A lower bound on the size of ε-free NFA corresponding to a regular expression

Hromkovic? et al. showed how to transform a regular expression of size n into an ε-free nondeterministic finite automaton (which defines the same language as the expression) with O(n) states and O(nlog²(n)) transitions. They also established a lower bound on the number of transitions. We improve the lower bound to .     

A lower bound for the hitting set size for combinatorial rectangles and an application

We prove a lower bound of where for the hitting set size for combinatorial rectangles of volume at least ε in [m]^d space, for and d>2.     

A direct construction of polynomial-size OBDD proof of pigeon hole problem

Viewing OBDD from the explicit perspective of a propositional proof system is first proposed and studied in [A. Atserias, P.G. Kolaitis, M.Y. Vardi, Constraint propagation as a proof system, in: CP, 2004, pp. 77-91]. It has been shown that OBDD proof system defined in [A. Atserias, P.G. Kolaitis, M.Y. Vardi, Constraint propagation as a proof system, in: CP, 2004, pp. 77-91] is strictly stronger than resolution and can polynomially simulate cutting plane proof system with small coefficients CP^∗. It is already shown in [W. Cook, C.R. Coullard, G. Turán, On the complexity of cutting-plane proofs, Discrete Appl. Math. 18 (1) (1987) 25-38] that there exists polynomial-size proof for pigeon hole problem of cutting plane proof system. Then it follows directly that there exists polynomial-size proof for of OBDD proof system. However, this is an indirect result. Atserias et al. [A. Atserias, P.G. Kolaitis, M.Y. Vardi, Constraint propagation as a proof system, in: CP, 2004, pp. 77-91] call for the need of a direct construction. Hereby we present such construction. Moreover, in this construction we do not need the weakening rule introduced in [A. Atserias, P.G. Kolaitis, M.Y. Vardi, Constraint propagation as a proof system, in: CP, 2004, pp. 77-91]. We believe this may shed some light on the understanding of the role of the weakening rule.     

Testing juntas

We show that a boolean valued function over n variables, where each variable ranges in an arbitrary probability space, can be tested for the property of depending on only J of them using a number of queries that depends only polynomially on J and the approximation parameter ε. We present several tests that require a number of queries that is polynomial in J and linear in ε⁻¹. We show a non-adaptive test that has one-sided error, an adaptive version of it that requires fewer queries, and a non-adaptive two-sided version of the test that requires the least number of queries. We also show a two-sided non-adaptive test that applies to functions over n boolean variables, and has a more compact analysis.We then provide a lower bound of on the number of queries required for the non-adaptive testing of the above property; a lower bound of for adaptive algorithms naturally follows from this. In establishing this lower bound we also prove a result about random walks on the group Z^q₂ that may be interesting in its own right. We show that for some , the distributions of the random walk at times t and t+2 are close to each other, independently of the step distribution of the walk.We also discuss related questions. In particular, when given in advance a known J-junta function , we show how to test a function for the property of being identical to up to a permutation of the variables, in a number of queries that is polynomial in J and ε⁻¹.     

An improved lower bound on query complexity for quantum PAC learning

In this paper, we study the quantum PAC learning model, offering an improved lower bound on the query complexity. For a concept class with VC dimension d, the lower bound is for ? accuracy and 1−δ confidence, where e can be an arbitrarily small positive number. The lower bound is very close to the best lower bound known on query complexity for the classical PAC learning model, which is .     

An approximation algorithm dependent on edge-coloring number for minimum maximal matching problem

We consider the minimum maximal matching problem, which is NP-hard (Yannakakis and Gavril (1980) [18]). Given an unweighted simple graph G=(V,E), the problem seeks to find a maximal matching of minimum cardinality. It was unknown whether there exists a non-trivial approximation algorithm whose approximation ratio is less than 2 for any simple graph. Recently, Z. Gotthilf et al. (2008) [5] presented a -approximation algorithm, where c is an arbitrary constant.In this paper, we present a -approximation algorithm based on an LP relaxation, where χ^′(G) is the edge-coloring number of G. Our algorithm is the first non-trivial approximation algorithm whose approximation ratio is independent of |V|. Moreover, it is known that the minimum maximal matching problem is equivalent to the edge dominating set problem. Therefore, the edge dominating set problem is also -approximable. From edge-coloring theory, the approximation ratio of our algorithm is , where Δ(G) represents the maximum degree of G. In our algorithm, an LP formulation for the edge dominating set problem is used. Fujito and Nagamochi (2002) [4] showed the integrality gap of the LP formulation for bipartite graphs is at least . Moreover, χ^′(G) is Δ(G) for bipartite graphs. Thus, as far as an approximation algorithm for the minimum maximal matching problem uses the LP formulation, we believe our result is the best possible.     

