107 Search Results for "Chen, Ran"

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.11
Limitations on Accurate, Trusted, Human-Level Reasoning

Authors: Rina Panigrahy and Vatsal Sharan

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 368, 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)

Abstract
We identify a fundamental incompatibility between the goals of accuracy, trust, and human-level reasoning in artificial intelligence (AI) systems, for strict mathematical definitions of these notions. We define accuracy of a system as the property that it never makes any false claims when it has the ability to abstain from making a prediction on any input, and trust as the assumption that the system is accurate. We define human-level reasoning as the property of an AI system always matching or exceeding human capability. Our core finding is that - for our formal definitions of these notions - an accurate and trusted AI system cannot be a human-level reasoning system: for such an accurate, trusted system there are task instances which are easily and provably solvable by a human but not by the system. Our proofs draw parallels to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and Turing’s proof of the undecidability of the halting problem, and can be regarded as interpretations of Gödel’s and Turing’s results. Key to our proof is the formalization of the notion of trust, which allows us to separate the intrinsic property of a system (being accurate) from its epistemic status (being trusted).
Cite as

Rina Panigrahy and Vatsal Sharan. Limitations on Accurate, Trusted, Human-Level Reasoning. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 11:1-11:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{panigrahy_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.11,
  author =	{Panigrahy, Rina and Sharan, Vatsal},
  title =	{{Limitations on Accurate, Trusted, Human-Level Reasoning}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259840},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: Accuracy, Safety, Trust, Complexity-theoretic limitations}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.15
Incentivizing High-Quality Content in Online Recommender Systems

Authors: Xinyan Hu, Meena Jagadeesan, Michael I. Jordan, and Jacob Steinhardt

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 368, 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)

Abstract
In content recommender systems such as TikTok and YouTube, the platform’s recommendation algorithm shapes content producer incentives. Many platforms employ online learning, which generates intertemporal incentives, since content produced today affects recommendations of future content. We study the game between producers and analyze the content created at equilibrium. We prove that standard online learning algorithms, such as Hedge and EXP3, unfortunately incentivize producers to create low-quality content, where producers' effort approaches zero in the long run for typical learning rate schedules. Motivated by this negative result, we design learning algorithms that incentivize producers to invest high effort and achieve high user welfare. At a conceptual level, our work illustrates the unintended impact that a platform’s learning algorithm can have on content quality and introduces algorithmic approaches to mitigating these effects.
Cite as

Xinyan Hu, Meena Jagadeesan, Michael I. Jordan, and Jacob Steinhardt. Incentivizing High-Quality Content in Online Recommender Systems. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 15:1-15:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{hu_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.15,
  author =	{Hu, Xinyan and Jagadeesan, Meena and Jordan, Michael I. and Steinhardt, Jacob},
  title =	{{Incentivizing High-Quality Content in Online Recommender Systems}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259887},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: recommender systems, content quality, producer incentives, online learning, algorithmic game theory, Stackelberg games}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.54
Approximating Pareto Sum via Bounded Monotone Min-Plus Convolution

Authors: Geri Gokaj, Marvin Künnemann, Sabine Storandt, and Carina Truschel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 367, 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)

Abstract
The Pareto sum of two-dimensional point sets P and Q in ℝ² is defined as the skyline of the points in their Minkowski sum. The problem of efficiently computing the Pareto sum arises frequently in bi-criteria optimization algorithms. Prior work establishes that computing the Pareto sum of sets P and Q of size n suffers from conditional lower bounds that rule out strongly subquadratic O(n^{2-ε})-time algorithms, even when the output size is Θ(n). Naturally, we ask: How efficiently can we approximate Pareto sums, both in theory and practice? Can we beat the near-quadratic-time state of the art for exact algorithms? On the theoretical side, we formulate a notion of additively approximate Pareto sets and show that computing an approximate Pareto set is fine-grained equivalent to Bounded Monotone Min-Plus Convolution. Leveraging a remarkable Õ(n^{1.5})-time algorithm for the latter problem (Chi, Duan, Xie, Zhang; STOC '22), we thus obtain a strongly subquadratic (and conditionally optimal) approximation algorithm for computing Pareto sums. On the practical side, we engineer different algorithmic approaches for approximating Pareto sets on realistic instances. Our implementations enable a granular trade-off between approximation quality and running time/output size compared to the state of the art for exact algorithms established in (Funke, Hespe, Sanders, Storandt, Truschel; Algorithmica '25). Perhaps surprisingly, the (theoretical) connection to Bounded Monotone Min-Plus Convolution remains beneficial even for our implementations: in particular, we implement a simplified, yet still subquadratic version of an algorithm due to Chi, Duan, Xie and Zhang, which on some sufficiently large instances outperforms the competing quadratic-time approaches.
Cite as

