26 Search Results for "Tao, Ran"


Document
Mind the Gap. Doubling Constant Parametrization of Weighted Problems: TSP, Max-Cut, and More

Authors: Mihail Stoian

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


Abstract
Despite much research, hard weighted problems still resist super-polynomial improvements over their textbook solution. On the other hand, the unweighted versions of these problems have recently witnessed the sought-after speedups. Currently, the only way to repurpose the algorithm of the unweighted version for the weighted version is to employ a polynomial embedding of the input weights. This, however, introduces a pseudo-polynomial factor into the running time, which becomes impractical for arbitrarily weighted instances. In this paper, we introduce a new way to repurpose the algorithm of the unweighted problem. Specifically, we show that the time complexity of several well-known NP-hard problems operating over the (min, +) and (max, +) semirings, such as TSP, Weighted Max-Cut, and Edge-Weighted k-Clique, is proportional to that of their unweighted versions when the set of input weights has small doubling. We achieve this by a meta-algorithm that converts the input weights into polynomially bounded integers using the recent constructive Freiman’s theorem by Randolph and Węgrzycki [ESA 2024] before applying the polynomial embedding.

Cite as

Mihail Stoian. Mind the Gap. Doubling Constant Parametrization of Weighted Problems: TSP, Max-Cut, and More. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 79:1-79:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{stoian:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.79,
  author =	{Stoian, Mihail},
  title =	{{Mind the Gap. Doubling Constant Parametrization of Weighted Problems: TSP, Max-Cut, and More}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{79:1--79:19},
  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.2026.79},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255680},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.79},
  annote =	{Keywords: doubling constant parametrization, weighted problems, traveling salesman, weighted max-cut, edge-weighted k-clique}
}
Document
When Is Local Search Both Effective and Efficient?

Authors: Artem Kaznatcheev and Sofia Vazquez Alferez

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


Abstract
Combinatorial optimization problems implicitly define fitness landscapes that combine the numeric structure of the "fitness" function to be maximized with the combinatorial structure of which assignments are "adjacent". Local search starts at an assignment in this landscape and successively moves assignments until no further improvement is possible among the adjacent assignments. Classic analyses of local search algorithms have focused more on the question of effectiveness ("did we find a good solution?") and often implicitly assumed that there are no doubts about their efficiency ("did we find it quickly?"). But there are many reasons to doubt the efficiency of local search. Even if we focus on fitness landscapes on the hypercube that are single peaked on every subcube (known as semismooth fitness landscapes, completely unimodal pseudo-Boolean functions, or acyclic unique sink orientations) where effectiveness is obvious, many local search algorithms are known to be inefficient. Since fitness landscapes are unwieldy exponentially large objects, we focus on their polynomial-sized representations by instances of valued constraint satisfaction problems (VCSP). We define a "direction" for valued constraints such that directed VCSPs generate semismooth fitness landscapes. We call directed VCSPs oriented if they do not have any pair of variables with arcs in both directions. Since recognizing if a VCSP-instance is directed or oriented is coNP-complete, we generalized oriented VCSPs as conditionally-smooth fitness landscapes where the structural property of "conditionally-smooth" is recognizable in polynomial time for a VCSP-instance. We prove that many popular local search algorithms like random ascent, simulated annealing, history-based rules, jumping rules, and the Kernighan-Lin heuristic are very efficient on conditionally-smooth landscapes. But conditionally-smooth landscapes are still expressive enough so that other well-regarded local search algorithms like steepest ascent and random facet require a super-polynomial number of steps to find the fitness peak.

Cite as

Artem Kaznatcheev and Sofia Vazquez Alferez. When Is Local Search Both Effective and Efficient?. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 59:1-59:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{kaznatcheev_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.59,
  author =	{Kaznatcheev, Artem and Vazquez Alferez, Sofia},
  title =	{{When Is Local Search Both Effective and Efficient?}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{59:1--59:19},
  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.2026.59},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255480},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.59},
  annote =	{Keywords: valued constraint satisfaction problem, local search, algorithm analysis, constraint graphs, pseudo-Boolean functions, parameterized complexity}
}
Document
Intersection Theorems: A Potential Approach to Proof Complexity Lower Bounds

