Questions tagged [boolean-functions]
Questions about Boolean functions and their analysis
171
questions
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Which monotone DNFs are evasive?
A Boolean function $\phi$ on variables $X$ is evasive if every decision tree for $\phi$ has height $|X|$. In other words, for any strategy that picks variables of $X$ and asks for their value, an ...
2
votes
1answer
101 views
Given a subset of of the hypercube and an affine transform of it, find the affine map
This is a follow up to this resolved question.
Suppose we are given a set of bitvectors $A\subseteq\mathbb{F}_2^d$ and an invertible affine transformed copy of it
$$B=\{Mx + s\mid x\in A\}$$
for some ...
7
votes
2answers
293 views
Given a subset of the hypercube and a copy translated by s, find s
Problem: Suppose we are given an $n$ element subset $A\subseteq\{0,1\}^d$ of the $d$ dimensional hypercube and a translated copy $B= A+s$ by some secret $s\in\{0,1\}^d$. Find $s$ as fast as possible ...
6
votes
0answers
163 views
Reverse Skolemization?
I'm wondering if there are any references on "reverse skolemization", that is, converting a formula with functions into one purely consisting of quantifiers by eliminating function applications.
I'm ...
22
votes
2answers
516 views
Question about two matrices: Hadamard v. “the magical one” in the proof of the sensitivity conjecture
The recent and incredibly slick proof of the sensitivity conjecture relies on the explicit* construction of a matrix $A_n\in\{-1,0,1\}^{2^n\times 2^n}$, defined recursively as follows:
$$A_1 = \begin{...
1
vote
0answers
43 views
relations between the degrees of a boolean function and its absolute function
Given a boolean function $f:\{0,1\}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ of degree $d$, is there any upper bound in terms of $d$ on the degree of the function $|f|$, where $|f|(x)=|f(x)|$. Here the degree of $f$ ...
7
votes
1answer
144 views
Sampling monotone Boolean functions
I'm interested in sampling monotone increasing Boolean functions on $n$ input bits uniformly at random. I understand that this is equivalent to approximating the Dedekind numbers ($D_n = $ the number ...
4
votes
1answer
169 views
Which (almost) balanced Boolean function has smallest “total” influence
The well known Kahn–Kalai–Linial (KKL) Theorem says that for any Boolean function $f\colon \{-1,1\}^n \xrightarrow{} \{-1,1\}$
$$
\max_{i \in [n]} \{\mathbf{Inf}_i[f] \} \geq \mathop{\bf Var}[f] \cdot ...
0
votes
0answers
54 views
Which research fields deal with this variant definition of Boolean circuit depth?
Disclaimer: I admit that the question is not very clear. I think it cannot be helped because the question is very open-ended.
First of all, I present the interested type of circuits. We only consider ...
17
votes
0answers
324 views
Perfect matching of monotone Boolean function with null Euler characteristic
For a set $V = \{0,\ldots,k\}$ of variables, let $\mathbf{G}_V$ be the undirected graph with set of vertices $\{S \subseteq V\}$ and set of edges $\{\{S,S'\} \mid S \subseteq S' \text{ and }|S'| = |S|+...
3
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0answers
101 views
Is Circuit Minimization $P$-hard under logspace reductions?
By Circuit Minimization, I am referring to the following decision problem.
Circuit Minimization
Input: A bit string $x$ and a number $k$.
Question: Does there exist a Boolean Circuit $C$...
5
votes
1answer
159 views
Minimal information needed for determine some function
From calculus, we know that if someone has a continuous function $f$, it is enough to know $f$'s values on the rationals in order to know $f$ on the entire line. In some sense, a "countable amount of ...
6
votes
1answer
117 views
Average-case analogue of Small-bias Spaces
Recall that an $\epsilon$-biased space is a set $S \subset \{0,1\}^n$ such that for every non-zero linear test $\alpha \in \{0,1\}^n \setminus \{0\}^n$, the expected bias
$$| \mathbb{E}_{x \in S} [ (-...
3
votes
0answers
112 views
Decomposition of rectangular relations
Let $\alpha$ be a binary relation from $\gamma$ to $\chi$ and $\beta$ a binary relation from $\chi$ to $\rho$. If both $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are rectangular, i.e., they satisfy $\alpha \alpha^{-1} \...
9
votes
1answer
178 views
Has there been any progress in tightening the exponent in the result that polylog independence fools $AC_0$?
Braverman showed that distributions which are $(log \frac{m}{\epsilon})^{O(d^2)}$-wise independent $\epsilon$-fool depth $d$ $AC^0$ circuits of size $m$ by "gluing together" the Smolensky ...
1
vote
0answers
62 views
Relative Two-Function Hypercontractive Inequality $\langle T_{\rho\sigma} f,g \rangle \le \langle T_{\sigma} f,g \rangle^q$
The hypercontractive theorem (or Bonami Beckner inequality) says (Ryan O'Donnell):
This of course also directly gives the 'intermediate' inequality $\|T_{\rho\sigma}f\|_q \le \|T_\sigma f\|_{1+(q-1)\...
