arXiv subjects

Konstantin Makarychev

Publications and source records attributed to Konstantin Makarychev.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Strong Refutation of Ordering, Phylogenetic, and Ordinary CSPs, and New Satisfiability and Refutation Thresholds for Triplet and Quartet Reconstruction

We study phase transitions and algorithms for refuting CSPs arising in hierarchical clustering (as well as ranking, and ordinary CSPs). Here, $n$ variables are assigned to leaves of a tree, so as to satisfy $m$ constraints, specifying evolutionary relationships. Two canonical $NP$-hard optimization problems are Triplet and Quartet Reconstruction, where the input consists of triplets $xy|z$ or quartets $xy|zw$, and the goal is to find a tree $T^*$ maximizing agreement with constraints. Our main results are (as density $λ=m/n$ increases): 1. We show the existence and precisely locate the sharp threshold $λ^*\approx1.2277$ for Triplets (via closed-form solution). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first sharp threshold for the broad family of Phylogenetic CSPs. Moreover, we give a lower and upper bound for Quartets. 2. We provide strong refutation algorithms that certify that $val(T^*)\le5/9 + ε$, where $val(T^*)$ is the fraction of constraints satisfied by the (unknown) optimal tree. For triplets, our algorithm succeeds w.h.p if $m =Ω(n)$, and for quartets if $m = Ω(n^{3/2})$. 3. We obtain strongest possible refutations at slightly larger densities (for triplets $m=O(n^{3/2}\log ^3n)$, for quartets $m=O(n^2)$): we certify that $T^*$ is no better than a random assignment, i.e., $val(T^*)\le 1/3+ε$. In fact, we obtain strongest possible refutations for finite-alphabet CSPs with or without negations. Our refutations above are instantiations of our general theorem that applies more broadly to Phylogenetic and Ordering CSPs (and all CSPs failing to support $t$-wise independence), and generalizes the current algorithmic frontier on refuting random CSPs~\citep{allen2015refute}. A crucial difference here, unlike Boolean CSPs, is that there are no negated variables, so prior works relying on negations -- a source of randomness -- do not apply.

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arXiv2026

Threshold Rounding and Bounded-Degree Boolean MAX 2-CSP

We describe an $\widetildeΩ(1/d^4)$-improvement over threshold rounding schemes for a broad class of Boolean MAX 2-CSP instances in which every variable appears in at most $d$ constraints. In the case of MAX 2-SAT, we improve the ratio further and obtain an $(β_\star + \widetildeΩ(1/d^2))$-factor approximation algorithm for bounded-degree MAX 2-SAT instances, where $β_\star$ is the UGC-optimal approximation ratio for MAX 2-SAT achieved by the LLZ algorithm. Our result generalizes an $(α_{GW} + \widetildeΩ(1/d^2))$-factor approximation algorithm for MAX CUT on graphs with degrees bounded by $d$, due to Hsieh and Kothari. Together with the state-of-the-art approximability results for MAX DI-CUT and MAX 2-AND, our result suggests that similar improvements exist for bounded-degree instances of these problems as well.

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arXiv2026

Optimal Phylogenetic Reconstruction from Sampled Quartets

Quartet Reconstruction, the task of recovering a phylogenetic tree from smaller trees on four species called \textit{quartets}, is a well-studied problem in theoretical computer science with far-reaching connections to statistics, graph theory and biology. Given a random sample containing $m$ noisy quartets, labeled by an unknown ground-truth tree $T$ on $n$ taxa, we want to output a tree $\widehat T$ that is \textit{close} to $T$ in terms of quartet distance and can predict unseen quartets. Unfortunately, the empirical risk minimizer corresponds to the $\mathsf{NP}$-hard problem of finding a tree that maximizes agreements with the sampled quartets, and earlier works in approximation algorithms gave $(1-\eps)$-approximation schemes (PTAS) for dense instances with $m=Θ(n^4)$ quartets, or for $m=Θ(n^2\log n)$ quartets \textit{randomly} sampled from $T$. Prior to our work, it was unknown how many samples are information-theoretically required to learn the tree, and whether there is an efficient reconstruction algorithm. We present optimal results for reconstructing an unknown phylogenetic tree $T$ from a random sample of $m=Θ(n)$ quartets, corrupted under the Random Classification Noise (RCN) model. This matches the $Ω(n)$ lower bound required for any meaningful tree reconstruction. Our contribution is twofold: first, we give a tree reconstruction algorithm that, not only achieves a $(1-\eps)$-approximation, but most importantly \textit{recovers} a tree close to $T$ in quartet distance; second, we show a new $Θ(n)$ bound on the Natarajan dimension of phylogenies (an analog of VC dimension in multiclass classification). Our analysis relies on a new \textit{Quartet-based Embedding and Detection} procedure that identifies and removes well-clustered subtrees from the (unknown) ground-truth $T$ via semidefinite programming.

