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On discrepancy bounds via dual shatter function

Part of: Probabilistic theory: distribution modulo $1$; metric theory of algorithms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

Jiří Matousěk
Jiří Matousěk
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics, Charles University, Malostranské nám. 25, 118 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic
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Abstract

Recently, it has been shown that tight or almost tight upper bounds for the discrepancy of many geometrically denned set systems can be derived from simple combinatorial parameters of these set systems. Namely, if the primal shatter function of a set system ℛ on an n-point set X is bounded by const. md, then the discrepancy disc (ℛ) = O(n(d−1)/2d) (which is known to be tight), and if the dual shatter function is bounded by const. md, then disc We prove that for d = 2, 3, the latter bound also cannot be improved in general. We also show that bounds on the shatter functions alone do not imply the average (L1)-discrepancy to be much smaller than the maximum discrepancy: this contrasts results of Beck and Chen for certain geometric cases. In the proof we give a construction of a certain asymptotically extremal bipartite graph, which may be of independent interest.

MSC classification

Secondary: 11K41: Continuous, $p$-adic and abstract analogues
Type
Research Article
Information
Mathematika , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , June 1997 , pp. 42 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © University College London 1997

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