arXiv subjects

Pasin Manurangsi

Publications and source records attributed to Pasin Manurangsi.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Parameterized Intractability of Even Set and Shortest Vector Problem

The $k$-Even Set problem is a parameterized variant of the Minimum Distance Problem of linear codes over $\mathbb F_2$, which can be stated as follows: given a generator matrix $\mathbf A$ and an integer $k$, determine whether the code generated by $\mathbf A$ has distance at most $k$, or in other words, whether there is a nonzero vector $\mathbf{x}$ such that $\mathbf A \mathbf{x}$ has at most $k$ nonzero coordinates. The question of whether $k$-Even Set is fixed parameter tractable (FPT) parameterized by the distance $k$ has been repeatedly raised in literature; in fact, it is one of the few remaining open questions from the seminal book of Downey and Fellows (1999). In this work, we show that $k$-Even Set is W[1]-hard under randomized reductions. We also consider the parameterized $k$-Shortest Vector Problem (SVP), in which we are given a lattice whose basis vectors are integral and an integer $k$, and the goal is to determine whether the norm of the shortest vector (in the $\ell_p$ norm for some fixed $p$) is at most $k$. Similar to $k$-Even Set, understanding the complexity of this problem is also a long-standing open question in the field of Parameterized Complexity. We show that, for any $p > 1$, $k$-SVP is W[1]-hard to approximate (under randomized reductions) to some constant factor.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2019

Nearly Tight Bounds for Robust Proper Learning of Halfspaces with a Margin

We study the problem of {\em properly} learning large margin halfspaces in the agnostic PAC model. In more detail, we study the complexity of properly learning $d$-dimensional halfspaces on the unit ball within misclassification error $α\cdot \mathrm{OPT}_γ + ε$, where $\mathrm{OPT}_γ$ is the optimal $γ$-margin error rate and $α\geq 1$ is the approximation ratio. We give learning algorithms and computational hardness results for this problem, for all values of the approximation ratio $α\geq 1$, that are nearly-matching for a range of parameters. Specifically, for the natural setting that $α$ is any constant bigger than one, we provide an essentially tight complexity characterization. On the positive side, we give an $α= 1.01$-approximate proper learner that uses $O(1/(ε^2γ^2))$ samples (which is optimal) and runs in time $\mathrm{poly}(d/ε) \cdot 2^{\tilde{O}(1/γ^2)}$. On the negative side, we show that {\em any} constant factor approximate proper learner has runtime $\mathrm{poly}(d/ε) \cdot 2^{(1/γ)^{2-o(1)}}$, assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2019

Approximation and Hardness of Shift-Bribery

In the Shift-Bribery problem we are given an election, a preferred candidate, and the costs of shifting this preferred candidate up the voters' preference orders. The goal is to find such a set of shifts that ensures that the preferred candidate wins the election. We give the first polynomial-time approximation scheme for the Shift-Bribery problem for the case of positional scoring rules, and for the Copeland rule we show strong inapproximability results.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2018

On Closest Pair in Euclidean Metric: Monochromatic is as Hard as Bichromatic

Given a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb R^d$, the (monochromatic) Closest Pair problem asks to find a pair of distinct points in the set that are closest in the $\ell_p$-metric. Closest Pair is a fundamental problem in Computational Geometry and understanding its fine-grained complexity in the Euclidean metric when $d=ω(\log n)$ was raised as an open question in recent works (Abboud-Rubinstein-Williams [FOCS'17], Williams [SODA'18], David-Karthik-Laekhanukit [SoCG'18]). In this paper, we show that for every $p\in\mathbb R_{\ge 1}\cup\{0\}$, under the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH), for every $\varepsilon>0$, the following holds: $\bullet$ No algorithm running in time $O(n^{2-\varepsilon})$ can solve the Closest Pair problem in $d=(\log n)^{Ω_{\varepsilon}(1)}$ dimensions in the $\ell_p$-metric. $\bullet$ There exists $δ= δ(\varepsilon)>0$ and $c = c(\varepsilon)\ge 1$ such that no algorithm running in time $O(n^{1.5-\varepsilon})$ can approximate Closest Pair problem to a factor of $(1+δ)$ in $d\ge c\log n$ dimensions in the $\ell_p$-metric. At the heart of all our proofs is the construction of a dense bipartite graph with low contact dimension, i.e., we construct a balanced bipartite graph on $n$ vertices with $n^{2-\varepsilon}$ edges whose vertices can be realized as points in a $(\log n)^{Ω_\varepsilon(1)}$-dimensional Euclidean space such that every pair of vertices which have an edge in the graph are at distance exactly 1 and every other pair of vertices are at distance greater than 1. This graph construction is inspired by the construction of locally dense codes introduced by Dumer-Miccancio-Sudan [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory'03].

