We consider the problem of computing the topology and describing the geometry of a parametric curve in $\mathbb{R}^n$. We present an algorithm, PTOPO, that constructs an abstract graph that is isotopic to the curve in the embedding space. Our method exploits the benefits of the parametric representation and does not resort to implicitization. Most importantly, we perform all computations in the parameter space and not in the implicit space. When the parametrization involves polynomials of degree at most $d$ and maximum bitsize of coefficients $\tau$, then the worst case bit complexity of PTOPO is $ \tilde{\mathcal{O}}_B(nd^6+nd^5\tau+d^4(n^2+n\tau)+d^3(n^2\tau+ n^3)+n^3d^2\tau)$. This bound matches the current record bound $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}_B(d^6+d^5\tau)$ for the problem of computing the topology of a plane algebraic curve given in implicit form. For plane and space curves, if $N = \max\{d, \tau \}$, the complexity of PTOPO becomes $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}_B(N^6)$, which improves the state-of-the-art result, due to Alc\'azar and D\'iaz-Toca [CAGD'10], by a factor of $N^{10}$. In the same time complexity, we obtain a graph whose straight-line embedding is isotopic to the curve. However, visualizing the curve on top of the abstract graph construction, increases the bound to $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}_B(N^7)$. For curves of general dimension, we can also distinguish between ordinary and non-ordinary real singularities and determine their multiplicities in the same expected complexity of PTOPO by employing the algorithm of Blasco and P\'erez-D\'iaz [CAGD'19]. We have implemented PTOPO in Maple for the case of plane and space curves. Our experiments illustrate its practical nature.
While algorithms for planar graphs have received a lot of attention, few papers have focused on the additional power that one gets from assuming an embedding of the graph is available. While in the classic sequential setting, this assumption gives no additional power (as a planar graph can be embedded in linear time), we show that this is far from being the case in other settings. We assume that the embedding is straight-line, but our methods also generalize to non-straight-line embeddings. Specifically, we focus on sublinear-time computation and massively parallel computation (MPC). Our main technical contribution is a sublinear-time algorithm for computing a relaxed version of an $r$-division. We then show how this can be used to estimate Lipschitz additive graph parameters. This includes, for example, the maximum matching, maximum independent set, or the minimum dominating set. We also show how this can be used to solve some property testing problems with respect to the vertex edit distance. In the second part of our paper, we show an MPC algorithm that computes an $r$-division of the input graph. We show how this can be used to solve various classical graph problems with space per machine of $O(n^{2/3+\epsilon})$ for some $\epsilon>0$, and while performing $O(1)$ rounds. This includes for example approximate shortest paths or the minimum spanning tree. Our results also imply an improved MPC algorithm for Euclidean minimum spanning tree.
The Schrijver graph $S(n,k)$ is defined for integers $n$ and $k$ with $n \geq 2k$ as the graph whose vertices are all the $k$-subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ that do not include two consecutive elements modulo $n$, where two such sets are adjacent if they are disjoint. A result of Schrijver asserts that the chromatic number of $S(n,k)$ is $n-2k+2$ (Nieuw Arch. Wiskd., 1978). In the computational Schrijver problem, we are given an access to a coloring of the vertices of $S(n,k)$ with $n-2k+1$ colors, and the goal is to find a monochromatic edge. The Schrijver problem is known to be complete in the complexity class $\mathsf{PPA}$. We prove that it can be solved by a randomized algorithm with running time $n^{O(1)} \cdot k^{O(k)}$, hence it is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to the parameter $k$.
Despite significant advances in the field of deep learning in applications to various fields, explaining the inner processes of deep learning models remains an important and open question. The purpose of this article is to describe and substantiate the geometric and topological view of the learning process of neural networks. Our attention is focused on the internal representation of neural networks and on the dynamics of changes in the topology and geometry of the data manifold on different layers. We also propose a method for assessing the generalizing ability of neural networks based on topological descriptors. In this paper, we use the concepts of topological data analysis and intrinsic dimension, and we present a wide range of experiments on different datasets and different configurations of convolutional neural network architectures. In addition, we consider the issue of the geometry of adversarial attacks in the classification task and spoofing attacks on face recognition systems. Our work is a contribution to the development of an important area of explainable and interpretable AI through the example of computer vision.
We extend the Deep Galerkin Method (DGM) introduced in Sirignano and Spiliopoulos (2018)} to solve a number of partial differential equations (PDEs) that arise in the context of optimal stochastic control and mean field games. First, we consider PDEs where the function is constrained to be positive and integrate to unity, as is the case with Fokker-Planck equations. Our approach involves reparameterizing the solution as the exponential of a neural network appropriately normalized to ensure both requirements are satisfied. This then gives rise to nonlinear a partial integro-differential equation (PIDE) where the integral appearing in the equation is handled by a novel application of importance sampling. Secondly, we tackle a number of Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations that appear in stochastic optimal control problems. The key contribution is that these equations are approached in their unsimplified primal form which includes an optimization problem as part of the equation. We extend the DGM algorithm to solve for the value function and the optimal control \simultaneously by characterizing both as deep neural networks. Training the networks is performed by taking alternating stochastic gradient descent steps for the two functions, a technique inspired by the policy improvement algorithms (PIA).
