We study quantum algorithms for several fundamental string problems, including Longest Common Substring, Lexicographically Minimal String Rotation, and Longest Square Substring. These problems have been widely studied in the stringology literature since the 1970s, and are known to be solvable by near-linear time classical algorithms. In this work, we give quantum algorithms for these problems with near-optimal query complexities and time complexities. Specifically, we show that: - Longest Common Substring can be solved by a quantum algorithm in $\tilde O(n^{2/3})$ time, improving upon the recent $\tilde O(n^{5/6})$-time algorithm by Le Gall and Seddighin (2020). Our algorithm uses the MNRS quantum walk framework, together with a careful combination of string synchronizing sets (Kempa and Kociumaka, 2019) and generalized difference covers. - Lexicographically Minimal String Rotation can be solved by a quantum algorithm in $n^{1/2 + o(1)}$ time, improving upon the recent $\tilde O(n^{3/4})$-time algorithm by Wang and Ying (2020). We design our algorithm by first giving a new classical divide-and-conquer algorithm in near-linear time based on exclusion rules, and then speeding it up quadratically using nested Grover search and quantum minimum finding. - Longest Square Substring can be solved by a quantum algorithm in $\tilde O(\sqrt{n})$ time. Our algorithm is an adaptation of the algorithm by Le Gall and Seddighin (2020) for the Longest Palindromic Substring problem, but uses additional techniques to overcome the difficulty that binary search no longer applies. Our techniques naturally extend to other related string problems, such as Longest Repeated Substring, Longest Lyndon Substring, and Minimal Suffix.
We show how to translate a subset of RISC-V machine code compiled from a subset of C to quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) models that can be solved by a quantum annealing machine: given a bound $n$, there is input $I$ to a program $P$ such that $P$ runs into a given program state $E$ executing no more than $n$ machine instructions if and only if the QUBO model of $P$ for $n$ evaluates to 0 on $I$. Thus, with more qubits on the machine than variables in the QUBO model, quantum annealing the model reaches 0 (ground) energy in constant time with high probability on some input $I$ that is part of the ground state if and only if $P$ runs into $E$ on $I$ in no more than $n$ instructions. Translation takes $\mathcal{O}(n^2)$ time turning a quantum annealer into a polynomial-time symbolic execution engine and bounded model checker, eliminating their path and state explosion problems. Here, we take advantage of the fact that any machine instruction may only increase the size of the program state by $\mathcal{O}(w)$ bits where $w$ is machine word size. Translation time comes down to $\mathcal{O}(n)$ if memory consumption of $P$ is bounded by a constant, establishing a linear (quadratic) upper bound on quantum space, in number of qubits, in terms of algorithmic time (space) in classical computing. The generated QUBO models only have $\mathcal{O}(2^w\cdot n^2)$ solutions out of $\mathcal{O}(2^{n^2})$ choices and only require $\mathcal{O}(wn)$ attempts to find a solution on a quantum machine. The construction motivates a temporal and spatial metric of quantum advantage and provides a non-relativizing argument for $NP\subseteq BQP$ effectively utilizing the optimality of Grover's algorithm. Our prototypical open-source toolchain translates machine code that runs on real RISC-V hardware to models that can be solved by real quantum annealing hardware, as shown in our experiments.
A semidefinite program (SDP) is a particular kind of convex optimization problem with applications in operations research, combinatorial optimization, quantum information science, and beyond. In this work, we propose variational quantum algorithms for approximately solving SDPs. For one class of SDPs, we provide a rigorous analysis of their convergence to approximate locally optimal solutions, under the assumption that they are weakly constrained (i.e., $N\gg M$, where $N$ is the dimension of the input matrices and $M$ is the number of constraints). We also provide algorithms for a more general class of SDPs that requires fewer assumptions. Finally, we numerically simulate our quantum algorithms for applications such as MaxCut, and the results of these simulations provide evidence that convergence still occurs in noisy settings.
Hyperparameter tuning in machine learning algorithms is a computationally challenging task due to the large-scale nature of the problem. In order to develop an efficient strategy for hyper-parameter tuning, one promising solution is to use swarm intelligence algorithms. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization lends itself as a promising and efficient optimization algorithm for this purpose. However, in some cases, ABC can suffer from a slow convergence rate or execution time due to the poor initial population of solutions and expensive objective functions. To address these concerns, a novel algorithm, OptABC, is proposed to help ABC algorithm in faster convergence toward a near-optimum solution. OptABC integrates artificial bee colony algorithm, K-Means clustering, greedy algorithm, and opposition-based learning strategy for tuning the hyper-parameters of different machine learning models. OptABC employs these techniques in an attempt to diversify the initial population, and hence enhance the convergence ability without significantly decreasing the accuracy. In order to validate the performance of the proposed method, we compare the results with previous state-of-the-art approaches. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the OptABC compared to existing approaches in the literature.
