Skip to main content

All Questions

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
1 vote
1 answer
91 views

Is there a conditional lower bound for the k max subarray sum problem?

Consider an array $A$ of integers of length $n$. The $k$-max subarray sum asks us to find up to $k$ (contiguous) non-overlapping subarrays of $A$ with maximum sum. If $A$ is all negative then this ...
Simd's user avatar
  • 3,912
4 votes
1 answer
188 views

Is there a lower bound for the problem of finding the best straight line partition

I recently asked the following algorithms question on another site. The best answer so far is $O(n^4)$ time. The input is of size $O(n^2)$ and the output is just a number so I was wondering if there ...
Simd's user avatar
  • 3,912
6 votes
1 answer
590 views

Find odd-ranked numbers from a list

From a list of $n$ distinct numbers, I want to find the set consisting of all odd-ranked numbers (1st, 3rd, 5th, ...). How many comparison queries do I need? I could sort the whole list using $O(n\log ...
TZM's user avatar
  • 133
12 votes
2 answers
699 views

Quadratic lower bound

Consider three arrays $A,B,C$ of size $N$ consisting of integers. I want to verify the following constraint: for any two indices $0 \leq i,j < N$, $A[i] < A[j] \land B[i] < B[j] \implies C[i] ...
karmanaut's user avatar
  • 1,187
5 votes
1 answer
327 views

Deciding if all matrix multiplication entries have at least two witnesses

Consider two square matrices $A(x,y)$ and $B(y,z)$ of dimensions $N×N$ containing boolean entries. Consider the output product matrix $C(x,z)$ where $C=AB$ (not boolean matrix multiplication but the ...
karmanaut's user avatar
  • 1,187
2 votes
1 answer
210 views

Divide and Conquer Algorithm for 1-Median Problem

Let $P_1$ and $P_2$ be two disjoint point sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and $n = \vert P_1\vert = \vert P_2\vert$ and $P = P_1\cup P_2$. Let $c^\star$ be the optimal 1-median for $P$ and $opt^\star$ is the ...
Sudipta Roy's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
71 views

Decision tree vs. pebble game lower bounds

This question concerns two types of lower bounds. In a pebbling lower bound, we are concerned with the complexity of constructing the output from the input. For example, if the only way we could ...
Siddharth's user avatar
  • 851
2 votes
0 answers
182 views

Triangle detection hardness in regular graphs

Consider a tripartite graph over $n^{1-\epsilon}$ vertices each in sets $I, J, K$. Suppose we impose a constraint that every vertex has degree $n^\epsilon/c$ for some constant $\epsilon > 0$ and ...
karmanaut's user avatar
  • 1,187
0 votes
0 answers
40 views

Maximum resistor with sublinear number of measurements

Consider a set $X = \{x_1, \dots, x_n\}$ of positive real numbers (or natural numbers, if you like) to be a set of resistors. For any subset $S \subset X$, we can build resistive circuits and measure ...
yadec's user avatar
  • 111
6 votes
0 answers
168 views

Computing and maintaining the minimum of a set $S$ of integers while allowing updates on $S$

This question is about computing and maintaining the minimum of a set $S$ of integers while allowing updates on $S$. The computation model we are considering is the unit-cost RAM machine with linear ...
Louis's user avatar
  • 820
1 vote
0 answers
118 views

Entropy bounds on solutions to problems in BPP and other complexity classes based on entropy demands

Has anyone studied the asymptotics of problems in complexity classes like $BPP$? The thought came to me that if a problem in $BPP$ only requires $O(log(n))$ bits of entropy to solve then, intuitively, ...
Jake's user avatar
  • 1,213
1 vote
1 answer
98 views

The SQ argument in Balazs Szorenyi's paper

I am asking about the proof in Theorem 5 (page 6) of this paper, http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~szorenyi/Cikkek/sq_d0_ext.pdf Quite a few things about this short argument seem unclear to me, Towards the ...
gradstudent's user avatar
  • 1,453
7 votes
1 answer
184 views

Lower bound for enumerating k closest pair of points

Consider 1 dimensional points $x_1, \dots x_n, x_i \in \mathbb{R}$ where the distance between any two points is defined as $d(x_i, x_j) = \vert x_i - x_j \vert$. The goal is to enumerate all $n^2$ ...
karmanaut's user avatar
  • 1,187
3 votes
0 answers
100 views

Lower bound for reversing a list using queues

How do you prove (or disprove) that a list of length $n$ cannot be reversed in time $o(n \log n)$ using $O(1)$ queues? Each queue is FIFO. Time refers to the number of operations on the queues. ...
Dmytro Taranovsky's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
68 views

\alpha-path on Euclidean graphs

Consider the following problem: Suppose we are given a G=(V, E) Euclidean Graph in the plane and a real $\alpha > 0$. For simplicity assume, there exists only one path whose summation of weights ...
Armin Mir's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
157 views

Reference request: complexity of $k$-partite $k$-SAT

Let's consider following variation of $k$-SAT that I will call $k$-partite $k$-SAT: given $n$ variables that are divided into $k$ groups and a $k$-SAT formula $\phi$ such that each clause has literal ...
ivmihajlin's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
260 views

Hardness of Subgraph isomorphism problem for sparse pattern graph

Subgraph isomorphism problem is a well studied problem: given graphs $G$ and $H$, one needs to answer if $H$ contains $G$ as a subgraph. It was proven that this problem requires $|H|^{\theta(|G|)}$ ...
ivmihajlin's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
405 views

How much memory is needed for counting distinct elements in a stream exactly with high probability

