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For more than two decades, proving or refuting the following statement has remained a challenging open problem in the theory of secret sharing schemes (SSSs): every ideal access structure admits an ideal perfect multi-linear SSS. The class of group-characterizable (GC) SSSs include the multi-linear ones. Hence, if the above statement is true, then so is the following weaker statement: every ideal access structure admits an ideal perfect GC SSS. One contribution of this paper is to show that ideal SSSs are not necessarily GC. Our second contribution is to study the above two statements with respect to several variations of weakly-ideal access structures. Recently, Mejia and Montoya studied ideal access structures that admit ideal multi-linear schemes and provided a classification-like theorem for them. We additionally present some tools that are useful to extend their result.

The Langberg-Medard multiple unicast conjecture claims that for any strongly reachable \begin{document}$ k $\end{document} -pair network, there exists a multi-flow with rate \begin{document}$ (1,1,\dots,1) $\end{document} . In this paper, we examine an optimization problem \begin{document}$ \mathcal P_{\mathcal S_k} $\end{document} such that its optimal value \begin{document}$ \mathcal O_{\mathcal S_k} $\end{document} naturally gives a lower bound on the multi-flow rate for the strongly reachable \begin{document}$ k $\end{document} -pair network. We first prove \begin{document}$ \lim_{k\rightarrow \infty}\mathcal O_{\mathcal S_k} = \frac{9}{8} $\end{document} and then show that the multi-flow \begin{document}$ \mathcal C^*_k $\end{document} constructed in our previous work is asymptotically optimal for \begin{document}$ \mathcal P_{\mathcal S_k} $\end{document} and optimal if and only if \begin{document}$ k = 1, 2, 6, 10 $\end{document} .

Graph states are present in quantum information and found applications ranging from quantum network protocols (like secret sharing) to measurement based quantum computing. In this paper, we extend the notion of graph states, which can be regarded as pure quantum graph states, or as homogeneous quadratic Boolean functions associated to simple undirected graphs, to quantum states based on mixed graphs (graphs which allow both directed and undirected edges), obtaining mixed quantum states, which are defined by matrices associated to the measurement of homogeneous quadratic Boolean functions in some (ancillary) variables. In our main result, we describe the extended graph state as the sum of terms of a commutative subgroup of the stabilizer group of the corresponding mixed graph with the edges' directions reversed.

In this paper, a new class of generalized cyclotomic binary sequences with period \begin{document}$ 4p^n $\end{document} is proposed. These sequences are almost balanced, and the explicit formulas of their linear complexity and autocorrelation are presented.

MDS matrices play an important role in the design of block ciphers, and constructing MDS matrices with fewer xor gates is of significant interest for lightweight ciphers. For this topic, Duval and Leurent proposed an approach to construct MDS matrices by using three linear operations in ToSC 2018. Taking words as elements, they found \begin{document}$ 16\times16 $\end{document} and \begin{document}$ 32\times 32 $\end{document} MDS matrices over \begin{document}$ \mathbb{F}_2 $\end{document} with only \begin{document}$ 35 $\end{document} xor gates and \begin{document}$ 67 $\end{document} xor gates respectively, which are also the best known implementations up to now. Based on the same observation as their work, we consider three linear operations as three kinds of elementary linear operations of matrices, and obtain more MDS matrices with \begin{document}$ 35 $\end{document} and \begin{document}$ 67 $\end{document} xor gates. In addition, some \begin{document}$ 16\times16 $\end{document} or \begin{document}$ 32\times32 $\end{document} involutory MDS matrices with only \begin{document}$ 36 $\end{document} or \begin{document}$ 72 $\end{document} xor gates over \begin{document}$ \mathbb{F}_2 $\end{document} are also proposed, which are better than previous results. Moreover, our method can be extended to general linear groups, and we prove that the lower bound of the sequential xor count based on words for \begin{document}$ 4 \times 4 $\end{document} MDS matrix over general linear groups is \begin{document}$ 8n+2 $\end{document} .

Recently, Ivanov et al. proposed a new approach to construct code-based cryptosystems, namely the \begin{document}$ {\sf IKKR} $\end{document} public-key encryptions (PKE) in the International Workshop on Code-Based Cryptography (CBCrypto 2020) [ 9 ]. Unlike the usual construction in code-based encryption schemes which has restrictions on the Hamming weight of the error introduced into the ciphertext, the \begin{document}$ {\sf IKKR} $\end{document} approach allows error vectors of arbitrary weight being introduced into the ciphertext. Using this new approach, Ivanov et al. constructed two cryptosystems, namely the modified and the upgraded \begin{document}$ {\sf IKKR} $\end{document} -PKE. This paper aims to discuss the practical security of the \begin{document}$ {\sf IKKR} $\end{document} -PKE. In particular, we describe the weaknesses in the design of the public key used in the \begin{document}$ {\sf IKKR} $\end{document} -PKE. We exploit such weaknesses and propose two attacks to recover the plaintext in the \begin{document}$ {\sf IKKR} $\end{document} -PKE. The approach of our first attack is similar to the LCKN attack [ 12 ], whilst our second attack is more efficient than the LCKN attack. Our experimental results show that we can recover the plaintext from a given ciphertext in less than 176 milliseconds for schemes based on random Goppa codes and BCH codes.

We use known characterizations of generalized Paley graphs which are cartesian decomposable to explicitly compute the spectra of the corresponding associated irreducible cyclic codes. As applications, we give reduction formulas for the number of rational points in Artin-Schreier curves defined over extension fields and to the computation of Gaussian periods., 20 pages, 2 tables. Added information on Cartesian products of graphs. A general reviwe was made, with small additions improving readability. Some typos corrected. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1908.08097

The suffix array, perhaps the most important data structure in modern string processing, is often augmented with the longest common prefix (LCP) array which stores the lengths of the LCPs for lexicographically adjacent suffixes of a string. Together the two arrays are roughly equivalent to the suffix tree with the LCP array representing the tree shape. In order to better understand the combinatorics of LCP arrays, we consider the problem of inferring a string from an LCP array, i.e., determining whether a given array of integers is a valid LCP array, and if it is, reconstructing some string or all strings with that LCP array. There are recent studies of inferring a string from a suffix tree shape but using significantly more information (in the form of suffix links) than is available in the LCP array. We provide two main results. (1) We describe two algorithms for inferring strings from an LCP array when we allow a generalized form of LCP array defined for a multiset of cyclic strings: a linear time algorithm for binary alphabet and a general algorithm with polynomial time complexity for a constant alphabet size. (2) We prove that determining whether a given integer array is a valid LCP array is NP-complete when we require more restricted forms of LCP array defined for a single cyclic or non-cyclic string or a multiset of non-cyclic strings. The result holds whether or not the alphabet is restricted to be binary. In combination, the two results show that the generalized form of LCP array for a multiset of cyclic strings is fundamentally different from the other more restricted forms.