cs.CG↗

arXiv2018

When Do Envy-Free Allocations Exist?

We consider a fair division setting in which $m$ indivisible items are to be allocated among $n$ agents, where the agents have additive utilities and the agents' utilities for individual items are independently sampled from a distribution. Previous work has shown that an envy-free allocation is likely to exist when $m=Ω(n\log n)$ but not when $m=n+o(n)$, and left open the question of determining where the phase transition from non-existence to existence occurs. We show that, surprisingly, there is in fact no universal point of transition---instead, the transition is governed by the divisibility relation between $m$ and $n$. On the one hand, if $m$ is divisible by $n$, an envy-free allocation exists with high probability as long as $m\geq 2n$. On the other hand, if $m$ is not "almost" divisible by $n$, an envy-free allocation is unlikely to exist even when $m=Θ(n\log n/\log\log n)$.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2018

Losing Treewidth by Separating Subsets

We study the problem of deleting the smallest set $S$ of vertices (resp. edges) from a given graph $G$ such that the induced subgraph (resp. subgraph) $G \setminus S$ belongs to some class $\mathcal{H}$. We consider the case where graphs in $\mathcal{H}$ have treewidth bounded by $t$, and give a general framework to obtain approximation algorithms for both vertex and edge-deletion settings from approximation algorithms for certain natural graph partitioning problems called $k$-Subset Vertex Separator and $k$-Subset Edge Separator, respectively. For the vertex deletion setting, our framework combined with the current best result for $k$-Subset Vertex Separator, yields a significant improvement in the approximation ratios for basic problems such as $k$-Treewidth Vertex Deletion and Planar-$F$ Vertex Deletion. Our algorithms are simpler than previous works and give the first uniform approximation algorithms under the natural parameterization. For the edge deletion setting, we give improved approximation algorithms for $k$-Subset Edge Separator combining ideas from LP relaxations and important separators. We present their applications in bounded-degree graphs, and also give an APX-hardness result for the edge deletion problems.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

The Computational Complexity of Training ReLU(s)

We consider the computational complexity of training depth-2 neural networks composed of rectified linear units (ReLUs). We show that, even for the case of a single ReLU, finding a set of weights that minimizes the squared error (even approximately) for a given training set is NP-hard. We also show that for a simple network consisting of two ReLUs, the error minimization problem is NP-hard, even in the realizable case. We complement these hardness results by showing that, when the weights and samples belong to the unit ball, one can (agnostically) properly and reliably learn depth-2 ReLUs with $k$ units and error at most $ε$ in time $2^{(k/ε)^{O(1)}}n^{O(1)}$; this extends upon a previous work of Goel, Kanade, Klivans and Thaler (2017) which provided efficient improper learning algorithms for ReLUs.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2018

A Note on Max $k$-Vertex Cover: Faster FPT-AS, Smaller Approximate Kernel and Improved Approximation

