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C1: Shuffles and Circuits (On Lower Bounds for Modern Parallel Computation)

Reminder: This post contains 1466 words · 5 min read · by Xianbin

This post will show how to use algebraic complexity theory to show a lower bound for distributed models.

Definitions.

We first introduce \(\perp\)-sum. Given \(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_m \in \{0,1,\perp\}\), the \(\perp\)-sum of \(x_1,\ldots,x_m\) is

The input is a string and output is 1 bit.

Now, we define \(s\)-Shuffle Computation.

  1. Consider a \(R\)-round computation. The input is \(x_1,\ldots, x_n\) and the output is \(y_1, \ldots, y_k\). Each machine has \(s\) ports.
  2. Let each \(x_i\) assign to a machine and let each \(y_i\) assign to a machine.
  3. We give each machine a round. Machines corresponding to the input bits have round 0. Machines corresponding to the output bits have round \(R+1\). All other machines have rounds in \(\{1,\ldots, R\}\).
  4. For each pair \((u,v)\) of machines with (round-number) \(r(u) < r(v)\), we have a function \(\alpha_{u,v}\) transforming \(\{0,1,\perp\}^s\) to \(\{0,1,\perp\}^s\).

The result of \(s\)-shuffle computation is as follows.

where \(\circ_{i=1}^m \vec{x} = \{\underbrace{i, j,\ldots}_m\}\) \((i,j\in \{0,1, \perp\})\).

Reference

[1]. Roughgarden, T., Vassilvitskii, S. and Wang, J.R., 2018. Shuffles and circuits (on lower bounds for modern parallel computation). Journal of the ACM (JACM), 65(6), pp.1-24.