This paper presents one method of using time-bounded Kolmogorov complexity as a measure of the complexity of sets, and outlines anumber of applications of this approach to di#erent questions in complexity theory. Connections will be drawn among the following topics: NE predicates, ranking functions, pseudorandom generators, and hierarchy theorems in circuit complexity.

We survey some aspects of the computational complexity theory of discrete-time and discrete-state Hopfield networks. The emphasis is on topics that are not adequately covered by the existing survey literature, most significantly: 1. the known upper and lower bounds for the convergence times of Hopfield nets (here we consider mainly worst-case results); 2. the power of Hopfield nets as general computing devices (as opposed to their applications to associative memory and optimization); 3. the complexity of the synthesis ("learning") and analysis problems related to Hopfield nets as associative memories. Draft chapter for the forthcoming book The Computational and Learning Complexity of Neural Networks: Advanced Topics (ed. Ian Parberry).

We prove that polynomial size discrete Hopfield networks with hidden units compute exactly the class of Boolean functions PSPACE/poly, i.e., the same functions as are computed by polynomial space-bounded nonuniform Turing machines. As a corollary to the construction, we observe also that networks with polynomially bounded interconnection weights compute exactly the class of functions P/poly, i.e., the class computed by polynomial time-bounded nonuniform Turing machines.

Computing the maximum bichromatic discrepancy is an interesting theoretical problem with important applications in computational learning theory, computational geometry and computer graphics. In this paper we give algorithms to compute the maximum bichromatic discrepancy for simple geometric ranges, including rectangles and halfspaces. In addition, we give extensions to other discrepancy problems. 1 Introduction The main theme of this paper is to present efficient algorithms that solve the problem of computing the maximum bichromatic discrepancy for axis oriented rectangles. This problem arises naturally in different areas of computer science, such as computational learning theory, computational geometry and computer graphics ([Ma], [DG]), and has applications in all these areas. In computational learning theory, the problem of agnostic PAC-learning with simple geometric hypotheses can be reduced to the problem of computing the maximum bichromatic discrepancy for simple geometric ra...