In Maximum $k$-Vertex Cover (Max $k$-VC), the input is an edge-weighted graph $G$ and an integer $k$, and the goal is to find a subset $S$ of $k$ vertices that maximizes the total weight of edges covered by $S$. Here we say that an edge is covered by $S$ iff at least one of its endpoints lies in $S$. We present an FPT approximation scheme (FPT-AS) that runs in $(1/ε)^{O(k)} poly(n)$ time for the problem, which improves upon Gupta et al.'s $(k/ε)^{O(k)} poly(n)$-time FPT-AS [SODA'18, FOCS'18]. Our algorithm is simple: just use brute force to find the best $k$-vertex subset among the $O(k/ε)$ vertices with maximum weighted degrees. Our algorithm naturally yields an efficient approximate kernelization scheme of $O(k/ε)$ vertices; previously, an $O(k^5/ε^2)$-vertex approximate kernel is only known for the unweighted version of Max $k$-VC [Lokshtanov et al., STOC'17]. Interestingly, this has an application outside of parameterized complexity: using our approximate kernelization as a preprocessing step, we can directly apply Raghavendra and Tan's SDP-based algorithm for 2SAT with cardinality constraint [SODA'12] to give an $0.92$-approximation for Max $k$-VC in polynomial time. This improves upon Feige and Langberg's algorithm [J. Algorithms'01] which yields $(0.75 + δ)$-approximation for some (unspecified) constant $δ> 0$. We also consider the minimization version (Min $k$-VC), where the goal is to minimize the total weight of edges covered by $S$. We provide an FPT-AS for Min $k$-VC with similar running time of $(1/ε)^{O(k)} poly(n)$, which again improves on a $(k/ε)^{O(k)} poly(n)$-time FPT-AS of Gupta et al. On the other hand, we show that there is unlikely a polynomial size approximate kernelization for Min $k$-VC for any factor less than two.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Multitasking Capacity: Hardness Results and Improved Constructions

We consider the problem of determining the maximal $α\in (0,1]$ such that every matching $M$ of size $k$ (or at most $k$) in a bipartite graph $G$ contains an induced matching of size at least $α|M|$. This measure was recently introduced in Alon et al. (NIPS 2018) and is motivated by connectionist models of cognition as well as modeling interference in wireless and communication networks. We prove various hardness results for computing $α$ either exactly or approximately. En route to our results, we also consider the maximum connected matching problem: determining the largest matching $N$ in a graph $G$ such that every two edges in $N$ are connected by an edge. We prove a nearly optimal $n^{1-ε}$ hardness of approximation result (under randomized reductions) for connected matching in bipartite graphs (with both sides of cardinality $n$). Towards this end we define bipartite half-covers: A new combinatorial object that may be of independent interest. To the best of our knowledge, the best previous hardness result for the connected matching problem was some constant $β>1$. Finally, we demonstrate the existence of bipartite graphs with $n$ vertices on each side of average degree $d$, that achieve $α=1/2-ε$ for matchings of size sufficiently smaller than $n/poly(d)$. This nearly matches the trivial upper bound of $1/2$ on $α$ which holds for any graph containing a path of length 3.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Mildly Exponential Time Approximation Algorithms for Vertex Cover, Uniform Sparsest Cut and Related Problems

In this work, we study the trade-off between the running time of approximation algorithms and their approximation guarantees. By leveraging a structure of the `hard' instances of the Arora-Rao-Vazirani lemma [JACM'09], we show that the Sum-of-Squares hierarchy can be adapted to provide `fast', but still exponential time, approximation algorithms for several problems in the regime where they are believed to be NP-hard. Specifically, our framework yields the following algorithms; here $n$ denote the number of vertices of the graph and $r$ can be any positive real number greater than 1 (possibly depending on $n$). (i) A $\left(2 - \frac{1}{O(r)}\right)$-approximation algorithm for Vertex Cover that runs in $\exp\left(\frac{n}{2^{r^2}}\right)n^{O(1)}$ time. (ii) An $O(r)$-approximation algorithms for Uniform Sparsest Cut, Balanced Separator, Minimum UnCut and Minimum 2CNF Deletion that runs in $\exp\left(\frac{n}{2^{r^2}}\right)n^{O(1)}$ time. Our algorithm for Vertex Cover improves upon Bansal et al.'s algorithm [arXiv:1708.03515] which achieves $\left(2 - \frac{1}{O(r)}\right)$-approximation in time $\exp\left(\frac{n}{r^r}\right)n^{O(1)}$. For the remaining problems, our algorithms improve upon $O(r)$-approximation $\exp\left(\frac{n}{2^r}\right)n^{O(1)}$-time algorithms that follow from a work of Charikar et al. [SIAM J. Comput.'10].

