For any $\epsilon>0$ and $n>(1+\epsilon)t$, $n>n_0(\epsilon)$ we determine the size of the largest $t$-intersecting family of permutations, as well as give a sharp stability result. This resolves a conjecture of Ellis, Friedgut and Pilpel (2011) and shows the validity of conjectures of Frankl and Deza (1977) and Cameron (1988) for $n>(1+\epsilon )t$. We note that, for this range of parameters, the extremal examples are not necessarily trivial, and that our statement is analogous to the celebrated Ahlswede-Khachatrian theorem. The proof is based on the refinement of the method of spread approximations, recently introduced by Kupavskii and Zakharov (2022).
Let $X_1, \ldots, X_n$ be probability spaces, let $X$ be their direct product, let $\phi_1, \ldots, \phi_m: X \longrightarrow {\Bbb C}$ be random variables, each depending only on a few coordinates of a point $x=(x_1, \ldots, x_n)$, and let $f=\phi_1 + \ldots + \phi_m$. The expectation $E\thinspace e^{\lambda f}$, where $\lambda \in {\Bbb C}$, appears in statistical physics as the partition function of a system with multi-spin interactions, and also in combinatorics and computer science, where it is known as the partition function of edge-coloring models, tensor network contractions or a Holant polynomial. Assuming that each $\phi_i$ is 1-Lipschitz in the Hamming metric of $X$, that each $\phi_i(x)$ depends on at most $r \geq 2$ coordinates $x_1, \ldots, x_n$ of $x \in X$, and that for each $j$ there are at most $c \geq 1$ functions $\phi_i$ that depend on the coordinate $x_j$, we prove that $E\thinspace e^{\lambda f} \ne 0$ provided $| \lambda | \leq \ (3 c \sqrt{r-1})^{-1}$ and that the bound is sharp up to a constant factor. Taking a scaling limit, we prove a similar result for functions $\phi_1, \ldots, \phi_m: {\Bbb R}^n \longrightarrow {\Bbb C}$ that are 1-Lipschitz in the $\ell^1$ metric of ${\Bbb R}^n$ and where the expectation is taken with respect to the standard Gaussian measure in ${\Bbb R}^n$. As a corollary, the value of the expectation can be efficiently approximated, provided $\lambda$ lies in a slightly smaller disc.
When the target of inference is a real-valued function of probability parameters in the k-sample multinomial problem, variance estimation may be challenging. In small samples, methods like the nonparametric bootstrap or delta method may perform poorly. We propose a novel general method in this setting for computing exact p-values and confidence intervals which means that type I error rates are correctly bounded and confidence intervals have at least nominal coverage at all sample sizes. Our method is applicable to any real-valued function of multinomial probabilities, accommodating an arbitrary number of samples with varying category counts. We describe the method and provide an implementation of it in R, with some computational optimization to ensure broad applicability. Simulations demonstrate our method's ability to maintain correct coverage rates in settings where the nonparametric bootstrap fails.
We give a $(1.796+\epsilon)$-approximation for the minimum sum coloring problem on chordal graphs, improving over the previous 3.591-approximation by Gandhi et al. [2005]. To do so, we also design the first polynomial-time approximation scheme for the maximum $k$-colorable subgraph problem in chordal graphs.
Given an Abelian group G, a Boolean-valued function f: G -> {-1,+1}, is said to be s-sparse, if it has at most s-many non-zero Fourier coefficients over the domain G. In a seminal paper, Gopalan et al. proved "Granularity" for Fourier coefficients of Boolean valued functions over Z_2^n, that have found many diverse applications in theoretical computer science and combinatorics. They also studied structural results for Boolean functions over Z_2^n which are approximately Fourier-sparse. In this work, we obtain structural results for approximately Fourier-sparse Boolean valued functions over Abelian groups G of the form,G:= Z_{p_1}^{n_1} \times ... \times Z_{p_t}^{n_t}, for distinct primes p_i. We also obtain a lower bound of the form 1/(m^{2}s)^ceiling(phi(m)/2), on the absolute value of the smallest non-zero Fourier coefficient of an s-sparse function, where m=p_1 ... p_t, and phi(m)=(p_1-1) ... (p_t-1). We carefully apply probabilistic techniques from Gopalan et al., to obtain our structural results, and use some non-trivial results from algebraic number theory to get the lower bound. We construct a family of at most s-sparse Boolean functions over Z_p^n, where p > 2, for arbitrarily large enough s, where the minimum non-zero Fourier coefficient is 1/omega(n). The "Granularity" result of Gopalan et al. implies that the absolute values of non-zero Fourier coefficients of any s-sparse Boolean valued function over Z_2^n are 1/O(s). So, our result shows that one cannot expect such a lower bound for general Abelian groups. Using our new structural results on the Fourier coefficients of sparse functions, we design an efficient testing algorithm for Fourier-sparse Boolean functions, thata requires poly((ms)^phi(m),1/epsilon)-many queries. Further, we prove an Omega(sqrt{s}) lower bound on the query complexity of any adaptive sparsity testing algorithm.