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arXiv2026

On the Approximability of Max-Cut on 3-Colorable Graphs and Graphs with Large Independent Sets

Max-Cut is a classical graph-partitioning problem where given a graph $G = (V,E)$, the objective is to find a cut $(S,S^c)$ which maximizes the number of edges crossing the cut. In a seminal work, Goemans and Williamson gave an $α_{GW} \approx 0.87856$-factor approximation algorithm for the problem, which was later shown to be tight by the work of Khot, Kindler, Mossel, and O'Donnell. Since then, there has been a steady progress in understanding the approximability at even finer levels, and a fundamental goal in this context is to understand how the structure of the underlying graph affects the approximability of the Max-Cut problem. In this work, we investigate this question by exploring how the chromatic structure of a graph affects the Max-Cut problem. While it is well-known that Max-Cut can be solved perfectly and near-perfectly in $2$-colorable and almost $2$-colorable graphs in polynomial time, here we explore its approximability under much weaker structural conditions such as when the graph is $3$-colorable or contains a large independent set. Our main contributions in this context are as follows: 1. We show Max-Cut is $α_{GW}$-hard to approximate for $3$-colorable graphs. 2. We identify a natural threshold $α^*$ such that the following holds. Firstly, for graphs which contain an independent set of size up to $α^*$, Max-Cut continues to be $α_{GW}$-factor hard to approximate. Furthermore, for any graph that contains an independent set of size $> α^*$, there exists an efficient $>α_{GW}$-approximation algorithm for Max-Cut. Our hardness results are derived using various analytical tools and novel variants of the Majority-Is-Stablest theorem, which might be of independent interest. Our algorithmic results are based on a novel SDP relaxation, which is then rounded and analyzed using interval arithmetic.

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arXiv2026

A Simple Average-case Analysis of Recursive Randomized Greedy MIS

We revisit the complexity analysis of the recursive version of the randomized greedy algorithm for computing a maximal independent set (MIS), originally analyzed by Yoshida, Yamamoto, and Ito (2009). They showed that, on average per vertex, the expected number of recursive calls made by this algorithm is upper bounded by the average degree of the input graph. While their analysis is clever and intricate, we provide a significantly simpler alternative that achieves the same guarantee. Our analysis is inspired by the recent work of Dalirrooyfard, Makarychev, and Mitrović (2024), who developed a potential-function-based argument to analyze a new algorithm for correlation clustering. We adapt this approach to the MIS setting, yielding a more direct and arguably more transparent analysis of the recursive randomized greedy MIS algorithm.

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arXiv2025

Dynamic Algorithm for Explainable k-medians Clustering under lp Norm

We study the problem of explainable k-medians clustering introduced by Dasgupta, Frost, Moshkovitz, and Rashtchian (2020). In this problem, the goal is to construct a threshold decision tree that partitions data into k clusters while minimizing the k-medians objective. These trees are interpretable because each internal node makes a simple decision by thresholding a single feature, allowing users to trace and understand how each point is assigned to a cluster. We present the first algorithm for explainable k-medians under lp norm for every finite p >= 1. Our algorithm achieves an O(p(log k)^{1 + 1/p - 1/p^2}) approximation to the optimal k-medians cost for any p >= 1. Previously, algorithms were known only for p = 1 and p = 2. For p = 2, our algorithm improves upon the existing bound of O(log^{3/2}k), and for p = 1, it matches the tight bound of log k + O(1) up to a multiplicative O(log log k) factor. We show how to implement our algorithm in a dynamic setting. The dynamic algorithm maintains an explainable clustering under a sequence of insertions and deletions, with amortized update time O(d log^3 k) and O(log k) recourse, making it suitable for large-scale and evolving datasets.

