Given a metric space $(X,d_X)$, a $(\beta,s,\Delta)$-sparse cover is a collection of clusters $\mathcal{C}\subseteq P(X)$ with diameter at most $\Delta$, such that for every point $x\in X$, the ball $B_X(x,\frac\Delta\beta)$ is fully contained in some cluster $C\in \mathcal{C}$, and $x$ belongs to at most $s$ clusters in $\mathcal{C}$. Our main contribution is to show that the shortest path metric of every $K_r$-minor free graphs admits $(O(r),O(r^2),\Delta)$-sparse cover, and for every $\epsilon>0$, $(4+\epsilon,O(\frac1\epsilon)^r,\Delta)$-sparse cover (for arbitrary $\Delta>0$). We then use this sparse cover to show that every $K_r$-minor free graph embeds into $\ell_\infty^{\tilde{O}(\frac1\epsilon)^{r+1}\cdot\log n}$ with distortion $3+\eps$ (resp. into $\ell_\infty^{\tilde{O}(r^2)\cdot\log n}$ with distortion $O(r)$). Further, we provide applications of these sparse covers into padded decompositions, sparse partitions, universal TSP / Steiner tree, oblivious buy at bulk, name independent routing, and path reporting distance oracles.
A \emph{complete geometric graph} consists of a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, in general position, and all segments (edges) connecting them. It is a well known question of Bose, Hurtado, Rivera-Campo, and Wood, whether there exists a positive constant $c<1$, such that every complete geometric graph on $n$ points can be partitioned into at most $cn$ plane graphs (that is, noncrossing subgraphs). We answer this question in the affirmative in the special case where the underlying point set $P$ is \emph{dense}, which means that the ratio between the maximum and the minimum distances in $P$ is of the order of $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$.
Given an edge-weighted (metric/general) complete graph with $n$ vertices, the maximum weight (metric/general) $k$-cycle/path packing problem is to find a set of $\frac{n}{k}$ vertex-disjoint $k$-cycles/paths such that the total weight is maximized. In this paper, we consider approximation algorithms. For metric $k$-cycle packing, we improve the previous approximation ratio from $3/5$ to $7/10$ for $k=5$, and from $7/8\cdot(1-1/k)^2$ for $k>5$ to $(7/8-0.125/k)(1-1/k)$ for constant odd $k>5$ and to $7/8\cdot (1-1/k+\frac{1}{k(k-1)})$ for even $k>5$. For metric $k$-path packing, we improve the approximation ratio from $7/8\cdot (1-1/k)$ to $\frac{27k^2-48k+16}{32k^2-36k-24}$ for even $10\geq k\geq 6$. For the case of $k=4$, we improve the approximation ratio from $3/4$ to $5/6$ for metric 4-cycle packing, from $2/3$ to $3/4$ for general 4-cycle packing, and from $3/4$ to $14/17$ for metric 4-path packing.
For $k, n \geq 0$, and $c \in Z^n$, we consider ILP problems \begin{gather*} \max\bigl\{ c^\top x \colon A x = b,\, x \in Z^n_{\geq 0} \bigr\}\text{ with $A \in Z^{k \times n}$, $rank(A) = k$, $b \in Z^{k}$ and} \max\bigl\{ c^\top x \colon A x \leq b,\, x \in Z^n \bigr\} \text{ with $A \in Z^{(n+k) \times n}$, $rank(A) = n$, $b \in Z^{n+k}$.} \end{gather*} The first problem is called an \emph{ILP problem in the standard form of the codimension $k$}, and the second problem is called an \emph{ILP problem in the canonical form with $n+k$ constraints.} We show that, for any sufficiently large $\Delta$, both problems can be solved with $$ 2^{O(k)} \cdot (f_{k,d} \cdot \Delta)^2 / 2^{\Omega\bigl(\sqrt{\log(f_{k,d} \cdot \Delta)}\bigr)} $$ operations, where $ f_{k,d} = \min \Bigl\{ k^{k/2}, \bigl(\log k \cdot \log (d + k)\bigr)^{k/2} \Bigr\} $, $d$ is the dimension of a corresponding polyhedron and $\Delta$ is the maximum absolute value of $rank(A) \times rank(A)$ sub-determinants of $A$. As our second main result, we show that the feasibility variants of both problems can be solved with $$ 2^{O(k)} \cdot f_{k,d} \cdot \Delta \cdot \log^3(f_{k,d} \cdot \Delta) $$ operations. The constant $f_{k,d}$ can be replaced by other constant $g_{k,\Delta} = \bigl(\log k \cdot \log (k \Delta)\bigr)^{k/2}$ that depends only on $k$ and $\Delta$. Additionally, we consider different partial cases with $k=0$ and $k=1$, which have interesting applications. As a result of independent interest, we propose an $n^2/2^{\Omega\bigl(\sqrt{\log n}\bigr)}$-time algorithm for the tropical convolution problem on sequences, indexed by elements of a finite Abelian group of the order $n$. This result is obtained, reducing the above problem to the matrix multiplication problem on a tropical semiring and using seminal algorithm by R. Williams.