In this paper, we study the problem of noisy, convex, zeroth order optimisation of a function $f$ over a bounded convex set $\bar{\mathcal X}\subset \mathbb{R}^d$. Given a budget $n$ of noisy queries to the function $f$ that can be allocated sequentially and adaptively, our aim is to construct an algorithm that returns a point $\hat x\in \bar{\mathcal X}$ such that $f(\hat x)$ is as small as possible. We provide a conceptually simple method inspired by the textbook center of gravity method, but adapted to the noisy and zeroth order setting. We prove that this method is such that the $f(\hat x) - \min_{x\in \bar{\mathcal X}} f(x)$ is of smaller order than $d^2/\sqrt{n}$ up to poly-logarithmic terms. We slightly improve upon existing literature, where to the best of our knowledge the best known rate is in [Lattimore, 2024] is of order $d^{2.5}/\sqrt{n}$, albeit for a more challenging problem. Our main contribution is however conceptual, as we believe that our algorithm and its analysis bring novel ideas and are significantly simpler than existing approaches.
Given a graph $G$ and a vertex set $X$, the annotated treewidth tw$(G,X)$ of $X$ in $G$ is the maximum treewidth of an $X$-rooted minor of $G$, i.e., a minor $H$ where the model of each vertex of $H$ contains some vertex of $X$. That way, tw$(G,X)$ can be seen as a measure of the contribution of $X$ to the tree-decomposability of $G$. We introduce the logic CMSO/tw as the fragment of monadic second-order logic on graphs obtained by restricting set quantification to sets of bounded annotated treewidth. We prove the following Algorithmic Meta-Theorem (AMT): for every non-trivial minor-closed graph class, model checking for CMSO/tw formulas can be done in quadratic time. Our proof works for the more general CMSO/tw+dp logic, that is CMSO/tw enhanced by disjoint-path predicates. Our AMT can be seen as an extension of Courcelle's theorem to minor-closed graph classes where the bounded-treewidth condition in the input graph is replaced by the bounded-treewidth quantification in the formulas. Our results yield, as special cases, all known AMTs whose combinatorial restriction is non-trivial minor-closedness.
For any positive integer $m$ and an odd prime $p$; let $\mathbb{F}_{q}+u\mathbb{F}_{q}$, where $q=p^{m}$, be a ring extension of the ring $\mathbb{F}_{p}+u\mathbb{F}_{p}.$ In this paper, we construct linear codes over $\mathbb{F}_{p}+u\mathbb{F}_{p}$ by using trace function defined on $\mathbb{F}_{q}+u\mathbb{F}_{q}$ and determine their Hamming weight distributions by employing symplectic-weight distributions of their Gray images.
In this study, linear codes having their Lee-weight distributions over the semi-local ring $\mathbb{F}_{q}+u\mathbb{F}_{q}$ with $u^{2}=1$ are constructed using the defining set and Gauss sums for an odd prime $q $. Moreover, we derive complete Hamming-weight enumerators for the images of the constructed linear codes under the Gray map. We finally show an application to secret sharing schemes.
We investigate perturbations of orthonormal bases of $L^2$ via a composition operator $C_h$ induced by a mapping $h$. We provide a comprehensive characterization of the mapping $h$ required for the perturbed sequence to form an orthonormal or Riesz basis. Restricting our analysis to differentiable mappings, we reveal that all Riesz bases of the given form are induced by bi-Lipschitz mappings. In addition, we discuss implications of these results for approximation theory, highlighting the potential of using bijective neural networks to construct complete sequences with favorable approximation properties.
Interpolatory necessary optimality conditions for $\mathcal{H}_2$-optimal reduced-order modeling of unstructured linear time-invariant (LTI) systems are well-known. Based on previous work on $\mathcal{L}_2$-optimal reduced-order modeling of stationary parametric problems, in this paper we develop and investigate optimality conditions for $\mathcal{H}_2$-optimal reduced-order modeling of structured LTI systems, in particular, for second-order, port-Hamiltonian, and time-delay systems. Under certain diagonalizability assumptions, we show that across all these different structured settings, bitangential Hermite interpolation is the common form for optimality, thus proving a unifying optimality framework for structured reduced-order modeling.