3 n)$, where $n$ is the maximum troop count. Before this work, no polynomial-time algorithm was known to compute exact or approximate equilibrium (in any sense) strategies for multiplayer Colonel Blotto with arbitrary parameters. Our algorithm computes these approximate equilibria through a novel (to the author's knowledge) sampling technique with which it implicitly performs multiplicative weights update over the exponentially many strategies available to each player.
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We study streaming algorithms in the white-box adversarial model, where the stream is chosen adaptively by an adversary who observes the entire internal state of the algorithm at each time step. We show that nontrivial algorithms are still possible. We first give a randomized algorithm for the $L_1$-heavy hitters problem that outperforms the optimal deterministic Misra-Gries algorithm on long streams. If the white-box adversary is computationally bounded, we use cryptographic techniques to reduce the memory of our $L_1$-heavy hitters algorithm even further and to design a number of additional algorithms for graph, string, and linear algebra problems. The existence of such algorithms is surprising, as the streaming algorithm does not even have a secret key in this model, i.e., its state is entirely known to the adversary. One algorithm we design is for estimating the number of distinct elements in a stream with insertions and deletions achieving a multiplicative approximation and sublinear space; such an algorithm is impossible for deterministic algorithms. We also give a general technique that translates any two-player deterministic communication lower bound to a lower bound for {\it randomized} algorithms robust to a white-box adversary. In particular, our results show that for all $p\ge 0$, there exists a constant $C_p>1$ such that any $C_p$-approximation algorithm for $F_p$ moment estimation in insertion-only streams with a white-box adversary requires $\Omega(n)$ space for a universe of size $n$. Similarly, there is a constant $C>1$ such that any $C$-approximation algorithm in an insertion-only stream for matrix rank requires $\Omega(n)$ space with a white-box adversary. Our algorithmic results based on cryptography thus show a separation between computationally bounded and unbounded adversaries. (Abstract shortened to meet arXiv limits.)
Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, the $k$-center problem is to find $k$ congruent disks of minimum possible radius such that their union covers all the points in $P$. The $2$-center problem is a special case of the $k$-center problem that has been extensively studied in the recent past \cite{CAHN,HT,SH}. In this paper, we consider a generalized version of the $2$-center problem called \textit{proximity connected} $2$-center (PCTC) problem. In this problem, we are also given a parameter $\delta\geq 0$ and we have the additional constraint that the distance between the centers of the disks should be at most $\delta$. Note that when $\delta=0$, the PCTC problem is reduced to the $1$-center(minimum enclosing disk) problem and when $\delta$ tends to infinity, it is reduced to the $2$-center problem. The PCTC problem first appeared in the context of wireless networks in 1992 \cite{ACN0}, but obtaining a nontrivial deterministic algorithm for the problem remained open. In this paper, we resolve this open problem by providing a deterministic $O(n^2\log n)$ time algorithm for the problem.
In this paper, we propose a depth-first search (DFS) algorithm for searching maximum matchings in general graphs. Unlike blossom shrinking algorithms, which store all possible alternative alternating paths in the super-vertices shrunk from blossoms, the newly proposed algorithm does not involve blossom shrinking. The basic idea is to deflect the alternating path when facing blossoms. The algorithm maintains detour information in an auxiliary stack to minimize the redundant data structures. A benefit of our technique is to avoid spending time on shrinking and expanding blossoms. This DFS algorithm can determine a maximum matching of a general graph with $m$ edges and $n$ vertices in $O(mn)$ time with space complexity $O(n)$.
