高级算法 (Fall 2023)/Problem Set 1

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Problem 1 (Min-cut/Max-cut)

• [counting [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math]-approximate min-cut] For any [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha \ge 1 }[/math], a cut is called an [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math]-approximate min-cut in a multigraph [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math] if the number of edges in it is at most [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math] times that of the min-cut. Prove that the number of [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math]-approximate min-cuts in a multigraph [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math] is at most [math]\displaystyle{ n^{2\alpha} / 2 }[/math]. Hint: Run Karger's algorithm until it has [math]\displaystyle{ \lceil 2\alpha \rceil }[/math] supernodes. What is the chance that a particular [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math]-approximate min-cut is still available? How many possible cuts does this collapsed graph have?
• [weighted min-cut problem] Modify the Karger's Contraction algorithm so that it works for the weighted min-cut problem. Prove that the modified algorithm returns a weighted minimum cut with probability at least [math]\displaystyle{ {2}/{n(n-1)} }[/math]. The weighted min-cut problem is defined as follows.
  • Input: an undirected weighted graph [math]\displaystyle{ G(V, E) }[/math], where every edge [math]\displaystyle{ e \in E }[/math] is associated with a positive real weight [math]\displaystyle{ w_e }[/math]
  • Output: a cut [math]\displaystyle{ C }[/math] in [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math] such that [math]\displaystyle{ \sum_{e \in C} w_e }[/math] is minimized.

• [max directed-cut] In the maximum directed cut (MAX-DICUT) problem, we are given as input a directed graph [math]\displaystyle{ G(V,E) }[/math]. Each directed arc [math]\displaystyle{ (i, j) \in E }[/math] has nonnegative weight [math]\displaystyle{ w_{ij} \ge 0 }[/math]. The goal is to partition [math]\displaystyle{ V }[/math] into disjoint sets [math]\displaystyle{ U }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ W=V\setminus U }[/math] so as to maximize the total weight of the arcs going from [math]\displaystyle{ U }[/math] to [math]\displaystyle{ W }[/math]. Give a randomized [math]\displaystyle{ 1/4 }[/math]-approximation algorithm for this problem.

Problem 2 (Fingerprinting)

• [Polynomial Identity Testing] Consider the function [math]\displaystyle{ f:\mathbb{R}^n\to\mathbb{R} }[/math] defined as

[math]\displaystyle{ f(\vec x)=f(x_1,x_2,\dots,x_n)=\prod_{i=1}^{n}(a_ix_i-b_i) }[/math],

where [math]\displaystyle{ \{a_i\}_{1\le i\le n} }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ \{b_i\}_{1\le i\le n} }[/math] are unknown coefficients satisfy that [math]\displaystyle{ a_i, b_i\in \mathbb{Z} }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ 0\le a_i, b_i \le n }[/math] for all [math]\displaystyle{ 1\le i\le n }[/math].

Let [math]\displaystyle{ p\gt n }[/math] be the smallest prime strictly greater than [math]\displaystyle{ n }[/math]. The function [math]\displaystyle{ g:\mathbb{Z}_p^n\to\mathbb{Z}_p }[/math] is defined as

[math]\displaystyle{ g(\vec x)=g(x_1,x_2,\dots,x_n)=\prod_{i=1}^{n}(a_ix_i-b_i) }[/math],

where [math]\displaystyle{ + }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ \cdot }[/math] are defined over the finite field [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbb{Z}_p }[/math].

By the properties of finite field, for any value [math]\displaystyle{ \vec r\in\mathbb{Z}_p^n }[/math], it holds that [math]\displaystyle{ g(\vec r)=f(\vec r)\bmod p }[/math].

Since the coefficients [math]\displaystyle{ \{a_i\}_{1\le i\le n} }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ \{b_i\}_{1\le i\le n} }[/math] are unknown, you can't calculate [math]\displaystyle{ f(\vec x) }[/math] directly. However, there exists an oracle [math]\displaystyle{ O }[/math], each time [math]\displaystyle{ O }[/math] gets an input [math]\displaystyle{ \vec x }[/math], it immediately outputs the value of [math]\displaystyle{ g(\vec x) }[/math].

1. Prove that [math]\displaystyle{ f\not\equiv 0 \Rightarrow g\not\equiv 0 }[/math].
2. Use the oracle [math]\displaystyle{ O }[/math] to design an algorithm to determine whether [math]\displaystyle{ f\equiv 0 }[/math], with error probability at most [math]\displaystyle{ \epsilon }[/math], where [math]\displaystyle{ \epsilon\in (0,1) }[/math] is a constant.

• [Test isomorphism of rooted tree]
• [2D pattern matching]

Problem 3 (Hashing)

• [Bloom filter]
• [Count Distinct Element]

Problem 4 (Concentration of measure)

• [[math]\displaystyle{ k }[/math]-th moment bound]
• [the median trick]
• [cut size in random graph]
• [code rate of boolean code]
• [balls into bins with the "power of two choices"]

Problem 5 (Dimension reduction)

• [inner product]
• [linear separability]
• [sparse vector]

Problem 1 (Lovász Local Lemma)

• [colorable hypergrap]
• [directed cycle]
• [algorithmic LLL]