In this paper, we propose a new class of optimal one-coincidence FHS (OC-FHS) sets with respect to the Peng-Fan bounds, including prime sequence sets and HMC sequence sets as special cases. Thereafter, through investigating their properties, we determine all of the FHS distances in the OC-FHS set. Finally, for a given positive integer, we also propose a new class of wide-gap one-coincidence FHS (WG-OC-FHS) sets where the FHS gap is larger than the given positive integer. Moreover, such a WG-OC-FHS set is optimal with respect to the WG-Lempel-Greenberger bound and the WG-Peng-Fan bounds simultaneously.

Subfield codes of linear codes over finite fields have recently received a lot of attention, as some of these codes are optimal and have applications in secrete sharing, authentication codes and association schemes. In this paper, a class of binary subfield codes is constructed from a special family of MDS codes, and their parameters are explicitly determined. The parameters of their dual codes are also studied. Some of the codes presented in this paper are optimal or almost optimal.

A tweakable enciphering scheme (TES) is a length preserving (tweakable) encryption scheme that provides (tweakable) strong pseudorandom permutation security on arbitrarily long messages. TES is traditionally built using block ciphers and the security of the mode depends on the strong pseudorandom permutation security of the underlying block cipher. In this paper, we construct TESs using public random permutations. Public random permutations are being considered as a replacement of block cipher in several cryptographic schemes including AEs, MACs, etc. However, to our knowledge, a systematic study of constructing TES using public random permutations is missing. In this paper, we give a generic construction of a TES which uses a public random permutation, a length expanding public permutation based PRF and a hash function which is both almost xor universal and almost regular. Further, we propose a concrete length expanding public permutation based PRF construction. We also propose a single keyed TES using a public random permutation and an AXU and almost regular hash function.

In this paper, we are concerned about bounds and constructions of optimal \begin{document}$ 2 $\end{document} -D \begin{document}$ (n\times m,3,2,1) $\end{document} -optical orthogonal codes. The exact number of codewords of an optimal \begin{document}$ 2 $\end{document} -D \begin{document}$ (n\times m,3,2,1) $\end{document} -optical orthogonal code is determined for \begin{document}$ n = 2 $\end{document} , \begin{document}$ m\equiv 1 \pmod{2} $\end{document} , and \begin{document}$ n\equiv 1 \pmod{2} $\end{document} , \begin{document}$ m\equiv 1,3,5 \pmod{12} $\end{document} , and \begin{document}$ n\equiv 4 \pmod{6} $\end{document} , \begin{document}$ m\equiv 8 \pmod{16} $\end{document} .

Absorbing sets are combinatorial structures in the Tanner graphs of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes that have been shown to inhibit the high signal-to-noise ratio performance of iterative decoders over many communication channels. Absorbing sets of minimum size are the most likely to cause errors, and thus have been the focus of much research. In this paper, we determine the sizes of absorbing sets that can occur in general and left-regular LDPC code graphs, with emphasis on the range of \begin{document}$ b $\end{document} for a given \begin{document}$ a $\end{document} for which an \begin{document}$ (a,b) $\end{document} -absorbing set may exist. We identify certain cases of extremal absorbing sets that are elementary, a particularly harmful class of absorbing sets, and also introduce the notion of minimal absorbing sets which will help in designing absorbing set removal algorithms.

We propose a decentralized e-voting protocol that is coercion-resistant and vote-selling resistant, while being also completely transparent and not receipt-free. We achieve decentralization using blockchain technology. Because of the properties such as transparency, decentralization, and non-repudiation, blockchain is a fundamental technology of great interest in its own right, and it also has large potential when integrated into many other areas. We prove the security of the protocol under the standard DDH assumption on the underlying prime-order cyclic group (e.g. the group of points of an elliptic curve), as well as under standard assumptions on blockchain robustness.

In this paper, for each of six families of three-valued \begin{document}$ m $\end{document} -sequence correlation, we construct an infinite family of five-weight codes from trace codes over the ring \begin{document}$ R = \mathbb{F}_2+u\mathbb{F}_2 $\end{document} , where \begin{document}$ u^2 = 0. $\end{document} The trace codes have the algebraic structure of abelian codes. Their Lee weight distribution is computed by using character sums. Their support structure is determined. An application to secret sharing schemes is given. The parameters of the binary image are \begin{document}$ [2^{m+1}(2^m-1),4m,2^{m}(2^m-2^r)] $\end{document} for some explicit \begin{document}$ r. $\end{document}

In this paper, we study the \begin{document}$ m $\end{document} -ary sequences with (non-consecutive) two zero-symbols and at most two distinct autocorrelation coefficients, which are known as almost \begin{document}$ m $\end{document} -ary nearly perfect sequences. We show that these sequences are equivalent to \begin{document}$ \ell $\end{document} -partial direct product difference sets (PDPDS), then we extend known results on the sequences with two consecutive zero-symbols to non-consecutive case. Next, we study the notion of multipliers and orbit combination for \begin{document}$ \ell $\end{document} -PDPDS. Finally, we present two construction methods for a family of almost quaternary sequences with at most two out-of-phase autocorrelation coefficients.