2
votes
0answers
43 views
$p$-biased two-function hypercontractivity
The Hypercontractivity theorem (or Bonami Beckner inequality) is a very useful tool. Unfortunately, it isn't easy to carry over to other spaces than the uniform boolean cube.
In Ryan O'Donnel's ...
2
votes
1answer
183 views
Fourier decomposition in terms of another basis
Given a Boolean function $f:\{-1,1\}^n\rightarrow \{-1,1\}$, it is well know that the Fourier decomposition of $f$ can be written as $f(x)=\sum_{S\subseteq \{1,\ldots,n\}} \widehat{f}(S) \prod_{i\in S}...
6
votes
2answers
561 views
a polynomial representation of boolean functions
I came up with this linear transformation to map boolean functions to polynomials and it seems to have some nice properties. I was wondering if there is any reference describing this (and/or similar) ...
3
votes
1answer
165 views
Proof that all Boolean functions can be computed by $(MOD_2-MOD_3)$ circuit
I was reading "Some properties of MOD m circuits computing simple functions" (Amano & Maruoka, 2003) where the authors prove that every Boolean function can be computed by depth $2$ by $(MOD_2-...
6
votes
0answers
136 views
Has what I am calling “helpfulness” here been studied?
We say that a Boolean function $f : \{0, 1\}^n \rightarrow \{0, 1\}$ is helpful for another Boolean function $g$ if $f(x)$ can be computed with a smaller circuit given $g(x)$ as an extra input bit. I'...
1
vote
1answer
102 views
How good of an approximate 2-coloring can you get of the halved cube graph?
We say that a 2-coloring $col : V_G \rightarrow \{0, 1\}$ of a graph $G$ is $\epsilon$-approximate if $Pr_{(w, v) \in E_G}(col(w) \neq col(v)) \geq \epsilon$. For every $n$, what is the maximum $\...
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0answers
76 views
Reference request for the relationship between approximating degree of Boolean functions and learning algorithms
This paper (http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~rocco/Public/stoc01.pdf) from STOC 2001 is possibly the first paper to show how to convert upperbounds on the $\frac{1}{3}-$approximation degree of a Boolean ...
10
votes
3answers
444 views
Proper PAC learning VC dimension bounds
It is well known that for a concept class $\mathcal{C}$ with VC dimension $d$, it suffices to obtain $O\left(\frac{d}{\varepsilon}\log\frac{1}{\varepsilon}\right)$ labelled examples to PAC learn $\...
9
votes
1answer
154 views
What is the probability that a random Boolean function has a trivial automorphism group?
Given a Boolean function $f$, we have the automorphism group $Aut(f) = \{\sigma \in S_n\ \mid \forall x, f(\sigma(x)) = f(x) \}$.
Are there any known bounds on $Pr_f(Aut(f) \neq 1)$? Is there ...
4
votes
0answers
112 views
Relationship between sparsity and rank of a boolean function
I have the following question when I was going through the proof of the following theorem.
Theorem. For XOR function $f \circ XOR$, $rank(M_{f \circ XOR}) = ||\hat f ||_0$ where $M_{f \circ XOR}$ is ...
2
votes
1answer
49 views
Certainty of mutual confirmation over faulty channels?
This is a very theoretical question, although I am sure the problem pops up in lots of IT and automation applications. Still, I prefer to formulate it in an action-movie scenario (a bit of the ...
1
vote
1answer
152 views
Proof of Majority is stablest in “reverse” in the MAXCUT hardness paper by Khot et al
This is about Proposition 7.4 here. I think there is a slight error in the proof of this proposition. Basically, authors have taken $g$ to be the odd part of the function $f$. Due to which we can say ...
4
votes
1answer
164 views
Möbius values of CNF and DNF lattices of a monotone Boolean function
Let $\phi$ be a monotone Boolean function on a set of variables $\langle k \rangle := \{0,\ldots,k\}$ such that $\phi$ depends on all the variables in $\langle k \rangle$ (that is, for every variable $...
3
votes
1answer
146 views
Basic property of boolean functions with restrictions
For $f:\{\pm1\}^n\to\mathbb{R}$, $I\subset\{1,\dots,n\}$ and $x\in\{\pm1\}^{\{1,\dots,n\}\setminus I}$ we define $f_I[x]:\{\pm1\}^I\to\mathbb{R}$ by $f_I[x](y)=f(x,y)$. (We denote by ($x,y$) the ...
2
votes
0answers
183 views
Proof of a (simple) lemma by Aaronson
I am reading this article, and I need help with an apparently obvious proof.
The lemma (on page 5), that I want to know the proof of, is this: Let $p : \{0,1\}^N \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be a real ...
2
votes
0answers
149 views
Oracle for Hamming distance to a secret bitvector
Let $s \in \{0,1\}^n$ be a secret bitvector. Define $f(x)$ to be the Hamming distance between $x$ and $s$. Suppose I am given an oracle for $f$, and I want to find $x$. How many queries to the ...
6
votes
0answers
121 views
Are there generalizations for Chow's theorem?
