We present a single, common tool to strictly subsume all known cases of polynomial time blackbox polynomial identity testing (PIT) that have been hitherto solved using diverse tools and techniques. In particular, we show that polynomial time hitting-set generators for identity testing of the two seemingly different and well studied ... more >>>

We present an alternate proof of the result by Kabanets and Impagliazzo that derandomizing polynomial identity testing implies circuit lower bounds. Our proof is simpler, scales better, and yields a somewhat stronger result than the original argument.

We prove that for an arbitrarily small constant $\eps>0,$ assuming NP$\not \subseteq$DTIME$(2^{{\log^{O(1/\epsilon)} n}})$, the preprocessing versions of the closest vector problem and the nearest codeword problem are hard to approximate within a factor better than $2^{\log ^{1-\epsilon}n}.$ This improves upon the previous hardness factor of $(\log n)^\delta$ for some $\delta ... more >>>

A small-biased distribution of bit sequences is defined as one withstanding $GF(2)$-linear tests for randomness, which are linear combinations of the bits themselves. We consider linear combinations over larger fields, specifically, $GF(2^n)$ for $n$ that divides the length of the bit sequence. Indeed, this means that we partition the bits ... more >>>

The Local Search problem, which finds a
local minimum of a black-box function on a given graph, is of both
practical and theoretical importance to many areas in computer
science and natural sciences. In this paper, we show that for the
Boolean hypercube $\B^n$, the randomized query complexity of Local
more >>>

We give a 1.25 approximation algorithm for the Steiner Tree Problem with distances one and two, improving on the best known bound for that problem.

Analysis of genomes evolving by inversions leads to a general
combinatorial problem of {\em Sorting by Reversals}, MIN-SBR, the problem of
sorting a permutation by a minimum number of reversals.
This combinatorial problem has a long history, and a number of other
motivations. It was studied in a great ... more >>>

The Steiner tree problem requires to find a shortest tree connection
a given set of terminal points in a metric space. We suggest a better
and fast heuristic for the Steiner problem in graphs and in
rectilinear plane. This heuristic finds a Steiner tree at ... more >>>

Yao (in a lecture at DIMACS Workshop on structural complexity and
cryptography) showed that if a language L is 2-locally-random
reducible to a Boolean functio, then L is in PSPACE/poly.
Fortnow and Szegedy quantitatively improved Yao's result to show that
such languages are in fact in NP/poly (Information Processing Letters, ... more >>>

A basic goal in Property Testing is to identify a
minimal set of features that make a property testable.
For the case when the property to be tested is membership
in a binary linear error-correcting code, Alon et al.~\cite{AKKLR}
had conjectured that the presence of a {\em single} low weight
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We consider worst case time bounds for NP-complete problems
including 3-SAT, 3-coloring, 3-edge-coloring, and 3-list-coloring.
Our algorithms are based on a common generalization of these problems,
called symbol-system satisfiability or, briefly, SSS [R. Floyd &
R. Beigel, The Language of Machines]. 3-SAT is equivalent to
(2,3)-SSS while the other problems ... more >>>

In this paper, we improve a recent result of Daskalakis, Goldberg and Papadimitriou on PPAD-completeness of 4-Nash, showing that 3-Nash is PPAD-complete.

Locally Decodable Codes (LDC) allow one to decode any particular
symbol of the input message by making a constant number of queries
to a codeword, even if a constant fraction of the codeword is
damaged. In recent work ~\cite{Yekhanin08} Yekhanin constructs a
$3$-query LDC with sub-exponential length of size
$\exp(\exp(O(\frac{\log ... more >>>

This paper establishes a randomized algorithm that finds a satisfying assignment for a satisfiable formula $F$ in 3-CNF in $O(1.32793^n)$ expected running time. The algorithms is based on the analysis of so-called strings, which are sequences of 3-clauses where non-succeeding clauses do not share a variable and succeeding clauses share ... more >>>

For a boolean formula \phi on n variables, the associated property
P_\phi is the collection of n-bit strings that satisfy \phi. We prove
that there are 3CNF properties that require a linear number of queries,
even for adaptive tests. This contrasts with 2CNF properties
that are testable with O(\sqrt{n}) ... more >>>

We design a polynomial time 8/7-approximation algorithm for the Traveling Salesman Problem in which all distances are either one or two. This improves over the best known approximation factor of 7/6 for that problem. As a direct application we get a 7/6-approximation algorithm for the Maximum Path Cover Problem, similarily ... more >>>

We prove that MAX-3SAT can be approximated in polynomial time
within a factor 9/8 on random instances.

We express some criticism about the definition of an algorithmic sufficient statistic and, in particular, of an algorithmic minimal sufficient statistic. We propose another definition, which has better properties.