We prove the existence conjecture for combinatorial designs, answering a question of Steiner from 1853. More generally, we show that the natural divisibility conditions are sufficient for clique decompositions of simplicial complexes that satisfy a certain pseudorandomness condition. As a further generalisation, we obtain the same conclusion only assuming an extendability property and the existence of a robust fractional clique decomposition.
Even the existence of designs with @math and any non-trivial' @math was open before the breakthrough result of Teirlinck @cite_38 confirming this. An improved bound on @math and a probabilistic method (a local limit theorem for certain random walks in high dimensions) for constructing many other rigid combinatorial structures was recently given by Kuperberg, Lovett and Peled @cite_8 . Their result for designs is somewhat complementary to ours, in that they can allow the parameters @math and @math to grow with @math , whereas we require them to be (essentially) constant. They also obtain much more precise estimates than we do for the number of designs (within their range of parameters).
@cite_38 @cite_8
2012756918 2136834513
We show the existence of rigid combinatorial objects which previously were not known to exist. Specifically, for a wide range of the underlying parameters, we show the existence of non-trivial orthogonal arrays, @math -designs, and @math -wise permutations. In all cases, the sizes of the objects are optimal up to polynomial overhead. The proof of existence is probabilistic. We show that a randomly chosen such object has the required properties with positive yet tiny probability. The main technical ingredient is a special local central limit theorem for suitable lattice random walks with finitely many steps. In [Proceedings of the Second Symposium on Switching Circuit Theory and Logical Design (FOCS), 1961, pp. 34-38], Chow proved that every Boolean threshold function is uniquely determined by its degree-0 and degree-1 Fourier coefficients. These numbers became known as the Chow parameters. Providing an algorithmic version of Chow's theorem—i.e., efficiently constructing a representation of a threshold function given its Chow parameters—has remained open ever since. This problem has received significant study in the fields of circuit complexity, game theory and the design of voting systems, and learning theory. In this paper we effectively solve the problem, giving a randomized polynomial-time approximation scheme with the following behavior: Given the Chow parameters of a Boolean threshold function @math over @math bits and any constant @math , the algorithm runs in time @math and with high probability outputs a representation of a threshold function @math which is @math -close to @math . Along the way we prove several new results of independent interest about Boolean threshold functions. In addition to various structural results, these include @math -time learning algorithms for threshold functions under the uniform distribution in the following models: (i) the restricted focus of attention model, answering an open question of ; (ii) an agnostic-type model. This contrasts with recent results of Guruswami and Raghavendra who show NP-hardness for the problem under general distributions; (iii) the PAC model, with constant @math . Our @math -time algorithm substantially improves on the previous best known running time and nearly matches the @math bits of training data that any successful learning algorithm must use. We consider the problem of fitting the parameters of a high-dimensional linear regression model. In the regime where the number of parameters @math is comparable to or exceeds the sample size @math , a successful approach uses an @math -penalized least squares estimator, known as Lasso. Unfortunately, unlike for linear estimators (e.g., ordinary least squares), no well-established method exists to compute confidence intervals or p-values on the basis of the Lasso estimator. Very recently, a line of work javanmard2013hypothesis, confidenceJM, GBR-hypothesis has addressed this problem by constructing a debiased version of the Lasso estimator. In this paper, we study this approach for random design model, under the assumption that a good estimator exists for the precision matrix of the design. Our analysis improves over the state of the art in that it establishes nearly optimal testing power if the sample size @math asymptotically dominates @math , with @math being the sparsity level (number of non-zero coefficients). Earlier work obtains provable guarantees only for much larger sample size, namely it requires @math to asymptotically dominate @math . In particular, for random designs with a sparse precision matrix we show that an estimator thereof having the required properties can be computed efficiently. Finally, we evaluate this approach on synthetic data and compare it with earlier proposals. We introduce a Gibbs measure on nearest-neighbour paths of length @math in the Euclidean @math -dimensional lattice, where each path is penalised by a factor proportional to the size of its boundary and an inverse temperature @math . We prove that, for all @math , the random walk condensates to a set of diameter @math in dimension @math , up to a multiplicative constant. In all dimensions @math , we also prove that the volume is bounded above by @math and the diameter is bounded below by @math . Similar results hold for a random walk conditioned to have local time greater than @math everywhere in its range when @math is larger than some explicit constant, which in dimension two is the logarithm of the connective constant. We consider the problem of estimating the unknown response function in the multichannel deconvolution