Narrowing power vs efficiency in synchronous set agreement: Relationship, algorithms and lower bound

The k-set agreement problem is a generalization of the uniform consensus problem: each process proposes a value, and each non-faulty process has to decide a value such that a decided value is a proposed value, and at most k different values are decided. It has been shown that any algorithm that solves the k-set agreement problem in synchronous systems that can suffer up to t crash failures requires rounds in the worst case. It has also been shown that it is possible to design early deciding algorithms where no process decides and halts after rounds, where f is the number of actual crashes in a run (0≤f≤t).This paper explores a new direction to solve the k-set agreement problem in a synchronous system. It considers that the system is enriched with base objects (denoted has [m,?]_SA objects) that allow solving the ?-set agreement problem in a set of m processes (m<n). The paper makes several contributions. It first proposes a synchronous k-set agreement algorithm that benefits from such underlying base objects. This algorithm requires rounds, more precisely, rounds, where . The paper then shows that this bound, that involves all the parameters that characterize both the problem (k) and its environment (t, m and ?), is a lower bound. The proof of this lower bound sheds additional light on the deep connection between synchronous efficiency and asynchronous computability. Finally, the paper extends its investigation to the early deciding case. It presents a k-set agreement algorithm that directs the processes to decide and stop by round . These bounds generalize the bounds previously established for solving the k-set agreement problem in pure synchronous systems.     

Upper bounds on the queuenumber of k-ary n-cubes

A queue layout of a graph consists of a linear order of its vertices, and a partition of its edges into queues, such that no two edges in the same queue are nested. The minimum number of queues in a queue layout of a graph G, denoted by qn(G), is called the queuenumber of G. Heath and Rosenberg [SIAM J. Comput. 21 (1992) 927-958] showed that boolean n-cube (i.e., the n-dimensional hypercube) can be laid out using at most n−1 queues. Heath et al. [SIAM J. Discrete Math. 5 (1992) 398-412] showed that the ternary n-cube can be laid out using at most 2n−2 queues. Recently, Hasunuma and Hirota [Inform. Process. Lett. 104 (2007) 41-44] improved the upper bound on queuenumber to n−2 for hypercubes. In this paper, we deal with the upper bound on queuenumber of a wider class of graphs called k-ary n-cubes, which contains hypercubes and ternary n-cubes as subclasses. Our result improves the previous bound in the case of ternary n-cubes. Let denote the n-dimensional k-ary cube. This paper contributes three main results as follows:

(1)

if n?3.

(2)

if n?2 and 4?k?8.

(3)

if n?1 and k?9.

     

Improving the running time of embedded upward planarity testing

We consider the standard algorithm by Bertolazzi et al. to test the upward planarity of embedded digraphs. We show how to improve its running time from O(n+r²) to , where r is the number of sources and sinks in the digraph. We also discuss an application of this technique: improving the running time of getting a quasi-upward planar drawing for an embedded digraph with minimum number of bends.     

About acyclic edge colourings of planar graphs

Let G=(V,E) be any finite simple graph. A mapping is called an acyclic edge k-colouring of G, if any two adjacent edges have different colours and there are no bichromatic cycles in G. In other words, for every pair of distinct colours i and j, the subgraph induced by all the edges which have either colour i or j is acyclic. The smallest number k of colours, such that G has an acyclic edge k-colouring is called the acyclic chromatic index of G and is denoted by .In 1991, Alon et al. [N. Alon, C.J.H. McDiarmid, B.A. Reed, Acyclic coloring of graphs, Random Structures and Algorithms 2 (1991) 277-288] proved that for any graph G of maximum degree Δ(G). This bound was later improved to 16Δ(G) by Molloy and Reed in [M. Molloy, B. Reed, Further algorithmic aspects of the local lemma, in: Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1998, pp. 524-529].In this paper we prove that for a planar graph G without cycles of length three and that the same holds if G has an edge-partition into two forests. We also show that if G is planar.