Browsing by Author "Pankaj Rohatgi"

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    Improved Algorithms via Approximations of Probability Distributions
    (1996-10-01T00:00:00Z) Suresh Chari; Pankaj Rohatgi; Aravind Srinivasan
    We present two techniques for approximating probability distributions. The first is a simple method for constructing the small-bias probability spaces introduced by Naor and Naor. We show how to efficiently combine this construction with the method of conditional probabilities to yield improved NC algorithms for many problems such as set discrepancy, finding large cuts in graphs, finding large acyclic subgraphs etc. The second is a construction of small probability spaces approximating general independent distributions, which is of smaller size than the constructions of Even, Goldreich, Luby, Nisan and Velickovic. Such approximations are useful, e.g., for the derandomization of certain randomized algorithms.