48 Search Results for "Liu, Allen"

Document
DOI: 10.4230/DagMan.11.1.19
Conversational Agents: A Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 24352)

Authors: Christine Bauer, Li Chen, Nicola Ferro, Norbert Fuhr, Avishek Anand, Timo Breuer, Guglielmo Faggioli, Ophir Frieder, Hideo Joho, Jussi Karlgren, Johannes Kiesel, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Aldo Lipani, Lien Michiels, Andrea Papenmeier, Maria Soledad Pera, Mark Sanderson, Scott Sanner, Benno Stein, Johanne R. Trippas, Karin Verspoor, and Martijn C. Willemsen

Published in: Dagstuhl Manifestos, Volume 11, Issue 1 (2025)

Abstract
During the workshop, we deeply discussed what CONversational Information ACcess (CONIAC) is and its unique features, proposing a world model abstracting it, and defined the Conversational Agents Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) for the evaluation of CONIAC systems, consisting of six major components: 1) goals of the system’s stakeholders, 2) user tasks to be studied in the evaluation, 3) aspects of the users carrying out the tasks, 4) evaluation criteria to be considered, 5) evaluation methodology to be applied, and 6) measures for the quantitative criteria chosen.
Cite as

Christine Bauer, Li Chen, Nicola Ferro, Norbert Fuhr, Avishek Anand, Timo Breuer, Guglielmo Faggioli, Ophir Frieder, Hideo Joho, Jussi Karlgren, Johannes Kiesel, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Aldo Lipani, Lien Michiels, Andrea Papenmeier, Maria Soledad Pera, Mark Sanderson, Scott Sanner, Benno Stein, Johanne R. Trippas, Karin Verspoor, and Martijn C. Willemsen. Conversational Agents: A Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 24352). In Dagstuhl Manifestos, Volume 11, Issue 1, pp. 19-67, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@Article{bauer_et_al:DagMan.11.1.19,
  author =	{Bauer, Christine and Chen, Li and Ferro, Nicola and Fuhr, Norbert and Anand, Avishek and Breuer, Timo and Faggioli, Guglielmo and Frieder, Ophir and Joho, Hideo and Karlgren, Jussi and Kiesel, Johannes and Knijnenburg, Bart P. and Lipani, Aldo and Michiels, Lien and Papenmeier, Andrea and Pera, Maria Soledad and Sanderson, Mark and Sanner, Scott and Stein, Benno and Trippas, Johanne R. and Verspoor, Karin and Willemsen, Martijn C.},
  title =	{{Conversational Agents: A Framework for Evaluation (CAFE) (Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop 24352)}},
  pages =	{19--67},
  journal =	{Dagstuhl Manifestos},
  ISSN =	{2193-2433},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{11},
  number =	{1},
  editor =	{Bauer, Christine and Chen, Li and Ferro, Nicola and Fuhr, Norbert and Anand, Avishek and Breuer, Timo and Faggioli, Guglielmo and Frieder, Ophir and Joho, Hideo and Karlgren, Jussi and Kiesel, Johannes and Knijnenburg, Bart P. and Lipani, Aldo and Michiels, Lien and Papenmeier, Andrea and Pera, Maria Soledad and Sanderson, Mark and Sanner, Scott and Stein, Benno and Trippas, Johanne R. and Verspoor, Karin and Willemsen, Martijn C.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/DagMan.11.1.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252722},
  doi =		{10.4230/DagMan.11.1.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Conversational Agents, Evaluation, Information Access}
}
Document
Survey
DOI: 10.4230/TGDK.3.2.1
Resilience in Knowledge Graph Embeddings

Authors: Arnab Sharma, N'Dah Jean Kouagou, and Axel-Cyrille Ngonga Ngomo

Published in: TGDK, Volume 3, Issue 2 (2025). Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge, Volume 3, Issue 2