Geri Gokaj, Marvin Künnemann, Sabine Storandt, and Carina Truschel. Approximating Pareto Sum via Bounded Monotone Min-Plus Convolution. In 42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 367, pp. 54:1-54:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{gokaj_et_al:LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.54,
  author =	{Gokaj, Geri and K\"{u}nnemann, Marvin and Storandt, Sabine and Truschel, Carina},
  title =	{{Approximating Pareto Sum via Bounded Monotone Min-Plus Convolution}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG 2026)},
  pages =	{54:1--54:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-418-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{367},
  editor =	{Ahn, Hee-Kap and Hoffmann, Michael and Nayyeri, Amir},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.54},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-258602},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2026.54},
  annote =	{Keywords: computational geometry, fine-grained complexity, algorithm engineering}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.6
EcoCell: Energy Conservation Through Traffic Shaping in Cellular Radio Access Networks

Authors: Zikun Liu, Seoyul Oh, Bill Tao, Yaxiong Xie, Anuj Kalia, and Deepak Vasisht

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 139, 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)

Abstract
Cellular networks contribute significantly to global energy demands and carbon emissions due to the millions of base stations deployed worldwide. We characterize the energy consumption of production base stations by performing fine-grained power and network telemetry measurements using off-the-shelf base stations. Our measurements reveal unique insights about how variations in temporal-usage patterns affect base station energy consumption. Based on these insights, we design EcoCell, a software-only solution that introduces energy-efficient traffic patterns in network flows. EcoCell can be implemented either as a traffic scheduler in the radio access network or as an independent middlebox. We evaluate EcoCell with five popular networked applications on a production basestation. We demonstrate savings up to 32% in dynamic energy consumption of a base station, without drops in application-level quality of experience.
Cite as

Zikun Liu, Seoyul Oh, Bill Tao, Yaxiong Xie, Anuj Kalia, and Deepak Vasisht. EcoCell: Energy Conservation Through Traffic Shaping in Cellular Radio Access Networks. In 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 139, pp. 6:1-6:25, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{liu_et_al:OASIcs.NINeS.2026.6,
  author =	{Liu, Zikun and Oh, Seoyul and Tao, Bill and Xie, Yaxiong and Kalia, Anuj and Vasisht, Deepak},
  title =	{{EcoCell: Energy Conservation Through Traffic Shaping in Cellular Radio Access Networks}},
  booktitle =	{1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)},
  pages =	{6:1--6:25},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-414-7},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{139},
  editor =	{Argyraki, Katerina and Panda, Aurojit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.6},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255911},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.6},
  annote =	{Keywords: energy efficiency, traffic shaping, cellular networks, radio access networks}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.8
Contracts: A Unified Lens on Congestion Control Robustness, Fairness, Congestion, and Generality

Authors: Anup Agarwal, Venkat Arun, and Srinivasan Seshan

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 139, 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)

Abstract
Congestion control algorithms (CCAs) operate in partially observable environments. They cannot directly observe link capacities or competing flows. To share network resources fairly, CCAs (implicitly) communicate fair shares through observable signals. For instance, Reno encodes the fair share as ∝ 1/√{loss rate}. We call such communication mechanisms as contracts. We find that the choice of contract fixes key steady-state performance metrics, including (1) robustness to errors in congestion signals, (2) fairness, (3) amount of congestion (e.g., delay, loss), and (4) generality (e.g., range of supported link rates). This leads to fundamental tradeoffs between these metrics. Further, we show that many contracts lead to starvation (extreme unfairness), and must be avoided. Hence, contracts are a powerful way to analyze tradeoffs and avoid pitfalls in CCA design and analysis. We empirically validate our findings and discuss their implications on CCA design and network measurement.
Cite as

