A recurring theme in the literature on derandomization is that probabilistic
algorithms can be simulated quickly by deterministic algorithms, if one can obtain *impressive* (i.e., superpolynomial, or even nearly-exponential) circuit size lower bounds for certain problems. In contrast to what is
needed for derandomization, existing lower bounds seem rather pathetic ... more >>>

This paper shows that the use of ``local symmetry breaking'' can dramatically reduce the length of propositional refutations. For each of the three propositional proof systems known as (i) treelike resolution, (ii) resolution, and (iii) k-DNF resolution, we describe families of unsatisfiable formulas in conjunctive normal form (CNF) that are ... more >>>

We investigate the problem of {\em local reconstruction}, as defined by Saks and Seshadhri (2008), in the context of error correcting codes.

The first problem we address is that of {\em message reconstruction}, where given oracle access to a corrupted encoding $w \in \zo^n$ of some message $x \in \zo^k$ ... more >>>