Abstract
In recent years, knowledge graphs have gained interest and witnessed widespread applications in various domains, such as information retrieval, question-answering, recommendation systems, amongst others. Large-scale knowledge graphs to this end have demonstrated their utility in effectively representing structured knowledge. To further facilitate the application of machine learning techniques, knowledge graph embedding models have been developed. Such models can transform entities and relationships within knowledge graphs into vectors. However, these embedding models often face challenges related to noise, missing information, distribution shift, adversarial attacks, etc. This can lead to sub-optimal embeddings and incorrect inferences, thereby negatively impacting downstream applications. While the existing literature has focused so far on adversarial attacks on KGE models, the challenges related to the other critical aspects remain unexplored. In this paper, we, first of all, give a unified definition of resilience, encompassing several factors such as generalisation, in-distribution generalization, distribution adaption, and robustness. After formalizing these concepts for machine learning in general, we define them in the context of knowledge graphs. To find the gap in the existing works on resilience in the context of knowledge graphs, we perform a systematic survey, taking into account all these aspects mentioned previously. Our survey results show that most of the existing works focus on a specific aspect of resilience, namely robustness. After categorizing such works based on their respective aspects of resilience, we discuss the challenges and future research directions.
Cite as

Arnab Sharma, N'Dah Jean Kouagou, and Axel-Cyrille Ngonga Ngomo. Resilience in Knowledge Graph Embeddings. In Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge (TGDK), Volume 3, Issue 2, pp. 1:1-1:38, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@Article{sharma_et_al:TGDK.3.2.1,
  author =	{Sharma, Arnab and Kouagou, N'Dah Jean and Ngomo, Axel-Cyrille Ngonga},
  title =	{{Resilience in Knowledge Graph Embeddings}},
  journal =	{Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge},
  pages =	{1:1--1:38},
  ISSN =	{2942-7517},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{3},
  number =	{2},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/TGDK.3.2.1},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248117},
  doi =		{10.4230/TGDK.3.2.1},
  annote =	{Keywords: Knowledge graphs, Resilience, Robustness}
}
Document
Research
DOI: 10.4230/TGDK.3.2.3
GraphRAG on Technical Documents - Impact of Knowledge Graph Schema

Authors: Henri Scaffidi, Melinda Hodkiewicz, Caitlin Woods, and Nicole Roocke

Published in: TGDK, Volume 3, Issue 2 (2025). Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge, Volume 3, Issue 2

Abstract
Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) is seeing rapid adoption in industry to enable employees to query information captured in proprietary data for their organisation. In this work, we test the impact of domain-relevant knowledge graph schemas on the results of Microsoft’s GraphRAG pipeline. Our approach aims to address the poor quality of GraphRAG responses on technical reports rich in domain-specific terms. The use case involves technical reports about geology, chemistry and mineral processing published by the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia (MRIWA). Four schemas are considered: a simple five-class minerals domain expert-developed schema, an expanded minerals domain schema, the Microsoft GraphRAG auto-generated schema, and a schema-less GraphRAG. These are compared to a conventional baseline RAG. Performance is evaluated using a scoring approach that accounts for the mix of correct, incorrect, additional, and missing content in RAG responses. The results show that the simple five-class minerals domain schema extracts approximately 10% more entities from the MRIWA reports than the other schema options. Additionally, both the five-class and the expanded eight-class minerals domain schemas produce the most factually correct answers and the fewest hallucinations. We attribute this to the minerals-specific schemas extracting more relevant, domain-specific information during the Indexing stage. As a result, the Query stage’s context window includes more high-value content. This contributes to the observed improvement in answer quality compared to the other pipelines. In contrast, pipelines with fewer domain-related entities in the KG retrieve less valuable information, leaving more room for irrelevant content in the context window. Baseline RAG responses were typically shorter, less complete, and contained more hallucinations compared to our GraphRAG pipelines. We provide a complete set of resources at https://github.com/nlp-tlp/GraphRAG-on-Minerals-Domain/tree/main. These resources include links to the MRIWA reports, a set of questions (from simple to challenging) along with domain-expert curated answers, schemas, and evaluations of the pipelines.
Cite as

Henri Scaffidi, Melinda Hodkiewicz, Caitlin Woods, and Nicole Roocke. GraphRAG on Technical Documents - Impact of Knowledge Graph Schema. In Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge (TGDK), Volume 3, Issue 2, pp. 3:1-3:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@Article{scaffidi_et_al:TGDK.3.2.3,
  author =	{Scaffidi, Henri and Hodkiewicz, Melinda and Woods, Caitlin and Roocke, Nicole},
  title =	{{GraphRAG on Technical Documents - Impact of Knowledge Graph Schema}},
  journal =	{Transactions on Graph Data and Knowledge},
  pages =	{3:1--3:24},
  ISSN =	{2942-7517},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{3},
  number =	{2},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/TGDK.3.2.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248131},
  doi =		{10.4230/TGDK.3.2.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: RAG, minerals, local search, global search, entity extraction, competency questions}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55
Safe Sequences via Dominators in DAGs for Path-Covering Problems

