We characterize the power of constant-depth Boolean circuits in generating uniform symmetric distributions. Let $f\colon\{0,1\}^m\to\{0,1\}^n$ be a Boolean function where each output bit of $f$ depends only on $O(1)$ input bits. Assume the output distribution of $f$ on uniform input bits is close to a uniform distribution $\mathcal D$ with ... more >>>

The Parameterized Inapproximability Hypothesis (PIH), which is an analog of the PCP theorem in parameterized complexity, asserts that, there is a constant $\varepsilon> 0$ such that for any computable function $f:\mathbb{N}\to\mathbb{N}$, no $f(k)\cdot n^{O(1)}$-time algorithm can, on input a $k$-variable CSP instance with domain size $n$, find an assignment satisfying ... more >>>

Spurred by the influential work of Viola (Journal of Computing 2012), the past decade has witnessed an active line of research into the complexity of (approximately) sampling distributions, in contrast to the traditional focus on the complexity of computing functions.

We build upon and make explicit earlier implicit results of ... more >>>

The Parameterized Inapproximability Hypothesis (PIH) asserts that no fixed parameter tractable (FPT) algorithm can distinguish a satisfiable CSP instance, parameterized by the number of variables, from one where every assignment fails to satisfy an $\varepsilon$ fraction of constraints for some absolute constant $\varepsilon > 0$. PIH plays the role of ... more >>>

We prove that for every parity decision tree of depth $d$ on $n$ variables, the sum of absolute values of Fourier coefficients at level $\ell$ is at most $d^{\ell/2} \cdot O(\ell \cdot \log(n))^\ell$.
Our result is nearly tight for small values of $\ell$ and extends a previous Fourier bound ... more >>>

A decision list is an ordered list of rules. Each rule is specified by a term, which is a conjunction of literals, and a value. Given an input, the output of a decision list is the value corresponding to the first rule whole term is satisfied by the input. Decision ... more >>>

A sunflower with $r$ petals is a collection of $r$ sets so that the
intersection of each pair is equal to the intersection of all. Erd\H{o}s and Rado proved the sunflower lemma: for any fixed $r$, any family of sets of size $w$, with at least about $w^w$ sets, must ... more >>>