114 Search Results for "Pitassi, Toniann"

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9
Serving Clients Fairly: On Facility Location and k-Median with Fair Outliers

Authors: Rajni Dabas, Samir Khuller, and Emilie Rivkin

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

Abstract
Classical clustering problems such as Facility Location and k-Median aim to efficiently serve a set of clients from a subset of facilities - minimizing the total cost of facility openings and client assignments in Facility Location, and minimizing assignment (service) cost under a facility count constraint in k-Median. These problems are highly sensitive to outliers, and therefore researchers have studied variants that allow excluding a small number of clients as outliers to reduce cost. However, in many real-world settings, clients belong to different demographic or functional groups, and unconstrained outlier removal can disproportionately exclude certain groups, raising fairness concerns, especially when the facilities correspond to critically needed facilities for emergencies such as fire stations, hospitals and other emergency services. We study Facility Location with Fair Outliers, where each group is allowed a specified number of outliers, and the objective is to minimize total cost while respecting group-wise fairness constraints. We present a bicriteria approximation with a O(1/ε) approximation factor and (1+ 2ε) factor violation in outliers per group. For k-Median with Fair Outliers, we design a bicriteria approximation with a 4(1+ω/ε) approximation factor and (ω + ε) violation in outliers per group improving on prior work by avoiding dependence on k in outlier violations. We also prove that the problems are W[1]-hard parameterized by ω. We complement our algorithmic contributions with a detailed empirical analysis, demonstrating that fairness can be achieved with negligible increase in cost and that the integrality gap of the standard LP is small in practice.
Cite as

Rajni Dabas, Samir Khuller, and Emilie Rivkin. Serving Clients Fairly: On Facility Location and k-Median with Fair Outliers. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 9:1-9:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{dabas_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9,
  author =	{Dabas, Rajni and Khuller, Samir and Rivkin, Emilie},
  title =	{{Serving Clients Fairly: On Facility Location and k-Median with Fair Outliers}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{9:1--9:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259812},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.9},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation algorithms, fairness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.12
Tradeoffs in Privacy, Welfare, and Fairness for Facility Location

Authors: Sara Fish, Yannai A. Gonczarowski, Jason Z. Tang, and Salil Vadhan

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

Abstract
The differentially private (DP) facility location problem seeks to determine a socially optimal placement for a public facility while ensuring that each participating agent’s location remains private. In order to privatize its input data, a DP mechanism must inject noise into its output distribution, producing a placement that will have lower expected social welfare than the optimal spot for the facility. The privacy-induced welfare loss can be viewed as the "cost of privacy," illustrating a tradeoff between social welfare and privacy that has been the focus of prior work. Yet, the imposition of privacy also induces a third consideration that has not been similarly studied: fairness in how the "cost of privacy" is distributed across individuals. For instance, a mechanism may satisfy differential privacy with minimal social welfare loss, yet still be undesirable if that loss falls entirely on one individual. In this paper, we quantify this new notion of unfairness and design mechanisms for facility location that attempt to simultaneously optimize across these three objectives of privacy, social welfare, and fairness. Under this setup, we first derive an impossibility result, showing that privacy and fairness cannot be simultaneously guaranteed over all possible datasets that could represent the locations of individuals in a population. We then consider a relaxation of the original problem that still requires worst-case differential privacy, but only seeks fairness and appealing social welfare over smaller, more "realistic-looking" families of datasets. For this relaxation, we construct a DP mechanism and demonstrate that it is simultaneously optimal (or, for a harder family of datasets, near-optimal up to small factors) on fairness and social welfare. This suggests that while there is a tradeoff between privacy and each of social welfare and fairness, there is no additional tradeoff when we consider all three objectives simultaneously, provided that the population data is sufficiently natural.
Cite as