Authors: Francisco Sena, Romeo Rizzi, and Alexandru I. Tomescu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)

Abstract
A path-covering problem on a directed acyclic graph (DAG) requires finding a set of source-to-sink paths that cover all the nodes, all the arcs, or subsets thereof, and additionally they are optimal with respect to some function. In this paper we study safe sequences of nodes or arcs, namely sequences that appear in some path of every path cover of a DAG. We show that safe sequences admit a simple characterization via cutnodes. Moreover, we establish a connection between maximal safe sequences and leaf-to-root paths in the source- and sink-dominator trees of the DAG, which may be of independent interest in the extensive literature on dominators. With dominator trees, safe sequences admit an O(n)-size representation and a linear-time output-sensitive enumeration algorithm running in time O(m + o), where n and m are the number of nodes and arcs, respectively, and o is the total length of the maximal safe sequences. We then apply maximal safe sequences to simplify Integer Linear Programs (ILPs) for two path-covering problems, LeastSquares and MinPathError, which are at the core of RNA transcript assembly problems from bioinformatics. On various datasets, maximal safe sequences can be computed in under 0.1 seconds per graph, on average, and ILP solvers whose search space is reduced in this manner exhibit significant speed-ups. For example on graphs with a large width, average speed-ups are in the range 50-250× for MinPathError and in the range 80-350× for LeastSquares. Optimizing ILPs using safe sequences can thus become a fast building block of practical RNA transcript assembly tools, and more generally, of path-covering problems.
Cite as

Francisco Sena, Romeo Rizzi, and Alexandru I. Tomescu. Safe Sequences via Dominators in DAGs for Path-Covering Problems. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 55:1-55:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{sena_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55,
  author =	{Sena, Francisco and Rizzi, Romeo and Tomescu, Alexandru I.},
  title =	{{Safe Sequences via Dominators in DAGs for Path-Covering Problems}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245230},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: directed acyclic graph, path cover, dominator tree, integer linear programming, least squares, minimum path error}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.69
Bandwidth vs BFS Width in Matrix Reordering, Graph Reconstruction, and Graph Drawing

Authors: David Eppstein, Michael T. Goodrich, and Songyu (Alfred) Liu

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)

Abstract
We provide the first approximation quality guarantees for the Cuthull-McKee heuristic for reordering symmetric matrices to have low bandwidth, and we provide an algorithm for reconstructing bounded-bandwidth graphs from distance oracles with near-linear query complexity. To prove these results we introduce a new width parameter, BFS width, and we prove polylogarithmic upper and lower bounds on the BFS width of graphs of bounded bandwidth. Unlike other width parameters, such as bandwidth, pathwidth, and treewidth, BFS width can easily be computed in polynomial time. Bounded BFS width implies bounded bandwidth, pathwidth, and treewidth, which in turn imply fixed-parameter tractable algorithms for many problems that are NP-hard for general graphs. In addition to their applications to matrix ordering, we also provide applications of BFS width to graph reconstruction, to reconstruct graphs from distance queries, and graph drawing, to construct arc diagrams of small height.
Cite as

David Eppstein, Michael T. Goodrich, and Songyu (Alfred) Liu. Bandwidth vs BFS Width in Matrix Reordering, Graph Reconstruction, and Graph Drawing. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 69:1-69:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{eppstein_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.69,
  author =	{Eppstein, David and Goodrich, Michael T. and Liu, Songyu (Alfred)},
  title =	{{Bandwidth vs BFS Width in Matrix Reordering, Graph Reconstruction, and Graph Drawing}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{69:1--69:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.69},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245373},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.69},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph algorithms, graph theory, graph width, bandwidth, treewidth}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.62
Polynomial-Time Constant-Approximation for Fair Sum-Of-Radii Clustering

Authors: Sina Bagheri Nezhad, Sayan Bandyapadhyay, and Tianzhi Chen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)