Anup Agarwal, Venkat Arun, and Srinivasan Seshan. Contracts: A Unified Lens on Congestion Control Robustness, Fairness, Congestion, and Generality. In 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 139, pp. 8:1-8:30, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{agarwal_et_al:OASIcs.NINeS.2026.8,
  author =	{Agarwal, Anup and Arun, Venkat and Seshan, Srinivasan},
  title =	{{Contracts: A Unified Lens on Congestion Control Robustness, Fairness, Congestion, and Generality}},
  booktitle =	{1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:30},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-414-7},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{139},
  editor =	{Argyraki, Katerina and Panda, Aurojit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255933},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: Transport Protocols, Congestion Control, Fairness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.12
No Signal to Rule Them All: A Systematic Analysis of In-Network Congestion Signals

Authors: Sarah McClure, Nandita Dukkipati, Sylvia Ratnasamy, and Scott Shenker

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 139, 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)

Abstract
In this paper, we address the following question: what in-network signals should a network provide to congestion control algorithms? To answer this guiding question, we use prior work to automatically generate congestion control algorithms optimized for a given performance objective and set of in-network congestion signals. We then make observations about the relative value of these congestion signals across a range of performance objectives. Our analysis yields a surprising central finding: for the average case, sophisticated In-Network Telemetry (INT) offers minimal performance benefits over traditional end-to-end (E2E) signals, with performance typically within 3%. We also find no single "best" INT signal, but rather a clear trade-off that manifests in many scenarios: link-based signals often excel at controlling delay, while queue-based signals are better for maximizing throughput. To make these findings concrete, we validate them by examining the extent to which in-network signals improve the performance of the BBR congestion control algorithm.
Cite as

Sarah McClure, Nandita Dukkipati, Sylvia Ratnasamy, and Scott Shenker. No Signal to Rule Them All: A Systematic Analysis of In-Network Congestion Signals. In 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 139, pp. 12:1-12:30, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{mcclure_et_al:OASIcs.NINeS.2026.12,
  author =	{McClure, Sarah and Dukkipati, Nandita and Ratnasamy, Sylvia and Shenker, Scott},
  title =	{{No Signal to Rule Them All: A Systematic Analysis of In-Network Congestion Signals}},
  booktitle =	{1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)},
  pages =	{12:1--12:30},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-414-7},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{139},
  editor =	{Argyraki, Katerina and Panda, Aurojit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255974},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: Congestion control, in-network telemetry}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.18
TURBO: Utility-Aware Bandwidth Allocation for Cloud-Augmented Autonomous Control

Authors: Peter Schafhalter, Alexander Krentsel, Hongbo Wei, Joseph E. Gonzalez, Sylvia Ratnasamy, Scott Shenker, and Ion Stoica

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 139, 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)

Abstract
Autonomous driving system progress has been driven by improvements in machine learning (ML) models, whose computational demands now exceed what edge devices alone can provide. The cloud offers abundant compute, but the network has long been treated as an unreliable bottleneck rather than a co-equal part of the autonomous vehicle control loop. We argue that this separation is no longer tenable: safety-critical autonomy requires co-design of control, models, and network resource allocation itself. We introduce TURBO, a cloud-augmented control framework that addresses this challenge, formulating bandwidth allocation and control pipeline configuration across both the car and cloud as a joint optimization problem. TURBO maximizes benefit to the car while guaranteeing safety in the face of highly variable network conditions. We implement TURBO and evaluate it in both simulation and real-world deployment, showing it can improve average accuracy by up to 15.6%pt over existing on-vehicle-only pipelines. Our code is made available at www.github.com/NetSys/turbo.
Cite as

Peter Schafhalter, Alexander Krentsel, Hongbo Wei, Joseph E. Gonzalez, Sylvia Ratnasamy, Scott Shenker, and Ion Stoica. TURBO: Utility-Aware Bandwidth Allocation for Cloud-Augmented Autonomous Control. In 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 139, pp. 18:1-18:34, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{schafhalter_et_al:OASIcs.NINeS.2026.18,
  author =	{Schafhalter, Peter and Krentsel, Alexander and Wei, Hongbo and Gonzalez, Joseph E. and Ratnasamy, Sylvia and Shenker, Scott and Stoica, Ion},
  title =	{{TURBO: Utility-Aware Bandwidth Allocation for Cloud-Augmented Autonomous Control}},
  booktitle =	{1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)},
  pages =	{18:1--18:34},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-414-7},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{139},
  editor =	{Argyraki, Katerina and Panda, Aurojit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.18},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-256039},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.18},
  annote =	{Keywords: autonomous vehicles, bandwidth allocation, cloud computing, edge computing, machine learning}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.2
Performance Isolation for 5G RAN Slices Across Multiple Interfering Cells