Sara Fish, Yannai A. Gonczarowski, Jason Z. Tang, and Salil Vadhan. Tradeoffs in Privacy, Welfare, and Fairness for Facility Location. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 12:1-12:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{fish_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.12,
  author =	{Fish, Sara and Gonczarowski, Yannai A. and Tang, Jason Z. and Vadhan, Salil},
  title =	{{Tradeoffs in Privacy, Welfare, and Fairness for Facility Location}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{12:1--12:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259858},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: differential privacy, facility location, fairness, mechanism design}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.17
Protecting the Undeleted in Machine Unlearning

Authors: Aloni Cohen, Refael Kohen, Kobbi Nissim, and Uri Stemmer

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

Abstract
Machine unlearning aims to remove specific data points from a trained model, often striving to emulate "perfect retraining", i.e., producing the model that would have been obtained had the deleted data never been included. We demonstrate that this approach, and security definitions that enable it, carry significant privacy risks for the remaining (undeleted) data points. We present a reconstruction attack showing that for certain tasks, which can be computed securely without deletions, a mechanism adhering to perfect retraining allows an adversary controlling merely ω(1) data points to reconstruct almost the entire dataset simply by issuing deletion requests. We survey existing definitions for machine unlearning, showing they are either susceptible to such attacks or too restrictive to support basic functionalities like exact summation. To address this problem, we propose a new security definition that specifically safeguards undeleted data against leakage caused by the deletion of other points. We show that our definition permits several essential functionalities, such as bulletin boards, summations, and statistical learning.
Cite as

Aloni Cohen, Refael Kohen, Kobbi Nissim, and Uri Stemmer. Protecting the Undeleted in Machine Unlearning. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 17:1-17:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{cohen_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.17,
  author =	{Cohen, Aloni and Kohen, Refael and Nissim, Kobbi and Stemmer, Uri},
  title =	{{Protecting the Undeleted in Machine Unlearning}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259901},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Unlearning, data deletion, privacy}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.22
Separating Oblivious and Adaptive Differential Privacy Under Continual Observation

Authors: Mark Bun, Marco Gaboardi, and Connor Wagaman

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

Abstract
We resolve an open question of Jain, Raskhodnikova, Sivakumar, and Smith (ICML 2023) by exhibiting a problem separating differential privacy under continual observation in the oblivious and adaptive settings. The continual observation (a.k.a. continual release) model formalizes privacy for streaming algorithms, where data is received over time and output is released at each time step. In the oblivious setting, privacy need only hold for data streams fixed in advance; in the adaptive setting, privacy is required even for streams that can be chosen adaptively based on the streaming algorithm’s output. We describe the first explicit separation between the oblivious and adaptive settings. The problem showing this separation is based on the correlated vector queries problem of Bun, Steinke, and Ullman (SODA 2017). Specifically, we present an (ε,0)-DP algorithm for the oblivious setting that remains accurate for exponentially many time steps in the dimension of the input. On the other hand, we show that every (ε,δ)-DP adaptive algorithm fails to be accurate after releasing output for only a constant number of time steps.
Cite as

Mark Bun, Marco Gaboardi, and Connor Wagaman. Separating Oblivious and Adaptive Differential Privacy Under Continual Observation. In 7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 368, pp. 22:1-22:11, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{bun_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2026.22,
  author =	{Bun, Mark and Gaboardi, Marco and Wagaman, Connor},
  title =	{{Separating Oblivious and Adaptive Differential Privacy Under Continual Observation}},
  booktitle =	{7th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2026)},
  pages =	{22:1--22:11},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-419-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{368},
  editor =	{Lin, Huijia (Rachel)},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.22},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-259959},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2026.22},
  annote =	{Keywords: differential privacy, continual observation, continual release, streaming algorithms, adaptive algorithms}
}
Document
Invited Talk
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.3
Building Relational Circuits (Invited Talk)

Authors: Florent Capelli

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 365, 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026)