A Boolean function in \begin{document}$ n $\end{document} variables is 2-rotation symmetric if it is invariant under even powers of \begin{document}$ \rho(x_1, \ldots, x_n) = (x_2, \ldots, x_n, x_1) $\end{document} , but not under the first power (ordinary rotation symmetry); we call such a function a 2-function. A 2-function is called monomial rotation symmetric (MRS) if it is generated by applying powers of \begin{document}$ \rho^2 $\end{document} to a single monomial. If the quartic MRS 2-function in \begin{document}$ 2n $\end{document} variables has a monomial \begin{document}$ x_1 x_q x_r x_s $\end{document} , then we use the notation \begin{document}$ {2-}(1,q,r,s)_{2n} $\end{document} for the function. A detailed theory of equivalence of quartic MRS 2-functions in \begin{document}$ 2n $\end{document} variables was given in a \begin{document}$ 2020 $\end{document} paper by Cusick, Cheon and Dougan. This theory divides naturally into two classes, called \begin{document}$ mf1 $\end{document} and \begin{document}$ mf2 $\end{document} in the paper. After describing the equivalence classes, the second major problem is giving details of the linear recursions that the Hamming weights for any sequence of functions \begin{document}$ {2-}(1,q,r,s)_{2n} $\end{document} (with \begin{document}$ q say), \begin{document}$ n = s, s+1, \ldots $\end{document} can be shown to satisfy. This problem was solved for the \begin{document}$ mf1 $\end{document} case only in the \begin{document}$ 2020 $\end{document} paper. Using new ideas about "short" functions, Cusick and Cheon found formulas for the \begin{document}$ mf2 $\end{document} weights in a \begin{document}$ 2021 $\end{document} sequel to the \begin{document}$ 2020 $\end{document} paper. In this paper the actual recursions for the weights in the \begin{document}$ mf2 $\end{document} case are determined.

Let \begin{document}$ p $\end{document} be a prime and let \begin{document}$ n $\end{document} be an integer with \begin{document}$ (n, p) = 1 $\end{document} . The Fermat quotient \begin{document}$ q_p(n) $\end{document} is defined as \begin{document}$ q_p(n)\equiv \frac{n^{p-1}-1}{p} \ (\bmod\ p), \quad 0\leq q_p(n)\leq p-1. $\end{document} We also define \begin{document}$ q_p(kp) = 0 $\end{document} for \begin{document}$ k\in \mathbb{Z} $\end{document} . Chen, Ostafe and Winterhof constructed the binary sequence \begin{document}$ E_{p^2} = \left(e_0, e_1, \cdots, e_{p^2-1}\right)\in \{0, 1\}^{p^2} $\end{document} as \begin{document}$ \begin{equation*} \begin{split} e_{n} = \left\{\begin{array}{ll} 0, & \hbox{if }\ 0\leq \frac{q_p(n)}{p} and studied the well-distribution measure and correlation measure of order \begin{document}$ 2 $\end{document} by using estimates for exponential sums of Fermat quotients. In this paper we further study the correlation measures of the sequence. Our results show that the correlation measure of order \begin{document}$ 3 $\end{document} is quite good, but the \begin{document}$ 4 $\end{document} -order correlation measure of the sequence is very large.

Key assignment and key maintenance in encrypted networks of resource-limited devices may be a challenging task, due to the permanent need of replacing out-of-service devices with new ones and to the consequent need of updating the key information. Recently, Aragona et al. proposed a new cryptographic scheme, ECTAKS, which provides a solution to this design problem by means of a Diffie-Hellman-like key establishment protocol based on elliptic curves and on a prime field. Even if the authors proved some results related to the security of the scheme, the latter still lacks a formal security analysis. In this paper, we address this issue by providing a security proof for ECTAKS in the setting of computational security, assuming that no adversary can solve the underlying discrete logarithm problems with non-negligible success probability.

In this paper, we propose cryptanalytic results on two lightweight stream ciphers: Fountain v1 and Lizard. The main results of this paper are the followings: \begin{document}$ - $\end{document} We propose a zero-sum distinguisher on reduced round Fountain v1. In this context, we study the non-randomness of the cipher with a careful selection of cube variables. Our obtained cube provides a zero-sum on Fountain v1 till \begin{document}$ 188 $\end{document} initialization rounds and significant non-randomness till \begin{document}$ 189 $\end{document} rounds. This results in a distinguishing attack on Fountain v1 with \begin{document}$ 189 $\end{document} initialization rounds. \begin{document}$ - $\end{document} Further, we find that the same cipher has a weakness against conditional Time-Memory-Data-Tradeoff (TMDTO). We show that TMDTO attack using sampling resistance has online complexity \begin{document}$ 2^{110} $\end{document} and offline complexity \begin{document}$ 2^{146} $\end{document} . \begin{document}$ - $\end{document} Finally, we revisit the Time-Memory-Data-Tradeoff attack on Lizard by Maitra et al. (IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2018) and provide our observations on their work. We show that instead of choosing any random string, some particular strings would provide better results in their proposed attack technique.

A generalized Stirling numbers of the second kind \begin{document}$ S_{a,b}\left(p,k\right) $\end{document} , involved in the expansion \begin{document}$ \left(an+b\right)^{p} = \sum_{k = 0}^{p}k!S_{a,b}\left(p,k\right) \binom{n}{k} $\end{document} , where \begin{document}$ a \neq 0, b $\end{document} are complex numbers, have studied in [ 16 ]. In this paper, we show that Bernoulli polynomials \begin{document}$ B_{p}(x) $\end{document} can be written in terms of the numbers \begin{document}$ S_{1,x}\left(p,k\right) $\end{document} , and then use the known results for \begin{document}$ S_{1,x}\left(p,k\right) $\end{document} to obtain several new explicit formulas, recurrences and generalized recurrences for Bernoulli numbers and polynomials.

In the context of digital signatures, the proxy signature holds a significant role of enabling an original signer to delegate its signing ability to another party (i.e., proxy signer). It has significant practical applications. Particularly it is useful in distributed systems, where delegation of authentication rights is quite common. For example, key sharing protocol, grid computing, and mobile communications. Currently, a large portion of existing proxy signature schemes are based on the hardness of problems like integer factoring, discrete logarithms, and/or elliptic curve discrete logarithms. However, with the rising of quantum computers, the problem of prime factorization and discrete logarithm will be solvable in polynomial-time, due to Shor's algorithm, which dilutes the security features of existing ElGamal, RSA, ECC, and the proxy signature schemes based on these problems. As a consequence, construction of secure and efficient post-quantum proxy signature becomes necessary. In this work, we develop a post-quantum proxy signature scheme Mult-proxy, relying on multivariate public key cryptography (MPKC), which is one of the most promising candidates of post-quantum cryptography. We employ a 5-pass identification protocol to design our proxy signature scheme. Our work attains the usual proxy criterion and a one-more-unforgeability criterion under the hardness of the Multivariate Quadratic polynomial (MQ) problem. It produces optimal size proxy signatures and optimal size proxy shares in the field of MPKC.