Authors: Taimoor Tariq, Yongzhou Chen, Haitham Hassanieh, and Radhika Mittal

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 139, 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)

Abstract
Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing, a key 5G feature, enables different slices (i.e. tenants or applications) to share the same physical network infrastructure while pursuing diverse objectives such as fairness, prioritization, or maximizing throughput. Each slice is allocated a share of radio resource blocks (RBs), which it further schedules among its users as per its own performance objective. In this paper, we identify the unique challenges that arise when performing RAN slicing in today’s multi-cell deployments that require a mechanism for managing interference among cells. We highlight how interference management decisions, that can be easily made in the absence of slicing (where all users share a common objective set by the network operator), become challenging with 5G slicing where we must respect the individual objectives of multiple slices, while retaining performance isolation across slices. We present a system, RadioNinja, that tackles this challenge through a unique decision-making framework that allows different slices to independently contribute towards interference management decisions. RadioNinja further employs a series of techniques to make such decisions within tight RAN scheduling budget of hundreds of microseconds. Trace-driven simulations with real-world channel measurements show that RadioNinja improves slice-level objectives (e.g., throughput, fairness, flow completion times) by 20–60% over state-of-the-art baselines, while consistently meeting sub-millisecond decision deadlines.
Cite as

Taimoor Tariq, Yongzhou Chen, Haitham Hassanieh, and Radhika Mittal. Performance Isolation for 5G RAN Slices Across Multiple Interfering Cells. In 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 139, pp. 2:1-2:29, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{tariq_et_al:OASIcs.NINeS.2026.2,
  author =	{Tariq, Taimoor and Chen, Yongzhou and Hassanieh, Haitham and Mittal, Radhika},
  title =	{{Performance Isolation for 5G RAN Slices Across Multiple Interfering Cells}},
  booktitle =	{1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:29},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-414-7},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{139},
  editor =	{Argyraki, Katerina and Panda, Aurojit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255875},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Cellular Networks, Resource Management, RAN Slicing, Interference Management}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28
Conditional Complexity Hardness: Monotone Circuit Size, Matrix Rigidity, and Tensor Rank

Authors: Nikolai Chukhin, Alexander S. Kulikov, Ivan Mihajlin, and Arina Smirnova

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)

Abstract
Proving complexity lower bounds remains a challenging task: currently, we only know how to prove conditional uniform (algorithm) lower bounds and nonuniform (circuit) lower bounds in restricted circuit models. About a decade ago, Williams (STOC 2010) showed how to derive nonuniform lower bounds from uniform upper bounds: roughly, by designing a fast algorithm for checking satisfiability of circuits, one gets a lower bound for this circuit class. Since then, a number of results of this kind have been proved. For example, Jahanjou et al. (ICALP 2015) and Carmosino et al. (ITCS 2016) proved that if NSETH fails, then E^{NP} has series-parallel circuit size ω(n). One can also derive nonuniform lower bounds from nondeterministic uniform lower bounds. Perhaps the most well-known example is the Karp-Lipton theorem (STOC 1980): if Σ₂ ≠ Π₂, then NP ⊄ P/poly. Some recent examples include the following. Nederlof (STOC 2020) proved a lower bound on the matrix multiplication tensor rank under an assumption that TSP cannot be solved faster than in 2ⁿ time. Belova et al. (SODA 2024) proved that there exists an explicit polynomial family of arithmetic circuit size Ω(n^{δ}), for any δ > 0, assuming that MAX-3-SAT cannot be solved faster than in 2ⁿ nondeterministic time. Williams (FOCS 2024) proved an exponential lower bound for ETHR ∘ ETHR circuits under the Orthogonal Vectors conjecture. Whereas all the lower bounds above are proved under strong assumptions that might eventually be refuted, the revealed connections are of great interest and may still give further insights: one may be able to weaken the used assumptions or to construct generators from other fine-grained reductions. In this paper, we continue developing this line of research and show how uniform nondeterministic lower bounds can be used to construct generators of various types of combinatorial objects that are notoriously hard to analyze: Boolean functions of high circuit size, matrices of high rigidity, and tensors of high rank. Specifically, we prove the following. - If, for some ε and k, k-SAT cannot be solved in input-oblivious co-nondeterministic time O(2^{(1/2+ε)n}), then there exists a monotone Boolean function family in coNP of monotone circuit size 2^{Ω(n / log n)}. Combining this with the result above, we get win-win circuit lower bounds: either E^{NP{}} requires series-parallel circuits of size ω(n) or coNP requires monotone circuits of size 2^{Ω(n / log n)}. - If, for all ε > 0, MAX-3-SAT cannot be solved in co-nondeterministic time O(2^{(1 - ε)n}), then there exist small families of matrices with rigidity exceeding the best known constructions as well as small families of three-dimensional tensors of rank n^{1+Δ}, for some Δ > 0.
Cite as