Abstract
In a seminal work, Chierichetti et al. [Chierichetti et al., 2017] introduced the (t,k)-fair clustering problem: Given a set of red points and a set of blue points in a metric space, a clustering is called fair if the number of red points in each cluster is at most t times and at least 1/t times the number of blue points in that cluster. The goal is to compute a fair clustering with at most k clusters that optimizes certain objective function. Considering this problem, they designed a polynomial-time O(1)- and O(t)-approximation for the k-center and the k-median objective, respectively. Recently, Carta et al. [Carta et al., 2024] studied this problem with the sum-of-radii objective and obtained a (6+ε)-approximation with running time O((k log_{1+ε}(k/ε))^k n^O(1)), i.e., fixed-parameter tractable in k. Here n is the input size. In this work, we design the first polynomial-time O(1)-approximation for (t,k)-fair clustering with the sum-of-radii objective, improving the result of Carta et al. Our result places sum-of-radii in the same group of objectives as k-center, that admit polynomial-time O(1)-approximations. This result also implies a polynomial-time O(1)-approximation for the Euclidean version of the problem, for which an f(k)⋅n^O(1)-time (1+ε)-approximation was known due to Drexler et al. [Drexler et al., 2023]. Here f is an exponential function of k. We are also able to extend our result to any arbitrary 𝓁 ≥ 2 number of colors when t = 1. This matches known results for the k-center and k-median objectives in this case. The significant disparity of sum-of-radii compared to k-center and k-median presents several complex challenges, all of which we successfully overcome in our work. Our main contribution is a novel cluster-merging-based analysis technique for sum-of-radii that helps us achieve the constant-approximation bounds.
Cite as

Sina Bagheri Nezhad, Sayan Bandyapadhyay, and Tianzhi Chen. Polynomial-Time Constant-Approximation for Fair Sum-Of-Radii Clustering. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 62:1-62:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{bagherinezhad_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.62,
  author =	{Bagheri Nezhad, Sina and Bandyapadhyay, Sayan and Chen, Tianzhi},
  title =	{{Polynomial-Time Constant-Approximation for Fair Sum-Of-Radii Clustering}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{62:1--62:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.62},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245309},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.62},
  annote =	{Keywords: fair clustering, sum-of-radii clustering, approximation algorithms}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.6
Toward an Earth-Independent System for EVA Mission Planning: Integrating Physical Models, Domain Knowledge, and Agentic RAG to Provide Explainable LLM-Based Decision Support

Authors: Kaisheng Li and Richard S. Whittle

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 130, Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025)

Abstract
We propose a unified framework for an Earth‑independent AI system that provides explainable, context‑aware decision support for EVA mission planning by integrating six core components: a fine‑tuned EVA domain LLM, a retrieval‑augmented knowledge base, a short-term memory store, physical simulation models, an agentic orchestration layer, and a multimodal user interface. To ground our design, we analyze the current roles and substitution potential of the Mission Control Center - identifying which procedural and analytical functions can be automated onboard while preserving human oversight for experiential and strategic tasks. Building on this framework, we introduce RASAGE (Retrieval & Simulation Augmented Guidance Agent for Exploration), a proof‑of‑concept toolset that combines Microsoft Phi‑4‑mini‑instruct with a FAISS (Facebook AI Similarity Search)‑powered EVA knowledge base and custom A* path planning and hypogravity metabolic models to generate grounded, traceable EVA plans. We outline a staged validation strategy to evaluate improvements in route efficiency, metabolic prediction accuracy, anomaly response effectiveness, and crew trust under realistic communication delays. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of replicating key Mission Control functions onboard, enhancing crew autonomy, reducing cognitive load, and improving safety for deep‑space exploration missions.
Cite as