model with a boxcar-like kernel which is of particular interest in signal processing. It is known that, when the number of channels is finite, the precision of reconstruction of the response function increases as the number of channels @math grow (even when the total number of observations @math for all channels @math remains constant) and this requires that the parameter of the channels form a Badly Approximable @math -tuple. Recent advances in data collection and recording techniques made it of urgent interest to study the case when the number of channels @math grow with the total number of observations @math . However, in real-life situations, the number of channels @math usually refers to the number of physical devices and, consequently, may grow to infinity only at a slow rate as @math . When @math grows slowly as @math increases, we develop a procedure for the construction of a Badly Approximable @math -tuple on a specified interval, of a non-asymptotic length, together with a lower bound associated with this @math -tuple, which explicitly shows its dependence on @math as @math is growing. This result is further used for the evaluation of the @math -risk of the suggested adaptive wavelet thresholding estimator of the unknown response function and, furthermore, for the choice of the optimal number of channels @math which minimizes the @math -risk. We consider linear regression in the high-dimensional regime where the number of observations @math is smaller than the number of parameters @math . A very successful approach in this setting uses @math -penalized least squares (a.k.a. the Lasso) to search for a subset of @math parameters that best explain the data, while setting the other parameters to zero. Considerable amount of work has been devoted to characterizing the estimation and model selection problems within this approach. In this paper we consider instead the fundamental, but far less understood, question of . More precisely, we address the problem of computing p-values for single regression coefficients. On one hand, we develop a general upper bound on the minimax power of tests with a given significance level. On the other, we prove that this upper bound is (nearly) achievable through a practical procedure in the case of random design matrices with independent entries. Our approach is based on a debiasing of the Lasso estimator. The analysis builds on a rigorous characterization of the asymptotic distribution of the Lasso estimator and its debiased version. Our result holds for optimal sample size, i.e., when @math is at least on the order of @math . We generalize our approach to random design matrices with i.i.d. Gaussian rows @math . In this case we prove that a similar distributional characterization (termed standard distributional limit') holds for @math much larger than @math . Finally, we show that for optimal sample size, @math being at least of order @math , the standard distributional limit for general Gaussian designs can be derived from the replica heuristics in statistical physics. We revisit the classic problem of estimating the degree distribution moments of an undirected graph. Consider an undirected graph @math with @math vertices, and define (for @math ) @math . Our aim is to estimate @math within a multiplicative error of @math (for a given approximation parameter @math ) in sublinear time. We consider the sparse graph model that allows access to: uniform random vertices, queries for the degree of any vertex, and queries for a neighbor of any vertex. For the case of @math (the average degree), @math queries suffice for any constant @math (Feige, SICOMP 06 and Goldreich-Ron, RSA 08). Gonen-Ron-Shavitt (SIDMA 11) extended this result to all integral @math , by designing an algorithms that performs @math queries. We design a new, significantly simpler algorithm for this problem. In the worst-case, it exactly matches the bounds of Gonen-Ron-Shavitt, and has a much simpler proof. More importantly, the running time of this algorithm is connected to the degeneracy of @math . This is (essentially) the maximum density of an induced subgraph. For the family of graphs with degeneracy at most @math , it has a query complexity of @math . Thus, for the class of bounded degeneracy graphs (which includes all minor closed families and preferential attachment graphs), we can estimate the average degree in @math queries, and can estimate the variance of the degree distribution in @math queries. This is a major improvement over the previous worst-case bounds. Our key insight is in designing an estimator for @math that has low variance when @math does not have large dense subgraphs. The celebrated Time Hierarchy Theorem for Turing machines states, informally, that more problems can be solved given more time. The extent to which a time hierarchy-type theorem holds in the distributed LOCAL model has been open for many years. It is consistent with previous results that all natural problems in the LOCAL model can be classified according to a small constant number of complexities, such as @math , etc. In this paper we establish the first time hierarchy theorem for the LOCAL model and prove that several gaps exist in the LOCAL time hierarchy. 1. We define an infinite set of simple coloring problems called Hierarchical @math -Coloring . A correctly colored graph can be confirmed by simply checking the neighborhood of each vertex, so this problem fits into the class of locally checkable labeling (LCL) problems. However, the complexity of the @math -level Hierarchical @math -Coloring problem is @math , for @math . The upper and lower bounds hold for both general graphs and trees, and for both randomized and deterministic algorithms. 