LIPIcs.ICALP.2019.72.pdf
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There are various notions of balancing set families that appear in combinatorics and computer science. For example, a family of proper non-empty subsets S_1,...,S_k subset [n] is balancing if for every subset X subset {1,2,...,n} of size n/2, there is an i in [k] so that |S_i cap X| = |S_i|/2. We extend and simplify the framework developed by Hegedűs for proving lower bounds on the size of balancing set families. We prove that if n=2p for a prime p, then k >= p. For arbitrary values of n, we show that k >= n/2 - o(n). We then exploit the connection between balancing families and depth-2 threshold circuits. This connection helps resolve a question raised by Kulikov and Podolskii on the fan-in of depth-2 majority circuits computing the majority function on n bits. We show that any depth-2 threshold circuit that computes the majority on n bits has at least one gate with fan-in at least n/2 - o(n). We also prove a sharp lower bound on the fan-in of depth-2 threshold circuits computing a specific weighted threshold function.
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