Assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH), a result of Marx (ToC'10) implies that there is no $f(k)\cdot n^{o(k/\log k)}$ time algorithm that can solve 2-CSPs with $k$ constraints (over a domain of arbitrary large size $n$) for any computable function $f$. This lower bound is widely used to show that certain parameterized problems cannot be solved in time $f(k)\cdot n^{o(k/\log k)}$ time (assuming the ETH). The purpose of this note is to give a streamlined proof of this result.
We establish the unique ergodicity of the Markov chain generated by the stochastic theta method (STM) with $\theta \in [1/2, 1]$ for monotone SODEs, without growth restriction on the coefficients, driven by nondegenerate multiplicative noise. The main ingredient of the arguments lies in the construction of new Lyapunov functions, involving the coefficients, the stepsize, and $\theta$, and the irreducibility and the strong Feller property for the STM. We also generalize the arguments to the STM and its Galerkin-based full discretizations for a class of monotone SPDEs driven by infinite-dimensional nondegenerate multiplicative trace-class noise. Applying these results to the stochastic Allen--Cahn equation indicates that its drift-implicit Euler scheme is uniquely ergodic for any interface thickness, which gives an affirmative answer to a question proposed in (J. Cui, J. Hong, and L. Sun, Stochastic Process. Appl. (2021): 55--93). Numerical experiments verify our theoretical results.
We compute explicitly the MTW tensor (or cross curvature) for the optimal transport problem on $\mathbb{R}^n$ with a cost function of form $\mathsf{c}(x, y) = \mathsf{u}(x^{\mathfrak{t}}y)$, where $\mathsf{u}$ is a scalar function with inverse $\mathsf{s}$, $x^{\ft}y$ is a nondegenerate bilinear pairing of vectors $x, y$ belonging to an open subset of $\mathbb{R}^n$. The condition that the MTW-tensor vanishes on null vectors under the Kim-McCann metric is a fourth-order nonlinear ODE, which could be reduced to a linear ODE of the form $\mathsf{s}^{(2)} - S\mathsf{s}^{(1)} + P\mathsf{s} = 0$ with constant coefficients $P$ and $S$. The resulting inverse functions include {\it Lambert} and {\it generalized inverse hyperbolic\slash trigonometric} functions. The square Euclidean metric and $\log$-type costs are equivalent to instances of these solutions. The optimal map for the family is also explicit. For cost functions of a similar form on a hyperboloid model of the hyperbolic space and unit sphere, we also express this tensor in terms of algebraic expressions in derivatives of $\mathsf{s}$ using the Gauss-Codazzi equation, obtaining new families of strictly regular costs for these manifolds, including new families of {\it power function costs}. We analyze the $\sinh$-type hyperbolic cost, providing examples of $\mathsf{c}$-convex functions and divergence.
We prove that every partially ordered set on $n$ elements contains $k$ subsets $A_{1},A_{2},\dots,A_{k}$ such that either each of these subsets has size $\Omega(n/k^{5})$ and, for every $i<j$, every element in $A_{i}$ is less than or equal to every element in $A_{j}$, or each of these subsets has size $\Omega(n/(k^{2}\log n))$ and, for every $i \not = j$, every element in $A_{i}$ is incomparable with every element in $A_{j}$ for $i\ne j$. This answers a question of the first author from 2006. As a corollary, we prove for each positive integer $h$ there is $C_h$ such that for any $h$ partial orders $<_{1},<_{2},\dots,<_{h}$ on a set of $n$ elements, there exists $k$ subsets $A_{1},A_{2},\dots,A_{k}$ each of size at least $n/(k\log n)^{C_{h}}$ such that for each partial order $<_{\ell}$, either $a_{1}<_{\ell}a_{2}<_{\ell}\dots<_{\ell}a_{k}$ for any tuple of elements $(a_1,a_2,\dots,a_k) \in A_1\times A_2\times \dots \times A_k$, or $a_{1}>_{\ell}a_{2}>_{\ell}\dots>_{\ell}a_{k}$ for any $(a_1,a_2,\dots,a_k) \in A_1\times A_2\times \dots \times A_k$, or $a_i$ is incomparable with $a_j$ for any $i\ne j$, $a_i\in A_i$ and $a_j\in A_j$. This improves on a 2009 result of Pach and the first author motivated by problems in discrete geometry.
