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Tardos Function
In graph theory and circuit complexity, the Tardos function is a graph invariant introduced by Éva Tardos in 1988 that has the following properties: *Like the Lovász number of the complement of a graph, the Tardos function is sandwiched between the clique number and the chromatic number of the graph. These two numbers are both NP-hard to compute. *The Tardos function is monotone, in the sense that adding edges to a graph can only cause its Tardos function to increase or stay the same, but never decrease. *The Tardos function can be computed in polynomial time. *Any monotone circuit for computing the Tardos function requires exponential size. To define her function, Tardos uses a polynomial-time approximation scheme for the Lovász number, based on the ellipsoid method and provided by . Approximating the Lovász number of the complement and then rounding the approximation to an integer would not necessarily produce a monotone function, however. To make the result monotone, Tardos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Graph Theory
In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of ''graph (discrete mathematics), graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of ''Vertex (graph theory), vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are connected by ''Glossary of graph theory terms#edge, edges'' (also called ''arcs'', ''links'' or ''lines''). A distinction is made between undirected graphs, where edges link two vertices symmetrically, and directed graphs, where edges link two vertices asymmetrically. Graphs are one of the principal objects of study in discrete mathematics. Definitions Definitions in graph theory vary. The following are some of the more basic ways of defining graphs and related mathematical structures. Graph In one restricted but very common sense of the term, a graph is an ordered pair G=(V,E) comprising: * V, a Set (mathematics), set of vertices (also called nodes or points); * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Polynomial Time
In theoretical computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of computer time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm, supposing that each elementary operation takes a fixed amount of time to perform. Thus, the amount of time taken and the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm are taken to be related by a constant factor. Since an algorithm's running time may vary among different inputs of the same size, one commonly considers the worst-case time complexity, which is the maximum amount of time required for inputs of a given size. Less common, and usually specified explicitly, is the average-case complexity, which is the average of the time taken on inputs of a given size (this makes sense because there are only a finite number of possible inputs of a given size). In both cases, the time complexity is gener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
P ≠ NP
The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in theoretical computer science. Informally, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be quickly solved. Here, "quickly" means an algorithm exists that solves the task and runs in polynomial time (as opposed to, say, exponential time), meaning the task completion time is bounded above by a polynomial function on the size of the input to the algorithm. The general class of questions that some algorithm can answer in polynomial time is " P" or "class P". For some questions, there is no known way to find an answer quickly, but if provided with an answer, it can be verified quickly. The class of questions where an answer can be ''verified'' in polynomial time is "NP", standing for "nondeterministic polynomial time".A nondeterministic Turing machine can move to a state that is not determined by the previous state. Such a machine could solve an NP problem in polynomial time by falling into the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Counterexample
A counterexample is any exception to a generalization. In logic a counterexample disproves the generalization, and does so rigorously in the fields of mathematics and philosophy. For example, the fact that "student John Smith is not lazy" is a counterexample to the generalization "students are lazy", and both a counterexample to, and disproof of, the universal quantification "all students are lazy." In mathematics In mathematics, counterexamples are often used to prove the boundaries of possible theorems. By using counterexamples to show that certain conjectures are false, mathematical researchers can then avoid going down blind alleys and learn to modify conjectures to produce provable theorems. It is sometimes said that mathematical development consists primarily in finding (and proving) theorems and counterexamples. Rectangle example Suppose that a mathematician is studying geometry and shapes, and she wishes to prove certain theorems about them. She conjectures that "All re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Alexander Razborov
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Razborov (; born February 16, 1963), sometimes known as Sasha Razborov, is a Soviet and Russian mathematician and computational theorist. He is Andrew McLeish Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Research In his best known work, joint with Steven Rudich, he introduced the notion of '' natural proofs'', a class of strategies used to prove fundamental lower bounds in computational complexity. In particular, Razborov and Rudich showed that, under the assumption that certain kinds of one-way functions exist, such proofs cannot give a resolution of the P = NP problem, so new techniques will be required in order to solve this question. Awards * Nevanlinna Prize (1990) for introducing the "approximation method" in proving Boolean circuit lower bounds of some essential algorithmic problems, * Erdős Lecturer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998. * Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2000) * Gödel Prize (2007, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ellipsoid Method
In mathematical optimization, the ellipsoid method is an iterative method for convex optimization, minimizing convex functions over convex sets. The ellipsoid method generates a sequence of ellipsoids whose volume uniformly decreases at every step, thus enclosing a minimizer of a convex function. When specialized to solving feasible linear optimization problems with rational data, the ellipsoid method is an algorithm which finds an optimal solution in a number of steps that is polynomial in the input size. History The ellipsoid method has a long history. As an iterative method, a preliminary version was introduced by Naum Z. Shor. In 1972, an approximation algorithm for real convex optimization, convex minimization was studied by Arkadi Nemirovski and David B. Yudin (Judin). As an algorithm for solving linear programming problems with rational data, the ellipsoid algorithm was studied by Leonid Khachiyan; Khachiyan's achievement was to prove the Polynomial time, polynomial-time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Polynomial-time Approximation Scheme