Kaisheng Li and Richard S. Whittle. Toward an Earth-Independent System for EVA Mission Planning: Integrating Physical Models, Domain Knowledge, and Agentic RAG to Provide Explainable LLM-Based Decision Support. In Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 130, pp. 6:1-6:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{li_et_al:OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.6,
  author =	{Li, Kaisheng and Whittle, Richard S.},
  title =	{{Toward an Earth-Independent System for EVA Mission Planning: Integrating Physical Models, Domain Knowledge, and Agentic RAG to Provide Explainable LLM-Based Decision Support}},
  booktitle =	{Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025)},
  pages =	{6:1--6:17},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-384-3},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{130},
  editor =	{Bensch, Leonie and Nilsson, Tommy and Nisser, Martin and Pataranutaporn, Pat and Schmidt, Albrecht and Sumini, Valentina},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.6},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239967},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.6},
  annote =	{Keywords: Human-AI Interaction for Space Exploration, Extravehicular Activities, Cognitive load and Human Performance Issues, Human Systems Exploration, Lunar Exploration, LLM}
}
Document
RANDOM
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.47
Time Lower Bounds for the Metropolis Process and Simulated Annealing

Authors: Zongchen Chen, Dan Mikulincer, Daniel Reichman, and Alexander S. Wein

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 353, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)

Abstract
The Metropolis process (MP) and Simulated Annealing (SA) are stochastic local search heuristics that are often used in solving combinatorial optimization problems. Despite significant interest, there are very few theoretical results regarding the quality of approximation obtained by MP and SA (with polynomially many iterations) for NP-hard optimization problems. We provide rigorous lower bounds for MP and SA with respect to the classical maximum independent set problem when the algorithms are initialized from the empty set. We establish the existence of a family of graphs for which both MP and SA fail to find approximate solutions in polynomial time. More specifically, we show that for any ε ∈ (0,1) there are n-vertex graphs for which the probability SA (when limited to polynomially many iterations) will approximate the optimal solution within ratio Ω(1/n^{1-ε}) is exponentially small. Our lower bounds extend to graphs of constant average degree d, illustrating the failure of MP to achieve an approximation ratio of Ω(log(d)/d) in polynomial time. In some cases, our lower bounds apply even when the temperature is chosen adaptively. Finally, we prove exponential-time lower bounds when the inputs to these algorithms are bipartite graphs, and even trees, which are known to admit polynomial-time algorithms for the independent set problem.
Cite as

Zongchen Chen, Dan Mikulincer, Daniel Reichman, and Alexander S. Wein. Time Lower Bounds for the Metropolis Process and Simulated Annealing. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 353, pp. 47:1-47:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.47,
  author =	{Chen, Zongchen and Mikulincer, Dan and Reichman, Daniel and Wein, Alexander S.},
  title =	{{Time Lower Bounds for the Metropolis Process and Simulated Annealing}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)},
  pages =	{47:1--47:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-397-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{353},
  editor =	{Ene, Alina and Chattopadhyay, Eshan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.47},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-244138},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.47},
  annote =	{Keywords: Metropolis Process, Simulated Annealing, Independent Set}
}
Document
RANDOM
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.42
On the Spectral Expansion of Monotone Subsets of the Hypercube

Authors: Yumou Fei and Renato Ferreira Pinto Jr.

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 353, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)

Abstract
We study the spectral gap of subgraphs of the hypercube induced by monotone subsets of vertices. For a monotone subset A ⊆ {0,1}ⁿ of density μ(A), the previous best lower bound on the spectral gap, due to Cohen [Cohen, 2016], was γ ≳ μ(A)/n², improving upon the earlier bound γ ≳ μ(A)²/n² established by Ding and Mossel [Ding and Mossel, 2014]. In this paper, we prove the optimal lower bound γ ≳ μ(A)/n. As a corollary, we improve the mixing time upper bound of the random walk on constant-density monotone sets from O(n³), as shown by Ding and Mossel, to O(n²). Along the way, we develop two new inequalities that may be of independent interest: (1) a directed L²-Poincaré inequality on the hypercube, and (2) an "approximate" FKG inequality for monotone sets.
Cite as

Yumou Fei and Renato Ferreira Pinto Jr.. On the Spectral Expansion of Monotone Subsets of the Hypercube. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 353, pp. 42:1-42:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{fei_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.42,
  author =	{Fei, Yumou and Ferreira Pinto Jr., Renato},
  title =	{{On the Spectral Expansion of Monotone Subsets of the Hypercube}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)},
  pages =	{42:1--42:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-397-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{353},
  editor =	{Ene, Alina and Chattopadhyay, Eshan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.42},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-244081},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.42},
  annote =	{Keywords: Random walks, mixing time, FKG inequality, Poincar\'{e} inequality, directed isoperimetry}
}
Document
APPROX
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.26
Non-Adaptive Evaluation of k-of- n Functions: Tight Gap and a Unit-Cost PTAS