Regev (2005) introduced the learning with errors (LWE) problem and showed a quantum reduction from a worst case lattice problem to LWE. Building on the work of Peikert (2009), a classical reduction from the gap shortest vector problem to LWE was obtained by Brakerski et al. (2013). A concrete security analysis of Regev's reduction by Chatterjee et al. (2016) identified a huge tightness gap. The present work performs a concrete analysis of the tightness gap in the classical reduction of Brakerski et al. It turns out that the tightness gap in the Brakerski et al. classical reduction is even larger than the tightness gap in the quantum reduction of Regev. This casts doubts on the implication of the reduction to security assurance of practical cryptosystems.

The number of proper vertex-3-colorings of every triangle-free planar graph with n vertices and with no separating cycle of length 4 or 5 is at least 2 n / 17700000 . On the other hand, for infinitely many n, there exists a triangle-free planar graph with separating cycles of length 4 and 5 whose number of proper vertex-3-colorings is 2 15 n / log 2 ⁡ ( n ) .

In this paper, we first introduce a class of quartic Boolean functions. And then, the construction of weightwise perfectly balanced Boolean functions on \begin{document}$ 2^m $\end{document} variables are given by modifying the support of the quartic functions, where \begin{document}$ m $\end{document} is a positive integer. The algebraic degree, the weightwise nonlinearity, and the algebraic immunity of the newly constructed weightwise perfectly balanced functions are discussed at the end of this paper.

Graph sparsification underlies a large number of algorithms, ranging from approximation algorithms for cut problems to solvers for linear systems in the graph Laplacian. In its strongest form, "spectral sparsification" reduces the number of edges to near-linear in the number of nodes, while approximately preserving the cut and spectral structure of the graph. In this work we demonstrate a polynomial quantum speedup for spectral sparsification and many of its applications. In particular, we give a quantum algorithm that, given a weighted graph with $n$ nodes and $m$ edges, outputs a classical description of an $\epsilon$-spectral sparsifier in sublinear time $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{mn}/\epsilon)$. This contrasts with the optimal classical complexity $\tilde{O}(m)$. We also prove that our quantum algorithm is optimal up to polylog-factors. The algorithm builds on a string of existing results on sparsification, graph spanners, quantum algorithms for shortest paths, and efficient constructions for $k$-wise independent random strings. Our algorithm implies a quantum speedup for solving Laplacian systems and for approximating a range of cut problems such as min cut and sparsest cut., Comment: v2: several small improvements to the text. An extended abstract will appear in FOCS'20; v3: corrected a minor mistake in Appendix A; v4: final version as published in SICOMP

We prove the following theorem. Given a planar graph $G$ and an integer $k$, it is possible in polynomial time to randomly sample a subset $A$ of vertices of $G$ with the following properties: (i) $A$ induces a subgraph of $G$ of treewidth $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{k}\log k)$, and (ii) for every connected subgraph $H$ of $G$ on at most $k$ vertices, the probability that $A$ covers the whole vertex set of $H$ is at least $(2^{\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{k}\log^2 k)}\cdot n^{\mathcal{O}(1)})^{-1}$, where $n$ is the number of vertices of $G$. Together with standard dynamic programming techniques for graphs of bounded treewidth, this result gives a versatile technique for obtaining (randomized) subexponential parameterized algorithms for problems on planar graphs, usually with running time bound $2^{\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{k} \log^2 k)} n^{\mathcal{O}(1)}$. The technique can be applied to problems expressible as searching for a small, connected pattern with a prescribed property in a large host graph, examples of such problems include Directed $k$-Path, Weighted $k$-Path, Vertex Cover Local Search, and Subgraph Isomorphism, among others. Up to this point, it was open whether these problems can be solved in subexponential parameterized time on planar graphs, because they are not amenable to the classic technique of bidimensionality. Furthermore, all our results hold in fact on any class of graphs that exclude a fixed apex graph as a minor, in particular on graphs embeddable in any fixed surface.

What does it mean today to study a problem from a computational point of view? We focus on parameterized complexity and on Column 16 “Graph Restrictions and Their Effect” of D.S. Johnson’s Ongoing guide, where several puzzles were proposed in a summary table with 30 graph classes as rows and 11 problems as columns. Several of the 330 entries remain unclassified into Polynomial or NP -complete after 35 years. We provide a full dichotomy for the Steiner Tree column by proving that the problem is NP -complete when restricted to Undirected Path graphs. We revise Johnson’s summary table according to the granularity provided by the parameterized complexity for NP -complete problems.

In this paper, we initiate the study of the weighted paging problem with predictions. This continues the recent line of work in online algorithms with predictions, particularly that of Lykouris and Vassilvitski (ICML 2018) and Rohatgi (SODA 2020) on unweighted paging with predictions. We show that unlike unweighted paging, neither a fixed lookahead nor knowledge of the next request for every page is sufficient information for an algorithm to overcome existing lower bounds in weighted paging. However, a combination of the two, which we call the strong per request prediction (SPRP) model, suffices to give a 2-competitive algorithm. We also explore the question of gracefully degrading algorithms with increasing prediction error, and give both upper and lower bounds for a set of natural measures of prediction error., Comment: 27 pages