Authors: Yaroslav Alekseev and Nikita Gaevoy

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


Abstract
Recently, Göös et al. [Göös et al., 2024] showed that Res ⋏ uSA = RevRes in the following sense: if a formula φ has refutations of size at most s and width/degree at most w in both Res and uSA, then there is a refutation for φ of size at most poly(s ⋅ 2^w) in RevRes. Their proof relies on the TFNP characterization of the aforementioned proof systems. In our work, we give a direct and simplified proof of this result, simultaneously achieving better bounds: we show that if for a formula φ there are refutations of size at most s in both Res and uSA, then there is a refutation of φ of size at most poly(s) in RevRes. This potentially allows us to "lift" size lower bounds from RevRes to Res for the formulas for which there are upper bounds in uSA. This kind of lifting was not possible before because of the exponential blow-up in size from the width. Similarly, we improve the bounds in another intersection theorem from [Göös et al., 2024] by giving a direct proof of Res ⋏ uNS = RevResT. Finally, we generalize those intersection theorems to some proof systems for which we currently do not have a TFNP characterization. For example, we show that Res(⊕) ⋏ u-wRes(⊕) = RevRes(⊕), which effectively allows us to reduce the problem of proving Pigeonhole Principle lower bounds in Res(⊕) to proving Pigeonhole Principle lower bounds in RevRes(⊕), a potentially weaker proof system.

Cite as

Yaroslav Alekseev and Nikita Gaevoy. Intersection Theorems: A Potential Approach to Proof Complexity Lower Bounds. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 8:1-8:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{alekseev_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.8,
  author =	{Alekseev, Yaroslav and Gaevoy, Nikita},
  title =	{{Intersection Theorems: A Potential Approach to Proof Complexity Lower Bounds}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:18},
  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.2026.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252953},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: proof complexity, intersection theorems}
}
Document
On Closure Properties of Read-Once Oblivious Algebraic Branching Programs

Authors: Robert Andrews, Jules Armand, Prateek Dwivedi, Magnus Rahbek Dalgaard Hansen, Nutan Limaye, Srikanth Srinivasan, and Sébastien Tavenas

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


Abstract
We investigate the closure properties of read-once oblivious Algebraic Branching Programs (roABPs) under various natural algebraic operations and prove the following. - Non-closure under factoring: There is a sequence of explicit polynomials (f_n(x₁,…, x_n))_n that have poly(n)-sized roABPs such that some irreducible factor of f_n requires roABPs of superpolynomial size in any order. - Non-closure under powering: There is a sequence of polynomials (f_n(x₁,…, x_n))_n with poly(n)-sized roABPs such that any super-constant power of f_n does not have roABPs of polynomial size in any order (and f_nⁿ requires exponential size in any order). - Non-closure under symmetric operations: There are symmetric polynomials (f_n(e₁,…, e_n))_n that have roABPs of polynomial size such that f_n(x₁,…, x_n) do not have roABPs of subexponential size. (Here, e₁,…, e_n denote the elementary symmetric polynomials in n variables.) These results should be viewed in light of known results on models such as algebraic circuits, (general) algebraic branching programs, formulas and constant-depth circuits, all of which are known to be closed under these operations. To prove non-closure under factoring, we construct hard polynomials based on expander graphs using gadgets that lift their hardness from sparse polynomials to roABPs. For symmetric compositions, we show that the circulant polynomial requires roABPs of exponential size in every variable order.

Cite as

Robert Andrews, Jules Armand, Prateek Dwivedi, Magnus Rahbek Dalgaard Hansen, Nutan Limaye, Srikanth Srinivasan, and Sébastien Tavenas. On Closure Properties of Read-Once Oblivious Algebraic Branching Programs. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 9:1-9:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{andrews_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.9,
  author =	{Andrews, Robert and Armand, Jules and Dwivedi, Prateek and Hansen, Magnus Rahbek Dalgaard and Limaye, Nutan and Srinivasan, Srikanth and Tavenas, S\'{e}bastien},
  title =	{{On Closure Properties of Read-Once Oblivious Algebraic Branching Programs}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{9:1--9:21},
  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.2026.9},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252964},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.9},
  annote =	{Keywords: Factoring, Closure Properties, Sparsity Bounds, Symmetric Polynomials, roABP, Expander Graphs}
}
Document
An Unholy Trinity: TFNP, Polynomial Systems, and the Quantum Satisfiability Problem

