Free Binary Decision Diagrams (FBDDs) are a data structure
for the representation and manipulation of Boolean functions.
Efficient algorithms for most of the important operations are known if
only FBDDs respecting a fixed graph ordering are considered. However,
the size of such an FBDD may strongly depend on the chosen ... more >>>

We show that given oracle access to a subroutine which
returns approximate closest vectors in a lattice, one may find in
polynomial-time approximate shortest vectors in a lattice.
The level of approximation is maintained; that is, for any function
$f$, the following holds:
Suppose that the subroutine, on input a ... more >>>

It is shown that determining whether a quantum computation
has a non-zero probability of accepting is at least as hard as the
polynomial time hierarchy. This hardness result also applies to
determining in general whether a given quantum basis state appears
with nonzero amplitude in a superposition, or whether a ... more >>>

Andreev et al.~\cite{ABCR97} give constructions of Boolean
functions (computable by polynomial-size circuits) that require large
read-once branching program (1-b.p.'s): a function in P that requires
1-b.p. of size at least $2^{n-\polylog(n)}$, a function in quasipolynomial
time that requires 1-b.p. of size at least $2^{n-O(\log n)}$, and a
function in LINSPACE ... more >>>

A neural network is said to be nonoverlapping if there is at most one
edge outgoing from each node. We investigate the number of examples
that a learning algorithm needs when using nonoverlapping neural
networks as hypotheses. We derive bounds for this sample complexity
in terms of the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension. ... more >>>

We survey some recent developments in the study of
the complexity of lattice problems. After a discussion of some
problems on lattices which can be algorithmically solved
efficiently, our main focus is the recent progress on complexity
results of intractability. We will discuss Ajtai's worst-case/
average-case connections, NP-hardness and non-NP-hardness,
more >>>

The investigation of the computational power of randomized
computations is one of the central tasks of current complexity and
algorithm theory. This paper continues in the comparison of the computational
power of LasVegas computations with the computational power of deterministic
and nondeterministic ones. While for one-way ... more >>>

The aim of this paper is to use formal power series techniques to
study the structure of small arithmetic complexity classes such as
GapNC^1 and GapL. More precisely, we apply the Kleene closure of
languages and the formal power series operations of inversion and
root ... more >>>

We prove that the error-free (Las Vegas) randomized OBDDs
are computationally equivalent to the deterministic OBDDs.
In contrast, it is known the same is not true for the
Las Vegas read-once branching programs.

Recent work by Bernasconi, Damm and Shparlinski
proved lower bounds on the circuit complexity of the square-free
numbers, and raised as an open question if similar (or stronger)
lower bounds could be proved for the set of prime numbers. In
this short note, we answer this question ... more >>>

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) and their variants
are motivated by the need to represent Boolean functions
in applications. Research concerning these applications leads
also to problems and results interesting from theoretical
point of view. In this paper, methods from communication
complexity and ... more >>>

Constant-depth arithmetic circuits have been defined and studied
in [AAD97,ABL98]; these circuits yield the function classes #AC^0
and GapAC^0. These function classes in turn provide new
characterizations of the computational power of threshold circuits,
and provide a link between the circuit classes AC^0 ... more >>>

We extend the study of non-interactive statistical zero-knowledge
proofs. Our main focus is to compare the class NISZK of problems
possessing such non-interactive proofs to the class SZK of problems
possessing interactive statistical zero-knowledge proofs. Along these
lines, we first show that if statistical zero knowledge is non-trivial
then so ... more >>>

Assume that A, B are finite families of n-element sets.
We prove that there is an element that simultaneously
belongs to at least |A|/2n sets
in A and to at least |B|/2n sets in B. We use this result to prove
that for any inconsistent DNF's F,G with OR ... more >>>

The label-cover problem was introduced in \cite{ABSS} and shown
there to be quasi-NP-hard to approximate to within a factor of
$2^{\log^{1-\delta}n}$ for any {\em constant} $\delta>0$. This
combinatorial graph problem has been utilized \cite{ABSS,GM,ABMP}
for showing hardness-of-approximation of numerous problems. We
present a direct combinatorial reduction from low
error-probability PCP ... more >>>

This paper shows SVP_\infty and CVP_\infty to be NP-hard to approximate
to within any factor up to $n^{1/\log\log n}$. This improves on the
best previous result \cite{ABSS} that showed quasi-NP-hardness for
smaller factors, namely $2^{\log^{1-\epsilon}n}$ for any constant
$\epsilon>0$. We show a direct reduction from SAT to these
problems, that ... more >>>

