The Direct Product encoding of a string @math on an underlying domain @math , is a function DP @math which gets as input a set @math and outputs @math restricted to @math . In the Direct Product Testing Problem, we are given a function @math , and our goal is to test whether @math is close to a direct product encoding, i.e., whether there exists some @math such that on most sets @math , we have @math DP @math . A natural test is as follows: select a pair @math according to some underlying distribution over @math , query @math on this pair, and check for consistency on their intersection. Note that the above distribution may be viewed as a weighted graph over the vertex set @math and is referred to as a test graph. The testability of direct products was studied over various specific domains and test graphs (for example see Dinur-Steurer [CCC'14]; Dinur-Kaufman [FOCS'17]). In this paper, we study the testability of direct products in a general setting, addressing the question: what properties of the domain and the test graph allow one to prove a direct product testing theorem? Towards this goal we introduce the notion of coordinate expansion of a test graph. Roughly speaking a test graph is a coordinate expander if it has global and local expansion, and has certain nice intersection properties on sampling. We show that whenever the test graph has coordinate expansion then it admits a direct product testing theorem. Additionally, for every @math and @math we provide a direct product domain @math of size @math , called the Sliding Window domain for which we prove direct product testability.
We remark that the direct product testability question was further analyzed in the low acceptance regime under the domain @math , see @cite_12 @cite_3 @cite_0 and also under the domain where the universe is @math , and the domain is the set of all subspaces of @math @cite_3 .
@cite_0 @cite_3 @cite_12
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Given a function f : X rarr Sigma, its lscr-wise direct product is the function F = flscr : Xlscr rarr Sigmalscr defined by: F(x1,...,xlscr) = (f(x1),...,f(xlscr)). We are interested in the local testability of the direct product encoding (mapping f rarr flscr). Namely, given an arbitrary function F : Xlscr rarr Sigmalscr, we wish to determine how close it is to flscr for some f : X rarr Sigma, by making two random queries into F. In this work we analyze the case of low acceptance probability of the test. We show that even if the test passes with small probability, epsiv>0, already F must have a non-trivial structure and in particular must agree with some flscr on nearly epsiv of the domain. Moreover, we give a structural characterization of all functions F on which the test passes with probability epsiv. Our results can be viewed as a combinatorial analog of the low error dasialow degree testpsila, that is used in PCP constructions. Given a set of objects @math , each with @math numeric attributes, a top- @math preference scores these objects using a linear combination of their attribute values, where the weight on each attribute reflects the interest in this attribute. Given a query preference @math , a top- @math query finds the @math objects in @math with highest scores with respect to @math . Given a query object @math and a set of preferences @math , a reverse top- @math query finds all preferences @math for which @math becomes one of the top @math objects with respect to @math . Previous solutions to these problems are effective only in low dimensions. In this paper, we develop a solution for much higher dimensions (up to high tens), if many preferences exhibit sparsity —i.e., each specifies non-zero weights for only a handful (say @math - @math ) of attributes (though the subsets of such attributes and their weights can vary greatly). Our idea is to select carefully a set of low-dimensional core subspaces to “cover” the sparse preferences in a workload. These subspaces allow us to index them more effectively than the full-dimensional space. Being multi-dimensional, each subspace covers many possible preferences; furthermore, multiple subspaces can jointly cover a preference, thereby expanding the coverage beyond each subspace’s dimensionality. Experimental evaluation validates our solution’s effectiveness and advantages over previous solutions. The “direct-product code” of a function @math gives its values on all @math -tuples @math . This basic construct underlies “hardness amplification” in cryptography, circuit complexity, and probabilistically checkable proofs (PCPs). Goldreich and Safra [SIAM J. Comput., 29 (2000), pp. 1132--1154] pioneered its local testing and its PCP application. A recent result by Dinur and Goldenberg [Proceedings of the Forty-Ninth Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, 2008, pp. 613--622] enabled for the first time testing proximity to this important code in the “list-decoding” regime. In particular, they give a @math -query test which works for polynomially small success probability @math and show that no such test works below success probability @math . Our main result is a @math -query test which works for exponentially small success probability @math . Our techniques (based on recent simplified decoding algorithms for the same code [R. , Proceeding... We investigate nonparametric multiproduct pricing problems, in which we want to find revenue maximizing prices for products @math based on a set of customer samples @math . We mostly focus on the unit-demand case, in which products constitute strict substitutes and each customer aims to purchase a single product. In this setting a customer sample consists of a number of nonzero values for different products and possibly an additional product ranking. Once prices are fixed, each customer chooses to buy one of the products she can afford based on some predefined selection rule. We distinguish between the min-buying, max-buying, and rank-buying models. Some of our results also extend to single-minded pricing, in which case products are strict complements and every customer seeks to buy a single set of products, which she purchases if the sum of prices is below her valuation for that set. For the min-buying model we show that the revenue maximization problem is not approximable within factor @math for some constant @math , unless @math , thereby almost closing the gap between the known algorithmic results and previous lower bounds. We also prove inapproximability within @math , @math being an upper bound on the number of nonzero values per customer, and @math under slightly stronger assumptions and provide matching upper bounds. Surprisingly, these hardness results hold even if a price ladder constraint, i.e., a predefined order on the prices of all products, is given. Without the price ladder constraint we obtain similar hardness results for the special case of uniform valuations, i.e., the case that every customer has identical values for all the products she is interested in, assuming specific hardness of the balanced bipartite independent set problem in constant degree graphs or hardness of refuting random 3CNF formulas. Introducing a slightly more general problem definition in which customers are given as an explicit probability distribution, we obtain inapproximability within @math assuming @math . These results apply to single-minded pricing as well. For the max-buying model a polynomial-time approximation scheme exists if a price ladder is given. We give a matching lower bound by proving strong NP-hardness. Assuming limited product supply, we analyze a generic local search algorithm and prove that it is 2-approximate. Finally, we discuss implications for the rank-buying model.