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

A Note on Degree vs Gap of Min-Rep Label Cover and Improved Inapproximability for Connectivity Problems

This note concerns the trade-off between the degree of the constraint graph and the gap in hardness of approximating the Min-Rep variant of Label Cover (aka Projection Game). We make a very simple observation that, for NP-hardness with gap $g$, the degree can be made as small as $O(g \log g)$, which improves upon the previous $\tilde{O}(g^{1/2})$ bound from a work of Laekhanukit (SODA'14). Note that our bound is optimal up to a logarithmic factor since there is a trivial $Δ$-approximation for Min-Rep where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of the constraint graph. Thanks to known reductions, this improvement implies better hardness of approximation results for Rooted $k$-Connectivity, Vertex-Connectivity Survivable Network Design and Vertex-Connectivity $k$-Route Cut.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2018

ETH-Hardness of Approximating 2-CSPs and Directed Steiner Network

We study the 2-ary constraint satisfaction problems (2-CSPs), which can be stated as follows: given a constraint graph $G=(V,E)$, an alphabet set $Σ$ and, for each $\{u, v\}\in E$, a constraint $C_{uv} \subseteq Σ\timesΣ$, the goal is to find an assignment $σ: V \to Σ$ that satisfies as many constraints as possible, where a constraint $C_{uv}$ is satisfied if $(σ(u),σ(v))\in C_{uv}$. While the approximability of 2-CSPs is quite well understood when $|Σ|$ is constant, many problems are still open when $|Σ|$ becomes super constant. One such problem is whether it is hard to approximate 2-CSPs to within a polynomial factor of $|Σ| |V|$. Bellare et al. (1993) suggested that the answer to this question might be positive. Alas, despite efforts to resolve this conjecture, it remains open to this day. In this work, we separate $|V|$ and $|Σ|$ and ask a related but weaker question: is it hard to approximate 2-CSPs to within a polynomial factor of $|V|$ (while $|Σ|$ may be super-polynomial in $|V|$)? Assuming the exponential time hypothesis (ETH), we answer this question positively by showing that no polynomial time algorithm can approximate 2-CSPs to within a factor of $|V|^{1 - o(1)}$. Note that our ratio is almost linear, which is almost optimal as a trivial algorithm gives a $|V|$-approximation for 2-CSPs. Thanks to a known reduction, our result implies an ETH-hardness of approximating Directed Steiner Network with ratio $k^{1/4 - o(1)}$ where $k$ is the number of demand pairs. The ratio is roughly the square root of the best known ratio achieved by polynomial time algorithms (Chekuri et al., 2011; Feldman et al., 2012). Additionally, under Gap-ETH, our reduction for 2-CSPs not only rules out polynomial time algorithms, but also FPT algorithms parameterized by $|V|$. Similar statement applies for DSN parameterized by $k$.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2018

Sherali-Adams Integrality Gaps Matching the Log-Density Threshold

The log-density method is a powerful algorithmic framework which in recent years has given rise to the best-known approximations for a variety of problems, including Densest-$k$-Subgraph and Bipartite Small Set Vertex Expansion. These approximations have been conjectured to be optimal based on various instantiations of a general conjecture: that it is hard to distinguish a fully random combinatorial structure from one which contains a similar planted sub-structure with the same "log-density". We bolster this conjecture by showing that in a random hypergraph with edge probability $n^{-α}$, $\tildeΩ(\log n)$ rounds of Sherali-Adams with cannot rule out the existence of a $k$-subhypergraph with edge density $k^{-α-o(1)}$, for any $k$ and $α$. This holds even when the bound on the objective function is lifted. This gives strong integrality gaps which exactly match the gap in the above distinguishing problems, as well as the best-known approximations, for Densest $k$-Subgraph, Smallest $p$-Edge Subgraph, their hypergraph extensions, and Small Set Bipartite Vertex Expansion (or equivalently, Minimum $p$-Union). Previously, such integrality gaps were known only for Densest $k$-Subgraph for one specific parameter setting.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