We present improved algorithms for testing monotonicity of functions.
Namely, given the ability to query an unknown function $f$, where
$\Sigma$ and $\Xi$ are finite ordered sets, the test always accepts a
monotone $f$, and rejects $f$ with high probability if it is $\e$-far
from being monotone (i.e., every ... more >>>

We give new randomized algorithms for testing multivariate polynomial
identities over finite fields and rationals. The algorithms use
\lceil \sum_{i=1}^n \log(d_i+1)\rceil (plus \lceil\log\log C\rceil
in case of rationals where C is the largest coefficient)
random bits to test if a
polynomial P(x_1, ..., x_n) is zero where d_i is ... more >>>

Linear Transformed Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (LTOBDDs) have
been suggested as a generalization of OBDDs for the representation and
manipulation of Boolean functions. Instead of variables as in the
case of OBDDs parities of variables may be tested at the nodes of an
LTOBDD. By this extension it is ... more >>>

We survey some of the recent results on the complexity of recognizing
n-dimensional linear arrangements and convex polyhedra by randomized
algebraic decision trees. We give also a number of concrete applications
of these results. In particular, we derive first nontrivial, in fact
quadratic, ... more >>>

We show that a pseudo-random number generator,
introduced recently by M. Naor and O. Reingold,
possess one more attractive and useful property.
Namely, it is proved that for almost all values of parameters it
produces a uniformly distributed sequence.
The proof is based on some recent bounds of exponential
more >>>

The width of a Resolution proof is defined to be the maximal number of
literals in any clause of the proof. In this paper we relate proof width
to proof length (=size), in both general Resolution, and its tree-like
variant. The following consequences of these relations reveal width as ... more >>>

In this paper we prove near quadratic lower bounds for
depth-3 arithmetic formulae over fields of characteristic zero.
Such bounds are obtained for the elementary symmetric
functions, the (trace of) iterated matrix multiplication, and the
determinant. As corollaries we get the first nontrivial lower
bounds for ... more >>>

We introduce the notion of Interleaved Zero-Knowledge (iZK),
a new security measure for cryptographic protocols which strengthens
the classical notion of zero-knowledge, in a way suitable for multiple
concurrent executions in an asynchronous environment like the internet.
We prove that iZK protocols are robust: they are ``parallelizable'',
and ... more >>>

We extend the notion of linearity testing to the task of checking
linear-consistency of multiple functions. Informally, functions
are ``linear'' if their graphs form straight lines on the plane.
Two such functions are ``consistent'' if the lines have the same
slope. We propose a variant of a test of ... more >>>

We prove that for all positive integer $k$ and for all
sufficiently small $\epsilon >0$ if $n$ is sufficiently large
then there is no Boolean (or $2$-way) branching program of size
less than $2^{\epsilon n}$ which for all inputs
$X\subseteq \lbrace 0,1,...,n-1\rbrace $ computes in time $kn$
the parity of ... more >>>

We show that deciding square-freeness of a sparse univariate
polynomial over the integer and over the algebraic closure of a
finite field is NP-hard. We also discuss some related open
problems about sparse polynomials.

Dutton presents a further HEAPSORT variant called
WEAK-HEAPSORT which also contains a new data structure for
priority queues. The sorting algorithm and the underlying
data structure ara analyzed showing that WEAK-HEAPSORT is
the best HEAPSORT variant and that it has a lot of nice
more >>>

We show that the minimum distance of a linear code (or
equivalently, the weight of the lightest codeword) is
not approximable to within any constant factor in random polynomial
time (RP), unless NP equals RP.
Under the stronger assumption that NP is not contained in RQP
(random ... more >>>

The Pfaffian of an oriented graph is closely linked to
Perfect Matching. It is also naturally related to the determinant of
an appropriately defined matrix. This relation between Pfaffian and
determinant is usually exploited to give a fast algorithm for
computing Pfaffians.

We present the first completely combinatorial algorithm for ... more >>>

The investigation of the possibility to efficiently compute
approximations of hard optimization problems is one of the central
and most fruitful areas of current algorithm and complexity theory.
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we introduce the notion of
stability of approximation algorithms. This notion is shown to ... more >>>

We propose definitions of $\QAC^0$, the quantum analog of the
classical class $\AC^0$ of constant-depth circuits with AND and OR
gates of arbitrary fan-in, and $\QACC^0[q]$, the analog of the class
$\ACC^0[q]$ where $\Mod_q$ gates are also allowed. We show that it is
possible to make a `cat' state on ... more >>>

We show the following new lowness results for the probabilistic
class ZPP$^{\mbox{\rm NP}}$.

