We investigate the size complexity of proofs in $RES(s)$ -- an extension of Resolution working on $s$-DNFs instead of clauses -- for families of contradictions given in the {\em unusual binary} encoding. A motivation of our work is size lower bounds of refutations in Resolution for families of contradictions in ... more >>>

In a Nisan-Wigderson design polynomial (in short, a design polynomial), the gcd of every pair of monomials has a low degree. A useful example of such a polynomial is the following:
$$\text{NW}_{d,k}(\mathbf{x}) = \sum_{h \in \mathbb{F}_d[z], ~\deg(h) \leq k}{~~~~\prod_{i = 0}^{d-1}{x_{i, h(i)}}},$$
where $d$ is a prime, $\mathbb{F}_d$ is the ... more >>>

$\mathbf{Separations:}$ We introduce a monotone variant of XOR-SAT and show it has exponential monotone circuit complexity. Since XOR-SAT is in NC^2, this improves qualitatively on the monotone vs. non-monotone separation of Tardos (1988). We also show that monotone span programs over R can be exponentially more powerful than over finite ... more >>>