We introduce the smoothed analysis of algorithms, which continuously interpolates between the worst-case and average-case analyses of algorithms. In smoothed analysis, we measure the maximum over inputs of the expected performance of an algorithm under small random perturbations of that input. We measure this performance in terms of both the input size and the magnitude of the perturbations. We show that the simplex algorithm has smoothed complexity polynomial in the input size and the standard deviation of

The Lemke--Howson algorithm is the classical algorithm for the problem NASH of finding one Nash equilibrium of a bimatrix game. It provides a constructive, elementary proof of existence of an equilibrium, by a typical "directed parity argument", which puts NASH into the complexity class PPAD. This paper presents a class of bimatrix games for which the Lemke--Howson algorithm takes, even in the best case, exponential time in the dimension d of the game, requiring #((# 3=4 ) d ) many steps, where # is the Golden Ratio. The "parity argument" for NASH is thus explicitly shown to be inefficient. The games are constructed using pairs of dual cyclic polytopes with 2d suitably labeled facets in d-space.

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We investigate the behavior of randomized simplex algorithms on special linear programs. For this, we use combinatorial models for the Klee-Minty cubes [22] and similar linear programs with exponential decreasing paths. The analysis of two most natural randomized pivot rules on the Klee-Minty cubes leads to (nearly) quadratic lower bounds for the complexity of linear programming with random pivots. Thus we disprove two bounds (for the expected running time of the random-edge simplex algorithm on Klee-Minty cubes) conjectured in the literature. At the same time, we establish quadratic upper bounds for the expected length of a path for a simplex algorithm with random pivots on the classes of linear programs under investigation. In contrast to this, we find that the average length of an increasing path in a Klee-Minty cube is exponential when all paths are taken with equal probability.

In the first part of the paper we survey some far-reaching applications of the basic facts of linear programming to the combinatorial theory of simple polytopes. In the second part we discuss some recent developments concerning the simplex algorithm. We describe subexponential randomized pivot rules and upper bounds on the diameter of graphs of polytopes. 1 Introduction: A convex polyhedron is the intersection P of a finite number of closed halfspaces in R d . P is a d-dimensional polyhedron (briefly, a d-polyhedron) if the points in P affinely span R d . A convex d-dimensional polytope (briefly, a d-polytope) is a bounded convex d-polyhedron. Alternatively, a convex d-polytope is the convex hull of a finite set of points which affinely span R d . A (nontrivial) face F of a d-polyhedron P is the intersection of P with a supporting hyperplane. F itself is a polyhedron of some lower dimension. If the dimension of F is k we call F a k-face of P . The empty set and P itself are...

. We examine the history of linear programming from computational, geometric, and complexity points of view, looking at simplex, ellipsoid, interior-point, and other methods. Key words. linear programming -- history -- simplex method -- ellipsoid method -- interior-point methods 1. Introduction At the last Mathematical Programming Symposium in Lausanne, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the simplex method. Here, we are at or close to several other anniversaries relating to linear programming: the sixtieth of Kantorovich's 1939 paper on "Mathematical Methods in the Organization and Planning of Production" (and the fortieth of its appearance in the Western literature) [55]; the fiftieth of the historic 0th Mathematical Programming Symposium that took place in Chicago in 1949 on Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation [64]; the forty-fifth of Frisch's suggestion of the logarithmic barrier function for linear programming [37]; the twenty-fifth of the awarding of the 1975 Nobe...

We present the first randomized polynomial-time simplex algorithm for linear programming. Like the other known polynomial-time algorithms for linear programming, its running time depends polynomially on the number of bits used to represent its input. We begin by reducing the input linear program to a special form in which we merely need to certify boundedness. As boundedness does not depend upon the right-hand-side vector, we run the shadow-vertex simplex method with a random right-hand-side vector. Thus, we do not need to bound the diameter of the original polytope. Our analysis rests on a geometric statement of independent interest: given a polytope Ax ≤ b in isotropic position, if one makes a polynomially small perturbation to b then the number of edges of the projection of the perturbed polytope onto a random 2-dimensional subspace is expected to be polynomial. 1.

Abstract. The smoothed analysis of algorithms is concerned with the expected running time of an algorithm under slight random perturbations of arbitrary inputs. Spielman and Teng proved that the shadow-vertex simplex method had polynomial smoothed complexity. On a slight random perturbation of arbitrary linear program, the simplex method finds the solution after a walk on polytope(s) with expected length polynomial in the number of constraints n, the number of variables d and the inverse standard deviation of the perturbation 1/σ. We show that the length of walk in the simplex method is actually polylogarithmic in the number of constraints n. Spielman-Teng’s bound on the walk was O(n 86 d 55 σ −30), up to logarithmic factors. We improve this to O(max(d 5 log 2 n, d 9 log 4 d, d 3 σ −4)). This shows that the tight Hirsch conjecture n − d on the the length of walk on polytopes is not a limitation for the smoothed Linear Programming. Random perturbations create short paths between vertices. We propose a randomized phase-I for solving arbitrary linear programs. Instead of finding a vertex of a feasible set, we add a vertex at random to the feasible set. This does not affect the solution of the linear program with constant probability. So, in expectation it takes a constant number of independent trials until a correct solution is found. This overcomes one of the major difficulties of smoothed analysis of the simplex method – one can now statistically decouple the walk from the smoothed linear program. This yields a much better reduction of the smoothed complexity to a geometric quantity – the size of planar sections of random polytopes. We also improve upon the known estimates for that size. 1.

this paper is to present mathematical ideas and

We introduce unique sink orientations of grids as digraph models for many well-studied problems, including linear programming over products of simplices, generalized linear complementarity problems over P-matrices (PGLCP), and simple stochastic games. We investigate the combinatorial structure of such orientations and develop randomized algorithms for finding the sink. We show that the orientations arising from PGLCP satisfy the Holt-Klee condition known to hold for polytope digraphs, and we give the first expected linear-time algorithms for solving PGLCP with a fixed number of blocks.