A 7/3-Approximation for Feedback Vertex Sets in Tournaments

We consider the minimum-weight feedback vertex set problem in tournaments: given a tournament with non-negative vertex weights, remove a minimum-weight set of vertices that intersects all cycles. This problem is NP-hard to solve exactly, and Unique Games-hard to approximate by a factor better than 2. We present the first 7/3 approximation algorithm for this problem, improving on the previously best known ratio 5/2 given by Cai et al. [FOCS 1998, SICOMP 2001]

A 7/3-approximation for feedback vertex sets in tournaments

We consider the minimum-weight feedback vertex set problem in tournaments: given a tournament with non-negative vertex weights, remove a minimum-weight set of vertices that intersects all cycles. This problem is NP-hard to solve exactly, and Unique Games-hard to approximate by a factor better than 2. We present the first 7/3 approximation algorithm for this problem, improving on the previously best known ratio 5/2 given by Cai et al. [FOCS 1998, SICOMP 2001]

A Tight Approximation Algorithm for the Cluster Vertex Deletion Problem

We give the first $2$-approximation algorithm for the cluster vertex deletion problem. This is tight, since approximating the problem within any constant factor smaller than $2$ is UGC-hard. Our algorithm combines the previous approaches, based on the local ratio technique and the management of true twins, with a novel construction of a 'good' cost function on the vertices at distance at most $2$ from any vertex of the input graph. As an additional contribution, we also study cluster vertex deletion from the polyhedral perspective, where we prove almost matching upper and lower bounds on how well linear programming relaxations can approximate the problem.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figure

Ranking tournaments with no errors I: Structural description

In this series of two papers we examine the classical problem of ranking a set of players on the basis of a set of pairwise comparisons arising from a sports tournament, with the objective of minimizing the total number of upsets, where an upset occurs if a higher ranked player was actually defeated by a lower ranked player. This problem can be rephrased as the so-called minimum feedback arc set problem on tournaments, which arises in a rich variety of applications and has been a subject of extensive research. In this series we study this NP-hard problem using structure-driven and linear programming approaches. Let T=(V,A) be a tournament with a nonnegative integral weight w(e) on each arc e. A subset F of arcs is called a feedback arc set if T\F contains no cycles (directed). A collection C of cycles (with repetition allowed) is called a cycle packing if each arc e is used at most w(e) times by members of C. We call T cycle Mengerian (CM) if, for every nonnegative integral function w defined on A, the minimum total weight of a feedback arc set is equal to the maximum size of a cycle packing. The purpose of these two papers is to show that a tournament is CM iff it contains none of four Möbius ladders as a subgraph; such a tournament is referred to as Möbius-free. In this first paper we present a structural description of all Möbius-free tournaments, which relies heavily on a chain theorem concerning internally 2-strong tournaments

Linear Orderings of Sparse Graphs

The Linear Ordering problem consists in finding a total ordering of the vertices of a directed graph such that the number of backward arcs, i.e., arcs whose heads precede their tails in the ordering, is minimized. A minimum set of backward arcs corresponds to an optimal solution to the equivalent Feedback Arc Set problem and forms a minimum Cycle Cover. Linear Ordering and Feedback Arc Set are classic NP-hard optimization problems and have a wide range of applications. Whereas both problems have been studied intensively on dense graphs and tournaments, not much is known about their structure and properties on sparser graphs. There are also only few approximative algorithms that give performance guarantees especially for graphs with bounded vertex degree. This thesis fills this gap in multiple respects: We establish necessary conditions for a linear ordering (and thereby also for a feedback arc set) to be optimal, which provide new and fine-grained insights into the combinatorial structure of the problem. From these, we derive a framework for polynomial-time algorithms that construct linear orderings which adhere to one or more of these conditions. The analysis of the linear orderings produced by these algorithms is especially tailored to graphs with bounded vertex degrees of three and four and improves on previously known upper bounds. Furthermore, the set of necessary conditions is used to implement exact and fast algorithms for the Linear Ordering problem on sparse graphs. In an experimental evaluation, we finally show that the property-enforcing algorithms produce linear orderings that are very close to the optimum and that the exact representative delivers solutions in a timely manner also in practice. As an additional benefit, our results can be applied to the Acyclic Subgraph problem, which is the complementary problem to Feedback Arc Set, and provide insights into the dual problem of Feedback Arc Set, the Arc-Disjoint Cycles problem