Nikolai Chukhin, Alexander S. Kulikov, Ivan Mihajlin, and Arina Smirnova. Conditional Complexity Hardness: Monotone Circuit Size, Matrix Rigidity, and Tensor Rank. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 28:1-28:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chukhin_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28,
  author =	{Chukhin, Nikolai and Kulikov, Alexander S. and Mihajlin, Ivan and Smirnova, Arina},
  title =	{{Conditional Complexity Hardness: Monotone Circuit Size, Matrix Rigidity, and Tensor Rank}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255177},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: computational complexity, circuit complexity, lower bounds, conditional lower bounds, monotone circuits, matrix rigidity, tensor rank, arithmetic circuits, fine-grained complexity}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.36
Beyond 2-Edge-Connectivity: Algorithms and Impossibility for Content-Oblivious Leader Election

Authors: Yi-Jun Chang, Lyuting Chen, and Haoran Zhou

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
The content-oblivious model, introduced by Censor-Hillel, Cohen, Gelles, and Sela (PODC 2022; Distributed Computing 2023), captures an extremely weak form of communication where nodes can only send asynchronous, content-less pulses. They showed that in 2-edge-connected networks, any distributed algorithm can be simulated in the content-oblivious model, provided that a unique leader is designated a priori. Subsequent works of Frei, Gelles, Ghazy, and Nolin (DISC 2024) and Chalopin et al. (DISC 2025) developed content-oblivious leader election algorithms, first for unoriented rings and then for general 2-edge-connected graphs. These results establish that all graph problems are solvable in content-oblivious, 2-edge-connected networks. Much less is known about networks that are not 2-edge-connected. Censor-Hillel, Cohen, Gelles, and Sela showed that no non-constant function f(x,y) can be computed correctly by two parties using content-oblivious communication over a single edge, where one party holds x and the other holds y. This seemingly ruled out many natural graph problems on non-2-edge-connected graphs. In this work, we show that, with the knowledge of network topology G, leader election is possible in a wide range of graphs. Our main contributions are as follows: Impossibility: Graphs symmetric about an edge admit no randomized terminating leader election algorithm, even when nodes have unique identifiers and full knowledge of G. Leader election algorithms: Trees that are not symmetric about any edge admit a quiescently terminating leader election algorithm with topology knowledge, even in anonymous networks, using O(n²) messages, where n is the number of nodes. Moreover, even-diameter trees admit a terminating leader election given only the knowledge of the network diameter D = 2r, with message complexity O(nr). Necessity of topology knowledge: In the family of graphs 𝒢 = {P₃, P₅}, both the 3-path P₃ and the 5-path P₅ admit a quiescently terminating leader election if nodes know the topology exactly. However, if nodes only know that the underlying topology belongs to 𝒢, then terminating leader election is impossible.
Cite as

Yi-Jun Chang, Lyuting Chen, and Haoran Zhou. Beyond 2-Edge-Connectivity: Algorithms and Impossibility for Content-Oblivious Leader Election. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 36:1-36:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chang_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.36,
  author =	{Chang, Yi-Jun and Chen, Lyuting and Zhou, Haoran},
  title =	{{Beyond 2-Edge-Connectivity: Algorithms and Impossibility for Content-Oblivious Leader Election}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{36:1--36:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.36},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253239},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.36},
  annote =	{Keywords: Asynchronous model, fault tolerance, quiescent termination}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.38
Lower Bounds on Tree Covers