We improve the best known upper bound for the bracketing number of $d$-dimensional axis-parallel boxes anchored in $0$ (or, put differently, of lower left orthants intersected with the $d$-dimensional unit cube $[0,1]^d$). More precisely, we provide a better upper bound for the cardinality of an algorithmic bracketing cover construction due to Eric Thi\'emard, which forms the core of his algorithm to approximate the star discrepancy of arbitrary point sets from [E. Thi\'emard, An algorithm to compute bounds for the star discrepancy, J.~Complexity 17 (2001), 850 -- 880]. Moreover, the new upper bound for the bracketing number of anchored axis-parallel boxes yields an improved upper bound for the bracketing number of arbitrary axis-parallel boxes in $[0,1]^d$. In our upper bounds all constants are fully explicit.
The generalized inverse Gaussian, denoted $\mathrm{GIG}(p, a, b)$, is a flexible family of distributions that includes the gamma, inverse gamma, and inverse Gaussian distributions as special cases. In this article, we derive two novel mixture representations for the $\mathrm{GIG}(p, a, b)$: one that expresses the distribution as a continuous mixture of inverse Gaussians and another one that expresses it as a continuous mixture of truncated exponentials. Beyond their conceptual interest, these representations are useful for random number generation. We use the first representation to derive a geometrically ergodic Gibbs sampler whose stationary distribution is $\mathrm{GIG}(p, a, b)$, and the second one to define a recursive algorithm to generate exact independent draws from the distribution for half-integer $p$. Additionally, the second representation gives rise to a recursive algorithm for evaluating the cumulative distribution function of the $\mathrm{GIG}(p, a, b)$ for half-integer $p$. The algorithms are simple and can be easily implemented in standard programming languages.
Fix a positive integer $n$, a real number $p\in (0,1]$, and a (perhaps random) hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ on $[n]$. We introduce and investigate the following random multigraph model, which we denote $\mathbb{G}(n,p\, ; \,\mathcal{H})$: begin with an empty graph on $n$ vertices, which are labelled by the set $[n]$. For every $H\in \mathcal{H}$ choose, independently from previous choices, a doubleton from $H$, say $D = \{i,j\} \subset H$, uniformly at random and then introduce an edge between the vertices $i$ and $j$ in the graph with probability $p$, where each edge is introduced independently of all other edges.
We consider locally recoverable codes (LRCs) and aim to determine the smallest possible length $n=n_q(k,d,r)$ of a linear $[n,k,d]_q$-code with locality $r$. For $k\le 7$ we exactly determine all values of $n_2(k,d,2)$ and for $k\le 6$ we exactly determine all values of $n_2(k,d,1)$. For the ternary field we also state a few numerical results. As a general result we prove that $n_q(k,d,r)$ equals the Griesmer bound if the minimum Hamming distance $d$ is sufficiently large and all other parameters are fixed.
We prove the following variant of Levi's Enlargement Lemma: for an arbitrary arrangement $\mathcal{A}$ of $x$-monotone pseudosegments in the plane and a pair of points $a,b$ with distinct $x$-coordinates and not on the same pseudosegment, there exists a simple $x$-monotone curve with endpoints $a,b$ that intersects every curve of $\mathcal{A}$ at most once. As a consequence, every simple monotone drawing of a graph can be extended to a simple monotone drawing of a complete graph. We also show that extending an arrangement of cylindrically monotone pseudosegments is not always possible; in fact, the corresponding decision problem is NP-hard.
Let the costs $C(i,j)$ for an instance of the asymmetric traveling salesperson problem be independent uniform $[0,1]$ random variables. We consider the efficiency of branch and bound algorithms that use the assignment relaxation as a lower bound. We show that w.h.p. the number of steps taken in any such branch and bound algorithm is $e^{\Omega(n^a)}$ for some small absolute constant $a>0$.
The Davis-Kahan-Wedin $\sin \Theta$ theorem describes how the singular subspaces of a matrix change when subjected to a small perturbation. This classic result is sharp in the worst case scenario. In this paper, we prove a stochastic version of the Davis-Kahan-Wedin $\sin \Theta$ theorem when the perturbation is a Gaussian random matrix. Under certain structural assumptions, we obtain an optimal bound that significantly improves upon the classic Davis-Kahan-Wedin $\sin \Theta$ theorem. One of our key tools is a new perturbation bound for the singular values, which may be of independent interest.