Bilevel optimization has been widely applied in many important machine learning applications such as hyperparameter optimization and meta-learning. Recently, several momentum-based algorithms have been proposed to solve bilevel optimization problems faster. However, those momentum-based algorithms do not achieve provably better computational complexity than $\mathcal{\widetilde O}(\epsilon^{-2})$ of the SGD-based algorithm. In this paper, we propose two new algorithms for bilevel optimization, where the first algorithm adopts momentum-based recursive iterations, and the second algorithm adopts recursive gradient estimations in nested loops to decrease the variance. We show that both algorithms achieve the complexity of $\mathcal{\widetilde O}(\epsilon^{-1.5})$, which outperforms all existing algorithms by the order of magnitude. Our experiments validate our theoretical results and demonstrate the superior empirical performance of our algorithms in hyperparameter applications.
Ensuring solution feasibility is a key challenge in developing Deep Neural Network (DNN) schemes for solving constrained optimization problems, due to inherent DNN prediction errors. In this paper, we propose a "preventive learning'" framework to systematically guarantee DNN solution feasibility for problems with convex constraints and general objective functions. We first apply a predict-and-reconstruct design to not only guarantee equality constraints but also exploit them to reduce the number of variables to be predicted by DNN. Then, as a key methodological contribution, we systematically calibrate inequality constraints used in DNN training, thereby anticipating prediction errors and ensuring the resulting solutions remain feasible. We characterize the calibration magnitudes and the DNN size sufficient for ensuring universal feasibility. We propose a new Adversary-Sample Aware training algorithm to improve DNN's optimality performance without sacrificing feasibility guarantee. Overall, the framework provides two DNNs. The first one from characterizing the sufficient DNN size can guarantee universal feasibility while the other from the proposed training algorithm further improves optimality and maintains DNN's universal feasibility simultaneously. We apply the preventive learning framework to develop DeepOPF+ for solving the essential DC optimal power flow problem in grid operation. It improves over existing DNN-based schemes in ensuring feasibility and attaining consistent desirable speedup performance in both light-load and heavy-load regimes. Simulation results over IEEE Case-30/118/300 test cases show that DeepOPF+ generates $100\%$ feasible solutions with $<$0.5% optimality loss and up to two orders of magnitude computational speedup, as compared to a state-of-the-art iterative solver.
Clustering is an important task with applications in many fields of computer science. We study the fully dynamic setting in which we want to maintain good clusters efficiently when input points (from a metric space) can be inserted and deleted. Many clustering problems are $\mathsf{APX}$-hard but admit polynomial time $O(1)$-approximation algorithms. Thus, it is a natural question whether we can maintain $O(1)$-approximate solutions for them in subpolynomial update time, against adaptive and oblivious adversaries. Only a few results are known that give partial answers to this question. There are dynamic algorithms for $k$-center, $k$-means, and $k$-median that maintain constant factor approximations in expected $\tilde{O}(k^{2})$ update time against an oblivious adversary. However, for these problems there are no algorithms known with an update time that is subpolynomial in $k$, and against an adaptive adversary there are even no (non-trivial) dynamic algorithms known at all. In this paper, we complete the picture of the question above for all these clustering problems. 1. We show that there is no fully dynamic $O(1)$-approximation algorithm for any of the classic clustering problems above with an update time in $n^{o(1)}h(k)$ against an adaptive adversary, for an arbitrary function $h$. 2. We give a lower bound of $\Omega(k)$ on the update time for each of the above problems, even against an oblivious adversary. 3. We give the first $O(1)$-approximate fully dynamic algorithms for $k$-sum-of-radii and for $k$-sum-of-diameters with expected update time of $\tilde{O}(k^{O(1)})$ against an oblivious adversary. 4. Finally, for $k$-center we present a fully dynamic $(6+\epsilon)$-approximation algorithm with an expected update time of $\tilde{O}(k)$ against an oblivious adversary.
When and why can a neural network be successfully trained? This article provides an overview of optimization algorithms and theory for training neural networks. First, we discuss the issue of gradient explosion/vanishing and the more general issue of undesirable spectrum, and then discuss practical solutions including careful initialization and normalization methods. Second, we review generic optimization methods used in training neural networks, such as SGD, adaptive gradient methods and distributed methods, and theoretical results for these algorithms. Third, we review existing research on the global issues of neural network training, including results on bad local minima, mode connectivity, lottery ticket hypothesis and infinite-width analysis.
Large margin nearest neighbor (LMNN) is a metric learner which optimizes the performance of the popular $k$NN classifier. However, its resulting metric relies on pre-selected target neighbors. In this paper, we address the feasibility of LMNN's optimization constraints regarding these target points, and introduce a mathematical measure to evaluate the size of the feasible region of the optimization problem. We enhance the optimization framework of LMNN by a weighting scheme which prefers data triplets which yield a larger feasible region. This increases the chances to obtain a good metric as the solution of LMNN's problem. We evaluate the performance of the resulting feasibility-based LMNN algorithm using synthetic and real datasets. The empirical results show an improved accuracy for different types of datasets in comparison to regular LMNN.
This paper describes a suite of algorithms for constructing low-rank approximations of an input matrix from a random linear image of the matrix, called a sketch. These methods can preserve structural properties of the input matrix, such as positive-semidefiniteness, and they can produce approximations with a user-specified rank. The algorithms are simple, accurate, numerically stable, and provably correct. Moreover, each method is accompanied by an informative error bound that allows users to select parameters a priori to achieve a given approximation quality. These claims are supported by numerical experiments with real and synthetic data.
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.