In computer science (particularly algorithmics), a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) is a type of approximation algorithm for optimization problems (most often, NP-hard optimization problems). A PTAS is an algorithm which takes an instance of an optimization problem and a parameter and produces a solution that is within a factor of being optimal (or for maximization problems). For example, for the Euclidean traveling salesman problem, a PTAS would produce a tour with length at most , with being the length of the shortest tour. Sanjeev Arora, Polynomial-time Approximation Schemes for Euclidean TSP and other Geometric Problems, Journal of the ACM 45(5) 753–782, 1998. The running time of a PTAS is required to be polynomial in the problem size for every fixed ε, but can be different for different ε. Thus an algorithm running in time or even counts as a PTAS. Variants Deterministic A practical problem with PTAS algorithms is that the exponent of the polynomial co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Monotone Circuit
In theoretical computer science, circuit complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory in which Boolean functions are classified according to the size or depth of the Boolean circuits that compute them. A related notion is the circuit complexity of a recursive language that is decided by a uniform family of circuits C_,C_,\ldots (see below). Proving lower bounds on size of Boolean circuits computing explicit Boolean functions is a popular approach to separating complexity classes. For example, a prominent circuit class P/poly consists of Boolean functions computable by circuits of polynomial size. Proving that \mathsf\not\subseteq \mathsf would separate P and NP (see below). Complexity classes defined in terms of Boolean circuits include AC0, AC, TC0, NC1, NC, and P/poly. Size and depth A Boolean circuit with n input bits is a directed acyclic graph in which every node (usually called ''gates'' in this context) is either an input node of in-degree 0 l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
NP-hard
In computational complexity theory, a computational problem ''H'' is called NP-hard if, for every problem ''L'' which can be solved in non-deterministic polynomial-time, there is a polynomial-time reduction from ''L'' to ''H''. That is, assuming a solution for ''H'' takes 1 unit time, ''H''s solution can be used to solve ''L'' in polynomial time. As a consequence, finding a polynomial time algorithm to solve a single NP-hard problem would give polynomial time algorithms for all the problems in the complexity class NP. As it is suspected, but unproven, that P≠NP, it is unlikely that any polynomial-time algorithms for NP-hard problems exist. A simple example of an NP-hard problem is the subset sum problem. Informally, if ''H'' is NP-hard, then it is at least as difficult to solve as the problems in NP. However, the opposite direction is not true: some problems are undecidable, and therefore even more difficult to solve than all problems in NP, but they are probably not NP- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Circuit Complexity
In theoretical computer science, circuit complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory in which Boolean functions are classified according to the size or depth of the Boolean circuits that compute them. A related notion is the circuit complexity of a recursive language that is decided by a uniform family of circuits C_,C_,\ldots (see below). Proving lower bounds on size of Boolean circuits computing explicit Boolean functions is a popular approach to separating complexity classes. For example, a prominent circuit class P/poly consists of Boolean functions computable by circuits of polynomial size. Proving that \mathsf\not\subseteq \mathsf would separate P and NP (see below). Complexity classes defined in terms of Boolean circuits include AC0, AC, TC0, NC1, NC, and P/poly. Size and depth A Boolean circuit with n input bits is a directed acyclic graph in which every node (usually called ''gates'' in this context) is either an input node of in-degree 0 l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Chromatic Number
In graph theory, graph coloring is a methodic assignment of labels traditionally called "colors" to elements of a graph. The assignment is subject to certain constraints, such as that no two adjacent elements have the same color. Graph coloring is a special case of graph labeling. In its simplest form, it is a way of coloring the vertices of a graph such that no two adjacent vertices are of the same color; this is called a vertex coloring. Similarly, an '' edge coloring'' assigns a color to each edges so that no two adjacent edges are of the same color, and a face coloring of a planar graph assigns a color to each face (or region) so that no two faces that share a boundary have the same color. Vertex coloring is often used to introduce graph coloring problems, since other coloring problems can be transformed into a vertex coloring instance. For example, an edge coloring of a graph is just a vertex coloring of its line graph, and a face coloring of a plane graph is just a vertex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Clique Number
In graph theory, a clique ( or ) is a subset of vertices of an undirected graph such that every two distinct vertices in the clique are adjacent. That is, a clique of a graph G is an induced subgraph of G that is complete. Cliques are one of the basic concepts of graph theory and are used in many other mathematical problems and constructions on graphs. Cliques have also been studied in computer science: the task of finding whether there is a clique of a given size in a graph (the clique problem) is NP-complete, but despite this hardness result, many algorithms for finding cliques have been studied. Although the study of complete subgraphs goes back at least to the graph-theoretic reformulation of Ramsey theory by , the term ''clique'' comes from , who used complete subgraphs in social networks to model cliques of people; that is, groups of people all of whom know each other. Cliques have many other applications in the sciences and particularly in bioinformatics. Definitions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