Authors: Mads Anker Nielsen, Lars Rohwedder, and Kevin Schewior

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 353, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)

Abstract
We consider the Stochastic Boolean Function Evaluation (SBFE) problem in the well-studied case of k-of-n functions: There are independent Boolean random variables x_1,… ,x_n where each variable i has a known probability p_i of taking value 1, and a known cost c_i that can be paid to find out its value. The value of the function is 1 iff there are at least k 1s among the variables. The goal is to efficiently compute a strategy that, at minimum expected cost, tests the variables until the function value is determined. While an elegant polynomial-time exact algorithm is known when tests can be made adaptively, we focus on the non-adaptive variant, for which much less is known. First, we show a clean and tight lower bound of 2 on the adaptivity gap, i.e., the worst-case multiplicative loss in the objective function caused by disallowing adaptivity, of the problem. This improves the tight lower bound of 3/2 for the unit-cost variant. Second, we give a PTAS for computing the best non-adaptive strategy in the unit-cost case, the first PTAS for an SBFE problem. At the core, our scheme establishes a novel notion of two-sided dominance (w.r.t. the optimal solution) by guessing so-called milestone tests for a set of carefully chosen buckets of tests. To turn this technique into a polynomial-time algorithm, we use a decomposition approach paired with a random-shift argument.
Cite as

Mads Anker Nielsen, Lars Rohwedder, and Kevin Schewior. Non-Adaptive Evaluation of k-of- n Functions: Tight Gap and a Unit-Cost PTAS. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 353, pp. 26:1-26:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{nielsen_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.26,
  author =	{Nielsen, Mads Anker and Rohwedder, Lars and Schewior, Kevin},
  title =	{{Non-Adaptive Evaluation of k-of- n Functions: Tight Gap and a Unit-Cost PTAS}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2025)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-397-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{353},
  editor =	{Ene, Alina and Chattopadhyay, Eshan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-243920},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2025.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation scheme, Boolean functions, stochastic combinatorial optimization, stochastic function evaluation, sequential testing, adaptivity}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.TQC.2025.10
Hamiltonian Locality Testing via Trotterized Postselection

Authors: John Kallaugher and Daniel Liang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 350, 20th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2025)

Abstract
The (tolerant) Hamiltonian locality testing problem, introduced in [Bluhm, Caro, Oufkir '24], is to determine whether a Hamiltonian H is ε₁-close to being k-local (i.e. can be written as the sum of weight-k Pauli operators) or ε₂-far from any k-local Hamiltonian, given access to its time evolution operator and using as little total evolution time as possible, with distance typically defined by the normalized Frobenius norm. We give the tightest known bounds for this problem, proving an O(√(ε₂/((ε₂-ε₁)⁵)) evolution time upper bound and an Ω(1/(ε₂-ε₁)) lower bound. Our algorithm does not require reverse time evolution or controlled application of the time evolution operator, although our lower bound applies to algorithms using either tool. Furthermore, we show that if we are allowed reverse time evolution, this lower bound is tight, giving a matching O(1/(ε₂-ε₁)) evolution time algorithm.
Cite as

John Kallaugher and Daniel Liang. Hamiltonian Locality Testing via Trotterized Postselection. In 20th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 350, pp. 10:1-10:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{kallaugher_et_al:LIPIcs.TQC.2025.10,
  author =	{Kallaugher, John and Liang, Daniel},
  title =	{{Hamiltonian Locality Testing via Trotterized Postselection}},
  booktitle =	{20th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation, Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2025)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-392-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{350},
  editor =	{Fefferman, Bill},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.TQC.2025.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-240593},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.TQC.2025.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: quantum algorithms, property testing, hamiltonians}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.85
Cutoff Theorems for the Equivalence of Parameterized Quantum Circuits

Authors: Neil J. Ross and Scott Wesley

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)