1. The class AM$\cap$coAM is low for ZPP$^{\mbox{\rm NP}}$.
As a consequence it follows that Graph Isomorphism and several
group-theoretic problems known to be in AM$\cap$coAM are low for
ZPP$^{\mbox{\rm ... more >>>

We consider separations of reducibilities in the context of
resource-bounded measure theory. First, we show a result on
polynomial-time bounded reducibilities: for every p-random set R,
there is a set which is reducible to R with k+1 non-adaptive
queries, but is not reducible to any other p-random set with ... more >>>

We address the problem of partitioning a set of $n$ points into
clusters, so as to minimize the sum, over all intracluster pairs of
points, of the cost associated with each pair. We obtain a randomized
approximation algorithm for this problem, for the cost functions
$\ell_2^2,\ell_1$ and $\ell_2$, as ... more >>>

Recently there was a significant progress in
proving (exponential-time) worst-case upper bounds for the
propositional satisfiability problem (SAT).
MAX-SAT is an important generalization of SAT.
Several upper bounds were obtained for MAX-SAT and
its NP-complete subproblems.
In particular, Niedermeier and Rossmanith recently
... more >>>

We study the security of individual bits in an
RSA encrypted message $E_N(x)$. We show that given $E_N(x)$,
predicting any single bit in $x$ with only a non-negligible
advantage over the trivial guessing strategy, is (through a
polynomial time reduction) as hard as breaking ... more >>>

We study the computational complexity of an optimization
version of the constraint satisfaction problem: given a set $F$ of
constraint functions, an instance consists of a set of variables $V$
related by constraints chosen from $F$ and a natural number $k$. The
problem is to decide whether there exists a ... more >>>

We prove that any constraint satisfaction problem
where each variable appears a bounded number of
times admits a nontrivial polynomial time approximation
algorithm.

We study space complexity in the framework of
propositional proofs. We consider a natural model analogous to
Turing machines with a read-only input tape, and such
popular propositional proof systems as Resolution, Polynomial
Calculus and Frege systems. We propose two different space measures,
corresponding to the maximal number of bits, ... more >>>

A relativized hierarchy of conjunctive normal forms
is introduced, recognizable and SAT decidable in polynomial
time. The corresponding hardness parameter, the first level
of inclusion in the hierarchy, is studied in detail, admitting
several characterizations, e.g., using pebble games, the space
complexity of (relativized) tree-like ... more >>>

We introduce the notion of Resettable Zero-Knowledge (rZK),
a new security measure for cryptographic protocols
which strengthens the classical notion of zero-knowledge.
In essence, an rZK protocol is one that remains zero knowledge
even if an adeversary can interact with the prover many times, each
time ... more >>>

We prove hardness results for approximating set splitting problems and
also instances of satisfiability problems which have no ``mixed'' clauses,
i.e all clauses have either all their literals unnegated or all of them
negated. Recent results of Hastad imply tight hardness results for set
splitting when all sets ... more >>>

A regular $(1,+k)$-branching program ($(1,+k)$-ReBP) is an
ordinary branching program with the following restrictions: (i)
along every consistent path at most $k$ variables are tested more
than once, (ii) for each node $v$ on all paths from the source to
$v$ the same set $X(v)\subseteq X$ of variables is ... more >>>

We study the complexity of the circuit minimization problem:
given the truth table of a Boolean function f and a parameter s, decide
whether f can be realized by a Boolean circuit of size at most s. We argue
why this problem is unlikely to be in P (or ... more >>>

We give explicit constructions of extractors which work for a source of
any min-entropy on strings of length n. These extractors can extract any
constant fraction of the min-entropy using O(log^2 n) additional random
bits, and can extract all the min-entropy using O(log^3 n) additional
random bits. Both of these ... more >>>

We consider combinatorial avoidance and achievement games
based on graph Ramsey theory: The players take turns in coloring
still uncolored edges of a graph G, each player being assigned a
distinct color, choosing one edge per move. In avoidance games,
completing a monochromatic subgraph isomorphic to ... more >>>

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) are nowadays the
most common dynamic data structure or representation type
for Boolean functions. Among the many areas of application
are verification, model checking, and computer aided design.
For many functions it is easy to estimate the OBDD ... more >>>