We show that any language recognized by an NC ’ circuit (fan-in 2, depth O(log n)) can be recognized by a width-5 polynomial-size branching program. As any bounded-width polynomial-size branching program can be simulated by an NC ’ circuit, we have that the class of languages recognized by such programs is exactly nonuniform NC’. Further, following

This is the nineteenth edition of a (usually) quarterly column that covers new developments in the theory of NP-completeness. The presentation is modeled on that used by M. R. Garey and myself in our book ‘‘Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness,’ ’ W. H. Freeman & Co., New York, 1979 (hereinafter referred to as ‘‘[G&J]’’; previous columns will be referred to by their dates). A background equivalent to that provided by [G&J] is assumed, and, when appropriate, cross-references will be given to that book and the list of problems (NP-complete and harder) presented there. Readers who have results they would like mentioned (NP-hardness, PSPACE-hardness, polynomial-time-solvability, etc.) or open problems they would like publicized, should

We use algebraic techniques to obtain superlinear lower bounds on the size of boundedwidth branching programs to solve a number of problems. In particular, we show that any bounded-width branching program computing a nonconstant threshold function has length \Omega\Gamma n log log n); improving on the previous lower bounds known to apply to all such threshold functions. We also show that any program over a finite solvable monoid computing products in a nonsolvable group has length\Omega\Gamma n log log n): This result is a step toward proving the conjecture that the circuit complexity class ACC 0 is properly contained in NC 1 : A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proceedings of the 1991 Structure in Complexity Theory Symposium. 1. The Main Results In this paper we describe a general algebraic technique for obtaining superlinear lower bounds on the length of bounded-width branching programs to solve certain problems. Our method is based on the interpretation, ...

This paper studies the learnability of branching programs and small depth circuits with modular and threshold gates in both the exact and PAC learning models with and without membership queries. Some of the results extend earlier works in [GG95, ERR95, BTW95]. The main results are as follows. For branching programs we show the following.

A time-space tradeoff is established in the branching program model for the problem of computing the product of two n x n matrices over the semiring ((0, l}, V, A). It is a.ssumed that ea.ch element of each nxn input matrix is chosen independently to be 1 with probability n-ll2 and to be 0 with probability 1- n-1/2. Letting S and T denote expected space and time of a deterministic algorithm, the tradeoff is ST = R(n3.5) for T < cln2.5 and ST = R(n3) for T> where c1, c2> 0. The lower bounds are matched to within a logarithmic factor by upper bounds in the branching program model. Thus, the tradeoff possesses a sharp break a.t T = O(n2.5). These expected case lower bounds are also the best known lower bounds for the worst case.

Some Topics in Parallel Computation and Branching Programs by Rakesh Kumar Sinha Chairperson of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Paul Beame Department of Computer Science and Engineering There are two parts of this thesis: the first part gives two constructions of branching programs; the second part contains three results on models of parallel machines. The branching program model has turned out to be very useful for understanding the computational behavior of problems. In addition, several restrictions of branching programs, for example ordered binary decision diagrams, have proven to be successful data structures in several VLSI design and verification applications. We construct a branching program of o(n log 3 n) nodes for computing any threshold function on n variables and a branching program of o(n log 4 n) nodes for determining the sum of n variables modulo a fixed divisor. These are improvements over constructions of size 2(n 3=2 ) due to Lupanov [Lup65]. The second p...

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