Assume we know a parameter $n\in\mathbb N$, and then get to observe a sequence of elements $x_1,\ldots, x_n$, one at a time. Our goal is to count the number of distinct elements in $x_1,\ldots, x_n$, ...
R B's user avatar
  • 9,508
8 votes
3 answers
279 views

Showing that interval-sum queries on a binary array can not be done using linear space and constant time

You are given a $n$-sized binary array. I want to show that no algorithm can do the following (or to be surprised and find out that such algorithms exist after all): 1) Pre-process the input array ...
R B's user avatar
  • 9,508
3 votes
0 answers
187 views

Finding median in a changing array

Consider the problem of needing to support an $n$ integers array structure with two operations: Set(k,v) - set the $k$'th integer to value $v$ (i.e. $A[k]=v$). Median() - return the median value of ...
R B's user avatar
  • 9,508
0 votes
2 answers
159 views

Mergeable Exact Order Statistics Data Structure

Given $n$ sets of integers $S_1, S_2, \cdots, S_n$, it is guaranteed that $$ x < y, \text{ for } \forall x \in S_i \text{ and } \forall y \in S_{i+1} $$ and let's denote this relationship as $S_i &...
user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
119 views

Lower bounds for randomized frequency estimation algorithms

Consider a stream of elements $s_1s_2\ldots s_N$. A counter-based frequency estimation algorithm uses $m$ counters and is required to answer queries of the form "How many times did $x$ appear"? It ...
R B's user avatar
  • 9,508
2 votes
1 answer
463 views

Lower bound for finding repeated elements in sorted array

This is inspired by [1] (which still needs answers). What is the tight lower bound (or optimal algorithms) for the "finding repeated elements" problem: Given a sorted integer array of size $n$, how ...
hengxin's user avatar
  • 2,329
6 votes
1 answer
901 views

Lower bounds for inversion counting in comparison model?

For counting the number of inversions in an array, there are many $O(n \log n)$ algorithms, e.g. the one that modifies Merge Sort. There is an easy $\Omega(n)$ lower bound simply because you have to ...
Ben Cousins's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
141 views

Consequences of the existence of the following algorithm: does it imply any complexity class separation / collapse?

Let $G$ be a $3$-regular graph. Let $O$ be the number of vertex covers of $G$ having odd cardinality, and let $E$ be the number of vertex covers of $G$ having even cardinality. Let $\Delta = O - E$. ...
Giorgio Camerani's user avatar
25 votes
3 answers
4k views

Nontrivial algorithm for computing a sliding window median

I need to calculate the running median: Input: $n$, $k$, vector $(x_1, x_2, \dotsc, x_n)$. Output: vector $(y_1, y_2, \dotsc, y_{n-k+1})$, where $y_i$ is the median of $(x_i, x_{i+1}, \dotsc, x_{i+k-...
Jukka Suomela's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
290 views

Hardness of optimal sorting

For comparison-based sorting algorithms, asymptotically optimal algorithms in worst-case $\Theta(n\log n)$ comparisons are well known. From a purely theoretical perspective, however, exactly optimal ...
Joseph Stack's user avatar
  • 1,095
11 votes
4 answers
656 views

Lower bound for testing closeness in $L_2$ norm?

I was wondering if there was any lower bound (in terms of sample complexity) known for the following problem: Given sample oracle access to two unknown distributions $D_1$, $D_2$ on $\{1,\dots,n\}$, ...
Clement C.'s user avatar
  • 4,491
3 votes
0 answers
222 views

Proving greedy algorithm is optimal for a scheduling problem

First, the problem discription: For a sequence of $4n$ tasks, $a_1a_2\dots a_{4n}$, where $a_i\in\{0,1\}\forall i$, put them sequentially to the tail of one of the two initially empty queues of ...
caozhu's user avatar
  • 131
9 votes
1 answer
704 views

On optimality of Grover algorithm with high success probability

It is well-known that bounded error quantum query complexity of the function $OR(x_1,x_2,\ldots, x_n)$ is $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$. Now the question is what if we want our quantum algorithm to succeed for ...
Mohammad Bavarian's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

How to generate a permutation uniformly by repeating using an one-bit uniform random generator?

If I have an one-bit uniform random generator, how can I use it to generate a permutation uniformly for the sequence {1, 2, ..., n}. I have a solution: run the one-bit random generator n*n times to ...
konjac's user avatar
  • 207
0 votes
1 answer
164 views

Functions and Counting Problems in Streaming Computation

I have read a stream computation paper in STOC07(Paul Beame, T. S. Jayram, and Atri Rudra. Lower bounds for randomized read/write stream algorithms.) and FOCS08(Paul Beame and Trinh Huynh. On the ...
Jeigh's user avatar
  • 327
6 votes
0 answers
222 views

Lowerbounds for in-situ permutation

What is the best known lowerbound for the worst case complexity of in-situ permutation (also called in-place rearrangement)? Has there been any reported progress after the 1970's article by Knuth (...
A J's user avatar
  • 161
13 votes
2 answers
2k views

Reversing a list using two queues

This question is inspired by an existing question about whether a stack can be simulated using two queues in amortized $O(1)$ time per stack operation. The answer seems to be unknown. Here is a more ...
mjqxxxx's user avatar
  • 1,478
7 votes
4 answers
1k views

What are the best known upper bounds and lower bounds for computing O(log n)-Clique?

Input: a graph with n nodes, Output: A clique of size $O(\log n)$, Providing links to references would be great
Mohammad Al-Turkistany's user avatar
124 votes
18 answers
10k views

Examples of the price of abstraction?

Theoretical computer science has provided some examples of "the price of abstraction." The two most prominent are for Gaussian elimination and sorting. Namely: It is known that Gaussian ...