Authors: Marco Aldi, Sevag Gharibian, and Dorian Rudolph

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


Abstract
The theory of Total Function NP (TFNP) and its subclasses says that, even if one is promised an efficiently verifiable proof exists for a problem, finding this proof can be intractable. Despite the success of the theory at showing intractability of problems such as computing Brouwer fixed points and Nash equilibria, subclasses of TFNP remain arguably few and far between. In this work, we define two new subclasses of TFNP borne of the study of complex polynomial systems: Multi-homogeneous Systems (MHS) and Sparse Fundamental Theorem of Algebra (SFTA). The first of these is based on Bézout’s theorem from algebraic geometry, marking the first TFNP subclass based on an algebraic geometric principle. At the heart of our study is the computational problem known as Quantum SAT (QSAT) with a System of Distinct Representatives (SDR), first studied by [Laumann, Läuchli, Moessner, Scardicchio, and Sondhi 2010]. Among other results, we show that QSAT with SDR is MHS-complete, thus giving not only the first link between quantum complexity theory and TFNP, but also the first TFNP problem whose classical variant (SAT with SDR) is easy but whose quantum variant is hard. We also show how to embed the roots of a sparse, high-degree, univariate polynomial into QSAT with SDR, obtaining that SFTA is contained in a zero-error version of MHS. We conjecture this construction also works in the low-error setting, which would imply SFTA ⊆ MHS.

Cite as

Marco Aldi, Sevag Gharibian, and Dorian Rudolph. An Unholy Trinity: TFNP, Polynomial Systems, and the Quantum Satisfiability Problem. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 7:1-7:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{aldi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.7,
  author =	{Aldi, Marco and Gharibian, Sevag and Rudolph, Dorian},
  title =	{{An Unholy Trinity: TFNP, Polynomial Systems, and the Quantum Satisfiability Problem}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:24},
  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.2026.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252946},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: quantum complexity theory, Quantum Merlin Arthur (QMA), Quantum Satisfiability Problem (QSAT), total function NP (TFNP)}
}
Document
Triangle Detection in H-Free Graphs

Authors: Amir Abboud, Ron Safier, and Nathan Wallheimer

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


Abstract
We initiate the study of combinatorial algorithms for Triangle Detection in H-free graphs. The goal is to decide if a graph that forbids a fixed pattern H as a subgraph contains a triangle, using only "combinatorial" methods that notably exclude fast matrix multiplication. Our work aims to classify which patterns admit a subcubic speedup, working towards a dichotomy theorem. On the lower bound side, we show that if H is not 3-colorable or contains more than one triangle, the complexity of the problem remains unchanged, and no combinatorial speedup is likely possible. On the upper bound side, we develop an embedding approach that results in a strongly subcubic, combinatorial algorithm for a rich class of "embeddable" patterns. Specifically, for an embeddable pattern of size k, our algorithm runs in Õ(n^{3-1/(2^{k-3)}}) time, where Õ(⋅) hides poly-logarithmic factors. This algorithm also extends to listing all the triangles within the same time bound. We supplement this main result with two generalizations: - A generalization to patterns that are embeddable up to a single obstacle that arises from a triangle in the pattern. This completes our classification for small patterns, yielding a dichotomy theorem for all patterns of size up to eight. - An H-sensitive algorithm for embeddable patterns, which runs faster when the number of copies of H is significantly smaller than the maximum possible Ω(n^{k}). Finally, we focus on the special case of odd cycles. We present specialized Triangle Detection algorithms that are very efficient: - A combinatorial algorithm for C_{2k+1}-free graphs that runs in Õ(m+n^{1+2/k}) time for every k ≥ 2, where m is the number of edges in the graph. - A combinatorial C₅-sensitive algorithm that runs in Õ(n² + n^{4/3} t^{1/3}) time, where t is the number of 5-cycles in the graph.

Cite as

Amir Abboud, Ron Safier, and Nathan Wallheimer. Triangle Detection in H-Free Graphs. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 1:1-1:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{abboud_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.1,
  author =	{Abboud, Amir and Safier, Ron and Wallheimer, Nathan},
  title =	{{Triangle Detection in H-Free Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{1:1--1:19},
  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.2026.1},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252885},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.1},
  annote =	{Keywords: fine-grained complexity, triangle detection, H-free graphs}
}
Document
Total Search Problems in ZPP

Authors: Noah Fleming, Stefan Grosser, Siddhartha Jain, Jiawei Li, Hanlin Ren, Morgan Shirley, and Weiqiang Yuan

