Discrete Algorithms

The section covers research in all aspects of the design and analysis of discrete algorithms. This extends also to data structures, combinatorial structures, and lower bounds.


Topics includes: Algorithmic aspects of networks - Algorithmic game theory - Approximation algorithms - Combinatorial optimization - Computational biology - Distributed algorithms - Computational geometry - Data compression - Data structures - Databases and information retrieval - Graph algorithms - Hierarchical memories - Mobile computing - On-line algorithms - Parallel algorithms - Parametrized complexity - Pattern matching - Randomized algorithms - Scheduling - Streaming algorithms

Editors: Hans Bodlaender ; Glencora Borradaile ; Magnús Halldórsson ; Klaus Jansen ; Rolf Niedermeier ; Ignasi Sau ; Hadas Shachnai ; Zsolt Tuza ; Paz Carmi ; Rob van Stee

On-line algorithms for multiplication and division in real and complex numeration systems

Frougny, Christiane ; Pavelka, Marta ; Pelantova, Edita ; Svobodova, Milena.
A positional numeration system is given by a base and by a set of digits. The base is a real or complex number $\beta$ such that $|\beta|>1$, and the digit set $A$ is a finite set of digits including $0$. Thus a number can be seen as a finite or infinite string of digits. An on-line algorithm processes the input piece-by-piece in a serial fashion. On-line arithmetic, introduced by Trivedi and Ercegovac, is a mode of computation where operands and results flow through arithmetic units in a digit serial manner, starting with the most significant digit. In this paper, we first formulate a generalized version of the on-line algorithms for multiplication and division of Trivedi and Ercegovac for the cases that $\beta$ is any real or complex number, and digits are real or complex. We then define the so-called OL Property, and show that if $(\beta, A)$ has the OL Property, then on-line multiplication and division are feasible by the Trivedi-Ercegovac algorithms. For a real base $\beta$ and […]

Efficient enumeration of solutions produced by closure operations

Mary, Arnaud ; Strozecki, Yann.
In this paper we address the problem of generating all elements obtained by the saturation of an initial set by some operations. More precisely, we prove that we can generate the closure of a boolean relation (a set of boolean vectors) by polymorphisms with a polynomial delay. Therefore we can compute with polynomial delay the closure of a family of sets by any set of "set operations": union, intersection, symmetric difference, subsets, supersets $\dots$). To do so, we study the $Membership_{\mathcal{F}}$ problem: for a set of operations $\mathcal{F}$, decide whether an element belongs to the closure by $\mathcal{F}$ of a family of elements. In the boolean case, we prove that $Membership_{\mathcal{F}}$ is in P for any set of boolean operations $\mathcal{F}$. When the input vectors are over a domain larger than two elements, we prove that the generic enumeration method fails, since $Membership_{\mathcal{F}}$ is NP-hard for some $\mathcal{F}$. We also study the problem of generating […]

Planar 3-SAT with a Clause/Variable Cycle

Pilz, Alexander.
In the Planar 3-SAT problem, we are given a 3-SAT formula together with its incidence graph, which is planar, and are asked whether this formula is satisfiable. Since Lichtenstein's proof that this problem is NP-complete, it has been used as a starting point for a large number of reductions. In the course of this research, different restrictions on the incidence graph of the formula have been devised, for which the problem also remains hard. In this paper, we investigate the restriction in which we require that the incidence graph can be augmented by the edges of a Hamiltonian cycle that first passes through all variables and then through all clauses, in a way that the resulting graph is still planar. We show that the problem of deciding satisfiability of a 3-SAT formula remains NP-complete even if the incidence graph is restricted in that way and the Hamiltonian cycle is given. This complements previous results demanding cycles only through either the variables or clauses. The […]

Non-crossing paths with geographic constraints

Silveira, Rodrigo I. ; Speckmann, Bettina ; Verbeek, Kevin.
A geographic network is a graph whose vertices are restricted to lie in a prescribed region in the plane. In this paper we begin to study the following fundamental problem for geographic networks: can a given geographic network be drawn without crossings? We focus on the seemingly simple setting where each region is a vertical segment, and one wants to connect pairs of segments with a path that lies inside the convex hull of the two segments. We prove that when paths must be drawn as straight line segments, it is NP-complete to determine if a crossing-free solution exists, even if all vertical segments have unit length. In contrast, we show that when paths must be monotone curves, the question can be answered in polynomial time. In the more general case of paths that can have any shape, we show that the problem is polynomial under certain assumptions.