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arXiv2025

SPARSE-PIVOT: Dynamic correlation clustering for node insertions

We present a new Correlation Clustering algorithm for a dynamic setting where nodes are added one at a time. In this model, proposed by Cohen-Addad, Lattanzi, Maggiori, and Parotsidis (ICML 2024), the algorithm uses database queries to access the input graph and updates the clustering as each new node is added. Our algorithm has the amortized update time of $O_ε(\log^{O(1)}(n))$. Its approximation factor is $20+\varepsilon$, which is a substantial improvement over the approximation factor of the algorithm by Cohen-Addad et al. We complement our theoretical findings by empirically evaluating the approximation guarantee of our algorithm. The results show that it outperforms the algorithm by Cohen-Addad et al.~in practice.

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arXiv2024

Constraint Satisfaction Problems with Advice

We initiate the study of algorithms for constraint satisfaction problems with ML oracle advice. We introduce two models of advice and then design approximation algorithms for Max Cut, Max $2$-Lin, and Max $3$-Lin in these models. In particular, we show the following. 1. For Max-Cut and Max $2$-Lin, we design an algorithm that yields near-optimal solutions when the average degree is larger than a threshold degree, which only depends on the amount of advice and is independent of the instance size. We also give an algorithm for nearly satisfiable Max $3$-Lin instances with quantitatively similar guarantees. 2. Further, we provide impossibility results for algorithms in these models. In particular, under standard complexity assumptions, we show that Max $3$-Lin is still $1/2 + η$ hard to approximate given access to advice, when there are no assumptions on the instance degree distribution. Additionally, we also show that Max $4$-Lin is $1/2 + η$ hard to approximate even when the average degree of the instance is linear in the number of variables.

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arXiv2024

Pruned Pivot: Correlation Clustering Algorithm for Dynamic, Parallel, and Local Computation Models

Given a graph with positive and negative edge labels, the correlation clustering problem aims to cluster the nodes so to minimize the total number of between-cluster positive and within-cluster negative edges. This problem has many applications in data mining, particularly in unsupervised learning. Inspired by the prevalence of large graphs and constantly changing data in modern applications, we study correlation clustering in dynamic, parallel (MPC), and local computation (LCA) settings. We design an approach that improves state-of-the-art runtime complexities in all these settings. In particular, we provide the first fully dynamic algorithm that runs in an expected amortized constant time, without any dependence on the graph size. Moreover, our algorithm essentially matches the approximation guarantee of the celebrated Pivot algorithm.

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arXiv2023

Higher-Order Cheeger Inequality for Partitioning with Buffers

We prove a new generalization of the higher-order Cheeger inequality for partitioning with buffers. Consider a graph $G=(V,E)$. The buffered expansion of a set $S \subseteq V$ with a buffer $B \subseteq V \setminus S$ is the edge expansion of $S$ after removing all the edges from set $S$ to its buffer $B$. An $\varepsilon$-buffered $k$-partitioning is a partitioning of a graph into disjoint components $P_i$ and buffers $B_i$, in which the size of buffer $B_i$ for $P_i$ is small relative to the size of $P_i$: $|B_i| \le \varepsilon |P_i|$. The buffered expansion of a buffered partition is the maximum of buffered expansions of the $k$ sets $P_i$ with buffers $B_i$. Let $h^{k,\varepsilon}_G$ be the buffered expansion of the optimal $\varepsilon$-buffered $k$-partitioning, then for every $δ>0$, $$h_G^{k,\varepsilon} \le O_δ(1) \cdot \Big( \frac{\log k}{ \varepsilon}\Big) \cdot λ_{\lfloor (1+δ) k\rfloor},$$ where $λ_{\lfloor (1+δ)k\rfloor}$ is the $\lfloor (1+δ)k\rfloor$-th smallest eigenvalue of the normalized Laplacian of $G$. Our inequality is constructive and avoids the ``square-root loss'' that is present in the standard Cheeger inequalities (even for $k=2$). We also provide a complementary lower bound, and a novel generalization to the setting with arbitrary vertex weights and edge costs. Moreover our result implies and generalizes the standard higher-order Cheeger inequalities and another recent Cheeger-type inequality by Kwok, Lau, and Lee (2017) involving robust vertex expansion.