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


Abstract
We initiate a systematic study of TFZPP, the class of total NP search problems solvable by polynomial time randomized algorithms. TFZPP contains a variety of important search problems such as Bertrand-Chebyshev (finding a prime between N and 2N), refuter problems for many circuit lower bounds, and Lossy-Code. The Lossy-Code problem has found prominence due to its fundamental connections to derandomization, catalytic computing, and the metamathematics of complexity theory, among other areas. While TFZPP collapses to FP under standard derandomization assumptions in the white-box setting, we are able to separate TFZPP from the major TFNP subclasses in the black-box setting. In fact, we are able to separate it from every uniform TFNP class assuming that NP is not in quasi-polynomial time. To do so, we extend the connection between proof complexity and black-box TFNP to randomized proof systems and randomized reductions. Next, we turn to developing a taxonomy of TFZPP problems. We highlight a problem called Nephew, originating from an infinity axiom in set theory. We show that Nephew is in PWPP∩ TFZPP and conjecture that it is not reducible to Lossy-Code. Intriguingly, except for some artificial examples, most other black-box TFZPP problems that we are aware of reduce to Lossy-Code: - We define a problem called Empty-Child capturing finding a leaf in a rooted (binary) tree, and show that this problem is equivalent to Lossy-Code. We also show that a variant of Empty-Child with "heights" is complete for the intersection of SOPL and Lossy-Code. - We strengthen Lossy-Code with several combinatorial inequalities such as the AM-GM inequality. Somewhat surprisingly, we show the resulting new problems are still reducible to Lossy-Code. A technical highlight of this result is that they are proved by formalizations in bounded arithmetic, specifically in Jeřábek’s theory APC₁ (JSL 2007). - Finally, we show that the Dense-Linear-Ordering problem reduces to Lossy-Code.

Cite as

Noah Fleming, Stefan Grosser, Siddhartha Jain, Jiawei Li, Hanlin Ren, Morgan Shirley, and Weiqiang Yuan. Total Search Problems in ZPP. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 60:1-60:26, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{fleming_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.60,
  author =	{Fleming, Noah and Grosser, Stefan and Jain, Siddhartha and Li, Jiawei and Ren, Hanlin and Shirley, Morgan and Yuan, Weiqiang},
  title =	{{Total Search Problems in ZPP}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{60:1--60:26},
  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.2026.60},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253473},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.60},
  annote =	{Keywords: TFNP, lossy code, randomized proof systems, query complexity}
}
Document
Query Lower Bounds for Correlation Clustering Under Memory Constraints

Authors: Sumegha Garg, Songhua He, and Periklis A. Papakonstantinou

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


Abstract
This work initiates the study of memory–query tradeoffs for graph problems, with a focus on correlation clustering. Correlation clustering asks for a partition of the vertices that minimizes disagreements: non‑edges inside clusters plus edges across clusters. Our first result is a tight query lower bound: to output a partition whose cost approximates the optimum up to an additive error of ε n², any algorithm requires Ω(n/ε²) adjacency-matrix queries. Under memory constraints, we show that even for the seemingly easier task of approximating the optimal clustering cost (without producing a partition), any algorithm in the random query model must make ≫ n/ε² adjacency-matrix queries. Finally, we prove the first general graph model query lower bound for correlation clustering, where algorithms are allowed adjacency-matrix, neighbor, and degree queries. The latter two bounds are not yet tight, leaving room for sharper results.

Cite as

Sumegha Garg, Songhua He, and Periklis A. Papakonstantinou. Query Lower Bounds for Correlation Clustering Under Memory Constraints. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 67:1-67:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{garg_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.67,
  author =	{Garg, Sumegha and He, Songhua and Papakonstantinou, Periklis A.},
  title =	{{Query Lower Bounds for Correlation Clustering Under Memory Constraints}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{67:1--67:24},
  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.2026.67},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253542},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.67},
  annote =	{Keywords: correlation clustering, query-space complexity, information theory}
}
Document
PhD Panel
Unsupervised Multimodal Learning for Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis - Application to Radiotherapy Systems (PhD Panel)

Authors: Kélian Poujade, Louise Travé-Massuyès, Jérémy Pirard, and Laure Vieillevigne

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 136, 36th International Conference on Principles of Diagnosis and Resilient Systems (DX 2025)


