Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Sparse cutting-planes are often the ones used in mixed-integer programing (MIP) solvers, since they help in solving the linear programs encountered during branch-&-bound more efficiently. However, how well can we approximate the integer hull by just using sparse cutting-planes? In order to understand this question better, given a polyope P (e.g. the integer hull of a MIP), let P^k be its best approximation using cuts with at most k non-zero coefficients. We consider d(P, P^k) = max_{x in P^k} (min_{y in P} |x - y|) as a measure of the quality of sparse cuts. In our first result, we present general upper bounds on d(P, P^k) which depend on the number of vertices in the polytope and exhibits three phases as k increases. Our bounds imply that if P has polynomially many vertices, using half sparsity already approximates it very well. Second, we present a lower bound on d(P, P^k) for random polytopes that show that the upper bounds are quite tight. Third, we show that for a class of hard packing IPs, sparse cutting-planes do not approximate the integer hull well. Finally, we show that using sparse cutting-planes in extended formulations is at least as good as using them in the original polyhedron, and give an example where the former is actually much better. Joint work with Santanu Dey and Qianyi Wang.

Synapses in many cortical areas of the brain are dominated by local, recurrent connections. It has long been suggested, therefore, that cortical networks may serve to restore a noisy or incomplete signal by evolving it towards a stored pattern of activity. These "preferred" activity patterns are constrained by the excitatory connections, and comprise the neural code of the recurrent network. In this talk I will briefly review the permitted and forbidden sets model for cortical networks, first introduced by Hahnloser et. al. (Nature, 2000), in which preferred activity patterns are modeled as "permitted sets" - that is, as subsets of neurons that co-fire at stable fixed points of the network dynamics. I will then present some recent results that provide a geometric handle on the relationship between permitted sets and network connectivity. This allows us to precisely characterize the structure of neural codes that arise from a simple learning rule. In particular, we find "natural codes" that can be learned from few examples, and that closely mimic receptive field codes that have been observed in the brain. Finally, we use our geometric description of permitted sets to prove that these networks can perform error correction and pattern completion for a wide range of connectivities.

We present a KAM-like theorem for the existence of quasi-periodic tori with a prescribed Diophantine rotation for a discrete family of dynamical system. The theorem is stated in an a posteriori format, so it can be used to validate numerical computations. The method of proof provides an efficient algorithm for computing quasi-periodic tori. We also present implementations of the algorithm, illustrating them throught several examples and observing different mechanisms of breakdown of qp invariant tori. This is a joint work with Alex Haro.

We introduce a discrete dynamical system on the set of partial orientations of a graph, which generalizes Gioan's cycle-cocycle reversal system. We explain how this setup allows for a new interpretation of the linear equivalence of divisors on graphs (chip-firing), and a new proof of Baker and Norine's combinatorial Riemann Roch formula. Fundamental connections to the max-flow min-cut theorem will be highlighted.