Abstract
Many promising quantum algorithms in economics, medical science, and material science rely on circuits that are parameterized by a large number of angles. To ensure that these algorithms are efficient, these parameterized circuits must be heavily optimized. However, most quantum circuit optimizers are not verified, so this procedure is known to be error-prone. For this reason, there is growing interest in the design of equivalence checking algorithms for parameterized quantum circuits. In this paper, we define a generalized class of parameterized circuits with arbitrary rotations and show that this problem is decidable for cyclotomic gate sets. We propose a cutoff-based procedure which reduces the problem of verifying the equivalence of parameterized quantum circuits to the problem of verifying the equivalence of finitely many parameter-free quantum circuits. Because the number of parameter-free circuits grows exponentially with the number of parameters, we also propose a probabilistic variant of the algorithm for cases when the number of parameters is intractably large. We show that our techniques extend to equivalence modulo global phase, and describe an efficient angle sampling procedure for cyclotomic gate sets.
Cite as

Neil J. Ross and Scott Wesley. Cutoff Theorems for the Equivalence of Parameterized Quantum Circuits. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 85:1-85:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{ross_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.85,
  author =	{Ross, Neil J. and Wesley, Scott},
  title =	{{Cutoff Theorems for the Equivalence of Parameterized Quantum Circuits}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{85:1--85:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.85},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241921},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.85},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantum Circuits, Parameterized Equivalence Checking}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.66
Deciding Regular Games: a Playground for Exponential Time Algorithms

Authors: Zihui Liang, Bakh Khoussainov, and Mingyu Xiao

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)

Abstract
Regular games form a well-established class of games for analysis and synthesis of reactive systems. They include colored Muller games, McNaughton games, Muller games, Rabin games, and Streett games. These games are played on directed graphs G where Player 0 and Player 1 play by generating an infinite path ρ through the graph. The winner is determined by specifications put on the set X of vertices in ρ that occur infinitely often. These games are determined, enabling the partitioning of G into two sets Win₀ and Win₁ of winning positions for Player 0 and Player 1, respectively. Numerous algorithms exist that decide instances of regular games, e.g., Muller games, by computing Win₀ and Win₁. In this paper we aim to find general principles for designing uniform algorithms that decide all regular games. For this we utilize various recursive and dynamic programming algorithms that leverage standard notions such as subgames and traps. Importantly, we show that our techniques improve or match the performances of existing algorithms for many instances of regular games.
Cite as

Zihui Liang, Bakh Khoussainov, and Mingyu Xiao. Deciding Regular Games: a Playground for Exponential Time Algorithms. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 66:1-66:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{liang_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.66,
  author =	{Liang, Zihui and Khoussainov, Bakh and Xiao, Mingyu},
  title =	{{Deciding Regular Games: a Playground for Exponential Time Algorithms}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{66:1--66:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.66},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241732},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.66},
  annote =	{Keywords: Regular games, colored Muller games, Rabin games, McNaughton games, Muller games, deciding games}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DNA.31.7
Tile Blockers as a Simple Motif to Control Self-Assembly: Kinetics and Thermodynamics

Authors: Constantine G. Evans, Angel Cervera Roldan, Trent Rogers, and Damien Woods

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 347, 31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA 31) (2025)

Abstract
A fundamental problem in crystallisation, and in molecular tile-based self-assembly in particular, is how to simultaneously control its two main constituent processes: seeded growth and spontaneous nucleation. Often, we desire out-of-equilibrium growth without spontaneous nucleation, which can be achieved through careful calibration of temperature, concentration and experimental time-scale a laborious and overly-sensitive approach. Another technique is to find alternative nucleation-resistant tile designs [Minev et al, 2001]. Rogers, Evans and Woods [In prep] propose blockers: short DNA strands designed to dynamically block DNA tile sides, altering self-assembly dynamics. Experiments showed independent and tunable control on nucleation and growth rates. Here, we provide a theoretical explanation for these surprising results. We formally define the kBlock model where blockers bind to tiles at thermodynamic equilibrium in solution and stochastic kinetics allow self-assembly of a tiled structure. In an intentionally simplified mathematical setting we show that blockers permit reasonable seeded growth rates, akin to a non-blocked tile system at lower tile concentration, crucially giving nucleation rates that are exponentially suppressed. We then implement the kBlock model in a stochastic simulator, with results showing remarkable alignment with oversimplified theory. We provide evidence of blocker-induced tile buffering, where a large reservoir of blocked tiles slowly feeds a small unblocked tile subpopulation which acts like a regular, non-blocked, low tile concentration system, yet is capable of long-term buffered assembly. Finally, and perhaps most satisfyingly, theory and simulations align remarkably well with DNA self-assembly experiments over a wide range of concentrations and temperatures, matching the size of growth temperature windows to within 12%. Blockers are a straightforward solution to the challenging problem of simultaneously and independently controlling growth and nucleation, using a motif compatible with many DNA tile systems.
Cite as