Abstract
Modern complex systems, such as radiotherapy machines, require robust strategies for fault detection, diagnosis, and prognosis to ensure operational continuity and patient safety. While data-driven methods have gained traction, few studies address diagnostic and prognostic tasks using multimodal operational data under unsupervised or semi-supervised learning settings. This gap is particularly critical given the scarcity of labeled failure data in real-world environments. This work aims to design a unified approach for fault detection, diagnosis, and prognosis using multimodal data in the absence of complete labeling. To this end, autoencoders (AEs) are employed due to their suitability for unsupervised and self-supervised learning, flexibility in handling heterogeneous data, and ability to construct latent representations optimized for various downstream tasks. A specific implementation based on a Long Short-Term Memory β-Variational Autoencoder (LSTM-β-VAE) was developed to detect anomalies in machine logs. This framework is applied to TomoTherapy® systems - a highly complex and under-explored use case within the radiotherapy domain. Initial results demonstrate strong anomaly detection performance on both a public benchmark dataset (HDFS) and a proprietary dataset derived from real-world TomoTherapy® machine faults. Beyond methodology, the paper includes a concise literature review of multimodal learning and data-driven diagnosis and prognosis with a focus on AEs. Based on this review, key research directions are identified for the continuation of the thesis, especially the integration of explainable AI as a means to enhance diagnosis capabilities in the absence of labeled faults.

Cite as

Kélian Poujade, Louise Travé-Massuyès, Jérémy Pirard, and Laure Vieillevigne. Unsupervised Multimodal Learning for Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis - Application to Radiotherapy Systems (PhD Panel). In 36th International Conference on Principles of Diagnosis and Resilient Systems (DX 2025). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 136, pp. 16:1-16:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{poujade_et_al:OASIcs.DX.2025.16,
  author =	{Poujade, K\'{e}lian and Trav\'{e}-Massuy\`{e}s, Louise and Pirard, J\'{e}r\'{e}my and Vieillevigne, Laure},
  title =	{{Unsupervised Multimodal Learning for Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis - Application to Radiotherapy Systems}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Conference on Principles of Diagnosis and Resilient Systems (DX 2025)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:17},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-394-2},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{136},
  editor =	{Quinones-Grueiro, Marcos and Biswas, Gautam and Pill, Ingo},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.DX.2025.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248058},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.DX.2025.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Radiotherapy machines}
}
Document
Survey
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)


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@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
Hardness of Median and Center in the Ulam Metric

Authors: Nick Fischer, Elazar Goldenberg, Mursalin Habib, and Karthik C. S.

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


Abstract
The classical rank aggregation problem seeks to combine a set X of n permutations into a single representative "consensus" permutation. In this paper, we investigate two fundamental rank aggregation tasks under the well-studied Ulam metric: computing a median permutation (which minimizes the sum of Ulam distances to X) and computing a center permutation (which minimizes the maximum Ulam distance to X) in two settings. - Continuous Setting: In the continuous setting, the median/center is allowed to be any permutation. It is known that computing a center in the Ulam metric is NP-hard and we add to this by showing that computing a median is NP-hard as well via a simple reduction from the Max-Cut problem. While this result may not be unexpected, it had remained elusive until now and confirms a speculation by Chakraborty, Das, and Krauthgamer [SODA '21]. - Discrete Setting: In the discrete setting, the median/center must be a permutation from the input set. We fully resolve the fine-grained complexity of the discrete median and discrete center problems under the Ulam metric, proving that the naive Õ(n² L)-time algorithm (where L is the length of the permutation) is conditionally optimal. This resolves an open problem raised by Abboud, Bateni, Cohen-Addad, Karthik C. S., and Seddighin [APPROX '23]. Our reductions are inspired by the known fine-grained lower bounds for similarity measures, but we face and overcome several new highly technical challenges.