The eternal vertex cover problem is a variant of the classical vertex cover problem defined in terms of an infinite attacker–defender game played on a graph. In each round of the game, the defender reconfigures guards from one vertex cover to another in response to a move by the attacker. The minimum number of guards required in any winning strategy of the defender when this game is played on a graph G is the eternal vertex cover number of G , denoted by evc ( G ) . It is known that given a graph G and an integer k , checking whether evc ( G ) ≤ k is NP-hard. Further, it is known that for any graph G , mvc ( G ) ≤ evc ( G ) ≤ 2 mvc ( G ) , where mvc ( G ) is the vertex cover number of G . Though a characterization is known for graphs for which evc ( G ) = 2 mvc ( G ) , a characterization of graphs for which evc ( G ) = mvc ( G ) remained as an open problem, since 2009. We achieve such a characterization for a class of graphs that includes chordal graphs and internally triangulated planar graphs. For biconnected chordal graphs, our characterization leads to a polynomial time algorithm for precisely determining evc ( G ) and an algorithm for determining a safe strategy for guard movement in each round of the game using only evc ( G ) guards. Though the eternal vertex cover problem is only known to be in PSPACE in general, it follows from our new characterization that the problem is in NP for locally connected graphs, a graph class which includes all biconnected internally triangulated planar graphs. We also provide reductions establishing NP-completeness of the problem for biconnected internally triangulated planar graphs. As far as we know, this is the first NP-completeness result known for the problem for any graph class.

In this paper, we study the Cartesian product of signed graphs as defined by Germina, Hameed and Zaslavsky (2011). Here we focus on its algebraic properties and look at the chromatic number of some Cartesian products. One of our main results is the unicity of the prime factor decomposition of signed graphs. This leads us to present an algorithm to compute this decomposition in linear time based on a decomposition algorithm for oriented graphs by Imrich and Peterin (2018). We also study the chromatic number of a signed graph, that is the minimum order of a signed graph to which the input signed graph admits a homomorphism, of graphs with underlying graph of the form P n □ P m , of Cartesian products of signed paths, of Cartesian products of signed complete graphs and of Cartesian products of signed cycles.

Indicated coloring is a graph coloring game in which two players collectively color the vertices of a graph in the following way. In each round the first player (Ann) selects a vertex, and then the second player (Ben) colors it properly, using a fixed set of colors. The goal of Ann is to achieve a proper coloring of the whole graph, while Ben is trying to prevent the realization of this project. The smallest number of colors necessary for Ann to win the game on a graph $G$ (regardless of Ben's strategy) is called the indicated chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $\chi_i(G)$. In this paper, we have shown that for any graphs $G$ and $H$, $G[H]$ is $k$-indicated colorable for all $k\geq\mathrm{col}(G)\mathrm{col}(H)$. Also, we have shown that for any graph $G$ and for some classes of graphs $H$ with $\chi(H)=\chi_i(H)=\ell$, $G[H]$ is $k$-indicated colorable if and only if $G[K_\ell]$ is $k$-indicated colorable. As a consequence of this result we have shown that for some particular families of graphs $G$ and $H$, $G[H]$ is $k$-indicated colorable for every $k\geq \chi(G[H])$. This serves as a partial answer to one of the questions raised by A. Grzesik in \cite{and}. In addition, if $G$ is a Bipartite graph or a $\{P_5,K_3\}$-free graph (or) a $\{P_5,Paw\}$-free graph and if $H$ is from the same families of graphs, then we have shown that $\chi_i(G[H])=\chi(G[H])$.

An {\em orientation} of an undirected graph $G$ is an assignment of exactly one direction to each edge of $G$. Converting two-way traffic networks to one-way traffic networks and bidirectional communication networks to unidirectional communication networks are practical instances of graph orientations. In these contexts minimising the diameter of the resulting oriented graph is of prime interest. The $n$-star network topology was proposed as an alternative to the hypercube network topology for multiprocessor systems by Akers and Krishnamurthy [IEEE Trans. on Computers (1989)]. The $n$-star graph $S_n$ consists of $n!$ vertices, each labelled with a distinct permutation of $[n]$. Two vertices are adjacent if their labels differ exactly in the first and one other position. $S_n$ is an $(n-1)$-regular, vertex-transitive graph with diameter $\lfloor 3(n-1)/2 \rfloor$. Orientations of $S_n$, called unidirectional star graphs and distributed routing protocols over them were studied by Day and Tripathi [Information Processing Letters (1993)] and Fujita [The First International Symposium on Computing and Networking (CANDAR 2013)]. Fujita showed that the (directed) diameter of this unidirectional star graph $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ is at most $\lceil{5n/2}\rceil + 2$. In this paper, we propose a new distributed routing algorithm for the same $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ analysed by Fujita, which routes a packet from any node $s$ to any node $t$ at an undirected distance $d$ from $s$ using at most $\min\{4d+4, 2n+4\}$ hops. This shows that the (directed) diameter of $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ is at most $2n+4$. We also show that the diameter of $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ is at least $2n$ when $n \geq 7$, thereby showing that our upper bound is tight up to an additive factor., Full version of the paper to be presented in CALDAM 2020

For a given graph $G$, the metric and edge metric dimensions of $G$, $\dim(G)$ and ${\rm edim}(G)$, are the cardinalities of the smallest possible subsets of vertices in $V(G)$ such that they uniquely identify the vertices and the edges of $G$, respectively, by means of distances. It is already known that metric and edge metric dimensions are not in general comparable. Infinite families of graphs with pendant vertices in which the edge metric dimension is smaller than the metric dimension are already known. In this article, we construct a 2-connected graph $G$ such that $\dim(G)=a$ and ${\rm edim}(G)=b$ for every pair of integers $a,b$, where $4\le b, Comment: 12 pages

We introduce and study a class of optimization problems we call replenishment problems with fixed turnover times: a very natural model that has received little attention in the literature. Clients with capacity for storing a certain commodity are located at various places; at each client the commodity depletes within a certain time, the turnover time, which is constant but can vary between locations. Clients should never run empty. The natural feature that makes this problem interesting is that we may schedule a replenishment (well) before a client becomes empty, but then the next replenishment will be due earlier also. This added workload needs to be balanced against the cost of routing vehicles to do the replenishments. In this paper, we focus on the aspect of minimizing routing costs. However, the framework of recurring tasks, in which the next job of a task must be done within a fixed amount of time after the previous one is much more general and gives an adequate model for many practical situations. Note that our problem has an infinite time horizon. However, it can be fully characterized by a compact input, containing only the location of each client and a turnover time. This makes determining its computational complexity highly challenging and indeed it remains essentially unresolved. We study the problem for two objectives: min–avg minimizes the average tour cost and min–max minimizes the maximum tour cost over all days. For min–max we derive a logarithmic factor approximation for the problem on general metrics and a 6-approximation for the problem on trees, for which we have a proof of NP-hardness. For min–avg we present a logarithmic factor approximation on general metrics, a 2-approximation for trees, and a pseudopolynomial time algorithm for the line. Many intriguing problems remain open.