2. Consider any LCL problem on bounded degree trees. We prove an automatic-speedup theorem that states that any randomized @math -time algorithm solving the LCL can be transformed into a deterministic @math -time algorithm. Together with a previous result, this establishes that on trees, there are no natural deterministic complexities in the ranges @math --- @math or @math --- @math . 3. We expose a gap in the randomized time hierarchy on general graphs. Any randomized algorithm that solves an LCL problem in sublogarithmic time can be sped up to run in @math time, which is the complexity of the distributed Lovasz local lemma problem, currently known to be @math and @math . We present a probabilistic algorithm that, given a connected graph G (represented by adjacency lists) of average degree d, with edge weights in the set 1,...,w , and given a parameter @math , estimates in time @math the weight of the minimum spanning tree (MST) of G with a relative error of at most @math . Note that the running time does not depend on the number of vertices in G. We also prove a nearly matching lower bound of @math on the probe and time complexity of any approximation algorithm for MST weight. The essential component of our algorithm is a procedure for estimating in time @math the number of connected components of an unweighted graph to within an additive error of @math . (This becomes @math for @math .) The time bound is shown to be tight up to within the @math factor. Our connected-components algorithm picks @math vertices in the graph and then grows "local spanning trees" whose sizes are specified by a stochastic process. From the local information collected in this way, the algorithm is able to infer, with high confidence, an estimate of the number of connected components. We then show how estimates on the number of components in various subgraphs of G can be used to estimate the weight of its MST. For every fixed constant @math , we design an algorithm for computing the @math -sparse Walsh-Hadamard transform of an @math -dimensional vector @math in time @math . Specifically, the algorithm is given query access to @math and computes a @math -sparse @math satisfying @math , for an absolute constant @math , where @math is the transform of @math and @math is its best @math -sparse approximation. Our algorithm is fully deterministic and only uses non-adaptive queries to @math (i.e., all queries are determined and performed in parallel when the algorithm starts). An important technical tool that we use is a construction of nearly optimal and linear lossless condensers which is a careful instantiation of the GUV condenser (Guruswami, Umans, Vadhan, JACM 2009). Moreover, we design a deterministic and non-adaptive @math compressed sensing scheme based on general lossless condensers that is equipped with a fast reconstruction algorithm running in time @math (for the GUV-based condenser) and is of independent interest. Our scheme significantly simplifies and improves an earlier expander-based construction due to Berinde, Gilbert, Indyk, Karloff, Strauss (Allerton 2008). Our methods use linear lossless condensers in a black box fashion; therefore, any future improvement on explicit constructions of such condensers would immediately translate to improved parameters in our framework (potentially leading to @math reconstruction time with a reduced exponent in the poly-logarithmic factor, and eliminating the extra parameter @math ). Finally, by allowing the algorithm to use randomness, while still using non-adaptive queries, the running time of the algorithm can be improved to @math . This paper addresses two problems lying at the intersection of geometric analysis and theoretical computer science: The non-linear isomorphic Dvoretzky theorem and the design of good approximate distance oracles for large distortion. We introduce the notion of Ramsey partitions of a finite metric space, and show that the existence of good Ramsey partitions implies a solution to the metric Ramsey problem for large distortion (a.k.a. the non-linear version of the isomorphic Dvoretzky theorem, as introduced by Bourgain, Figiel, and Milman in BFM86 ). We then proceed to construct optimal Ramsey partitions, and use them to show that for every @math , every @math -point metric space has a subset of size @math which embeds into Hilbert space with distortion @math . This result is best possible and improves part of the metric Ramsey theorem of Bartal, Linial, Mendel and Naor BLMN05 , in addition to considerably simplifying its proof. We use our new Ramsey partitions to design approximate distance oracles with a universal constant query time, closing a gap left open by Thorup and Zwick in TZ05 . Namely, we show that for every @math point metric space @math , and @math , there exists an @math -approximate distance oracle whose storage requirement is @math , and whose query time is a universal constant. We also discuss applications of Ramsey partitions to various other geometric data structure problems, such as the design of efficient data structures for approximate ranking. In the generalized Russian cards problem, we have a card deck @math of @math cards and three participants, Alice, Bob, and Cathy, dealt @math , @math , and @math cards, respectively. Once the cards are dealt, Alice and Bob wish to privately communicate their hands to each other via public announcements, without the advantage of a shared secret or public key infrastructure. Cathy should remain ignorant of all but her own cards after Alice and Bob have made their announcements. Notions for Cathy's ignorance in the literature range from Cathy not learning the fate of any individual card with certainty (weak @math -security) to not gaining any probabilistic advantage in guessing the fate of some set of @math cards (perfect @math -security). As we demonstrate, the generalized Russian cards problem has close ties to the field of combinatorial designs, on which we rely heavily, particularly for perfect security notions. Our main result establishes an equivalence between perfectly @math -secure strategies and @math -designs on @math points with block size @math , when announcements are chosen uniformly at random from the set of possible announcements. We also provide construction methods and example solutions, including a construction that yields perfect @math -security against Cathy when @math . We leverage a known combinatorial design to construct a strategy with @math , @math , and @math that is perfectly @math -secure. Finally, we consider a variant of the problem that yields solutions that are easy to construct and optimal with respect to both the number of announcements and level of security achieved. Moreover, this is the first method obtaining weak @math -security that allows Alice to hold an arbitrary number of cards and Cathy to hold a set of @math cards. Alternatively, the construction yields solutions for arbitrary @math , @math and any @math . We consider the problem of estimating the number of triangles in a graph. This problem has been extensively studied in both theory and practice, but all existing algorithms read the entire graph. In this work we design a sublinear-time algorithm for approximating the number of triangles in a graph, where the algorithm is given query access to the graph. The allowed queries are degree queries, vertex-pair queries, and neighbor queries. We show that for any given approximation parameter @math , the algorithm provides an estimate @math such that, with high constant probability, @math , where @math is the number of triangles in the graph @math . The expected query complexity of the algorithm is @math , where @math is the number of vertices in the graph and @math is the number of edges. The expected running time of the algorithm is $( n t^ 1 3 + m^ 3 2 t )... We propose a Generalized Dantzig Selector (GDS) for linear models, in which any norm encoding the parameter structure can be leveraged for estimation. We investigate both computational and statistical aspects of the GDS. Based on conjugate proximal operator, a flexible inexact ADMM framework is designed for solving GDS, and non-asymptotic high-probability bounds are established on the estimation error, which rely on Gaussian width of unit norm ball and suitable set encompassing estimation error. Further, we consider a non-trivial example of the GDS using @math -support norm. We derive an efficient method to compute the proximal operator for @math -support norm since existing methods are inapplicable in this setting. For statistical analysis, we provide upper bounds for the Gaussian widths needed in the GDS analysis, yielding the first statistical recovery guarantee for estimation with the @math -support norm. The experimental results confirm our theoretical analysis. We study the optimal design problems where the goal is to choose a set of linear measurements to obtain the most accurate estimate of an unknown vector in @math dimensions. We study the @math -optimal design variant where the objective is to minimize the average variance of the error in the maximum likelihood estimate of the vector being measured. The problem also finds applications in sensor placement in wireless networks, sparse least squares regression, feature selection for @math -means clustering, and matrix approximation. In this paper, we introduce proportional volume sampling to obtain improved approximation algorithms for @math -optimal design. Our main result is to obtain improved approximation algorithms for the @math -optimal design problem by introducing the proportional volume sampling algorithm. Our results nearly optimal bounds in the asymptotic regime when the number of measurements done, @math , is significantly more than the dimension @math . We also give first approximation algorithms when @math is small including when @math . The proportional volume-sampling algorithm also gives approximation algorithms for other optimal design objectives such as @math -optimal design and generalized ratio objective matching or improving previous best known results. Interestingly, we show that a similar guarantee cannot be obtained for the @math -optimal design problem. We also show that the @math -optimal design problem is NP-hard to approximate within a fixed constant when @math . Let @math be an i.i.d. sequence of random variables in @math , @math . We show that, for any function @math , under regularity conditions, [n^ 1 2 (n^ -1 i=1 ^n (X_i) f ^(X_i) - (x) ,dx ) P 0, ] where @math is the classical kernel estimator of the density of @math . This result is striking because it speeds up traditional rates, in root @math , derived from the central limit theorem when @math . Although this paper highlights some applications, we mainly address theoretical issues related to the later result. We derive upper bounds for the rate of convergence in probability. These bounds depend on the regularity of the functions @math and @math , the dimension @math and the bandwidth of the kernel estimator @math . Moreover, they are shown to be accurate since they are used as renormalizing sequences in two central limit theorems each reflecting different degrees of smoothness of @math . As an application to regression modelling with random design, we provide the asymptotic normality of the estimation of the linear functionals of a regression function. As a consequence of the above result, the asymptotic variance does not depend on the regression function. Finally, we debate the choice of the bandwidth for integral approximation and we highlight