An output-sensitive Algorithm to partition a Sequence of Integers into Subsets with equal Sums

Büchel, Alexander ; Gilleßen, Ulrich ; Witt, Kurt-Ulrich.
We present a polynomial time algorithm, which solves a nonstandard Variation of the well-known PARTITION-problem: Given positive integers $n, k$ and $t$ such that $t \geq n$ and $k \cdot t = {n+1 \choose 2}$, the algorithm partitions the elements of the set $I_n = \{1, \ldots, n\}$ into $k$ mutually disjoint subsets $T_j$ such that $\cup_{j=1}^k T_j = I_n$ and $\sum_{x \in T_{j}} x = t$ for each $j \in \{1,2, \ldots, k\}$. The algorithm needs $\mathcal{O}(n \cdot ( \frac{n}{2k} + \log \frac{n(n+1)}{2k} ))$ steps to insert the $n$ elements of $I_n$ into the $k$ sets $T_j$.

Parameterized Power Vertex Cover

Angel, Eric ; Bampis, Evripidis ; Escoffier, Bruno ; Lampis, Michael.
We study a recently introduced generalization of the Vertex Cover (VC) problem, called Power Vertex Cover (PVC). In this problem, each edge of the input graph is supplied with a positive integer demand. A solution is an assignment of (power) values to the vertices, so that for each edge one of its endpoints has value as high as the demand, and the total sum of power values assigned is minimized. We investigate how this generalization affects the parameterized complexity of Vertex Cover. On the positive side, when parameterized by the value of the optimal P, we give an O*(1.274^P)-time branching algorithm (O* is used to hide factors polynomial in the input size), and also an O*(1.325^P)-time algorithm for the more general asymmetric case of the problem, where the demand of each edge may differ for its two endpoints. When the parameter is the number of vertices k that receive positive value, we give O*(1.619^k) and O*(k^k)-time algorithms for the symmetric and asymmetric cases […]

A Linear Kernel for Planar Total Dominating Set

Garnero, Valentin ; Sau, Ignasi.
A total dominating set of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a subset $D \subseteq V$ such that every vertex in $V$ is adjacent to some vertex in $D$. Finding a total dominating set of minimum size is NP-hard on planar graphs and W[2]-complete on general graphs when parameterized by the solution size. By the meta-theorem of Bodlaender et al. [J. ACM, 2016], there exists a linear kernel for Total Dominating Set on graphs of bounded genus. Nevertheless, it is not clear how such a kernel can be effectively constructed, and how to obtain explicit reduction rules with reasonably small constants. Following the approach of Alber et al. [J. ACM, 2004], we provide an explicit kernel for Total Dominating Set on planar graphs with at most $410k$ vertices, where $k$ is the size of the solution. This result complements several known constructive linear kernels on planar graphs for other domination problems such as Dominating Set, Edge Dominating Set, Efficient Dominating Set, Connected Dominating Set, or […]

Monotone Simultaneous Paths Embeddings in $\mathbb{R}^d$

Bremner, David ; Devillers, Olivier ; Glisse, Marc ; Lazard, Sylvain ; Liotta, Giuseppe ; Mchedlidze, Tamara ; Moroz, Guillaume ; Whitesides, Sue ; Wismath, Stephen.
We study the following problem: Given $k$ paths that share the same vertex set, is there a simultaneous geometric embedding of these paths such that each individual drawing is monotone in some direction? We prove that for any dimension $d\geq 2$, there is a set of $d + 1$ paths that does not admit a monotone simultaneous geometric embedding.