Abstract
We review two algorithms which allow to build a factorized representation of the answers set of join queries. In a nutshell, the representation builds a circuit representing the answers set of a join query by starting from atomic relations and iteratively combine them by either constructing the Cartesian product or the disjoint union of previously computed relations. The first one can be seen as the trace of the celebrated Yannakakis algorithm, building the answer set from the inputs to the output of the circuit while the second adopts a top-down approach which can be seen as a generalization of the exhaustive DPLL algorithm, originally designed to solve the #SAT problem.
Cite as

Florent Capelli. Building Relational Circuits (Invited Talk). In 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 365, pp. 3:1-3:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{capelli:LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.3,
  author =	{Capelli, Florent},
  title =	{{Building Relational Circuits}},
  booktitle =	{29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-413-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{365},
  editor =	{ten Cate, Balder and Funk, Maurice},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-256172},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: Conjunctive queries, factorized databases, knowledge compilation}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28
Conditional Complexity Hardness: Monotone Circuit Size, Matrix Rigidity, and Tensor Rank

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

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

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

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

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@InProceedings{chukhin_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28,
  author =	{Chukhin, Nikolai and Kulikov, Alexander S. and Mihajlin, Ivan and Smirnova, Arina},
  title =	{{Conditional Complexity Hardness: Monotone Circuit Size, Matrix Rigidity, and Tensor Rank}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{28:1--28:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255177},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.28},
  annote =	{Keywords: computational complexity, circuit complexity, lower bounds, conditional lower bounds, monotone circuits, matrix rigidity, tensor rank, arithmetic circuits, fine-grained complexity}
}
Document
Invited Paper
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CSL.2026.3
Rational Lawvere Logic (Invited Paper)

Authors: Giorgio Bacci, Radu Mardare, Prakash Panangaden, and Gordon Plotkin

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 363, 34th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic (CSL 2026)

Abstract
We study Rational Lawvere logic (RL). This logic is defined over the extended positive reals with an algebraic structure combining the Lawvere quantale (with the reversed order on the extended reals and a sum as tensor) and a multiplicative quantale (with the usual order on the extended reals and a multiplication as tensor); together they provide a semiring structure. The logic is designed for complex quantitative reasoning, including sequents expressing inequalities between rational functions over the extended positive reals. We give a deduction system and demonstrate its expressiveness by deriving a classical result from probability theory relating the Kantorovich and total variation distances. Our deductive system is complete for finitely axiomatizable theories. The proof of completeness relies on the Krivine-Stengle Positivstellensatz. We additionally provide complexity results for both RL and its affine fragment AL. We consider two decision problems: the satisfiability of a set of sequents and whether a sequent follows from a finite set of sequent. We show that both problems lie in PSPACE for RL, and we give sharper complexity bounds for AL: the first problem is NP-complete, while the second is co-NP-complete.
Cite as

Giorgio Bacci, Radu Mardare, Prakash Panangaden, and Gordon Plotkin. Rational Lawvere Logic (Invited Paper). In 34th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic (CSL 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 363, pp. 3:1-3:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{bacci_et_al:LIPIcs.CSL.2026.3,
  author =	{Bacci, Giorgio and Mardare, Radu and Panangaden, Prakash and Plotkin, Gordon},
  title =	{{Rational Lawvere Logic}},
  booktitle =	{34th EACSL Annual Conference on Computer Science Logic (CSL 2026)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-411-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{363},
  editor =	{Guerrini, Stefano and K\"{o}nig, Barbara},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CSL.2026.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-254277},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CSL.2026.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: Quantitative reasoning, complete deductive system, Lawvere’s quantale}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.37
New Algebrization Barriers to Circuit Lower Bounds via Communication Complexity of Missing-String