We study the distributed minimum spanning tree (MST) problem, a fundamental problem in distributed computing. It is well-known that distributed MST can be solved in $\tilde{O}(D+\sqrt{n})$ rounds in the standard CONGEST model (where $n$ is the network size and $D$ is the network diameter) and this is essentially the best possible round complexity (up to logarithmic factors). However, in resource-constrained networks such as ad hoc wireless and sensor networks, nodes spending so much time can lead to significant spending of resources such as energy. Motivated by the above consideration, we study distributed algorithms for MST under the \emph{sleeping model} [Chatterjee et al., PODC 2020], a model for design and analysis of resource-efficient distributed algorithms. In the sleeping model, a node can be in one of two modes in any round -- \emph{sleeping} or \emph{awake} (unlike the traditional model where nodes are always awake). Only the rounds in which a node is \emph{awake} are counted, while \emph{sleeping} rounds are ignored. A node spends resources only in the awake rounds and hence the main goal is to minimize the \emph{awake complexity} of a distributed algorithm, the worst-case number of rounds any node is awake. We present deterministic and randomized distributed MST algorithms that have an \emph{optimal} awake complexity of $O(\log n)$ time with a matching lower bound. We also show that our randomized awake-optimal algorithm has essentially the best possible round complexity by presenting a lower bound of $\tilde{\Omega}(n)$ on the product of the awake and round complexity of any distributed algorithm (including randomized) that outputs an MST, where $\tilde{\Omega}$ hides a $1/(\text{polylog } n)$ factor.
Existing inferential methods for small area data involve a trade-off between maintaining area-level frequentist coverage rates and improving inferential precision via the incorporation of indirect information. In this article, we propose a method to obtain an area-level prediction region for a future observation which mitigates this trade-off. The proposed method takes a conformal prediction approach in which the conformity measure is the posterior predictive density of a working model that incorporates indirect information. The resulting prediction region has guaranteed frequentist coverage regardless of the working model, and, if the working model assumptions are accurate, the region has minimum expected volume compared to other regions with the same coverage rate. When constructed under a normal working model, we prove such a prediction region is an interval and construct an efficient algorithm to obtain the exact interval. We illustrate the performance of our method through simulation studies and an application to EPA radon survey data.
Computing a dense subgraph is a fundamental problem in graph mining, with a diverse set of applications ranging from electronic commerce to community detection in social networks. In many of these applications, the underlying context is better modelled as a weighted hypergraph that keeps evolving with time. This motivates the problem of maintaining the densest subhypergraph of a weighted hypergraph in a {\em dynamic setting}, where the input keeps changing via a sequence of updates (hyperedge insertions/deletions). Previously, the only known algorithm for this problem was due to Hu et al. [HWC17]. This algorithm worked only on unweighted hypergraphs, and had an approximation ratio of $(1+\epsilon)r^2$ and an update time of $O(\text{poly} (r, \log n))$, where $r$ denotes the maximum rank of the input across all the updates. We obtain a new algorithm for this problem, which works even when the input hypergraph is weighted. Our algorithm has a significantly improved (near-optimal) approximation ratio of $(1+\epsilon)$ that is independent of $r$, and a similar update time of $O(\text{poly} (r, \log n))$. It is the first $(1+\epsilon)$-approximation algorithm even for the special case of weighted simple graphs. To complement our theoretical analysis, we perform experiments with our dynamic algorithm on large-scale, real-world data-sets. Our algorithm significantly outperforms the state of the art [HWC17] both in terms of accuracy and efficiency.
We study dynamic algorithms for the problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function over a stream of $n$ insertions and deletions. We show that any algorithm that maintains a $(0.5+\epsilon)$-approximate solution under a cardinality constraint, for any constant $\epsilon>0$, must have an amortized query complexity that is $\mathit{polynomial}$ in $n$. Moreover, a linear amortized query complexity is needed in order to maintain a $0.584$-approximate solution. This is in sharp contrast with recent dynamic algorithms of [LMNF+20, Mon20] that achieve $(0.5-\epsilon)$-approximation with a $\mathsf{poly}\log(n)$ amortized query complexity. On the positive side, when the stream is insertion-only, we present efficient algorithms for the problem under a cardinality constraint and under a matroid constraint with approximation guarantee $1-1/e-\epsilon$ and amortized query complexities $\smash{O(\log (k/\epsilon)/\epsilon^2)}$ and $\smash{k^{\tilde{O}(1/\epsilon^2)}\log n}$, respectively, where $k$ denotes the cardinality parameter or the rank of the matroid.