Improved kernels for Signed Max Cut parameterized above lower bound on (r,l)-graphs

Faria, Luerbio ; Klein, Sulamita ; Sau, Ignasi ; Sucupira, Rubens.
A graph $G$ is signed if each edge is assigned $+$ or $-$. A signed graph is balanced if there is a bipartition of its vertex set such that an edge has sign $-$ if and only if its endpoints are in different parts. The Edwards-Erdös bound states that every graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges has a balanced subgraph with at least $\frac{m}{2}+\frac{n-1}{4}$ edges. In the Signed Max Cut Above Tight Lower Bound (Signed Max Cut ATLB) problem, given a signed graph $G$ and a parameter $k$, the question is whether $G$ has a balanced subgraph with at least $\frac{m}{2}+\frac{n-1}{4}+\frac{k}{4}$ edges. This problem generalizes Max Cut Above Tight Lower Bound, for which a kernel with $O(k^5)$ vertices was given by Crowston et al. [ICALP 2012, Algorithmica 2015]. Crowston et al. [TCS 2013] improved this result by providing a kernel with $O(k^3)$ vertices for the more general Signed Max Cut ATLB problem. In this article we are interested in improving the size of the kernels for Signed Max Cut […]

Pairwise Stability in Two Sided Market with Strictly Increasing Valuation Functions

Ali, Yasir ; Javaid, Asma.
This paper deals with two-sided matching market with two disjoint sets, i.e. the set of buyers and the set of sellers. Each seller can trade with at most with one buyer and vice versa. Money is transferred from sellers to buyers for an indivisible goods that buyers own. Valuation functions, for participants of both sides, are represented by strictly increasing functions with money considered as discrete variable. An algorithm is devised to prove the existence of stability for this model.

Energy-optimal algorithms for computing aggregative functions in random networks

Klonowski, Marek ; Sulkowska, Małgorzata.
We investigate a family of algorithms minimizing energetic effort in random networks computing aggregative functions. In contrast to previously considered models, our results minimize maximal energetic effort over all stations instead of the average usage of energy. Such approach seems to be much more suitable for some kinds of networks, in particular ad hoc radio networks, wherein we need all stations functioning and replacing batteries after the deployment is not feasible. We analyze also the latency of proposed energy-optimal algorithms. We model a network by placing randomly and independently $n$ points in a $d$-dimensional cube of side-length $n^{1/d}$. We place an edge between vertices that interact with each other. We analyze properties of the resulting graphs in order to obtain estimates on energetic effort and latency of proposed algorithms.

On the complexity of edge-colored subgraph partitioning problems in network optimization

Zhang, Xiaoyan ; Zhang, Zan-Bo ; Broersma, Hajo ; Wen, Xuelian.
Network models allow one to deal with massive data sets using some standard concepts from graph theory. Understanding and investigating the structural properties of a certain data set is a crucial task in many practical applications of network optimization. Recently, labeled network optimization over colored graphs has been extensively studied. Given a (not necessarily properly) edge-colored graph $G=(V,E)$, a subgraph $H$ is said to be monochromatic if all its edges have the same color, and called multicolored if all its edges have distinct colors. The monochromatic clique and multicolored cycle partition problems have important applications in the problems of network optimization arising in information science and operations research. We investigate the computational complexity of the problems of determining the minimum number of monochromatic cliques or multicolored cycles that, respectively, partition $V(G)$. We show that the minimum monochromatic clique partition […]

Reducing the rank of a matroid

Joret, Gwenaël ; Vetta, Adrian.

Improving Vertex Cover as a Graph Parameter

Ganian, Robert.

On substitution tilings of the plane with n-fold rotational symmetry

Maloney, Gregory R..
A method is described for constructing, with computer assistance, planar substitution tilings that have n-fold rotational symmetry. This method uses as prototiles the set of rhombs with angles that are integer multiples of pi/n, and includes various special cases that have already been constructed by hand for low values of n. An example constructed by this method for n = 11 is exhibited; this is the first substitution tiling with elevenfold symmetry appearing in the literature.

Output sensitive algorithms for covering many points

Ghasemalizadeh, Hossein ; Razzazi, Mohammadreza.
In this paper we devise some output sensitive algorithms for a problem where a set of points and a positive integer, m, are given and the goal is to cover a maximal number of these points with m disks. We introduce a parameter, ρ, as the maximum number of points that one disk can cover and we analyse the algorithms based on this parameter. At first, we solve the problem for m=1 in O(nρ) time, which improves the previous O(n2) time algorithm for this problem. Then we solve the problem for m=2 in O(nρ + 3 log ρ) time, which improves the previous O(n3 log n) algorithm for this problem. Our algorithms outperform the previous algorithms because ρ is much smaller than n in many cases. Finally, we extend the algorithm for any value of m and solve the problem in O(mnρ + (mρ)2m - 1 log mρ) time. The previous algorithm for this problem runs in O(n2m - 1 log n) time and our algorithm usually runs faster than the previous algorithm because mρ is smaller than n in many cases. We obtain output […]