We study dynamic matching in exchange markets with easy- and hard-to-match agents. A greedy policy, which attempts to match agents upon arrival, ignores the positive externality that waiting agents provide by facilitating future matchings. We prove that the trade-off between a “thicker” market and faster matching vanishes in large markets; the greedy policy leads to shorter waiting times and more agents matched than any other policy. We empirically confirm these findings in data from the National Kidney Registry. Greedy matching achieves as many transplants as commonly used policies (1.8$\%$ more than monthly batching) and shorter waiting times (16 days faster than monthly batching).

Fix a prime $p$ and a positive integer $R$. We study the property testing of functions $\mathbb F_p^n\to[R]$. We say that a property is testable if there exists an oblivious tester for this property with one-sided error and constant query complexity. Furthermore, a property is proximity oblivious-testable (PO-testable) if the test is also independent of the proximity parameter $\epsilon$. It is known that a number of natural properties such as linearity and being a low degree polynomial are PO-testable. These properties are examples of linear-invariant properties, meaning that they are preserved under linear automorphisms of the domain. Following work of Kaufman and Sudan, the study of linear-invariant properties has been an important problem in arithmetic property testing. A central conjecture in this field, proposed by Bhattacharyya, Grigorescu, and Shapira, is that a linear-invariant property is testable if and only if it is semi subspace-hereditary. We prove two results, the first resolves this conjecture and the second classifies PO-testable properties. (1) A linear-invariant property is testable if and only if it is semi subspace-hereditary. (2) A linear-invariant property is PO-testable if and only if it is locally characterized. Our innovations are two-fold. We give a more powerful version of the compactness argument first introduced by Alon and Shapira. This relies on a new strong arithmetic regularity lemma in which one mixes different levels of Gowers uniformity. This allows us to extend the work of Bhattacharyya, Fischer, Hatami, Hatami, and Lovett by removing the bounded complexity restriction in their work. Our second innovation is a novel recoloring technique called patching. This Ramsey-theoretic technique is critical for working in the linear-invariant setting and allows us to remove the translation-invariant restriction present in previous work., Comment: 40 pages; updated with significantly improved main result

We present a spectral approach to design approximation algorithms for network design problems. We observe that the underlying mathematical questions are the spectral rounding problems, which were studied in spectral sparsification and in discrepancy theory. We extend these results to incorporate additional non-negative linear constraints, and show that they can be used to significantly extend the scope of network design problems that can be solved. Our algorithm for spectral rounding is an iterative randomized rounding algorithm based on the regret minimization framework. In some settings, this provides an alternative spectral algorithm to achieve constant factor approximation for the classical survivable network design problem, and partially answers a question of Bansal about survivable network design with concentration property. We also show many other applications of the spectral rounding results, including weighted experimental design and additive spectral sparsification., Comment: Improved bound on one-sided spectral rounding by a randomized swapping algorithm. Added the proof of the deterministic algorithm for additive sparsifers

We study the relation between latency and alphabet size in the context of Multicast Network Coding. Given a graph $G =$ (${V}$, E) representing a communication network, a subset $S \subseteq V$ of sources, each of which initially holds a set of information messages, and a set $ T\subseteq V$ of terminals; we consider the problem in which one wishes to design a communication scheme that eventually allows all terminals to obtain all the messages held by the sources. In this study we assume that communication is performed in rounds, where in each round each network node may transmit a single (possibly encoded) information packet on any of its outgoing edges. The objective is to minimize the communication latency, i.e., number of communication rounds needed until all terminals have all the messages of the source nodes.For sufficiently large alphabet sizes (i.e., large block length, packet sizes), it is known that traditional linear multicast network coding techniques (such as random linear network coding)) minimize latency. In this work we seek to study the task of minimizing latency in the setting of limited alphabet sizes $(\mathrm {i}.\mathrm {e}.,$ finite block length), and alternatively, the task of minimizing the alphabet size in the setting of bounded latency. Through reductive arguments, we prove that it is NP-hard to (i) approximate (and in particular to determine) the minimum alphabet size given a latency constraint; (ii) to approximate (and in particular to determine) the minimum latency of communication schemes in the setting of limited alphabet sizes.

Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and an input line $\gamma$ in $\mathbb{R}^2$, we present an algorithm that runs in optimal $\Theta(n\log n)$ time and $\Theta(n)$ space to solve a restricted version of the $1$-Steiner tree problem. Our algorithm returns a minimum-weight tree interconnecting $P$ using at most one Steiner point $s \in \gamma$, where edges are weighted by the Euclidean distance between their endpoints. We then extend the result to $j$ input lines. Following this, we show how the algorithm of Brazil et al. ("Generalised k-Steiner Tree Problems in Normed Planes", arXiv:1111.1464) that solves the $k$-Steiner tree problem in $\mathbb{R}^2$ in $O(n^{2k})$ time can be adapted to our setting. For $k>1$, restricting the (at most) $k$ Steiner points to lie on an input line, the runtime becomes $O(n^{k})$. Next we show how the results of Brazil et al. ("Generalised k-Steiner Tree Problems in Normed Planes", arXiv:1111.1464) allow us to maintain the same time and space bounds while extending to some non-Euclidean norms and different tree cost functions. Lastly, we extend the result to $j$ input curves., Comment: 31 pages (26 of content), 4 figures (last one as 3 subfigures). Minor corrections since publication: notably our analysis of the Brazil et al. k-steiner tree algorithm in section 4.1 (results unchanged), and a correction to some corollary statements to correct the space usage. Also added short discussion of how the algorithm still works when the MST of the input point set is not unique