We consider networks of small, autonomous devices that communicate with each other wirelessly. Minimizing energy usage is an important consideration in designing algorithms for such networks, as battery life is a crucial and limited resource. Working in a model where both sending and listening for messages deplete energy, we consider the problem of finding a maximal matching of the nodes in a radio network of arbitrary and unknown topology. We present a distributed randomized algorithm that produces, with high probability, a maximal matching. The maximum energy cost per node is $O(\log^2 n)$, where $n$ is the size of the network. The total latency of our algorithm is $O(n \log n)$ time steps. We observe that there exist families of network topologies for which both of these bounds are simultaneously optimal up to polylog factors, so any significant improvement will require additional assumptions about the network topology. We also consider the related problem of assigning, for each node in the network, a neighbor to back up its data in case of node failure. Here, a key goal is to minimize the maximum load, defined as the number of nodes assigned to a single node. We present a decentralized low-energy algorithm that finds a neighbor assignment whose maximum load is at most a polylog($n$) factor bigger that the optimum.
Low-rank matrix estimation under heavy-tailed noise is challenging, both computationally and statistically. Convex approaches have been proven statistically optimal but suffer from high computational costs, especially since robust loss functions are usually non-smooth. More recently, computationally fast non-convex approaches via sub-gradient descent are proposed, which, unfortunately, fail to deliver a statistically consistent estimator even under sub-Gaussian noise. In this paper, we introduce a novel Riemannian sub-gradient (RsGrad) algorithm which is not only computationally efficient with linear convergence but also is statistically optimal, be the noise Gaussian or heavy-tailed. Convergence theory is established for a general framework and specific applications to absolute loss, Huber loss, and quantile loss are investigated. Compared with existing non-convex methods, ours reveals a surprising phenomenon of dual-phase convergence. In phase one, RsGrad behaves as in a typical non-smooth optimization that requires gradually decaying stepsizes. However, phase one only delivers a statistically sub-optimal estimator which is already observed in the existing literature. Interestingly, during phase two, RsGrad converges linearly as if minimizing a smooth and strongly convex objective function and thus a constant stepsize suffices. Underlying the phase-two convergence is the smoothing effect of random noise to the non-smooth robust losses in an area close but not too close to the truth. Lastly, RsGrad is applicable for low-rank tensor estimation under heavy-tailed noise where a statistically optimal rate is attainable with the same phenomenon of dual-phase convergence, and a novel shrinkage-based second-order moment method is guaranteed to deliver a warm initialization. Numerical simulations confirm our theoretical discovery and showcase the superiority of RsGrad over prior methods.
CP decomposition (CPD) is prevalent in chemometrics, signal processing, data mining and many more fields. While many algorithms have been proposed to compute the CPD, alternating least squares (ALS) remains one of the most widely used algorithm for computing the decomposition. Recent works have introduced the notion of eigenvalues and singular values of a tensor and explored applications of eigenvectors and singular vectors in areas like signal processing, data analytics and in various other fields. We introduce a new formulation for deriving singular values and vectors of a tensor by considering the critical points of a function different from what is used in the previous work. Computing these critical points in an alternating manner motivates an alternating optimization algorithm which corresponds to alternating least squares algorithm in the matrix case. However, for tensors with order greater than equal to $3$, it minimizes an objective function which is different from the commonly used least squares loss. Alternating optimization of this new objective leads to simple updates to the factor matrices with the same asymptotic computational cost as ALS. We show that a subsweep of this algorithm can achieve a superlinear convergence rate for exact CPD with known rank and verify it experimentally. We then view the algorithm as optimizing a Mahalanobis distance with respect to each factor with ground metric dependent on the other factors. This perspective allows us to generalize our approach to interpolate between updates corresponding to the ALS and the new algorithm to manage the tradeoff between stability and fitness of the decomposition. Our experimental results show that for approximating synthetic and real-world tensors, this algorithm and its variants converge to a better conditioned decomposition with comparable and sometimes better fitness as compared to the ALS algorithm.
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