351 research outputs found
Insertion Time of Random Walk Cuckoo Hashing below the Peeling Threshold
No full textMost hash tables have an insertion time of (1), often qualified as "expected" and/or "amortised". While insertions into cuckoo hash tables indeed seem to take (1) expected time in practice, only polylogarithmic guarantees are proven in all but the simplest of practically relevant cases. Given the widespread use of cuckoo hashing to implement compact dictionaries and Bloom filter alternatives, closing this gap is an important open problem for theoreticians.
In this paper, we show that random walk insertions into cuckoo hash tables take (1) expected amortised time when any number k ≥ 3 of hash functions is used and the load factor is below the corresponding peeling threshold (e.g. ≈0.81 for k = 3). To our knowledge, this is the first meaningful guarantee for constant time insertion for cuckoo hashing that works for k ∈ {3,…,9}.
In addition to being useful in its own right, we hope that our key-centred analysis method can be a stepping stone on the path to the true end goal: (1) time insertions for all load factors below the load threshold (e.g. ≈0.91 for k = 3)
Foundations for Actively Secure Card-Based Cryptography
No full textCard-based cryptography, as first proposed by den Boer [den Boer, 1989], enables secure multiparty computation using only a deck of playing cards. Many protocols as of yet come with an “honest-but-curious” disclaimer. However, modern cryptography aims to provide security also in the presence of active attackers that deviate from the protocol description. In the few places where authors argue for the active security of their protocols, this is done ad-hoc and restricted to the concrete operations needed, often using additional physical tools, such as envelopes or sliding cover boxes. This paper provides the first systematic approach to active security in card-based protocols.
The main technical contribution concerns shuffling operations. A shuffle randomly permutes the cards according to a well-defined distribution but hides the chosen permutation from the players. We show how the large and natural class of uniform closed shuffles, which are shuffles that select a permutation uniformly at random from a permutation group, can be implemented using only a linear number of helping cards. This ensures that any protocol in the model of Mizuki and Shizuya [Mizuki and Shizuya, 2014] can be realized in an actively secure fashion, as long as it is secure in this abstract model and restricted to uniform closed shuffles. Uniform closed shuffles are already sufficient for securely computing any circuit [Mizuki and Sone, 2009]. In the process, we develop a more concrete model for card-based cryptographic protocols with two players, which we believe to be of independent interest
A Sublinear Local Access Implementation for the Chinese Restaurant Process
No full textThe Chinese restaurant process is a stochastic process closely related to the Dirichlet process that groups sequentially arriving objects into a variable number of classes, such that within each class objects are cyclically ordered. A popular description involves a restaurant, where customers arrive one by one and either sit down next to a randomly chosen customer at one of the existing tables or open a new table. The full state of the process after n steps is given by a permutation of the n objects and cannot be represented in sublinear space. In particular, if we only need specific information about a few objects or classes it would be preferable to obtain the answers without simulating the process completely.
A recent line of research [Oded Goldreich et al., 2010; Moni Naor and Asaf Nussboim, 2007; Amartya Shankha Biswas et al., 2020; Guy Even et al., 2021] attempts to provide access to huge random objects without fully instantiating them. Such local access implementations provide answers to a sequence of queries about the random object, following the same distribution as if the object was fully generated. In this paper, we provide a local access implementation for a generalization of the Chinese restaurant process described above. Our implementation can be used to answer any sequence of adaptive queries about class affiliation of objects, number and sizes of classes at any time, position of elements within a class, or founding time of a class. The running time per query is polylogarithmic in the total size of the object, with high probability. Our approach relies on some ideas from the recent local access implementation for preferential attachment trees by Even et al. [Guy Even et al., 2021]. Such trees are related to the Chinese restaurant process in the sense that both involve a "rich-get-richer" phenomenon. A novel ingredient in our implementation is to embed the process in continuous time, in which the evolution of the different classes becomes stochastically independent [Joyce and Tavaré, 1987]. This independence is used to keep the probabilistic structure manageable even if many queries have already been answered. As similar embeddings are available for a wide range of urn processes [Krishna B. Athreya and Samuel Karlin, 1968], we believe that our approach may be applicable more generally. Moreover, local access implementations for birth and death processes that we encounter along the way may be of independent interest
Dense Peelable Random Uniform Hypergraphs
No full textWe describe a new family of k-uniform hypergraphs with independent random edges. The hypergraphs have a high probability of being peelable, i.e. to admit no sub-hypergraph of minimum degree 2, even when the edge density (number of edges over vertices) is close to 1.