Cite as

Nick Fischer, Elazar Goldenberg, Mursalin Habib, and Karthik C. S.. Hardness of Median and Center in the Ulam Metric. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 111:1-111:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{fischer_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.111,
  author =	{Fischer, Nick and Goldenberg, Elazar and Habib, Mursalin and Karthik C. S.},
  title =	{{Hardness of Median and Center in the Ulam Metric}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{111:1--111:17},
  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.2025.111},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245809},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.111},
  annote =	{Keywords: Ulam distance, median, center, rank aggregation, fine-grained complexity}
}
Document
On the Definition of Malicious Private Information Retrieval

Authors: Bar Alon and Amos Beimel

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 343, 6th Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2025)


Abstract
A multi-server private information retrieval (PIR) protocol allows a client to obtain an entry of its choice from a database, held by one or more servers, while hiding the identity of the entry from small enough coalitions of servers. In this paper, we study PIR protocols in which some of the servers are malicious and may not send messages according to the pre-described protocol. In previous papers, such protocols were defined by requiring that they are correct, private, and robust to malicious servers, i.e., by listing 3 properties that they should satisfy. However, 40 years of experience in studying secure multiparty protocols taught us that defining the security of protocols by a list of required properties is problematic. In this paper, we rectify this situation and define the security of PIR protocols with malicious servers using the real vs. ideal paradigm. We study the relationship between the property-based definition of PIR protocols and the real vs. ideal definition, showing the following results: - We prove that if we require full security from PIR protocols, e.g., the client outputs the correct value of the database entry with high probability even if a minority of the servers are malicious, then the two definitions are equivalent. This implies that constructions of such protocols that were proven secure using the property-based definition are actually secure under the "correct" definition of security. - We show that if we require security-with-abort from PIR protocols (called PIR protocols with error-detection in previous papers), i.e., protocols in which the user either outputs the correct value or an abort symbol, then there are protocols that are secure under the property-based definition; however, they do not satisfy the real vs. ideal definition, that is, they can be attacked allowing selective abort. This shows that the property-based definition of PIR protocols with security-with-abort is problematic. - We consider the compiler of Eriguchi et al. (TCC 22) that starts with a PIR protocol that is secure against semi-honest servers and constructs a PIR protocol with security-with-abort; this compiler implies the best-known PIR protocols with security-with-abort. We show that applying this compiler does not result in PIR protocols that are secure according to the real vs. ideal definition. However, we prove that a simple modification of this compiler results in PIR protocols that are secure according to the real vs. ideal definition.

Cite as

Bar Alon and Amos Beimel. On the Definition of Malicious Private Information Retrieval. In 6th Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 343, pp. 8:1-8:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{alon_et_al:LIPIcs.ITC.2025.8,
  author =	{Alon, Bar and Beimel, Amos},
  title =	{{On the Definition of Malicious Private Information Retrieval}},
  booktitle =	{6th Conference on Information-Theoretic Cryptography (ITC 2025)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-385-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{343},
  editor =	{Gilboa, Niv},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2025.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-243581},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITC.2025.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: Private information retrieval, secure multiparty computation}
}
Document
Large Multi-Modal Model Cartographic Map Comprehension for Textual Locality Georeferencing

Authors: Kalana Wijegunarathna, Kristin Stock, and Christopher B. Jones

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 346, 13th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2025)


Abstract
Millions of biological sample records collected in the last few centuries archived in natural history collections are un-georeferenced. Georeferencing complex locality descriptions associated with these collection samples is a highly labour-intensive task collection agencies struggle with. None of the existing automated methods exploit maps that are an essential tool for georeferencing complex relations. We present preliminary experiments and results of a novel method that exploits multi-modal capabilities of recent Large Multi-Modal Models (LMM). This method enables the model to visually contextualize spatial relations it reads in the locality description. We use a grid-based approach to adapt these auto-regressive models for this task in a zero-shot setting. Our experiments conducted on a small manually annotated dataset show impressive results for our approach (∼1 km Average distance error) compared to uni-modal georeferencing with Large Language Models and existing georeferencing tools. The paper also discusses the findings of the experiments in light of an LMM’s ability to comprehend fine-grained maps. Motivated by these results, a practical framework is proposed to integrate this method into a georeferencing workflow.

Cite as

Kalana Wijegunarathna, Kristin Stock, and Christopher B. Jones. Large Multi-Modal Model Cartographic Map Comprehension for Textual Locality Georeferencing. In 13th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 346, pp. 12:1-12:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{wijegunarathna_et_al:LIPIcs.GIScience.2025.12,
  author =	{Wijegunarathna, Kalana and Stock, Kristin and Jones, Christopher B.},
  title =	{{Large Multi-Modal Model Cartographic Map Comprehension for Textual Locality Georeferencing}},
  booktitle =	{13th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2025)},
  pages =	{12:1--12:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-378-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{346},
  editor =	{Sila-Nowicka, Katarzyna and Moore, Antoni and O'Sullivan, David and Adams, Benjamin and Gahegan, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.GIScience.2025.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-238412},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.GIScience.2025.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: Large Multi-Modal Models, Large Language Models, LLM, Georeferencing, Natural History collections}
}
Document
Assessing Map Reproducibility with Visual Question-Answering: An Empirical Evaluation

