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Documents authored by Serre, Olivier


Document
Lower Bounds for Arithmetic Circuits via the Hankel Matrix

Authors: Nathanaël Fijalkow, Guillaume Lagarde, Pierre Ohlmann, and Olivier Serre

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 154, 37th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2020)


Abstract
We study the complexity of representing polynomials by arithmetic circuits in both the commutative and the non-commutative settings. To analyse circuits we count their number of parse trees, which describe the non-associative computations realised by the circuit. In the non-commutative setting a circuit computing a polynomial of degree d has at most 2^{O(d)} parse trees. Previous superpolynomial lower bounds were known for circuits with up to 2^{d^{1/3-ε}} parse trees, for any ε > 0. Our main result is to reduce the gap by showing a superpolynomial lower bound for circuits with just a small defect in the exponent for the total number of parse trees, that is 2^{d^{1 - ε}}, for any ε > 0. In the commutative setting a circuit computing a polynomial of degree d has at most 2^{O(d log d)} parse trees. We show a superpolynomial lower bound for circuits with up to 2^{d^{1/3 - ε}} parse trees, for any ε > 0. When d is polylogarithmic in n, we push this further to up to 2^{d^{1 - ε}} parse trees. While these two main results hold in the associative setting, our approach goes through a precise understanding of the more restricted setting where multiplication is not associative, meaning that we distinguish the polynomials (xy)z and x(yz). Our first and main conceptual result is a characterization result: we show that the size of the smallest circuit computing a given non-associative polynomial is exactly the rank of a matrix constructed from the polynomial and called the Hankel matrix. This result applies to the class of all circuits in both commutative and non-commutative settings, and can be seen as an extension of the seminal result of Nisan giving a similar characterization for non-commutative algebraic branching programs. Our key technical contribution is to provide generic lower bound theorems based on analyzing and decomposing the Hankel matrix, from which we derive the results mentioned above. The study of the Hankel matrix also provides a unifying approach for proving lower bounds for polynomials in the (classical) associative setting. We demonstrate this by giving alternative proofs of recent lower bounds as corollaries of our generic lower bound results.

Cite as

Nathanaël Fijalkow, Guillaume Lagarde, Pierre Ohlmann, and Olivier Serre. Lower Bounds for Arithmetic Circuits via the Hankel Matrix. In 37th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 154, pp. 24:1-24:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)


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@InProceedings{fijalkow_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2020.24,
  author =	{Fijalkow, Nathana\"{e}l and Lagarde, Guillaume and Ohlmann, Pierre and Serre, Olivier},
  title =	{{Lower Bounds for Arithmetic Circuits via the Hankel Matrix}},
  booktitle =	{37th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2020)},
  pages =	{24:1--24:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-140-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{154},
  editor =	{Paul, Christophe and Bl\"{a}ser, Markus},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2020.24},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-118859},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2020.24},
  annote =	{Keywords: Arithmetic Circuit Complexity, Lower Bounds, Parse Trees, Hankel Matrix}
}
Document
Streaming Property Testing of Visibly Pushdown Languages

Authors: Nathanaël François, Frédéric Magniez, Michel de Rougemont, and Olivier Serre

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 57, 24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2016)


Abstract
In the context of formal language recognition, we demonstrate the superiority of streaming property testers against streaming algorithms and property testers, when they are not combined. Initiated by Feigenbaum et al., a streaming property tester is a streaming algorithm recognizing a language under the property testing approximation: it must distinguish inputs of the language from those that are eps-far from it, while using the smallest possible memory (rather than limiting its number of input queries). Our main result is a streaming eps-property tester for visibly pushdown languages (V_{PL}) with memory space poly(log n /epsilon). Our construction is done in three steps. First, we simulate a visibly pushdown automaton in one pass using a stack of small height but whose items can be of linear size. In a second step, those items are replaced by small sketches. Those sketches rely on a notion of suffix-sampling we introduce. This sampling is the key idea for taking benefit of both streaming algorithms and property testers in the third step. Indeed, the last step relies on a (non-streaming) property tester for weighted regular languages based on a previous tester by Alon et al. This tester can directly be used for streaming testing special cases of instances of V_{PL} that are already hard for both streaming algorithms and property testers. We then use it to decide the correctness of completed items, given their sketches, before removing them from the stack.

Cite as

Nathanaël François, Frédéric Magniez, Michel de Rougemont, and Olivier Serre. Streaming Property Testing of Visibly Pushdown Languages. In 24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2016). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 57, pp. 43:1-43:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2016)


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@InProceedings{francois_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2016.43,
  author =	{Fran\c{c}ois, Nathana\"{e}l and Magniez, Fr\'{e}d\'{e}ric and de Rougemont, Michel and Serre, Olivier},
  title =	{{Streaming Property Testing of Visibly Pushdown Languages}},
  booktitle =	{24th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2016)},
  pages =	{43:1--43:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-015-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2016},
  volume =	{57},
  editor =	{Sankowski, Piotr and Zaroliagis, Christos},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2016.43},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-63559},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2016.43},
  annote =	{Keywords: Streaming Algorithm, Property Testing, Visibly Pushdown Languages}
}
Document
Emptiness Of Alternating Tree Automata Using Games With Imperfect Information

Authors: Nathanaël Fijalkow, Sophie Pinchinat, and Olivier Serre

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 24, IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2013)


Abstract
We consider the emptiness problem for alternating tree automata, with two acceptance semantics: classical (all branches are accepted) and qualitative (almost all branches are accepted). For the classical semantics, the usual technique to tackle this problem relies on a Simulation Theorem which constructs an equivalent non-deterministic automaton from the original alternating one, and then checks emptiness by a reduction to a two-player perfect information game. However, for the qualitative semantics, no simulation of alternation by means of non-determinism is known. We give an alternative technique to decide the emptiness problem of alternating tree automata, that does not rely on a Simulation Theorem. Indeed, we directly reduce the emptiness problem to solving an imperfect information two-player parity game. Our new approach can successfully be applied to both semantics, and yields decidability results with optimal complexity; for the qualitative semantics, the key ingredient in the proof is a positionality result for stochastic games played over infinite graphs.

Cite as

Nathanaël Fijalkow, Sophie Pinchinat, and Olivier Serre. Emptiness Of Alternating Tree Automata Using Games With Imperfect Information. In IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2013). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 24, pp. 299-311, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2013)


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@InProceedings{fijalkow_et_al:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2013.299,
  author =	{Fijalkow, Nathana\"{e}l and Pinchinat, Sophie and Serre, Olivier},
  title =	{{Emptiness Of Alternating Tree Automata Using Games With Imperfect Information}},
  booktitle =	{IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2013)},
  pages =	{299--311},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-939897-64-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2013},
  volume =	{24},
  editor =	{Seth, Anil and Vishnoi, Nisheeth K.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2013.299},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-43812},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2013.299},
  annote =	{Keywords: Alternating Automata, Emptiness checking, Two-player games, Imperfect Information Games}
}
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