Local search proved to be an extremely useful tool when facing hard optimization problems (e.g. via the simplex algorithm, simulated annealing, or genetic algorithms). Although powerful, it has its limitations: there are functions for which exponentially many queries are needed to find a local optimum. In many contexts the optimization ... more >>>

A problem is downward self-reducible if it can be solved efficiently given an oracle that returns
solutions for strictly smaller instances. In the decisional landscape, downward self-reducibility is
well studied and it is known that all downward self-reducible problems are in PSPACE. In this
paper, we initiate the study of ... more >>>