For S ⊆ {0,1}ⁿ a Boolean function f : S → {-1,1} is a polynomial threshold function (PTF) of degree d and weight W if there is a polynomial p with integer coefficients of degree d and with sum of absolute coefficients W such that f(x) = sign p(x) for all x ∈ S. We study a representation of decision lists as PTFs over Boolean cubes {0,1}ⁿ and over Hamming balls {0,1}ⁿ_{≤ k}. As our first result, we show that for all d = O((n/(log n))^{1/3}) any decision list over {0,1}ⁿ can be represented by a PTF of degree d and weight 2^O(n/d²). This improves the result by Klivans and Servedio [Adam R. Klivans and Rocco A. Servedio, 2006] by a log² d factor in the exponent of the weight. Our bound is tight for all d = O((n/(log n))^{1/3}) due to the matching lower bound by Beigel [Richard Beigel, 1994]. For decision lists over a Hamming ball {0,1}ⁿ_{≤ k} we show that the upper bound on weight above can be drastically improved to n^O(√k) for d = Θ(√k). We also show that similar improvement is not possible for smaller degrees by proving the lower bound W = 2^Ω(n/d²) for all d = O(√k).
@InProceedings{podolskii_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2022.52, author = {Podolskii, Vladimir and Proskurin, Nikolay V.}, title = {{Polynomial Threshold Functions for Decision Lists}}, booktitle = {33rd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2022)}, pages = {52:1--52:12}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-258-7}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2022}, volume = {248}, editor = {Bae, Sang Won and Park, Heejin}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2022.52}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-173372}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2022.52}, annote = {Keywords: Threshold function, decision list, Hamming ball} }
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