On the Parameterized Complexity of Approximating Dominating Set

We study the parameterized complexity of approximating the $k$-Dominating Set (DomSet) problem where an integer $k$ and a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices are given as input, and the goal is to find a dominating set of size at most $F(k) \cdot k$ whenever the graph $G$ has a dominating set of size $k$. When such an algorithm runs in time $T(k) \cdot poly(n)$ (i.e., FPT-time) for some computable function $T$, it is said to be an $F(k)$-FPT-approximation algorithm for $k$-DomSet. We prove the following for every computable functions $T, F$ and every constant $\varepsilon > 0$: $\bullet$ Assuming $W[1]\neq FPT$, there is no $F(k)$-FPT-approximation algorithm for $k$-DomSet. $\bullet$ Assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH), there is no $F(k)$-approximation algorithm for $k$-DomSet that runs in $T(k) \cdot n^{o(k)}$ time. $\bullet$ Assuming the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH), for every integer $k \geq 2$, there is no $F(k)$-approximation algorithm for $k$-DomSet that runs in $T(k) \cdot n^{k - \varepsilon}$ time. $\bullet$ Assuming the $k$-Sum Hypothesis, for every integer $k \geq 3$, there is no $F(k)$-approximation algorithm for $k$-DomSet that runs in $T(k) \cdot n^{\lceil k/2 \rceil - \varepsilon}$ time. Our results are obtained by establishing a connection between communication complexity and hardness of approximation, generalizing the ideas from a recent breakthrough work of Abboud et al. [FOCS 2017]. Specifically, we show that to prove hardness of approximation of a certain parameterized variant of the label cover problem, it suffices to devise a specific protocol for a communication problem that depends on which hypothesis we rely on. Each of these communication problems turns out to be either a well studied problem or a variant of one; this allows us to easily apply known techniques to solve them.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2018

Parameterized Intractability of Even Set and Shortest Vector Problem from Gap-ETH

The $k$-Even Set problem is a parameterized variant of the Minimum Distance Problem of linear codes over $\mathbb F_2$, which can be stated as follows: given a generator matrix $\mathbf A$ and an integer $k$, determine whether the code generated by $\mathbf A$ has distance at most $k$. Here, $k$ is the parameter of the problem. The question of whether $k$-Even Set is fixed parameter tractable (FPT) has been repeatedly raised in literature and has earned its place in Downey and Fellows' book (2013) as one of the "most infamous" open problems in the field of Parameterized Complexity. In this work, we show that $k$-Even Set does not admit FPT algorithms under the (randomized) Gap Exponential Time Hypothesis (Gap-ETH) [Dinur'16, Manurangsi-Raghavendra'16]. In fact, our result rules out not only exact FPT algorithms, but also any constant factor FPT approximation algorithms for the problem. Furthermore, our result holds even under the following weaker assumption, which is also known as the Parameterized Inapproximability Hypothesis (PIH) [Lokshtanov et al.'17]: no (randomized) FPT algorithm can distinguish a satisfiable 2CSP instance from one which is only $0.99$-satisfiable (where the parameter is the number of variables). We also consider the parameterized $k$-Shortest Vector Problem (SVP), in which we are given a lattice whose basis vectors are integral and an integer $k$, and the goal is to determine whether the norm of the shortest vector (in the $\ell_p$ norm for some fixed $p$) is at most $k$. Similar to $k$-Even Set, this problem is also a long-standing open problem in the field of Parameterized Complexity. We show that, for any $p > 1$, $k$-SVP is hard to approximate (in FPT time) to some constant factor, assuming PIH. Furthermore, for the case of $p = 2$, the inapproximability factor can be amplified to any constant.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2018