A graph database is a digraph whose arcs are labeled with symbols from a fixed alphabet. A regular graph pattern (RGP) is a digraph whose edges are labeled with regular expressions over the alphabet. RGPs model navigational queries for graph databases called conjunctive regular path queries (CRPQs). A match of a CRPQ in the database is witnessed by a special navigational homomorphism of the corresponding RGP to the database. We study the complexity of deciding the existence of a homomorphism between two RGPs. Such homomorphisms model a strong type of containment between the two corresponding CRPQs. We show that this problem can be solved by an EXPTIME algorithm (while general query containmement in this context is EXPSPACE-complete). We also study the problem for restricted RGPs over a unary alphabet, that arise from some applications like XPath or SPARQL. For this case, homomorphism-based CRPQ containment is in NP. We prove that certain interesting cases are in fact polynomial-time solvable., 15 pages. Short version appeared in the proceedings of the 15th Conference on Computability in Europe (CIE 2019)

We quantise Whitney’s construction to prove the existence of a triangulation for any$$C^2$$C2manifold, so that we get an algorithm with explicit bounds. We also give a new elementary proof, which is completely geometric.

Given a natural number k and an orientable surface S of finite type, define the k-curve graph to be the graph with vertices corresponding to isotopy classes of essential simple closed curves on S and with edges corresponding to pairs of such curves admitting representatives that intersect at most k times. We prove that the automorphism group of the k-curve graph of a surface S is isomorphic to the extended mapping class group for all k sufficiently small with respect to the Euler characteristic of S. We prove the same result for the so-called systolic complex, a variant of the curve graph whose complete subgraphs encode the intersection patterns for any collection of systoles with respect to a hyperbolic metric. This resolves a conjecture of Schmutz Schaller., Comment: 33 pages, 23 figures, 1 table. Incorporated referee comments. To appear in the Michigan Mathematical Journal

Following the breakthrough work of Tardos (Oper Res 34:250–256, 1986) in the bit-complexity model, Vavasis and Ye (Math Program 74(1):79–120, 1996) gave the first exact algorithm for linear programming in the real model of computation with running time depending only on the constraint matrix. For solving a linear program (LP) $$\max \, c^\top x,\, Ax = b,\, x \ge 0,\, A \in \mathbb {R}^{m \times n}$$ max c ⊤ x , A x = b , x ≥ 0 , A ∈ R m × n , Vavasis and Ye developed a primal-dual interior point method using a ‘layered least squares’ (LLS) step, and showed that $$O(n^{3.5} \log (\bar{\chi }_A+n))$$ O ( n 3.5 log ( χ ¯ A + n ) ) iterations suffice to solve (LP) exactly, where $$\bar{\chi }_A$$ χ ¯ A is a condition measure controlling the size of solutions to linear systems related to A. Monteiro and Tsuchiya (SIAM J Optim 13(4):1054–1079, 2003), noting that the central path is invariant under rescalings of the columns of A and c, asked whether there exists an LP algorithm depending instead on the measure $$\bar{\chi }^*_A$$ χ ¯ A ∗ , defined as the minimum $$\bar{\chi }_{AD}$$ χ ¯ AD value achievable by a column rescaling AD of A, and gave strong evidence that this should be the case. We resolve this open question affirmatively. Our first main contribution is an $$O(m^2 n^2 + n^3)$$ O ( m 2 n 2 + n 3 ) time algorithm which works on the linear matroid of A to compute a nearly optimal diagonal rescaling D satisfying $$\bar{\chi }_{AD} \le n(\bar{\chi }_A^*)^3$$ χ ¯ AD ≤ n ( χ ¯ A ∗ ) 3 . This algorithm also allows us to approximate the value of $$\bar{\chi }_A$$ χ ¯ A up to a factor $$n (\bar{\chi }_A^*)^2$$ n ( χ ¯ A ∗ ) 2 . This result is in surprising contrast to that of Tunçel (Math Program 86(1):219–223, 1999), who showed NP-hardness for approximating $$\bar{\chi }_A$$ χ ¯ A to within $$2^{\textrm{poly}(\textrm{rank}(A))}$$ 2 poly ( rank ( A ) ) . The key insight for our algorithm is to work with ratios $$g_i/g_j$$ g i / g j of circuits of A—i.e., minimal linear dependencies $$Ag=0$$ A g = 0 —which allow us to approximate the value of $$\bar{\chi }_A^*$$ χ ¯ A ∗ by a maximum geometric mean cycle computation in what we call the ‘circuit ratio digraph’ of A. While this resolves Monteiro and Tsuchiya’s question by appropriate preprocessing, it falls short of providing either a truly scaling invariant algorithm or an improvement upon the base LLS analysis. In this vein, as our second main contribution we develop a scaling invariant LLS algorithm, which uses and dynamically maintains improving estimates of the circuit ratio digraph, together with a refined potential function based analysis for LLS algorithms in general. With this analysis, we derive an improved $$O(n^{2.5} \log (n)\log (\bar{\chi }^*_A+n))$$ O ( n 2.5 log ( n ) log ( χ ¯ A ∗ + n ) ) iteration bound for optimally solving (LP) using our algorithm. The same argument also yields a factor $$n/\log n$$ n / log n improvement on the iteration complexity bound of the original Vavasis–Ye algorithm.

In the $\varepsilon$-Consensus-Halving problem, a fundamental problem in fair division, there are $n$ agents with valuations over the interval $[0,1]$, and the goal is to divide the interval into pieces and assign a label "$+$" or "$-$" to each piece, such that every agent values the total amount of "$+$" and the total amount of "$-$" almost equally. The problem was recently proven by Filos-Ratsikas and Goldberg [2019] to be the first "natural" complete problem for the computational class PPA, answering a decade-old open question. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the problem becomes easy to solve, if one restricts the class of valuation functions. To this end, we provide the following contributions. First, we obtain a strengthening of the PPA-hardness result of [Filos-Ratsikas and Goldberg, 2019], to the case when agents have piecewise uniform valuations with only two blocks. We obtain this result via a new reduction, which is in fact conceptually much simpler than the corresponding one in [Filos-Ratsikas and Goldberg, 2019]. Then, we consider the case of single-block (uniform) valuations and provide a parameterized polynomial time algorithm for solving $\varepsilon$-Consensus-Halving for any $\varepsilon$, as well as a polynomial-time algorithm for $\varepsilon=1/2$. Finally, an important application of our new techniques is the first hardness result for a generalization of Consensus-Halving, the Consensus-$1/k$-Division problem [Simmons and Su, 2003]. In particular, we prove that $\varepsilon$-Consensus-$1/3$-Division is PPAD-hard., Journal version. Preliminary version appeared at EC '20

