In this paper, we construct some piecewise defined functions, and study their $c$-differential uniformity. As a by-product, we improve upon several prior results. Further, we look at concatenations of functions with low differential uniformity and show several results. For example, we prove that given $\beta_i$ (a basis of $\mathbb{F}_{q^n}$ over $\mathbb{F}_q$), some functions $f_i$ of $c$-differential uniformities $\delta_i$, and $L_i$ (specific linearized polynomials defined in terms of $\beta_i$), $1\leq i\leq n$, then $F(x)=\sum_{i=1}^n\beta_i f_i(L_i(x))$ has $c$-differential uniformity equal to $\prod_{i=1}^n \delta_i$.
Linear systems occur throughout engineering and the sciences, most notably as differential equations. In many cases the forcing function for the system is unknown, and interest lies in using noisy observations of the system to infer the forcing, as well as other unknown parameters. In differential equations, the forcing function is an unknown function of the independent variables (typically time and space), and can be modelled as a Gaussian process (GP). In this paper we show how the adjoint of a linear system can be used to efficiently infer forcing functions modelled as GPs, after using a truncated basis expansion of the GP kernel. We show how exact conjugate Bayesian inference for the truncated GP can be achieved, in many cases with substantially lower computation than would be required using MCMC methods. We demonstrate the approach on systems of both ordinary and partial differential equations, and by testing on synthetic data, show that the basis expansion approach approximates well the true forcing with a modest number of basis vectors. Finally, we show how to infer point estimates for the non-linear model parameters, such as the kernel length-scales, using Bayesian optimisation.
Given an array of distinct integers $A[1\ldots n]$, the Range Minimum Query (RMQ) problem requires us to construct a data structure from $A$, supporting the RMQ query: given an interval $[a,b]\subseteq[1,n]$, return the index of the minimum element in subarray $A[a\ldots b]$, i.e. return $\text{argmin}_{i\in[a,b]}A[i]$. The fundamental problem has a long history. The textbook solution which uses $O(n)$ words of space and $O(1)$ time by Gabow, Bentley, Tarjan (STOC 1984) and Harel, Tarjan (SICOMP 1984) dates back to 1980s. The state-of-the-art solution is presented by Fischer, Heun (SICOMP 2011) and Navarro, Sadakane (TALG 2014). The solution uses $2n-1.5\log n+n/\left(\frac{\log n}{t}\right)^t+\tilde{O}(n^{3/4})$ bits of space and $O(t)$ query time, where the additive $\tilde{O}(n^{3/4})$ is a pre-computed lookup table used in the RAM model, assuming the word-size is $\Theta(\log n)$ bits. On the other hand, the only known lower bound is proved by Liu and Yu (STOC 2020). They show that any data structure which solves RMQ in $t$ query time must use $2n-1.5\log n+n/(\log n)^{O(t^2\log^2t)}$ bits of space, assuming the word-size is $\Theta(\log n)$ bits. In this paper, we prove nearly tight lower bound for this problem. We show that, for any data structure which solves RMQ in $t$ query time, $2n-1.5\log n+n/(\log n)^{O(t\log^2t)}$ bits of space is necessary in the cell-probe model with word-size $\Theta(\log n)$ bits. We emphasize that, in terms of time complexity, our lower bound is tight up to a polylogarithmic factor.
One of the main reasons for query model's prominence in quantum complexity is the presence of concrete lower bounding techniques: polynomial method and adversary method. There have been considerable efforts to not just give lower bounds using these methods but even to compare and relate them. We explore the value of these bounds on quantum query complexity for the class of symmetric functions, arguably one of the most natural and basic set of Boolean functions. We show that the recently introduced measure of spectral sensitivity give the same value as both these bounds (positive adversary and approximate degree) for every total symmetric Boolean function. We also look at the quantum query complexity of Gap Majority, a partial symmetric function. It has gained importance recently in regard to understanding the composition of randomized query complexity. We characterize the quantum query complexity of Gap Majority and show a lower bound on noisy randomized query complexity (Ben-David and Blais, FOCS 2020) in terms of quantum query complexity. In addition, we study how large certificate complexity and block sensitivity can be as compared to sensitivity (even up to constant factors) for symmetric functions. We show tight separations, i.e., give upper bound on possible separations and construct functions achieving the same.