the good behavior of our procedure through simulations. A natural requirement of many distributed structures is fault-tolerance: after some failures, whatever remains from the structure should still be effective for whatever remains from the network. In this paper we examine spanners of general graphs that are tolerant to vertex failures, and significantly improve their dependence on the number of faults @math , for all stretch bounds. For stretch @math we design a simple transformation that converts every @math -spanner construction with at most @math edges into an @math -fault-tolerant @math -spanner construction with at most @math edges. Applying this to standard greedy spanner constructions gives @math -fault tolerant @math -spanners with @math edges. The previous construction by Chechik, Langberg, Peleg, and Roddity [STOC 2009] depends similarly on @math but exponentially on @math (approximately like @math ). For the case @math and unit-length edges, an @math -approximation algorithm is known from recent work of Dinitz and Krauthgamer [arXiv 2010], where several spanner results are obtained using a common approach of rounding a natural flow-based linear programming relaxation. Here we use a different (stronger) LP relaxation and improve the approximation ratio to @math , which is, notably, independent of the number of faults @math . We further strengthen this bound in terms of the maximum degree by using the Local Lemma. Finally, we show that most of our constructions are inherently local by designing equivalent distributed algorithms in the LOCAL model of distributed computation. One of the fundamental questions of Algorithmic Mechanism Design is whether there exists an inherent clash between truthfulness and computational tractability: in particular, whether polynomial-time truthful mechanisms for combinatorial auctions are provably weaker in terms of approximation ratio than non-truthful ones. This question was very recently answered for universally truthful mechanisms for combinatorial auctions D11 , and even for truthful-in-expectation mechanisms DughmiV11 . However, both of these results are based on information-theoretic arguments for valuations given by a value oracle, and leave open the possibility of polynomial-time truthful mechanisms for succinctly described classes of valuations. This paper is the first to prove computational hardness results for truthful mechanisms for combinatorial auctions with succinctly described valuations. We prove that there is a class of succinctly represented submodular valuations for which no deterministic truthful mechanism provides an @math -approximation for a constant @math , unless @math ( @math denotes the number of items). Furthermore, we prove that even truthful-in-expectation mechanisms cannot approximate combinatorial auctions with certain succinctly described submodular valuations better than within @math , where @math is the number of bidders and @math some absolute constant, unless @math . In addition, we prove computational hardness results for two related problems. Hoeffding's U-statistics model combinatorial-type matrix parameters (appearing in CS theory) in a natural way. This paper proposes using these statistics for analyzing random compressed sensing matrices, in the non-asymptotic regime (relevant to practice). The aim is to address certain pessimisms of worst-case restricted isometry analyses, as observed by both Blanchard and Dossal, We show how U-statistics can obtain average-case analyses, by relating to statistical restricted isometry property (StRIP) type recovery guarantees. However unlike standard StRIP, random signal models are not required; the analysis used here holds in the almost sure (probabilistic) sense. For Gaussian bounded entry matrices, we show that both @math -minimization and LASSO essentially require on the order of @math measurements to respectively recover at least @math fraction, and @math fraction, of the signals. Noisy conditions are considered. Empirical evidence suggests our analysis to compare well to Donoho and Tanner's recent large deviation bounds for @math -equivalence, in the regime of block lengths @math with high undersampling ( @math measurements); similar system sizes are found in recent CS implementation. In this work, it is assumed throughout that matrix columns are independently sampled. The centralized coded caching scheme is a technique proposed by Maddah-Ali and Niesen as a method to reduce the network burden in peak times in a wireless network system. reformulate the problem as designing a corresponding placement delivery array and propose two new schemes from this perspective. These schemes significantly reduce the rate compared with the uncoded caching schemes. However, to implement these schemes, each file should be cut into @math pieces, where @math grows exponentially with the number of users @math . Such a constraint is obviously infeasible in the practical setting, especially when @math is large. Thus, it is desirable to design caching schemes with constant rate @math (independent of @math ) as well as smaller @math . In this paper, we view the centralized coded caching problem in a hypergraph perspective and show that designing a feasible placement delivery array is equivalent to constructing a linear and (6,3)-free 3-uniform 3-partite hypergraph. Several new results and constructions arise from our novel point of view. First, by using the famous (6,3)-theorem in extremal graph theory, we show that constant rate placement delivery arrays with @math growing linearly with @math do not exist. Second, we present two infinite classes of placement delivery arrays to show that constant rate caching schemes with @math growing sub-exponentially with @math do exist.