We consider the directed minimum latency problem (DirLat), wherein we seek a path P visiting all points (or clients) in a given asymmetric metric starting at a given root node r, so as to minimize the sum of the client waiting times, where the waiting time of a client v is the length of the r-v portion of P. We give the first constant-factor approximation guarantee for DirLat, but in quasi-polynomial time. Previously, a polynomial-time O(log n)-approximation was known [Z. Friggstad et al., 2013], and no better approximation guarantees were known even in quasi-polynomial time. A key ingredient of our result, and our chief technical contribution, is an extension of a recent result of [A. Köhne et al., 2019] showing that the integrality gap of the natural Held-Karp relaxation for asymmetric TSP-Path (ATSPP) is at most a constant, which itself builds on the breakthrough similar result established for asymmetric TSP (ATSP) by Svensson et al. [O. Svensson et al., 2018]. We show that the integrality gap of the Held-Karp relaxation for ATSPP is bounded by a constant even if the cut requirements of the LP relaxation are relaxed from x(δ^{in}(S)) ≥ 1 to x(δ^{in}(S)) ≥ ρ for some constant 1/2 < ρ ≤ 1. We also give a better approximation guarantee for the minimum total-regret problem, where the goal is to find a path P that minimizes the total time that nodes spend in excess of their shortest-path distances from r, which can be cast as a special case of DirLat involving so-called regret metrics.

The secretary problem became one of the most prominent online selection problems due to its numerous applications in online mechanism design. The task is to select a maximum weight subset of elements subject to given constraints, where elements arrive one-by-one in random order, revealing a weight upon arrival. The decision whether to select an element has to be taken immediately after its arrival. The different applications that map to the secretary problem ask for different constraint families to be handled. The most prominent ones are matroid constraints, which both capture many relevant settings and admit strongly competitive secretary algorithms. However, dealing with more involved constraints proved to be much more difficult, and strong algorithms are known only for a few specific settings. In this paper, we present a general framework for dealing with the secretary problem over the intersection of several matroids. This framework allows us to combine and exploit the large set of matroid secretary algorithms known in the literature. As one consequence, we get constant-competitive secretary algorithms over the intersection of any constant number of matroids whose corresponding (single-)matroid secretary problems are currently known to have a constant-competitive algorithm. Moreover, we show that our results extend to submodular objectives., 45 pages

Metaheuristics are found to be efficient in different applications where the use of exact algorithms becomes short-handed. In the last decade, many of these algorithms have been introduced and used in a wide range of applications. Nevertheless, most of those approaches share similar components leading to a concern related to their novelty or contribution. Thus, in this paper, a pool template is proposed and used to categorize algorithm components permitting to analyze them in a structured way. We exemplify its use by means of continuous optimization metaheuristics, and provide some measures and methodology to identify their similarities and novelties. Finally, a discussion at a component level is provided in order to point out possible design differences and commonalities.

Machine Learning (ML) solutions are nowadays distributed, according to the so-called server/worker architecture. One server holds the model parameters while several workers train the model. Clearly, such architecture is prone to various types of component failures, which can be all encompassed within the spectrum of a Byzantine behavior. Several approaches have been proposed recently to tolerate Byzantine workers. Yet all require trusting a central parameter server. We initiate in this paper the study of the ``general'' Byzantine-resilient distributed machine learning problem where no individual component is trusted. We show that this problem can be solved in an asynchronous system, despite the presence of $\frac{1}{3}$ Byzantine parameter servers and $\frac{1}{3}$ Byzantine workers (which is optimal). We present a new algorithm, ByzSGD, which solves the general Byzantine-resilient distributed machine learning problem by relying on three major schemes. The first, Scatter/Gather, is a communication scheme whose goal is to bound the maximum drift among models on correct servers. The second, Distributed Median Contraction (DMC), leverages the geometric properties of the median in high dimensional spaces to bring parameters within the correct servers back close to each other, ensuring learning convergence. The third, Minimum-Diameter Averaging (MDA), is a statistically-robust gradient aggregation rule whose goal is to tolerate Byzantine workers. MDA requires loose bound on the variance of non-Byzantine gradient estimates, compared to existing alternatives (e.g., Krum). Interestingly, ByzSGD ensures Byzantine resilience without adding communication rounds (on a normal path), compared to vanilla non-Byzantine alternatives. ByzSGD requires, however, a larger number of messages which, we show, can be reduced if we assume synchrony., This is a merge of arXiv:1905.03853 and arXiv:1911.07537; arXiv:1911.07537 will be retracted

Satisfiability of Boolean circuits is among the most known and important problems in theoretical computer science. This problem is NP-complete in general but becomes polynomial time when restricted either to monotone gates or linear gates. We go outside Boolean realm and consider circuits built of any fixed set of gates on an arbitrary large finite domain. From the complexity point of view this is strictly connected with the problems of solving equations (or systems of equations) over finite algebras. The research reported in this work was motivated by a desire to know for which finite algebras $\mathbf A$ there is a polynomial time algorithm that decides if an equation over $\mathbf A$ has a solution. We are also looking for polynomial time algorithms that decide if two circuits over a finite algebra compute the same function. Although we have not managed to solve these problems in the most general setting we have obtained such a characterization for a very broad class of algebras from congruence modular varieties. This class includes most known and well-studied algebras such as groups, rings, modules (and their generalizations like quasigroups, loops, near-rings, nonassociative rings, Lie algebras), lattices (and their extensions like Boolean algebras, Heyting algebras or other algebras connected with multi-valued logics including MV-algebras). This paper seems to be the first systematic study of the computational complexity of satisfiability of non-Boolean circuits and solving equations over finite algebras. The characterization results provided by the paper is given in terms of nice structural properties of algebras for which the problems are solvable in polynomial time., 50 pages