Authors: Lijie Chen, Yang Hu, and Hanlin Ren

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

Abstract
The algebrization barrier, proposed by Aaronson and Wigderson (STOC '08, ToCT '09), captures the limitations of many complexity-theoretic techniques based on arithmetization. Notably, several circuit lower bounds that overcome the relativization barrier (Buhrman-Fortnow-Thierauf, CCC '98; Vinodchandran, TCS '05; Santhanam, STOC '07, SICOMP '09) remain subject to the algebrization barrier. In this work, we establish several new algebrization barriers to circuit lower bounds by studying the communication complexity of the following problem, called XOR-Missing-String: For m < 2^{n/2}, Alice gets a list of m strings x₁, … , x_m ∈ {0, 1}ⁿ, Bob gets a list of m strings y₁, … , y_m ∈ {0, 1}ⁿ, and the goal is to output a string s ∈ {0, 1}ⁿ that is not equal to x_i⊕ y_j for any i, j ∈ [m]. 1) We construct an oracle A₁ and its multilinear extension A₁̃ such that PostBPE^{A₁̃} has linear-size A₁-oracle circuits on infinitely many input lengths. That is, proving PostBPE ̸ ⊆ i.o.- SIZE[O(n)] requires non-algebrizing techniques. This barrier follows from a PostBPP communication lower bound for XOR-Missing-String. This is in contrast to the well-known algebrizing lower bound MA_E (⊆ PostBPE) ̸ ⊆ P/_poly. 2) We construct an oracle A₂ and its multilinear extension A₂̃ such that BPE^{A₂̃} has linear-size A₂-oracle circuits on all input lengths. Previously, a similar barrier was demonstrated by Aaronson and Wigderson, but in their result, A₂̃ is only a multiquadratic extension of A₂. Our results show that communication complexity is more useful than previously thought for proving algebrization barriers, as Aaronson and Wigderson wrote that communication-based barriers were "more contrived". This serves as an example of how XOR-Missing-String forms new connections between communication lower bounds and algebrization barriers. 3) Finally, we study algebrization barriers to circuit lower bounds for MA_E. Buhrman, Fortnow, and Thierauf proved a sub-half-exponential circuit lower bound for MA_E via algebrizing techniques. Toward understanding whether the half-exponential bound can be improved, we define a natural subclass of MA_E that includes their hard MA_E language, and prove the following result: For every super-half-exponential function h(n), we construct an oracle A₃ and its multilinear extension A₃̃ such that this natural subclass of MA_E^{A₃̃} has h(n)-size A₃-oracle circuits on all input lengths. This suggests that half-exponential might be the correct barrier for MA_E circuit lower bounds w.r.t. algebrizing techniques.
Cite as

Lijie Chen, Yang Hu, and Hanlin Ren. New Algebrization Barriers to Circuit Lower Bounds via Communication Complexity of Missing-String. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 37:1-37:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.37,
  author =	{Chen, Lijie and Hu, Yang and Ren, Hanlin},
  title =	{{New Algebrization Barriers to Circuit Lower Bounds via Communication Complexity of Missing-String}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{37:1--37:20},
  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.2026.37},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253246},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.37},
  annote =	{Keywords: circuit lower bound, algebrization barrier, missing string, communication complexity}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46
Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials

Authors: Anuj Dawar, Benedikt Pago, and Tim Seppelt

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

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

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

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@InProceedings{dawar_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46,
  author =	{Dawar, Anuj and Pago, Benedikt and Seppelt, Tim},
  title =	{{Symmetric Algebraic Circuits and Homomorphism Polynomials}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{46:1--46:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253330},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.46},
  annote =	{Keywords: algebraic complexity, finite model theory, symmetric circuits, homomorphism counting, graph homomorphism, treewidth, counting width, first-order logic with counting quantifiers}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.40
A Simple and Robust Protocol for Distributed Counting

