A Parameterized Strongly Polynomial Algorithm for Block Structured Integer Programs

The theory of n-fold integer programming has been recently emerging as an important tool in parameterized complexity. The input to an n-fold integer program (IP) consists of parameter A, dimension n, and numerical data of binary encoding length L. It was known for some time that such programs can be solved in polynomial time using O(n^{g(A)}L) arithmetic operations where g is an exponential function of the parameter. In 2013 it was shown that it can be solved in fixed-parameter tractable time using O(f(A)n^3L) arithmetic operations for a single-exponential function f. This, and a faster algorithm for a special case of combinatorial n-fold IP, have led to several very recent breakthroughs in the parameterized complexity of scheduling, stringology, and computational social choice. In 2015 it was shown that it can be solved in strongly polynomial time using O(n^{g(A)}) arithmetic operations. Here we establish a result which subsumes all three of the above results by showing that n-fold IP can be solved in strongly polynomial fixed-parameter tractable time using O(f(A)n^6 log n) arithmetic operations. In fact, our results are much more general, briefly outlined as follows. - There is a strongly polynomial algorithm for integer linear programming (ILP) whenever a so-called Graver-best oracle is realizable for it. - Graver-best oracles for the large classes of multi-stage stochastic and tree-fold ILPs can be realized in fixed-parameter tractable time. Together with the previous oracle algorithm, this newly shows two large classes of ILP to be strongly polynomial; in contrast, only few classes of ILP were previously known to be strongly polynomial. - We show that ILP is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the largest coefficient |A |_infty and the primal or dual treedepth of A, and that this parameterization cannot be relaxed, signifying substantial progress in understanding the parameterized complexity of ILP

An Algorithmic Theory of Integer Programming

We study the general integer programming problem where the number of variables $n$ is a variable part of the input. We consider two natural parameters of the constraint matrix $A$: its numeric measure $a$ and its sparsity measure $d$. We show that integer programming can be solved in time $g(a,d)\textrm{poly}(n,L)$, where $g$ is some computable function of the parameters $a$ and $d$, and $L$ is the binary encoding length of the input. In particular, integer programming is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by $a$ and $d$, and is solvable in polynomial time for every fixed $a$ and $d$. Our results also extend to nonlinear separable convex objective functions. Moreover, for linear objectives, we derive a strongly-polynomial algorithm, that is, with running time $g(a,d)\textrm{poly}(n)$, independent of the rest of the input data. We obtain these results by developing an algorithmic framework based on the idea of iterative augmentation: starting from an initial feasible solution, we show how to quickly find augmenting steps which rapidly converge to an optimum. A central notion in this framework is the Graver basis of the matrix $A$, which constitutes a set of fundamental augmenting steps. The iterative augmentation idea is then enhanced via the use of other techniques such as new and improved bounds on the Graver basis, rapid solution of integer programs with bounded variables, proximity theorems and a new proximity-scaling algorithm, the notion of a reduced objective function, and others. As a consequence of our work, we advance the state of the art of solving block-structured integer programs. In particular, we develop near-linear time algorithms for $n$-fold, tree-fold, and $2$-stage stochastic integer programs. We also discuss some of the many applications of these classes.Comment: Revision 2: - strengthened dual treedepth lower bound - simplified proximity-scaling algorith

The complexity landscape of decompositional parameters for ILP : programs with few global variables and constraints

Integer Linear Programming (ILP) has a broad range of applications in various areas of artificial intelligence. Yet in spite of recent advances, we still lack a thorough understanding of which structural restrictions make ILP tractable. Here we study ILP instances consisting of a small number of “global” variables and/or constraints such that the remaining part of the instance consists of small and otherwise independent components; this is captured in terms of a structural measure we call fracture backdoors which generalizes, for instance, the well-studied class of N-fold ILP instances. Our main contributions can be divided into three parts. First, we formally develop fracture backdoors and obtain exact and approximation algorithms for computing these. Second, we exploit these backdoors to develop several new parameterized algorithms for ILP; the performance of these algorithms will naturally scale based on the number of global variables or constraints in the instance. Finally, we complement the developed algorithms with matching lower bounds. Altogether, our results paint a near-complete complexity landscape of ILP with respect to fracture backdoors