Average whenever you meet: Opportunistic protocols for community detection

Consider the following asynchronous, opportunistic communication model over a graph $G$: in each round, one edge is activated uniformly and independently at random and (only) its two endpoints can exchange messages and perform local computations. Under this model, we study the following random process: The first time a vertex is an endpoint of an active edge, it chooses a random number, say $\pm 1$ with probability $1/2$; then, in each round, the two endpoints of the currently active edge update their values to their average. We show that, if $G$ exhibits a two-community structure (for example, two expanders connected by a sparse cut), the values held by the nodes will collectively reflect the underlying community structure over a suitable phase of the above process, allowing efficient and effective recovery in important cases. In more detail, we first provide a first-moment analysis showing that, for a large class of almost-regular clustered graphs that includes the stochastic block model, the expected values held by all but a negligible fraction of the nodes eventually reflect the underlying cut signal. We prove this property emerges after a mixing period of length $\mathcal O(n\log n)$. We further provide a second-moment analysis for a more restricted class of regular clustered graphs that includes the regular stochastic block model. For this case, we are able to show that most nodes can efficiently and locally identify their community of reference over a suitable time window. This results in the first opportunistic protocols that approximately recover community structure using only polylogarithmic work per node. Even for the above class of regular graphs, our second moment analysis requires new concentration bounds on the product of certain random matrices that are technically challenging and possibly of independent interest.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2017

From Gap-ETH to FPT-Inapproximability: Clique, Dominating Set, and More

We consider questions that arise from the intersection between the areas of polynomial-time approximation algorithms, subexponential-time algorithms, and fixed-parameter tractable algorithms. The questions, which have been asked several times (e.g., [Marx08, FGMS12, DF13]), are whether there is a non-trivial FPT-approximation algorithm for the Maximum Clique (Clique) and Minimum Dominating Set (DomSet) problems parameterized by the size of the optimal solution. In particular, letting $\text{OPT}$ be the optimum and $N$ be the size of the input, is there an algorithm that runs in $t(\text{OPT})\text{poly}(N)$ time and outputs a solution of size $f(\text{OPT})$, for any functions $t$ and $f$ that are independent of $N$ (for Clique, we want $f(\text{OPT})=ω(1)$)? In this paper, we show that both Clique and DomSet admit no non-trivial FPT-approximation algorithm, i.e., there is no $o(\text{OPT})$-FPT-approximation algorithm for Clique and no $f(\text{OPT})$-FPT-approximation algorithm for DomSet, for any function $f$ (e.g., this holds even if $f$ is the Ackermann function). In fact, our results imply something even stronger: The best way to solve Clique and DomSet, even approximately, is to essentially enumerate all possibilities. Our results hold under the Gap Exponential Time Hypothesis (Gap-ETH) [Dinur16, MR16], which states that no $2^{o(n)}$-time algorithm can distinguish between a satisfiable 3SAT formula and one which is not even $(1 - ε)$-satisfiable for some constant $ε> 0$. Besides Clique and DomSet, we also rule out non-trivial FPT-approximation for Maximum Balanced Biclique, Maximum Subgraphs with Hereditary Properties, and Maximum Induced Matching in bipartite graphs. Additionally, we rule out $k^{o(1)}$-FPT-approximation algorithm for Densest $k$-Subgraph although this ratio does not yet match the trivial $O(k)$-approximation algorithm.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2017

Asymptotic Existence of Fair Divisions for Groups

The problem of dividing resources fairly occurs in many practical situations and is therefore an important topic of study in economics. In this paper, we investigate envy-free divisions in the setting where there are multiple players in each interested party. While all players in a party share the same set of resources, each player has her own preferences. Under additive valuations drawn randomly from probability distributions, we show that when all groups contain an equal number of players, a welfare-maximizing allocation is likely to be envy-free if the number of items exceeds the total number of players by a logarithmic factor. On the other hand, an envy-free allocation is unlikely to exist if the number of items is less than the total number of players. In addition, we show that a simple truthful mechanism, namely the random assignment mechanism, yields an allocation that satisfies the weaker notion of approximate envy-freeness with high probability.

cs.GT↗