Authors: Edith Cohen, Moshe Shechner, and Uri Stemmer

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

Abstract
We revisit the distributed counting problem, where a server must continuously approximate the total number of events occurring across k sites while minimizing communication. The communication complexity of this problem is known to be Θ(k/(ε)log N) for deterministic protocols. Huang, Yi, and Zhang (2012) showed that randomization can reduce this to Θ((√k)/ε log N), but their analysis is restricted to the oblivious setting, where the stream of events is independent of the protocol’s outputs. Xiong, Zhu, and Huang (2023) presented a robust protocol for distributed counting that removes the oblivious assumption. However, their communication complexity is suboptimal by a polylog(k) factor and their protocol is substantially more complex than the oblivious protocol of Huang et al. (2012). This left open a natural question: could it be that the simple protocol of Huang et al. (2012) is already robust? We resolve this question with two main contributions. First, we show that the protocol of Huang et al. (2012) is itself not robust by constructing an explicit adaptive attack that forces it to lose its accuracy. Second, we present a new, surprisingly simple, robust protocol for distributed counting that achieves the optimal communication complexity of O((√k)/ε log N). Our protocol is simpler than that of Xiong et al. (2023), perhaps even simpler than that of Huang et al. (2012), and is the first to match the optimal oblivious complexity in the adaptive setting.
Cite as

Edith Cohen, Moshe Shechner, and Uri Stemmer. A Simple and Robust Protocol for Distributed Counting. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 40:1-40:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{cohen_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.40,
  author =	{Cohen, Edith and Shechner, Moshe and Stemmer, Uri},
  title =	{{A Simple and Robust Protocol for Distributed Counting}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{40:1--40:24},
  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.2026.40},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253272},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.40},
  annote =	{Keywords: Distributed Streaming, Adversarial Streaming}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.104
Dimension-Free Correlated Sampling for the Hypersimplex

Authors: Joseph (Seffi) Naor, Nitya Raju, Abhishek Shetty, Aravind Srinivasan, Renata Valieva, and David Wajc

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

Abstract
Sampling from multiple distributions so as to maximize overlap has been studied by statisticians since the 1950s. Since the 2000s, such correlated sampling from the probability simplex has been a powerful building block in disparate areas of theoretical computer science. We study a generalization of this problem to sampling sets from given vectors in the hypersimplex, i.e., outputting sets of size (at most) k ∈ [n], while maximizing the overlap of the sampled sets. Specifically, the expected difference between two output sets should be at most α times their input vectors' 𝓁₁ distance. A value of α = O(log n) is known to be achievable, due to Chen et al. (ICALP'17). We improve this factor to O(log k), independent of the ambient dimension n. Our algorithm satisfies other desirable properties, including (up to a log^* n factor) input-sparsity sampling time, logarithmic parallel depth and dynamic update time, as well as preservation of submodular objectives. Anticipating broader use of correlated sampling algorithms for the hypersimplex, we present applications of our algorithm to online paging, offline approximation of metric multi-labeling, and swift multi-scenario submodular welfare approximating reallocation.
Cite as

Joseph (Seffi) Naor, Nitya Raju, Abhishek Shetty, Aravind Srinivasan, Renata Valieva, and David Wajc. Dimension-Free Correlated Sampling for the Hypersimplex. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 104:1-104:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{naor_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.104,
  author =	{Naor, Joseph (Seffi) and Raju, Nitya and Shetty, Abhishek and Srinivasan, Aravind and Valieva, Renata and Wajc, David},
  title =	{{Dimension-Free Correlated Sampling for the Hypersimplex}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{104:1--104:20},
  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.2026.104},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253918},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.104},
  annote =	{Keywords: Correlated Rounding, Dependent Rounding}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.4
Pseudodeterministic Algorithms for Minimum Cut Problems

Authors: Aryan Agarwala and Nithin Varma

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

Abstract
In this paper we present efficient pseudodeterministic algorithms for both the global minimum cut and minimum s-t cut problems. The running time of our algorithm for the global minimum cut problem is asymptotically better than the fastest sequential deterministic global minimum cut algorithm (Henzinger, Li, Rao, Wang; SODA 2024). Furthermore, we implement our algorithm in streaming, PRAM, and cut-query models, where no efficient deterministic global minimum cut algorithms are known.
Cite as

