Abstract. We give a new characterization of NP: the class NP contains exactly those languages L for which membership proofs (a proof that an input x is in L) can be verified probabilistically in polynomial time using logarithmic number of random bits and by reading sublogarithmic number of bits from the proof. We discuss implications of this characterization; specifically, we show that approximating Clique and Independent Set, even in a very weak sense, is NP-hard.

We present three alternative simple constructions of small probability spaces on n bits for which any k bits are almost independent. The number of bits used to specify a point in the sample space is (2 + o(1))(log log n + k/2 + log k + log 1 ɛ), where ɛ is the statistical difference between the distribution induced on any k bit locations and the uniform distribution. This is asymptotically comparable to the construction recently presented by Naor and Naor (our size bound is better as long as ɛ < 1/(k log n)). An additional advantage of our constructions is their simplicity.

This work gives a polynomial time algorithm for learning decision trees with respect to the uniform distribution. (This algorithm uses membership queries.) The decision tree model that is considered is an extension of the traditional boolean decision tree model that allows linear operations in each node (i.e., summation of a subset of the input variables over GF (2)). This paper shows how to learn in polynomial time any function that can be approximated (in norm L 2 ) by a polynomially sparse function (i.e., a function with only polynomially many non-zero Fourier coefficients). The authors demonstrate that any function f whose L 1 -norm (i.e., the sum of absolute value of the Fourier coefficients) is polynomial can be approximated by a polynomially sparse function, and prove that boolean decision trees with linear operations are a subset of this class of functions. Moreover, it is shown that the functions with polynomial L 1 -norm can be learned deterministically. The algorithm can a...

A new technique, based on the pseudo-random properties of certain graphs, known as expanders, is used to obtain new simple explicit constructions of asymptotically good codes. In one of the constructions, the expanders are used to enhance Justesen codes by replicating, shuffling and then regrouping the code coordinates. For any fixed (small) rate, and for sufficiently large alphabet, the codes thus obtained lie above the Zyablov bound. Using these codes as outer codes in a concatenated scheme, a second asymptotic good construction is obtained which applies to small alphabets (say, GF (2)) as well. Although these concatenated codes lie below Zyablov bound, they are still superior to previously-known explicit constructions in the zero-rate neighborhood.

In this paper we consider a new type of cryptographic scheme, which can decode concealed images without any cryptographic computations. The scheme is perfectly secure and very easy to implement. We extend it into a visual variant of the k out of n secret sharing problem, in which a dealer provides a transparency to each one of the n users; any k of them can see the image by stacking their transparencies, but any k - 1 of them gain no information about it.

Chernoff--Hoeffding bounds are fundamental tools used in bounding the tail probabilities of the sums of bounded and independent random variables. We present a simple technique which gives slightly better bounds than these, and which more importantly requires only limited independence among the random variables, thereby importing a variety of standard results to the case of limited independence for free. Additional methods are also presented, and the aggregate results are sharp and provide a better understanding of the proof techniques behind these bounds. They also yield improved bounds for various tail probability distributions and enable improved approximation algorithms for jobshop scheduling. The "limited independence" result implies that a reduced amount of randomness and weaker sources of randomness are sufficient for randomized algorithms whose analyses use the Chernoff--Hoeffding bounds, e.g., the analysis of randomized algorithms for random sampling and oblivious packet routi...

This chapter is a self-contained survey of recent results about the hardness of approximating NP-hard optimization problems.

We use a certain type of expanding bipartite graphs, called disperser graphs, to design procedures for picking highly correlated samples from a finite set, with the property that the probability of hitting any sufficiently large subset is high. These procedures require a relatively small number of random bits and are robust with respect to the quality of the random bits. Using these sampling procedures to sample random inputs of polynomial time probabilistic algorithms, we can simulate the performance of some probabilistic algorithms with less random bits or with low quality random bits. We obtain the following results: 1. The error probability of an RP or BPP algorithm that operates with a constant error bound and requires n random bits, can be made exponentially small (i.e. 2 \Gamman ), with only (3 + ffl)n random bits, as opposed to standard amplification techniques that require \Omega\Gamma n 2 ) random bits for the same task. This result is nearly optimal, since the informati...

this paper we do two things. First, we survey extractors and dispersers: what they are, how they can be designed, and some of their applications. The work described in the survey is due to a long list of research papers by various authors##most notably by David Zuckerman. Then, we present a new tool for constructing explicit extractors and give two new constructions that greatly improve upon previous results. The new tool we devise, a merger," is a function that accepts d strings, one of which is uniformly distributed and outputs a single string that is guaranteed to be uniformly distributed. We show how to build good explicit mergers, and how mergers can be used to build better extractors. Using this, we present two new constructions. The first construction succeeds in extracting all of the randomness from any somewhat random source. This improves upon previous extractors that extract only some of the randomness from somewhat random sources with enough" randomness. The amount of truly random bits used by this extractor, however, is not optimal. The second extractor we build extracts only some of the randomness and works only for sources with enough randomness, but uses a nearoptimal amount of truly random bits. Extractors and dispersers have many applications in removing randomness" in various settings and in making randomized constructions explicit. We survey some of these applications and note whenever our new constructions yield better results, e.g., plugging our new extractors into a previous construction we achieve the first explicit N-superconcentrators of linear size and polyloglog(N) depth. ] 1999 Academic Press CONTENTS 1.

We extend the notion of program checking to include programs which alter their environment. In particular, we consider programs which store and retrieve data from memory. The model we consider allows the checker a small amount of reliable memory. The checker is presented with a sequence of requests (on-line) to a data structure which must reside in a large but unreliable memory. We view the data structure as being controlled by an adversary. We want the checker to perform each operation in the input sequence using its reliable memory and the unreliable data structure so that any error in the operation of the structure will be detected by the checker with high probability. We present checkers for various data structures. We prove lower bounds of log n on the amount of reliable memory needed by these checkers where n is the size of the structure. The lower bounds are information theoretic and apply under various assumptions. We also show time-space tradeoffs for checking random access memories as a generalization of those for coherent functions. 1