Bent functions $f: V_{n}\rightarrow \mathbb{F}_{p}$ with certain additional properties play an important role in constructing partial difference sets, where $V_{n}$ denotes an $n$-dimensional vector space over $\mathbb{F}_{p}$, $p$ is an odd prime. In \cite{Cesmelioglu1,Cesmelioglu2}, the so-called vectorial dual-bent functions are considered to construct partial difference sets. In \cite{Cesmelioglu1}, \c{C}e\c{s}melio\v{g}lu \emph{et al.} showed that for vectorial dual-bent functions $F: V_{n}\rightarrow V_{s}$ with certain additional properties, the preimage set of $0$ for $F$ forms a partial difference set. In \cite{Cesmelioglu2}, \c{C}e\c{s}melio\v{g}lu \emph{et al.} showed that for a class of Maiorana-McFarland vectorial dual-bent functions $F: V_{n}\rightarrow \mathbb{F}_{p^s}$, the preimage set of the squares (non-squares) in $\mathbb{F}_{p^s}^{*}$ for $F$ forms a partial difference set. In this paper, we further study vectorial dual-bent functions and partial difference sets. We prove that for vectorial dual-bent functions $F: V_{n}\rightarrow \mathbb{F}_{p^s}$ with certain additional properties, the preimage set of the squares (non-squares) in $\mathbb{F}_{p^s}^{*}$ for $F$ and the preimage set of any coset of some subgroup of $\mathbb{F}_{p^s}^{*}$ for $F$ form partial difference sets. Furthermore, explicit constructions of partial difference sets are yielded from some (non)-quadratic vectorial dual-bent functions. In this paper, we illustrate that almost all the results of using weakly regular $p$-ary bent functions to construct partial difference sets are special cases of our results.
We study ROUND-UFP and ROUND-SAP, two generalizations of the classical BIN PACKING problem that correspond to the unsplittable flow problem on a path (UFP) and the storage allocation problem (SAP), respectively. We are given a path with capacities on its edges and a set of tasks where for each task we are given a demand and a subpath. In ROUND-UFP, the goal is to find a packing of all tasks into a minimum number of copies (rounds) of the given path such that for each copy, the total demand of tasks on any edge does not exceed the capacity of the respective edge. In ROUND-SAP, the tasks are considered to be rectangles and the goal is to find a non-overlapping packing of these rectangles into a minimum number of rounds such that all rectangles lie completely below the capacity profile of the edges. We show that in contrast to BIN PACKING, both the problems do not admit an asymptotic polynomial-time approximation scheme (APTAS), even when all edge capacities are equal. However, for this setting, we obtain asymptotic $(2+\varepsilon)$-approximations for both problems. For the general case, we obtain an $O(\log\log n)$-approximation algorithm and an $O(\log\log\frac{1}{\delta})$-approximation under $(1+\delta)$-resource augmentation for both problems. For the intermediate setting of the no bottleneck assumption (i.e., the maximum task demand is at most the minimum edge capacity), we obtain absolute $12$- and asymptotic $(16+\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithms for ROUND-UFP and ROUND-SAP, respectively.
Let A(n, d) denote the maximum number of codewords in a binary code of length n and minimum Hamming distance d. Deriving upper and lower bounds on A(n, d) have been a subject for extensive research in coding theory. In this paper, we examine upper and lower bounds on A(n, d) in the high-minimum distance regime, in particular, when $d = n/2 - \Theta(\sqrt{n})$. We will first provide a lower bound based on a cyclic construction for codes of length $n= 2^m -1$ and show that $A(n, d= n/2 - 2^{c-1}\sqrt{n}) \geq n^c$, where c is an integer with $1 \leq c \leq m/2-1$. With a Fourier-analytic view of Delsarte's linear program, novel upper bounds on $A(n, n/2 - \sqrt{n})$ and $A(n, n/2 - 2 \sqrt{n})$ are obtained, and, to the best of the authors' knowledge, are the first upper bounds scaling polynomially in n for the regime with $d = n/2 - \Theta(\sqrt{n})$.