An infinite sequence of sets $\left\{B_{n}\right\}_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ is said to be a heterochromatic sequence from an infinite sequence of families $\left\{ \mathcal{F}_{n} \right\}_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$, if there exists a strictly increasing sequence of natural numbers $\left\{ i_{n}\right\}_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ such that for all $n \in \mathbb{N}$ we have $B_{n} \in \mathcal{F}_{i_{n}}$. In this paper, we have proved that if for each $n\in\mathbb{N}$, $\mathcal{F}_n$ is a family of {\em nicely shaped} convex sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ such that each heterochromatic sequence $\left\{B_{n}\right\}_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ from $\left\{ \mathcal{F}_{n} \right\}_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ contains at least $k+2$ sets that can be pierced by a single $k$-flat ($k$-dimensional affine space) then all but finitely many families in $\left\{\mathcal{F}_{n}\right\}_{n\in \mathbb{N}}$ can be pierced by finitely many $k$-flats. This result can be considered as a {\em countably colorful} generalization of the $(\aleph_0, k+2)$-theorem proved by Keller and Perles (Symposium on Computational Geometry 2022). We have also established the tightness of our result by proving a number of no-go theorems.
Given a graph $M,$ path eigenvalues are eigenvalues of its path matrix. The path energy of a simple graph $M$ is equal to the sum of the absolute values of the path eigenvalues of the graph $M$ (Shikare et. al, 2018). We have discovered new upper constraints on path energy in this study, expressed in terms of a graph's maximum degree. Additionally, a relationship between a graph's energy and path energy is given.
Given an undirected connected graph $G = (V(G), E(G))$ on $n$ vertices, the minimum Monitoring Edge-Geodetic Set (MEG-set) problem asks to find a subset $M \subseteq V(G)$ of minimum cardinality such that, for every edge $e \in E(G)$, there exist $x,y \in M$ for which all shortest paths between $x$ and $y$ in $G$ traverse $e$. We show that, for any constant $c < \frac{1}{2}$, no polynomial-time $(c \log n)$-approximation algorithm for the minimum MEG-set problem exists, unless $\mathsf{P} = \mathsf{NP}$.
We provide a self contained proof of a result of Dudley [Dud64]} which shows that a bounded convex-body in $\Re^d$ can be $\varepsilon$-approximated, by the intersection of $O_d\bigl(\varepsilon^{-(d-1)/2} \bigr)$ halfspaces, where $O_d$ hides constants that depends on $d$.
We provide a framework to analyze the convergence of discretized kinetic Langevin dynamics for $M$-$\nabla$Lipschitz, $m$-convex potentials. Our approach gives convergence rates of $\mathcal{O}(m/M)$, with explicit stepsize restrictions, which are of the same order as the stability threshold for Gaussian targets and are valid for a large interval of the friction parameter. We apply this methodology to various integration schemes which are popular in the molecular dynamics and machine learning communities. Further, we introduce the property ``$\gamma$-limit convergent" (GLC) to characterize underdamped Langevin schemes that converge to overdamped dynamics in the high-friction limit and which have stepsize restrictions that are independent of the friction parameter; we show that this property is not generic by exhibiting methods from both the class and its complement. Finally, we provide asymptotic bias estimates for the BAOAB scheme, which remain accurate in the high-friction limit by comparison to a modified stochastic dynamics which preserves the invariant measure.
We consider a wide class of generalized Radon transforms $\mathcal R$, which act in $\mathbb{R}^n$ for any $n\ge 2$ and integrate over submanifolds of any codimension $N$, $1\le N\le n-1$. Also, we allow for a fairly general reconstruction operator $\mathcal A$. The main requirement is that $\mathcal A$ be a Fourier integral operator with a phase function, which is linear in the phase variable. We consider the task of image reconstruction from discrete data $g_{j,k} = (\mathcal R f)_{j,k} + \eta_{j,k}$. We show that the reconstruction error $N_\epsilon^{\text{rec}}=\mathcal A \eta_{j,k}$ satisfies $N^{\text{rec}}(\check x;x_0)=\lim_{\epsilon\to0}N_\epsilon^{\text{rec}}(x_0+\epsilon\check x)$, $\check x\in D$. Here $x_0$ is a fixed point, $D\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ is a bounded domain, and $\eta_{j,k}$ are independent, but not necessarily identically distributed, random variables. $N^{\text{rec}}$ and $N_\epsilon^{\text{rec}}$ are viewed as continuous random functions of the argument $\check x$ (random fields), and the limit is understood in the sense of probability distributions. Under some conditions on the first three moments of $\eta_{j,k}$ (and some other not very restrictive conditions on $x_0$ and $\mathcal A$), we prove that $N^{\text{rec}}$ is a zero mean Gaussian random field and explicitly compute its covariance. We also present a numerical experiment with a cone beam transform in $\mathbb{R}^3$, which shows an excellent match between theoretical predictions and simulated reconstructions.
Optimal transport and the Wasserstein distance $\mathcal{W}_p$ have recently seen a number of applications in the fields of statistics, machine learning, data science, and the physical sciences. These applications are however severely restricted by the curse of dimensionality, meaning that the number of data points needed to estimate these problems accurately increases exponentially in the dimension. To alleviate this problem, a number of variants of $\mathcal{W}_p$ have been introduced. We focus here on one of these variants, namely the max-sliced Wasserstein metric $\overline{\mathcal{W}}_p$. This metric reduces the high-dimensional minimization problem given by $\mathcal{W}_p$ to a maximum of one-dimensional measurements in an effort to overcome the curse of dimensionality. In this note we derive concentration results and upper bounds on the expectation of $\overline{\mathcal{W}}_p$ between the true and empirical measure on unbounded reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. We show that, under quite generic assumptions, probability measures concentrate uniformly fast in one-dimensional subspaces, at (nearly) parametric rates. Our results rely on an improvement of currently known bounds for $\overline{\mathcal{W}}_p$ in the finite-dimensional case.