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arXiv2023

Approximation Algorithms for Norm Multiway Cut

We consider variants of the classic Multiway Cut problem. Multiway Cut asks to partition a graph $G$ into $k$ parts so as to separate $k$ given terminals. Recently, Chandrasekaran and Wang (ESA 2021) introduced $\ell_p$-norm Multiway, a generalization of the problem, in which the goal is to minimize the $\ell_p$ norm of the edge boundaries of $k$ parts. We provide an $O(\log^{1/2} n\log^{1/2+1/p} k)$ approximation algorithm for this problem, improving upon the approximation guarantee of $O(\log^{3/2} n \log^{1/2} k)$ due to Chandrasekaran and Wang. We also introduce and study Norm Multiway Cut, a further generalization of Multiway Cut. We assume that we are given access to an oracle, which answers certain queries about the norm. We present an $O(\log^{1/2} n \log^{7/2} k)$ approximation algorithm with a weaker oracle and an $O(\log^{1/2} n \log^{5/2} k)$ approximation algorithm with a stronger oracle. Additionally, we show that without any oracle access, there is no $n^{1/4-\varepsilon}$ approximation algorithm for every $\varepsilon > 0$ assuming the Hypergraph Dense-vs-Random Conjecture.

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arXiv2023

Single-Pass Pivot Algorithm for Correlation Clustering. Keep it simple!

We show that a simple single-pass semi-streaming variant of the Pivot algorithm for Correlation Clustering gives a (3 + ε)-approximation using O(n/ε) words of memory. This is a slight improvement over the recent results of Cambus, Kuhn, Lindy, Pai, and Uitto, who gave a (3 + ε)-approximation using O(n log n) words of memory, and Behnezhad, Charikar, Ma, and Tan, who gave a 5-approximation using O(n) words of memory. One of the main contributions of this paper is that both the algorithm and its analysis are very simple, and also the algorithm is easy to implement.

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arXiv2023

Random Cuts are Optimal for Explainable k-Medians

We show that the RandomCoordinateCut algorithm gives the optimal competitive ratio for explainable k-medians in l1. The problem of explainable k-medians was introduced by Dasgupta, Frost, Moshkovitz, and Rashtchian in 2020. Several groups of authors independently proposed a simple polynomial-time randomized algorithm for the problem and showed that this algorithm is O(log k loglog k) competitive. We provide a tight analysis of the algorithm and prove that its competitive ratio is upper bounded by 2ln k +2. This bound matches the Omega(log k) lower bound by Dasgupta et al (2020).

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arXiv2023

Triplet Reconstruction and all other Phylogenetic CSPs are Approximation Resistant

We study the natural problem of Triplet Reconstruction (also Rooted Triplets Consistency or Triplet Clustering), originally motivated in computational biology and relational databases (Aho, Sagiv, Szymanski, and Ullman, 1981): given $n$ points, we want to embed them onto the $n$ leaves of a rooted binary tree (a hierarchical clustering or ultrametric embedding) such that a given set of $m$ triplet constraints is satisfied. Triplet $ij|k$ indicates that ``$i, j$ are more closely related to each other than to $k$'' and a tree satisfies $ij|k$ if $d(i,j)$ is the smallest among the 3 distances. Aho et al. (1981) gave an elegant efficient algorithm to find a tree respecting all constraints (if it exists) and it is easy to see that a random binary tree is a 1/3-approximation. Unfortunately, despite more than four decades of research, no better approximation is known. Our main theorem--which captures Triplet Reconstruction as a special case--is a general hardness of approximation result about Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) over infinite domains (the variables are mapped to any of the $n$ leaves of a tree). Specifically, we prove, under Unique Games (Khot, 2002), that Triplet Reconstruction and more generally, every CSP over hierarchies is approximation resistant (there is no polynomial-time algorithm that does asymptotically better than a biased random assignment). This settles the approximability for many interesting Subtree or Supertree Aggregation Problems. More broadly, our result significantly extends the list of approximation resistant predicates and is a generalization of Guruswami, Hastad, Manokaran, Raghavendra, and Charikar (2011), who showed that ordering CSPs are approximation resistant. The main challenge in our analyses stems from the fact that trees have topology which is what determines whether a given triplet constraint on the leaves is satisfied or not.

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arXiv2022

Explainable k-means. Don't be greedy, plant bigger trees!