For integers $d \geq 2$ and $k \geq d+1$, a $k$-hole in a set $S$ of points in general position in $\mathbb{R}^d$ is a $k$-tuple of points from $S$ in convex position such that the interior of their convex hull does not contain any point from $S$. For a convex body $K \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$ of unit $d$-dimensional volume, we study the expected number $EH^K_{d,k}(n)$ of $k$-holes in a set of $n$ points drawn uniformly and independently at random from $K$. We prove an asymptotically tight lower bound on $EH^K_{d,k}(n)$ by showing that, for all fixed integers $d \geq 2$ and $k\geq d+1$, the number $EH_{d,k}^K(n)$ is at least $\Omega(n^d)$. For some small holes, we even determine the leading constant $\lim_{n \to \infty}n^{-d}EH^K_{d,k}(n)$ exactly. We improve the currently best known lower bound on $\lim_{n \to \infty}n^{-d}EH^K_{d,d+1}(n)$ by Reitzner and Temesvari (2019). In the plane, we show that the constant $\lim_{n \to \infty}n^{-2}EH^K_{2,k}(n)$ is independent of $K$ for every fixed $k \geq 3$ and we compute it exactly for $k=4$, improving earlier estimates by Fabila-Monroy, Huemer, and Mitsche (2015) and by the authors (2020).
For $d\in\mathbb{N}$, let $S$ be a set of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ in general position. A set $I$ of $k$ points from $S$ is a $k$-island in $S$ if the convex hull $\mathrm{conv}(I)$ of $I$ satisfies $\mathrm{conv}(I) \cap S = I$. A $k$-island in $S$ in convex position is a $k$-hole in $S$. For $d,k\in\mathbb{N}$ and a convex body $K\subseteq\mathbb{R}^d$ of volume $1$, let $S$ be a set of $n$ points chosen uniformly and independently at random from $K$. We show that the expected number of $k$-holes in $S$ is in $O(n^d)$. Our estimate improves and generalizes all previous bounds. In particular, we estimate the expected number of empty simplices in $S$ by $2^{d-1}\cdot d!\cdot\binom{n}{d}$. This is tight in the plane up to a lower-order term. Our method gives an asymptotically tight upper bound $O(n^d)$ even in the much more general setting, where we estimate the expected number of $k$-islands in $S$.
Let a polytope $\mathcal{P}$ be defined by one of the following ways: (i) $\mathcal{P} = \{x \in \mathbb{R}^n \colon A x \leq b\}$, where $A \in \mathbb{Z}^{(n+m) \times n}$, $b \in \mathbb{Z}^{(n+m)}$, and $rank(A) = n$, (ii) $\mathcal{P} = \{x \in \mathbb{R}_+^n \colon A x = b\}$, where $A \in \mathbb{Z}^{m \times n}$, $b \in \mathbb{Z}^{m}$, and $rank(A) = m$, and let all the rank minors of $A$ be bounded by $\Delta$ in the absolute values. We show that $|\mathcal{P} \cap \mathbb{Z}^n|$ can be computed with an algorithm, having the arithmetic complexity bound $$ O\bigl( \nu(d,m,\Delta) \cdot d^3 \cdot \Delta^4 \cdot \log(\Delta) \bigr), $$ where $d = \dim(\mathcal{P})$ and $\nu(d,m,\Delta)$ is the maximal possible number of vertices in a $d$-dimensional polytope $P$, defined by one of the systems above. Using the obtained result, we have the following arithmetical complexity bounds to compute $|P \cap \mathbb{Z}^n|$: 1) The bound $O(\frac{d}{m}+1)^m \cdot d^3 \cdot \Delta^4 \cdot \log(\Delta)$ that is polynomial on $d$ and $\Delta$, for any fixed $m$; 2) The bound $O\bigl(\frac{m}{d}+1\bigr)^{\frac{d}{2}} \cdot d^3 \cdot \Delta^4 \cdot \log(\Delta)$ that is polynomial on $m$ and $\Delta$, for any fixed $d$; 3) The bound $O(d)^{3 + \frac{d}{2}} \cdot \Delta^{4+d} \cdot \log(\Delta)$ that is polynomial on $\Delta$, for any fixed $d$. Given bounds can be used to obtain faster algorithms for the ILP feasibility problem, and for the problem to count integer points in a simplex or in an unbounded Subset-Sum polytope. Unbounded and parametric versions of the above problem are also considered.
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.