In our construction, the vertex set is partitioned into linearly arranged segments and each edge is incident to random vertices of k consecutive segments. Quite surprisingly, the linear geometry allows our graphs to be peeled “from the outside in”. The density thresholds f_k for peelability of our hypergraphs (f_3 ≈ 0.918, f_4 ≈ 0.977, f_5 ≈ 0.992, …) are well beyond the corresponding thresholds (c_3 ≈ 0.818, c_4 ≈ 0.772, c_5 ≈ 0.702, …) of standard k-uniform random hypergraphs.
To get a grip on f_k, we analyse an idealised peeling process on the random weak limit of our hypergraph family. The process can be described in terms of an operator on [0,1]^ℤ and f_k can be linked to thresholds relating to the operator. These thresholds are then tractable with numerical methods.
Random hypergraphs underlie the construction of various data structures based on hashing, for instance invertible Bloom filters, perfect hash functions, retrieval data structures, error correcting codes and cuckoo hash tables, where inputs are mapped to edges using hash functions. Frequently, the data structures rely on peelability of the hypergraph or peelability allows for simple linear time algorithms. Memory efficiency is closely tied to edge density while worst and average case query times are tied to maximum and average edge size.
To demonstrate the usefulness of our construction, we used our 3-uniform hypergraphs as a drop-in replacement for the standard 3-uniform hypergraphs in a retrieval data structure by Botelho et al. [Fabiano Cupertino Botelho et al., 2013]. This reduces memory usage from 1.23m bits to 1.12m bits (m being the input size) with almost no change in running time. Using k > 3 attains, at small sacrifices in running time, further improvements to memory usage
Questione di confini: diritto, diritti e guerra in Michael Walzer
No full textBy a comparative analysis of Walzer’ scientific works in the field “social criticism” and
“just/unjust war”, the essay shows that the tension between the categories internal/
external is working in the complex of author arguments. Such a contraposition,
examined from the strict perspective of the disciplinary languages, which articulate the
“modern” moral-historical world, has to be considered constitutive of the separation
between juridical and moral paradigm, social acting and communitarian belonging,
reasons and meaning, critics and interpretation. Walzer’ attitude to contaminate
disciplinary languages, on the contrary, make it impossible for him to investigate the
aporetic overcoming from the juridical “boundaries” to political and cultural “frontier”
Constant-Time Retrieval with O(log m) Extra Bits
No full textFor a set U (the universe), retrieval is the following problem. Given a finite subset S subseteq U of size m and f : S -> {0,1}^r for a small constant r, build a data structure D_f with the property that for a suitable query algorithm query we have query(D_f,x) = f(x) for all x in S. For x in U setminus S the value query(D_f,x) is arbitrary in {0,1}^r. The number of bits needed for D_f should be (1+epsilon)r m with overhead epsilon = epsilon(m) >= 0 as small as possible, while the query time should be small. Of course, the time for constructing D_f is relevant as well.
We assume fully random hash functions on U with constant evaluation time are available. It is known that with epsilon ~= 0.09 one can achieve linear construction time and constant query time, and with overhead epsilon_k ~= e^{-k} it is possible to have O(k) query time and O(m^{1+alpha}) construction time, for arbitrary alpha>0. Furthermore, a theoretical construction with epsilon =O((log log m)/sqrt{log m}) gives constant query time and linear construction time. Known constructions avoiding all overhead, except for a seed value of size O(log log m), require logarithmic query time.
In this paper, we present a method for treating the retrieval problem with overhead epsilon = O((log m)/m), which corresponds to O(1) extra memory words (O(log m) bits), and an extremely simple, constant-time query operation. The price to pay is a construction time of O(m^2). We employ the usual framework for retrieval data structures, where construction is effected by solving a sparse linear system of equations over the 2-element field F_2 and a query is effected by a dot product calculation. Our main technical contribution is the design and analysis of a new and natural family of sparse random linear systems with m equations and (1+epsilon)m variables, which combines good locality properties with high probability of having full rank.