Constantine G. Evans, Angel Cervera Roldan, Trent Rogers, and Damien Woods. Tile Blockers as a Simple Motif to Control Self-Assembly: Kinetics and Thermodynamics. In 31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA 31). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 347, pp. 7:1-7:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{evans_et_al:LIPIcs.DNA.31.7,
  author =	{Evans, Constantine G. and Cervera Roldan, Angel and Rogers, Trent and Woods, Damien},
  title =	{{Tile Blockers as a Simple Motif to Control Self-Assembly: Kinetics and Thermodynamics}},
  booktitle =	{31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA 31)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-399-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{347},
  editor =	{Schaeffer, Josie and Zhang, Fei},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DNA.31.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-238564},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DNA.31.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Self-assembly, kinetic model, kinetic simulation, thermodynamic prediction}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.31
Compositional Reasoning for Parametric Probabilistic Automata

Authors: Hannah Mertens, Tim Quatmann, and Joost-Pieter Katoen

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 348, 36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025)

Abstract
We establish an assume-guarantee (AG) framework for compositional reasoning about multi-objective queries in parametric probabilistic automata (pPA) - an extension to probabilistic automata (PA), where transition probabilities are functions over a finite set of parameters. We lift an existing framework for PA to the pPA setting, incorporating asymmetric, circular, and interleaving proof rules. Our approach enables the verification of a broad spectrum of multi-objective queries for pPA, encompassing probabilistic properties and (parametric) expected total rewards. Additionally, we introduce a rule for reasoning about monotonicity in composed pPAs.
Cite as

Hannah Mertens, Tim Quatmann, and Joost-Pieter Katoen. Compositional Reasoning for Parametric Probabilistic Automata. In 36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 348, pp. 31:1-31:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{mertens_et_al:LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.31,
  author =	{Mertens, Hannah and Quatmann, Tim and Katoen, Joost-Pieter},
  title =	{{Compositional Reasoning for Parametric Probabilistic Automata}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2025)},
  pages =	{31:1--31:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-389-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{348},
  editor =	{Bouyer, Patricia and van de Pol, Jaco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.31},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239810},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CONCUR.2025.31},
  annote =	{Keywords: Verification, Probabilistic systems, Assume-guarantee reasoning, Parametric Probabilistic Automata, Parameter synthesis}
}
  • Refine by Type
  • 48 Document/PDF
  • 37 Document/HTML

  • Refine by Publication Year
  • 29 2025
  • 2 2024
  • 9 2023
  • 2 2022
  • 3 2021
  • Show More...

  • Refine by Author
  • 3 Biswas, Russa
  • 3 Lissandrini, Matteo
  • 3 Liu, Allen
  • 3 Scherp, Ansgar
  • 3 de Melo, Gerard
  • Show More...

  • Refine by Series/Journal
  • 31 LIPIcs
  • 1 OASIcs
  • 1 LITES
  • 14 TGDK
  • 1 DagMan

  • Refine by Classification
  • 5 Computing methodologies → Knowledge representation and reasoning
  • 4 Computing methodologies → Natural language processing
  • 3 Information systems → Graph-based database models
  • 3 Theory of computation
  • 3 Theory of computation → Approximation algorithms analysis
  • Show More...

  • Refine by Keyword
  • 5 Knowledge Graphs
  • 2 Explainable AI
  • 2 Knowledge graphs
  • 2 Large Language Models
  • 2 approximation algorithms
  • Show More...

Any Issues?
X

Feedback on the Current Page

CAPTCHA

Thanks for your feedback!

Feedback submitted to Dagstuhl Publishing

Could not send message

Please try again later or send an E-mail
© 2023-2025 Schloss Dagstuhl – LZI GmbH About DROPS Imprint Privacy Contact