Cost-effectiveness of algorithms

Farr, Graham.
In this paper we discuss how to assess the performance of algorithms for optimisation problems in a way that balances solution quality and time. We propose measures of cost-effectiveness for such algorithms. These measures give the gain in solution quality per time unit over a sequence of inputs, and give a basis for deciding which algorithm to use when aiming for best accumulated solution quality for a given time investment over such an input sequence. Cost-effectiveness measures can be defined for both average-case and worst-case performance. We apply these ideas to three problems: maximum matching, graph colouring and Kolmogorov complexity. For the latter, we propose a cost-effectiveness measure for the time-bounded complexity Kτ(x), and argue that it can be used to measure the cost-effectiveness both of finding a short program to output x and of generating x from such a program. Under mild assumptions, we show that (roughly speaking) if the time-bounded complexity Kτ(x) is to be a […]

A randomized algorithm for finding a maximum clique in the visibility graph of a simple polygon

Cabello, Sergio ; Saumell, Maria.
We present a randomized algorithm to compute a clique of maximum size in the visibility graph G of the vertices of a simple polygon P. The input of the problem consists of the visibility graph G, a Hamiltonian cycle describing the boundary of P, and a parameter δ∈(0,1) controlling the probability of error of the algorithm. The algorithm does not require the coordinates of the vertices of P. With probability at least 1-δ the algorithm runs in O( |E(G)|2 / ω(G) log(1/δ)) time and returns a maximum clique, where ω(G) is the number of vertices in a maximum clique in G. A deterministic variant of the algorithm takes O(|E(G)|2) time and always outputs a maximum size clique. This compares well to the best previous algorithm by Ghosh et al. (2007) for the problem, which is deterministic and runs in O(|V(G)|2 |E(G)|) time.

Determining pure discrete spectrum for some self-affine tilings


An exact algorithm for the generalized list T-coloring problem

Junosza-Szaniawski, Konstanty ; Rzazewski, Pawel.

A Parameterized Measure-and-ConquerAnalysis for Finding a k-Leaf Spanning Treein an Undirected Graph

Binkele-Raible, Daniel ; Fernau, Henning.
The problem of finding a spanning tree in an undirected graph with a maximum number of leaves is known to be NP-hard. We present an algorithm which finds a spanning tree with at least k leaves in time O*(3.4575k) which improves the currently best algorithm. The estimation of the running time is done by using a non-standard measure. The present paper is one of the still few examples that employ the Measure & Conquer paradigm of algorithm analysis in the area of Parameterized Algorithmics.

The Price of Mediation

Bradonjic, Milan ; Ercal, Gunes ; Meyerson, Adam ; Roytman, Alan.
We study the relationship between correlated equilibria and Nash equilibria. In contrast to previous work focusing on the possible benefits of a benevolent mediator, we define and bound the Price of Mediation (PoM): the ratio of the social cost (or utility) of the worst correlated equilibrium to the social cost (or utility) of the worst Nash. We observe that in practice, the heuristics used for mediation are frequently non-optimal, and from an economic perspective mediators may be inept or self-interested. Recent results on computation of equilibria also motivate our work. We consider the Price of Mediation for general games with small numbers of players and pure strategies. For two player, two strategy games we give tight bounds in the non-negative cost model and the non-negative utility model. For larger games (either more players, or more pure strategies per player, or both) we show that the PoM can be arbitrary. We also have many results on symmetric congestion games (also known as […]

A note on contracting claw-free graphs

Fiala, Jiří ; Kamiński, Marcin ; Paulusma, Daniël.
A graph containment problem is to decide whether one graph called the host graph can be modified into some other graph called the target graph by using a number of specified graph operations. We consider edge deletions, edge contractions, vertex deletions and vertex dissolutions as possible graph operations permitted. By allowing any combination of these four operations we capture the following problems: testing on (induced) minors, (induced) topological minors, (induced) subgraphs, (induced) spanning subgraphs, dissolutions and contractions. We show that these problems stay NP-complete even when the host and target belong to the class of line graphs, which form a subclass of the class of claw-free graphs, i.e., graphs with no induced 4-vertex star. A natural question is to study the computational complexity of these problems if the target graph is assumed to be fixed. We show that these problems may become computationally easier when the host graphs are restricted to be claw-free. In […]