We provide a new bi-criteria $\tilde{O}(\log^2 k)$ competitive algorithm for explainable $k$-means clustering. Explainable $k$-means was recently introduced by Dasgupta, Frost, Moshkovitz, and Rashtchian (ICML 2020). It is described by an easy to interpret and understand (threshold) decision tree or diagram. The cost of the explainable $k$-means clustering equals to the sum of costs of its clusters; and the cost of each cluster equals the sum of squared distances from the points in the cluster to the center of that cluster. The best non bi-criteria algorithm for explainable clustering $\tilde{O}(k)$ competitive, and this bound is tight. Our randomized bi-criteria algorithm constructs a threshold decision tree that partitions the data set into $(1+δ)k$ clusters (where $δ\in (0,1)$ is a parameter of the algorithm). The cost of this clustering is at most $\tilde{O}(1/ δ\cdot \log^2 k)$ times the cost of the optimal unconstrained $k$-means clustering. We show that this bound is almost optimal.

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arXiv2021

Correlation Clustering with Asymmetric Classification Errors

In the Correlation Clustering problem, we are given a weighted graph $G$ with its edges labeled as "similar" or "dissimilar" by a binary classifier. The goal is to produce a clustering that minimizes the weight of "disagreements": the sum of the weights of "similar" edges across clusters and "dissimilar" edges within clusters. We study the correlation clustering problem under the following assumption: Every "similar" edge $e$ has weight $\mathbf{w}_e\in[α\mathbf{w}, \mathbf{w}]$ and every "dissimilar" edge $e$ has weight $\mathbf{w}_e\geq α\mathbf{w}$ (where $α\leq 1$ and $\mathbf{w}>0$ is a scaling parameter). We give a $(3 + 2 \log_e (1/α))$ approximation algorithm for this problem. This assumption captures well the scenario when classification errors are asymmetric. Additionally, we show an asymptotically matching Linear Programming integrality gap of $Ω(\log 1/α)$.

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arXiv2021

Local Correlation Clustering with Asymmetric Classification Errors

In the Correlation Clustering problem, we are given a complete weighted graph $G$ with its edges labeled as "similar" and "dissimilar" by a noisy binary classifier. For a clustering $\mathcal{C}$ of graph $G$, a similar edge is in disagreement with $\mathcal{C}$, if its endpoints belong to distinct clusters; and a dissimilar edge is in disagreement with $\mathcal{C}$ if its endpoints belong to the same cluster. The disagreements vector, $\text{dis}$, is a vector indexed by the vertices of $G$ such that the $v$-th coordinate $\text{dis}_v$ equals the weight of all disagreeing edges incident on $v$. The goal is to produce a clustering that minimizes the $\ell_p$ norm of the disagreements vector for $p\geq 1$. We study the $\ell_p$ objective in Correlation Clustering under the following assumption: Every similar edge has weight in the range of $[α\mathbf{w},\mathbf{w}]$ and every dissimilar edge has weight at least $α\mathbf{w}$ (where $α\leq 1$ and $\mathbf{w}>0$ is a scaling parameter). We give an $O\left((\frac{1}α)^{\frac{1}{2}-\frac{1}{2p}}\cdot \log\frac{1}α\right)$ approximation algorithm for this problem. Furthermore, we show an almost matching convex programming integrality gap.

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arXiv2021

Near-optimal Algorithms for Explainable k-Medians and k-Means

We consider the problem of explainable $k$-medians and $k$-means introduced by Dasgupta, Frost, Moshkovitz, and Rashtchian~(ICML 2020). In this problem, our goal is to find a threshold decision tree that partitions data into $k$ clusters and minimizes the $k$-medians or $k$-means objective. The obtained clustering is easy to interpret because every decision node of a threshold tree splits data based on a single feature into two groups. We propose a new algorithm for this problem which is $\tilde O(\log k)$ competitive with $k$-medians with $\ell_1$ norm and $\tilde O(k)$ competitive with $k$-means. This is an improvement over the previous guarantees of $O(k)$ and $O(k^2)$ by Dasgupta et al (2020). We also provide a new algorithm which is $O(\log^{3/2} k)$ competitive for $k$-medians with $\ell_2$ norm. Our first algorithm is near-optimal: Dasgupta et al (2020) showed a lower bound of $Ω(\log k)$ for $k$-medians; in this work, we prove a lower bound of $\tildeΩ(k)$ for $k$-means. We also provide a lower bound of $Ω(\log k)$ for $k$-medians with $\ell_2$ norm.

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