Aryan Agarwala and Nithin Varma. Pseudodeterministic Algorithms for Minimum Cut Problems. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 4:1-4:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{agarwala_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.4,
  author =	{Agarwala, Aryan and Varma, Nithin},
  title =	{{Pseudodeterministic Algorithms for Minimum Cut Problems}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{4:1--4:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.4},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252917},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.4},
  annote =	{Keywords: Minimum Cut, Pseudodeterministic Algorithms}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.60
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
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.21
Differential Privacy from Axioms

Authors: Guy Blanc, William Pires, and Toniann Pitassi

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

Abstract
Differential privacy (DP) is the de facto notion of privacy both in theory and in practice. However, despite its popularity, DP imposes strict requirements which guard against strong worst-case scenarios. For example, it guards against seemingly unrealistic scenarios where an attacker has full information about all but one point in the data set, and still nothing can be learned about the remaining point. While preventing such a strong attack is desirable, many works have explored whether average-case relaxations of DP are easier to satisfy [Hall et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2016; Bassily and Freund, 2016; Liu et al., 2023]. In this work, we are motivated by the question of whether alternate, weaker notions of privacy are possible: can a weakened privacy notion still guarantee some basic level of privacy, and on the other hand, achieve privacy more efficiently and/or for a substantially broader set of tasks? Our main result shows the answer is no: even in the statistical setting, any reasonable measure of privacy satisfying nontrivial composition is equivalent to DP. To prove this, we identify a core set of four axioms or desiderata: pre-processing invariance, prohibition of blatant non-privacy, strong composition, and linear scalability. Our main theorem shows that any privacy measure satisfying our axioms is equivalent to DP, up to polynomial factors in sample complexity. We complement this result by showing our axioms are minimal: removing any one of our axioms enables ill-behaved measures of privacy.
Cite as

Guy Blanc, William Pires, and Toniann Pitassi. Differential Privacy from Axioms. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 21:1-21:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{blanc_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.21,
  author =	{Blanc, Guy and Pires, William and Pitassi, Toniann},
  title =	{{Differential Privacy from Axioms}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{21:1--21:13},
  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.2026.21},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253081},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.21},
  annote =	{Keywords: Differential Privacy, Privacy Amplification, Composition}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.22
Simplicial Covering Dimension of Extremal Concept Classes

Authors: Ari Blondal, Hamed Hatami, Pooya Hatami, Chavdar Lalov, and Sivan Tretiak

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

Abstract
Dimension theory is a branch of topology concerned with defining and analyzing dimensions of geometric and topological spaces in purely topological terms. In this work, we adapt the classical notion of topological dimension (Lebesgue covering) to binary concept classes. The topological space naturally associated with a concept class is its space of realizable distributions. The loss function and the class itself induce a simplicial structure on this space, with respect to which we define a simplicial covering dimension. We prove that for finite concept classes, this simplicial covering dimension exactly characterizes the list replicability number (equivalently, global stability) in PAC learning. This connection allows us to apply tools from classical dimension theory to compute the exact list replicability number of the broad family of extremal concept classes.
Cite as

Ari Blondal, Hamed Hatami, Pooya Hatami, Chavdar Lalov, and Sivan Tretiak. Simplicial Covering Dimension of Extremal Concept Classes. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 22:1-22:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{blondal_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.22,
  author =	{Blondal, Ari and Hatami, Hamed and Hatami, Pooya and Lalov, Chavdar and Tretiak, Sivan},
  title =	{{Simplicial Covering Dimension of Extremal Concept Classes}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{22:1--22:24},
  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.2026.22},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253094},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.22},
  annote =	{Keywords: PAC Learning, Extremal Concept Classes, Replicability, List Replicability, Topology, Geometry}
}
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