The complexity of 2-coloring and strong coloring in uniform hypergraphs of high minimum degree

Szymańska, Edyta.
In this paper we consider the problem of deciding whether a given r-uniform hypergraph H with minimum vertex degree at least c\binom|V(H)|-1r-1, or minimum degree of a pair of vertices at least c\binom|V(H)|-2r-2, has a vertex 2-coloring. Motivated by an old result of Edwards for graphs, we obtain first optimal dichotomy results for 2-colorings of r-uniform hypergraphs. For each problem, for every r≥q 3 we determine a threshold value depending on r such that the problem is NP-complete for c below the threshold, while for c strictly above the threshold it is polynomial. We provide an algorithm constructing the coloring with time complexity O(n^\lfloor 4/ε\rfloor+2\log n) with some ε>0. This algorithm becomes more efficient in the case of r=3,4,5 due to known Turán numbers of the triangle and the Fano plane. In addition, we determine the computational complexity of strong k-coloring of 3-uniform hypergraphs H with minimum vertex degree at least c\binom|V(H)|-12, for some c, leaving a gap […]

Efficient repeat finding in sets of strings via suffix arrays

Barenbaum, Pablo ; Becher, Verónica ; Deymonnaz, Alejandro ; Halsband, Melisa ; Heiber, Pablo Ariel.
We consider two repeat finding problems relative to sets of strings: (a) Find the largest substrings that occur in every string of a given set; (b) Find the maximal repeats in a given string that occur in no string of a given set. Our solutions are based on the suffix array construction, requiring O(m) memory, where m is the length of the longest input string, and O(n &log;m) time, where n is the the whole input size (the sum of the length of each string in the input). The most expensive part of our algorithms is the computation of several suffix arrays. We give an implementation and experimental results that evidence the efficiency of our algorithms in practice, even for very large inputs.

Isomorphism of graph classes related to the circular-ones property

Curtis, Andrew R. ; Lin, Min Chih ; Mcconnell, Ross M. ; Nussbaum, Yahav ; Soulignac, Francisco Juan ; Spinrad, Jeremy P. ; Szwarcfiter, Jayme Luiz.
We give a linear-time algorithm that checks for isomorphism between two 0-1 matrices that obey the circular-ones property. Our algorithm is similar to the isomorphism algorithm for interval graphs of Lueker and Booth, but works on PC trees, which are unrooted and have a cyclic nature, rather than with PQ trees, which are rooted. This algorithm leads to linear-time isomorphism algorithms for related graph classes, including Helly circular-arc graphs, Γ circular-arc graphs, proper circular-arc graphs and convex-round graphs.

On quadratic threshold CSPs

Austrin, Per ; Benabbas, Siavosh ; Magen, Avner.

A linear time algorithm for finding an Euler walk in a strongly connected 3-uniform hypergraph

Lonc, Zbigniew ; Naroski, Pawel.
By an Euler walk in a 3-uniform hypergraph H we mean an alternating sequence v(0), epsilon(1), v(1), epsilon(2), v(2), ... , v(m-1), epsilon(m), v(m) of vertices and edges in H such that each edge of H appears in this sequence exactly once and v(i-1); v(i) is an element of epsilon(i), v(i-1) not equal v(i), for every i = 1, 2, ... , m. This concept is a natural extension of the graph theoretic notion of an Euler walk to the case of 3-uniform hypergraphs. We say that a 3-uniform hypergraph H is strongly connected if it has no isolated vertices and for each two edges e and f in H there is a sequence of edges starting with e and ending with f such that each two consecutive edges in this sequence have two vertices in common. In this paper we give an algorithm that constructs an Euler walk in a strongly connected 3-uniform hypergraph (it is known that such a walk in such a hypergraph always exists). The algorithm runs in time O(m), where m is the number of edges in the input hypergraph.

Generation of Cubic graphs

Brinkmann, Gunnar ; Goedgebeur, Jan ; Mckay, Brendan D..
We describe a new algorithm for the efficient generation of all non-isomorphic connected cubic graphs. Our implementation of this algorithm is more than 4 times faster than previous generators. The generation can also be efficiently restricted to cubic graphs with girth at least 4 or 5.