Many existing algorithms for streaming geometric data analysis have been plagued by exponential dependencies in the space complexity, which are undesirable for processing high-dimensional data sets. In particular, once $d\geq\log n$, there are no known non-trivial streaming algorithms for problems such as maintaining convex hulls and L\"owner-John ellipsoids of $n$ points, despite a long line of work in streaming computational geometry since [AHV04]. We simultaneously improve these results to $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ bits of space by trading off with a $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ factor distortion. We achieve these results in a unified manner, by designing the first streaming algorithm for maintaining a coreset for $\ell_\infty$ subspace embeddings with $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ space and $\mathrm{poly}(d,\log n)$ distortion. Our algorithm also gives similar guarantees in the \emph{online coreset} model. Along the way, we sharpen results for online numerical linear algebra by replacing a log condition number dependence with a $\log n$ dependence, answering a question of [BDM+20]. Our techniques provide a novel connection between leverage scores, a fundamental object in numerical linear algebra, and computational geometry. For $\ell_p$ subspace embeddings, we give nearly optimal trade-offs between space and distortion for one-pass streaming algorithms. For instance, we give a deterministic coreset using $O(d^2\log n)$ space and $O((d\log n)^{1/2-1/p})$ distortion for $p>2$, whereas previous deterministic algorithms incurred a $\mathrm{poly}(n)$ factor in the space or the distortion [CDW18]. Our techniques have implications in the offline setting, where we give optimal trade-offs between the space complexity and distortion of subspace sketch data structures. To do this, we give an elementary proof of a "change of density" theorem of [LT80] and make it algorithmic.
SVD (singular value decomposition) is one of the basic tools of machine learning, allowing to optimize basis for a given matrix. However, sometimes we have a set of matrices $\{A_k\}_k$ instead, and would like to optimize a single common basis for them: find orthogonal matrices $U$, $V$, such that $\{U^T A_k V\}$ set of matrices is somehow simpler. For example DCT-II is orthonormal basis of functions commonly used in image/video compression - as discussed here, this kind of basis can be quickly automatically optimized for a given dataset. While also discussed gradient descent optimization might be computationally costly, there is proposed CSVD (common SVD): fast general approach based on SVD. Specifically, we choose $U$ as built of eigenvectors of $\sum_i (w_k)^q (A_k A_k^T)^p$ and $V$ of $\sum_k (w_k)^q (A_k^T A_k)^p$, where $w_k$ are their weights, $p,q>0$ are some chosen powers e.g. 1/2, optionally with normalization e.g. $A \to A - rc^T$ where $r_i=\sum_j A_{ij}, c_j =\sum_i A_{ij}$.
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.
Let $m$ be a positive integer and $p$ a prime. In this paper, we investigate the differential properties of the power mapping $x^{p^m+2}$ over $\mathbb{F}_{p^n}$, where $n=2m$ or $n=2m-1$. For the case $n=2m$, by transforming the derivative equation of $x^{p^m+2}$ and studying some related equations, we completely determine the differential spectrum of this power mapping. For the case $n=2m-1$, the derivative equation can be transformed to a polynomial of degree $p+3$. The problem is more difficult and we obtain partial results about the differential spectrum of $x^{p^m+2}$.
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\footnote{To the best of our knowledge, the algorithm from \citep{ahmadinejad_dehghani_hajiaghayi_lucier_mahini_seddighin_2019} has computational complexity $O(k^{14}\max\{a,b\}^{13})$}, receiving substantial media coverage (e.g. \citep{Insider}, \citep{NSF}, \citep{ScienceDaily}). In this work, we present the first known $\epsilon$-approximation algorithm to compute NE strategies in the two-player Colonel Blotto game in runtime $\widetilde{O}(\epsilon^{-4} k^8 \max\{a,b\}^2)$ for arbitrary settings of these parameters. Moreover, this algorithm computes approximate coarse correlated equilibrium strategies in the multiplayer (continuous and discrete) Colonel Blotto game (when there are $\ell > 2$ colonels) with runtime $\widetilde{O}(\ell \epsilon^{-4} k^8 n^2 + \ell^2 \epsilon^{-2} k^3 n (n+k))$, 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 by a novel (to the author's knowledge) sampling technique with which we implicitly perform multiplicative weights update over the exponentially many strategies available to each player.
A palindromic substring $T[i.. j]$ of a string $T$ is said to be a shortest unique palindromic substring (SUPS) in $T$ for an interval $[p, q]$ if $T[i.. j]$ is a shortest one such that $T[i.. j]$ occurs only once in $T$, and $[i, j]$ contains $[p, q]$. The SUPS problem is, given a string $T$ of length $n$, to construct a data structure that can compute all the SUPSs for any given query interval. It is known that any SUPS query can be answered in $O(\alpha)$ time after $O(n)$-time preprocessing, where $\alpha$ is the number of SUPSs to output [Inoue et al., 2018]. In this paper, we first show that $\alpha$ is at most $4$, and the upper bound is tight. Also, we present an algorithm to solve the SUPS problem for a sliding window that can answer any query in $O(\log\log W)$ time and update data structures in amortized $O(\log\sigma)$ time, where $W$ is the size of the window, and $\sigma$ is the alphabet size. Furthermore, we consider the SUPS problem in the after-edit model and present an efficient algorithm. Namely, we present an algorithm that uses $O(n)$ time for preprocessing and answers any $k$ SUPS queries in $O(\log n\log\log n + k\log\log n)$ time after single character substitution. As a by-product, we propose a fully-dynamic data structure for range minimum queries (RmQs) with a constraint where the width of each query range is limited to polylogarithmic. The constrained RmQ data structure can answer such a query in constant time and support a single-element edit operation in amortized constant time.