Authors: Eftychia Koukouraki, Auriol Degbelo, and Christian Kray

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 346, 13th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2025)


Abstract
Reproducibility is a key principle of the modern scientific method. Maps, as an important means of communicating scientific results in GIScience and across disciplines, should be reproducible. Currently, map reproducibility assessment is done manually, which makes the assessment process tedious and time-consuming, ultimately limiting its efficiency. Hence, this work explores the extent to which Visual Question-Answering (VQA) can be used to automate some tasks relevant to map reproducibility assessment. We selected five state-of-the-art vision language models (VLMs) and followed a three-step approach to evaluate their ability to discriminate between maps and other images, interpret map content, and compare two map images using VQA. Our results show that current VLMs already possess map-reading capabilities and demonstrate understanding of spatial concepts, such as cardinal directions, geographic scope, and legend interpretation. Our paper demonstrates the potential of using VQA to support reproducibility assessment and highlights the outstanding issues that need to be addressed to achieve accurate, trustworthy map descriptions, thereby reducing the time and effort required by human evaluators.

Cite as

Eftychia Koukouraki, Auriol Degbelo, and Christian Kray. Assessing Map Reproducibility with Visual Question-Answering: An Empirical Evaluation. In 13th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 346, pp. 13:1-13:12, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{koukouraki_et_al:LIPIcs.GIScience.2025.13,
  author =	{Koukouraki, Eftychia and Degbelo, Auriol and Kray, Christian},
  title =	{{Assessing Map Reproducibility with Visual Question-Answering: An Empirical Evaluation}},
  booktitle =	{13th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2025)},
  pages =	{13:1--13:12},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-378-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{346},
  editor =	{Sila-Nowicka, Katarzyna and Moore, Antoni and O'Sullivan, David and Adams, Benjamin and Gahegan, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.GIScience.2025.13},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-238426},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.GIScience.2025.13},
  annote =	{Keywords: map comparison, computational reproducibility, visual question answering, large language models, GeoAI}
}
Document
Provably Total Functions in the Polynomial Hierarchy

Authors: Noah Fleming, Deniz Imrek, and Christophe Marciot

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 339, 40th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2025)


Abstract
TFNP studies the complexity of total, verifiable search problems, and represents the first layer of the total function polynomial hierarchy (TFPH). Recently, problems in higher levels of the TFPH have gained significant attention, partly due to their close connection to circuit lower bounds. However, very little is known about the relationships between problems in levels of the hierarchy beyond TFNP. Connections to proof complexity have had an outsized impact on our understanding of the relationships between subclasses of TFNP in the black-box model. Subclasses are characterized by provability in certain proof systems, which has allowed for tools from proof complexity to be applied in order to separate TFNP problems. In this work we begin a systematic study of the relationship between subclasses of total search problems in the polynomial hierarchy and proof systems. We show that, akin to TFNP, reductions to a problem in TFΣ_d are equivalent to proofs of the formulas expressing the totality of the problems in some Σ_d-proof system. Having established this general correspondence, we examine important subclasses of TFPH. We show that reductions to the StrongAvoid problem are equivalent to proofs in a Σ₂-variant of the (unary) Sherali-Adams proof system. As well, we explore the TFPH classes which result from well-studied proof systems, introducing a number of new TFΣ₂ classes which characterize variants of DNF resolution, as well as TFΣ_d classes capturing levels of Σ_d-bounded-depth Frege.

Cite as

Noah Fleming, Deniz Imrek, and Christophe Marciot. Provably Total Functions in the Polynomial Hierarchy. In 40th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 339, pp. 28:1-28:40, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{fleming_et_al:LIPIcs.CCC.2025.28,
  author =	{Fleming, Noah and Imrek, Deniz and Marciot, Christophe},
  title =	{{Provably Total Functions in the Polynomial Hierarchy}},
  booktitle =	{40th Computational Complexity Conference (CCC 2025)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:40},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-379-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{339},
  editor =	{Srinivasan, Srikanth},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2025.28},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-237223},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CCC.2025.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: TFNP, TFPH, Proof Complxity, Characterizations}
}
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