Authors: Yu Chen, Zihan Tan, and Hangyu Xu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
Given an n-point metric space (X,d_X), a tree cover 𝒯 is a set of |𝒯| = k trees on X such that every pair of vertices in X has a low-distortion path in one of the trees in 𝒯. Tree covers have been playing a crucial role in graph algorithms for decades, and the research focus is the construction of tree covers with small size k and distortion. When k = 1, the best distortion is known to be Θ(n). For a constant k ≥ 2, the best distortion upper bound is Õ(n^{1/k}) and the strongest lower bound is Ω(log_k n), leaving a gap to be closed. In this paper, we improve the lower bound to Ω(n^{1/(2^{k-1)}}). Our proof is a novel analysis on a structurally simple grid-like graph, which utilizes some combinatorial fixed-point theorems. We believe that they will prove useful for analyzing other tree-like data structures as well.
Cite as

Yu Chen, Zihan Tan, and Hangyu Xu. Lower Bounds on Tree Covers. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 38:1-38:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.38,
  author =	{Chen, Yu and Tan, Zihan and Xu, Hangyu},
  title =	{{Lower Bounds on Tree Covers}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{38:1--38:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.38},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253254},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.38},
  annote =	{Keywords: Tree Covers, Combinatorial Fixed-Point Theorems}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.95
Identity Testing for Circuits with Exponentiation Gates

Authors: Jiatu Li and Mengdi Wu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
Motivated by practical applications in the design of optimization compilers for neural networks, we initiated the study of identity testing problems for arithmetic circuits augmented with exponentiation gates that compute the real function x↦ e^x. These circuits compute real functions of form P(→x)/P'(→x), where both P(→x) and P'(→x) are exponential polynomials ∑_{i = 1}^k f_i(→x)⋅ exp((g_i(→x))/(h_i(→x))), for polynomials f_i(→x),g_i(→x), and h_i(→x). We formalize a black-box query model over finite fields for this class of circuits, which is mathematical simple and reflects constraints faced by real-world neural network compilers. We proved that a simple and efficient randomized identity testing algorithm achieves perfect completeness and non-trivial soundness. Concurrent with our work, the algorithm has been implemented in the optimization compiler Mirage by Wu et al. (OSDI 2025), demonstrating promising empirical performance in both efficiency and soundness error. Finally, we propose a number-theoretic conjecture under which our algorithm is sound with high probability.
Cite as

Jiatu Li and Mengdi Wu. Identity Testing for Circuits with Exponentiation Gates. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 95:1-95:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{li_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.95,
  author =	{Li, Jiatu and Wu, Mengdi},
  title =	{{Identity Testing for Circuits with Exponentiation Gates}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{95:1--95:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.95},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253821},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.95},
  annote =	{Keywords: Polynomial Identity Testing, Exponential Polynomials}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46
Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials

Authors: Anuj Dawar, Benedikt Pago, and Tim Seppelt

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
The central open question of algebraic complexity is whether VP ≠ VNP, which is saying that the permanent cannot be represented by families of polynomial-size algebraic circuits. For symmetric algebraic circuits, this has been confirmed by Dawar and Wilsenach (2020), who showed exponential lower bounds on the size of symmetric circuits for the permanent. In this work, we set out to develop a more general symmetric algebraic complexity theory. Our main result is that a family of symmetric polynomials admits small symmetric circuits if and only if they can be written as a linear combination of homomorphism counting polynomials of graphs of bounded treewidth. We also establish a relationship between the symmetric complexity of subgraph counting polynomials and the vertex cover number of the pattern graph. As a concrete example, we examine the symmetric complexity of immanant families (a generalisation of the determinant and permanent) and show that a known conditional dichotomy due to Curticapean (2021) holds unconditionally in the symmetric setting.
Cite as

Anuj Dawar, Benedikt Pago, and Tim Seppelt. Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 46:1-46:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{dawar_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46,
  author =	{Dawar, Anuj and Pago, Benedikt and Seppelt, Tim},
  title =	{{Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{46:1--46:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253330},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46},
  annote =	{Keywords: algebraic complexity, finite model theory, symmetric circuits, homomorphism counting, graph homomorphism, treewidth, counting width, first-order logic with counting quantifiers}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.42
Time and Space Efficient Deterministic List Decoding