Paying a larger overhead of epsilon = O((log m)/m^alpha), the construction time can be reduced to O(m^{1+alpha}) for arbitrary constant 0 < alpha < 1. In combination with an adaptation of known techniques for solving sparse linear systems of equations, our approach leads to a highly practical algorithm for retrieval. In a particular benchmark with m = 10^7 we achieve an order-of-magnitude improvement over previous techniques with epsilon = 0.24% instead of the previously best result of epsilon ~= 3%, with better query time and no significant sacrifices in construction time
Efficient Gauss Elimination for Near-Quadratic Matrices with One Short Random Block per Row, with Applications
No full textIn this paper we identify a new class of sparse near-quadratic random Boolean matrices that have full row rank over F_2 = {0,1} with high probability and can be transformed into echelon form in almost linear time by a simple version of Gauss elimination. The random matrix with dimensions n(1-epsilon) x n is generated as follows: In each row, identify a block of length L = O((log n)/epsilon) at a random position. The entries outside the block are 0, the entries inside the block are given by fair coin tosses. Sorting the rows according to the positions of the blocks transforms the matrix into a kind of band matrix, on which, as it turns out, Gauss elimination works very efficiently with high probability. For the proof, the effects of Gauss elimination are interpreted as a ("coin-flipping") variant of Robin Hood hashing, whose behaviour can be captured in terms of a simple Markov model from queuing theory. Bounds for expected construction time and high success probability follow from results in this area. They readily extend to larger finite fields in place of F_2.
By employing hashing, this matrix family leads to a new implementation of a retrieval data structure, which represents an arbitrary function f: S -> {0,1} for some set S of m = (1-epsilon)n keys. It requires m/(1-epsilon) bits of space, construction takes O(m/epsilon^2) expected time on a word RAM, while queries take O(1/epsilon) time and access only one contiguous segment of O((log m)/epsilon) bits in the representation (O(1/epsilon) consecutive words on a word RAM). The method is readily implemented and highly practical, and it is competitive with state-of-the-art methods. In a more theoretical variant, which works only for unrealistically large S, we can even achieve construction time O(m/epsilon) and query time O(1), accessing O(1) contiguous memory words for a query. By well-established methods the retrieval data structure leads to efficient constructions of (static) perfect hash functions and (static) Bloom filters with almost optimal space and very local storage access patterns for queries
Cost-effectiveness analysis of bevacizumab versus pemetrexed for advanced non-squamous NSCLC in Italy
No full textIntroduction: The new targeted agent bevacizumab in combination with cisplatin and gemcitabine (BCG), and a third-generation chemotherapy pemetrexed in combination with cisplatin (PC), are approved as first-line treatment for patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: An indirect comparison between BCG and PC showed that the bevacizumab triplet achieved a favourable hazard ratio in terms of progression-free survival among patients with advanced NSCLC. This analysis aimed to compare the detailed costs and benefits of these treatments for advanced non-squamous NSCLC in Italy. Results: The monthly cost of single-agent bevacizumab, including administration and supportive care costs, and costs for adverse events as a single agent was €4,007/patient less than pemetrexed over the patient's lifetime. BCG also achieved a mean gain of 0.12 life-years compared with PC over this period. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of BCG relative to PC was calculated to be €34,919 per additional life-year gained suggesting that BCG is cost-effective compared with PC as first-line treatment for advanced NSCLC in Italy. Conclusions: In conclusion, bevacizumab-based therapy can be considered as a cost-effective option when compared to chemotherapy treatments such as pemetrexed for the treatment for advanced non-squamous NSCLC
PHOBIC: Perfect Hashing With Optimized Bucket Sizes and Interleaved Coding
No full textA minimal perfect hash function (or MPHF) maps a set of n keys to [n] : = {1, …, n} without collisions. Such functions find widespread application e.g. in bioinformatics and databases. In this paper we revisit PTHash - a construction technique particularly designed for fast queries. PTHash distributes the input keys into small buckets and, for each bucket, it searches for a hash function seed that places its keys in the output domain without collisions. The collection of all seeds is then stored in a compressed way. Since the first buckets are easier to place, buckets are considered in non-increasing order of size. Additionally, PTHash heuristically produces an imbalanced distribution of bucket sizes by distributing 60% of the keys into 30% of the buckets.
Our main contribution is to characterize, up to lower order terms, an optimal choice for the expected bucket sizes, improving construction throughput for space efficient configurations both in theory and practice. Further contributions include a new encoding scheme for seeds that works across partitions of the data structure and a GPU parallelization.
Compared to PTHash, PHOBIC is 0.17 bits/key more space efficient for same query time and construction throughput. For a configuration with fast queries, our GPU implementation can construct an MPHF at 2.17 bits/key in 28 ns/key, which can be queried in 37 ns/query on the CPU
- …
