47 research outputs found
A complexity dichotomy for poset constraint satisfaction
In this paper we determine the complexity of a broad class of problems that
extends the temporal constraint satisfaction problems. To be more precise we
study the problems Poset-SAT(), where is a given set of
quantifier-free -formulas. An instance of Poset-SAT() consists of
finitely many variables and formulas
with ; the question is
whether this input is satisfied by any partial order on or
not. We show that every such problem is NP-complete or can be solved in
polynomial time, depending on . All Poset-SAT problems can be formalized
as constraint satisfaction problems on reducts of the random partial order. We
use model-theoretic concepts and techniques from universal algebra to study
these reducts. In the course of this analysis we establish a dichotomy that we
believe is of independent interest in universal algebra and model theory.Comment: 29 page
A Dichotomy Theorem for the Approximate Counting of Complex-Weighted Bounded-Degree Boolean CSPs
We determine the computational complexity of approximately counting the total
weight of variable assignments for every complex-weighted Boolean constraint
satisfaction problem (or CSP) with any number of additional unary (i.e., arity
1) constraints, particularly, when degrees of input instances are bounded from
above by a fixed constant. All degree-1 counting CSPs are obviously solvable in
polynomial time. When the instance's degree is more than two, we present a
dichotomy theorem that classifies all counting CSPs admitting free unary
constraints into exactly two categories. This classification theorem extends,
to complex-weighted problems, an earlier result on the approximation complexity
of unweighted counting Boolean CSPs of bounded degree. The framework of the
proof of our theorem is based on a theory of signature developed from Valiant's
holographic algorithms that can efficiently solve seemingly intractable
counting CSPs. Despite the use of arbitrary complex weight, our proof of the
classification theorem is rather elementary and intuitive due to an extensive
use of a novel notion of limited T-constructibility. For the remaining degree-2
problems, in contrast, they are as hard to approximate as Holant problems,
which are a generalization of counting CSPs.Comment: A4, 10pt, 20 pages. This revised version improves its preliminary
version published under a slightly different title in the Proceedings of the
4th International Conference on Combinatorial Optimization and Applications
(COCOA 2010), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Vol.6508 (Part I),
pp.285--299, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, USA, December 18--20, 201
An Algebraic Approach to Valued Constraint Satisfaction
[EN]We study the complexity of the valued CSP (VCSP, for short) over arbitrary templates, taking
the general framework of integral bounded linearly order monoids as valuation structures. The
class of problems considered here subsumes and generalizes the most common one in VCSP
literature, since both monoidal and lattice conjunction operations are allowed in the formulation
of constraints. Restricting to locally finite monoids, we introduce a notion of polymorphism that
captures the pp-definability in the style of Geiger’s result. As a consequence, sufficient conditions
for tractability of the classical CSP, related to the existence of certain polymorphisms, are shown
to serve also for the valued case. Finally, we establish the dichotomy conjecture for the VCSP,
modulo the dichotomy for classical CSP.The work was partly supported by the grant No. GA17-04630S of the Czech Science Foundation and partly by the long-term strategic development financing of the Institute of Computer Science
(RVO:67985807).Peer reviewe
Necessary conditions for tractability of valued CSPs
The connection between constraint languages and clone theory has been a
fruitful line of research on the complexity of constraint satisfaction
problems. In a recent result, Cohen et al. [SICOMP'13] have characterised a
Galois connection between valued constraint languages and so-called weighted
clones. In this paper, we study the structure of weighted clones. We extend the
results of Creed and Zivny from [CP'11/SICOMP'13] on types of weightings
necessarily contained in every nontrivial weighted clone. This result has
immediate computational complexity consequences as it provides necessary
conditions for tractability of weighted clones and thus valued constraint
languages. We demonstrate that some of the necessary conditions are also
sufficient for tractability, while others are provably not.Comment: To appear in SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics (SIDMA
Short Definitions in Constraint Languages
A first-order formula is called primitive positive (pp) if it only admits the use of existential quantifiers and conjunction. Pp-formulas are a central concept in (fixed-template) constraint satisfaction since CSP(?) can be viewed as the problem of deciding the primitive positive theory of ?, and pp-definability captures gadget reductions between CSPs.
An important class of tractable constraint languages ? is characterized by having few subpowers, that is, the number of n-ary relations pp-definable from ? is bounded by 2^p(n) for some polynomial p(n). In this paper we study a restriction of this property, stating that every pp-definable relation is definable by a pp-formula of polynomial length. We conjecture that the existence of such short definitions is actually equivalent to ? having few subpowers, and verify this conjecture for a large subclass that, in particular, includes all constraint languages on three-element domains. We furthermore discuss how our conjecture imposes an upper complexity bound of co-NP on the subpower membership problem of algebras with few subpowers