Authors: Joshua Cook and Dana Moshkovitz

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
Error correcting codes encode messages by codewords in such a way that even if some of the codeword is corrupted, the message can be decoded. Typical decoding algorithms for error correcting codes either use linear space or quadratic time. A natural question is whether codes can be decoded in near-linear time and sub-linear space simultaneously. A recent result by Cook and Moshkovitz gave efficient decoders that can uniquely decode Reed-Muller and other codes from a constant fraction (less than half) of corruption. In this work, we address the problem of list decoding in near-linear time and sub-linear space. In the list decoding setting, most of the codeword is corrupted, and one wants to output a short list of potential messages that contains the true message. For any constants γ, τ > 0, we give decoders for Reed-Muller codes that can decode from 1-γ fraction of corruptions in time n^{1+τ} and space n^{τ}. Our decoders work by extending the iterative correction technique of Cook and Moshkovitz. However, that technique, which gradually decreases the number of corruptions in the message, was tailored to the unique decoding setting. We first identify an intermediate problem, codewords list recovery, for which we can make iterative correction work. We then show how to reduce general list decoding to the codewords list recovery problem in efficient time and space. The reduction relies on local correction and testing. In the codewords list recovery problem, the input consists of n unordered lists containing exactly the symbols from L codewords, where a small fraction of the lists is corrupted. The goal is to find the L codewords. In addition, we prove that any linear code with time-space efficient encoding or decoding must be local, in the sense that the codewords satisfy a local linear constraint. This rules out codes like Reed-Solomon from having time-space efficient encoding or decoding.
Cite as

Joshua Cook and Dana Moshkovitz. Time and Space Efficient Deterministic List Decoding. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 42:1-42:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{cook_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.42,
  author =	{Cook, Joshua and Moshkovitz, Dana},
  title =	{{Time and Space Efficient Deterministic List Decoding}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{42:1--42:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.42},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253292},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.42},
  annote =	{Keywords: Reed-Muller code, local correction, local testing}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5
Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs

Authors: Mridul Ahi, Keerti Choudhary, Shlok Pande, Pushpraj, and Lakshay Saggi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
This paper addresses the problem of designing fault-tolerant data structures for the (s,t)-max-flow and (s,t)-min-cut problems in unweighted directed graphs. Given a directed graph G = (V, E) with a designated source s, sink t, and an (s,t)-max-flow of value λ, we present constructions for max-flow and min-cut sensitivity oracles, and introduce the concept of a fault-tolerant flow family, which may be of independent interest. Our main contributions are as follows. 1) Fault-Tolerant Flow Family: We construct a family ℬ of 2λ+1 (s,t)-flows such that for every edge e, ℬ contains an (s,t)-max-flow of G-e. This covering property is tight up to constants for single failures and provably cannot extend to comparably small families for k ≥ 2, where we show an Ω(n) lower bound on the family size, independent of λ. 2) Max-Flow Sensitivity Oracle: Using the fault-tolerant flow family, we construct a single as well as dual-edge sensitivity oracle for (s,t)-max-flow that requires only O(λ n) space. Given any set F of up to two failing edges, the oracle reports the updated max-flow value in G-F in O(n) time. Additionally, for the single-failure case, the oracle can determine in constant time whether the flow through an edge x changes when another edge e fails. 3) Min-Cut Sensitivity Oracle for Dual Failures: Recently, Baswana et al. (ICALP’22) designed an O(n²)-sized oracle for answering (s,t)-min-cut size queries under dual edge failures in constant time, along with a matching lower bound. We extend this by focusing on graphs with small min-cut values λ, and present a more compact oracle of size O(λ n) that answers such min-cut size queries in constant time and reports the corresponding (s,t)-min-cut partition in O(n) time. We also show that the space complexity of our oracle is asymptotically optimal in this setting. 4) Min-Cut Sensitivity Oracle for Multiple Failures: We extend our results to the general case of k edge failures. For any graph with (s,t)-min-cut of size λ, we construct a k-fault-tolerant min-cut oracle with space complexity O_{λ,k}(n log n) that answers min-cut size queries in O_{λ,k}(log n) time. This also leads to improved fault-tolerant (s,t)-reachability oracles, achieving O(n log n) space and O(log n) query time for up to k = O(1) edge failures.
Cite as

Mridul Ahi, Keerti Choudhary, Shlok Pande, Pushpraj, and Lakshay Saggi. Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 5:1-5:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{ahi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5,
  author =	{Ahi, Mridul and Choudhary, Keerti and Pande, Shlok and Pushpraj and Saggi, Lakshay},
  title =	{{Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252920},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: Fault tolerance, Data structures, Minimum cuts, Maximum flows}
}
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