The Chow's theorem as it stands holds only for a single linear threshold gate. That these gates are uniquely determined by their first $n+1$ Fourier coefficients.
Are there other circuits for which ...
1
vote
1answer
82 views
Some consequences of the Roychowdhury-Orlitsky-Siu result from 1994
This pertains to the proof of theorem 1.1 in this paper, http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2897636
So Roychowdhury-Orlitsky-Siu had shown that the number of depth $2$ linear threshold gate circuits ...
8
votes
1answer
197 views
variant of Critical SAT
The language Critical SAT is defined as the set of $CNF$ boolean formulas $f$ such that $f \in UNSAT$ but removing any clause from $f$ makes it satisfiable. It is known that Critical SAT is $DP$-...
4
votes
0answers
77 views
About Boolean functions with a high sign-rank
Recently in this beautiful paper, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.02397.pdf it has been shown that there is an explicit $Th \circ Th$ function with sign-rank scaling exponentially in dimension. I wanted to ...
2
votes
0answers
46 views
Complexity class of MCS and relation to #p
I was looking for the complexity class of computing MCS:
Given a boolean formula $\mathcal{F = c_1 \wedge c_2,...,\wedge c_m}$ represented in CNF, a MCS is a subset of the set of clauses $\mathcal{C}$ ...
1
vote
0answers
77 views
Tribes function vs (modified) polynomial threshold circuits
Are there lowerbounds known for representing the Tribes function by a circuit consisting of a single layer of polynomial threshold gates feeding into maybe a trivial summing gate? (Even for degree $1$ ...
1
vote
0answers
123 views
Boolean functions with high query complexity for PAC learning
The most general theorem for PAC learning of Boolean functions that I am aware of is the theorem in section 3.4 of Ryan O'Donnel's book where its basically shown that Boolean functions whose Fourier ...
13
votes
0answers
295 views
Fourier spectrum of the parity of two monotone Boolean functions
This is a question that I've been pondering, on and off, for a while, and unsuccessfully. I'd be very interested in any insight regarding this conjecture. (Or rather, these conjectures.)
Recall that, ...
3
votes
0answers
134 views
Computing the Fourier expansion of the complete quadratic function
I am working through Ryan O' Donnell's book on the analysis of Boolean functions. One of the exercises (1.1) is to compute the Fourier series of the `complete quadratic function' on $\mathbf{F}_2^n$
$...
4
votes
0answers
123 views
About counting the “total size” of non-zero Fourier coefficients of a Boolean function
Given a $f: \{-1,1\}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$, I want to compute this quantity,
$\sum_{ \hat{f}(S) \neq 0, S \subseteq 2^{[n]}} \vert S \vert $
i.e the sum of the sizes of the subsets of $[n]$ ...
-1
votes
1answer
121 views
Sparsity of a Boolean function and its Fourier depth [closed]
For a function $f : \{-1,1\}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ one can ask for its $l_0$ norm in the indicator basis i.e the number of vertices on which the function is non-zero. Does this sparsity parameter ...
4
votes
0answers
101 views
Looking for an exposition of the proof of the LMN theorem
Is there any lecture note or review paper which gives a self-contained proof of the Linial-Mansour-Nisan theorem?
The exposition of that in Ryan O'Donnel's book seems to use terminology and notation ...
7
votes
0answers
102 views
Learning function with a few low-order Fourier coefficients, from uniformly random samples
Let $f:\{-1,+1\}^n \to \{-1,+1\}$ be a boolean function where all of the energy of the Fourier transform of $f$ is concentrated in a small number of low-order coefficients, say $k$ coefficients each ...
7
votes
1answer
222 views
Is a monotone boolean function monotone as a multilinear polynomial?
Let $f:\{-1,1\}^n \rightarrow \{0,1\}$ be a monotonically increasing boolean function. That is, $f(x) \leq f(y)$, if coordinate-wise $x \leq y$. Now, let $F: [-1,1]^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be $f$ ...
7
votes
0answers
161 views
Converting a Truth Table into k-CNF formula of Minimal Size in Linear Time
Let $T$ be a truth table of a boolean function $f$ on $n$ input bits.
More concretely $T$ could be a list of length $2^n$ such that $T[i] = f(bin(i))$, where $bin(i)$ is the binary representation of ...
3
votes
0answers
128 views
Evaluating boolean formula without knowing all values
I am looking for research approaches for the following problem: assume we have a set of $m$ computers, each carries a bit, and a Boolean formula $\varphi$ over those $m$ variables. The computers are ...
7
votes
1answer
491 views
What is the VC Dimension of the $k-$Junta class
A boolean function $f(x_1,x_2,\dots,x_n)$ is $k$-Junta if it depends on at most $k$ variables. Consider the class $\mathcal{J}_{\leq k}$ of all $k$-Juntas over $n$ variables, what is the VC dimension ...
9
votes
1answer
278 views
Evaluate boolean circuit on batch of similar inputs
Suppose I have a boolean circuit $C$ that computes some function $f:\{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$. Assume the circuit is composed of AND, OR, and NOT gates with fan-in and fan-out at most 2.
Let $x \in \{0,...
