4,898 research outputs found
Computational Geometry Column 42
A compendium of thirty previously published open problems in computational
geometry is presented.Comment: 7 pages; 72 reference
Matroidal Degree-Bounded Minimum Spanning Trees
We consider the minimum spanning tree (MST) problem under the restriction
that for every vertex v, the edges of the tree that are adjacent to v satisfy a
given family of constraints. A famous example thereof is the classical
degree-constrained MST problem, where for every vertex v, a simple upper bound
on the degree is imposed. Iterative rounding/relaxation algorithms became the
tool of choice for degree-bounded network design problems. A cornerstone for
this development was the work of Singh and Lau, who showed for the
degree-bounded MST problem how to find a spanning tree violating each degree
bound by at most one unit and with cost at most the cost of an optimal solution
that respects the degree bounds.
However, current iterative rounding approaches face several limits when
dealing with more general degree constraints. In particular, when several
constraints are imposed on the edges adjacent to a vertex v, as for example
when a partition of the edges adjacent to v is given and only a fixed number of
elements can be chosen out of each set of the partition, current approaches
might violate each of the constraints by a constant, instead of violating all
constraints together by at most a constant number of edges. Furthermore, it is
also not clear how previous iterative rounding approaches can be used for
degree constraints where some edges are in a super-constant number of
constraints.
We extend iterative rounding/relaxation approaches both on a conceptual level
as well as aspects involving their analysis to address these limitations. This
leads to an efficient algorithm for the degree-constrained MST problem where
for every vertex v, the edges adjacent to v have to be independent in a given
matroid. The algorithm returns a spanning tree T of cost at most OPT, such that
for every vertex v, it suffices to remove at most 8 edges from T to satisfy the
matroidal degree constraint at v
Vertex Sparsifiers: New Results from Old Techniques
Given a capacitated graph and a set of terminals ,
how should we produce a graph only on the terminals so that every
(multicommodity) flow between the terminals in could be supported in
with low congestion, and vice versa? (Such a graph is called a
flow-sparsifier for .) What if we want to be a "simple" graph? What if
we allow to be a convex combination of simple graphs?
Improving on results of Moitra [FOCS 2009] and Leighton and Moitra [STOC
2010], we give efficient algorithms for constructing: (a) a flow-sparsifier
that maintains congestion up to a factor of , where , (b) a convex combination of trees over the terminals that maintains
congestion up to a factor of , and (c) for a planar graph , a
convex combination of planar graphs that maintains congestion up to a constant
factor. This requires us to give a new algorithm for the 0-extension problem,
the first one in which the preimages of each terminal are connected in .
Moreover, this result extends to minor-closed families of graphs.
Our improved bounds immediately imply improved approximation guarantees for
several terminal-based cut and ordering problems.Comment: An extended abstract appears in the 13th International Workshop on
Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (APPROX),
2010. Final version to appear in SIAM J. Computin
Fast and Deterministic Approximations for k-Cut
In an undirected graph, a k-cut is a set of edges whose removal breaks the graph into at least k connected components. The minimum weight k-cut can be computed in n^O(k) time, but when k is treated as part of the input, computing the minimum weight k-cut is NP-Hard [Goldschmidt and Hochbaum, 1994]. For poly(m,n,k)-time algorithms, the best possible approximation factor is essentially 2 under the small set expansion hypothesis [Manurangsi, 2017]. Saran and Vazirani [1995] showed that a (2 - 2/k)-approximately minimum weight k-cut can be computed via O(k) minimum cuts, which implies a O~(km) randomized running time via the nearly linear time randomized min-cut algorithm of Karger [2000]. Nagamochi and Kamidoi [2007] showed that a (2 - 2/k)-approximately minimum weight k-cut can be computed deterministically in O(mn + n^2 log n) time. These results prompt two basic questions. The first concerns the role of randomization. Is there a deterministic algorithm for 2-approximate k-cuts matching the randomized running time of O~(km)? The second question qualitatively compares minimum cut to 2-approximate minimum k-cut. Can 2-approximate k-cuts be computed as fast as the minimum cut - in O~(m) randomized time?
We give a deterministic approximation algorithm that computes (2 + eps)-minimum k-cuts in O(m log^3 n / eps^2) time, via a (1 + eps)-approximation for an LP relaxation of k-cut
Matroids and Integrality Gaps for Hypergraphic Steiner Tree Relaxations
Until recently, LP relaxations have played a limited role in the design of
approximation algorithms for the Steiner tree problem. In 2010, Byrka et al.
presented a ln(4)+epsilon approximation based on a hypergraphic LP relaxation,
but surprisingly, their analysis does not provide a matching bound on the
integrality gap.
We take a fresh look at hypergraphic LP relaxations for the Steiner tree
problem - one that heavily exploits methods and results from the theory of
matroids and submodular functions - which leads to stronger integrality gaps,
faster algorithms, and a variety of structural insights of independent
interest. More precisely, we present a deterministic ln(4)+epsilon
approximation that compares against the LP value and therefore proves a
matching ln(4) upper bound on the integrality gap.
Similarly to Byrka et al., we iteratively fix one component and update the LP
solution. However, whereas they solve an LP at every iteration after
contracting a component, we show how feasibility can be maintained by a greedy
procedure on a well-chosen matroid. Apart from avoiding the expensive step of
solving a hypergraphic LP at each iteration, our algorithm can be analyzed
using a simple potential function. This gives an easy means to determine
stronger approximation guarantees and integrality gaps when considering
restricted graph topologies. In particular, this readily leads to a 73/60 bound
on the integrality gap for quasi-bipartite graphs.
For the case of quasi-bipartite graphs, we present a simple algorithm to
transform an optimal solution to the bidirected cut relaxation to an optimal
solution of the hypergraphic relaxation, leading to a fast 73/60 approximation
for quasi-bipartite graphs. Furthermore, we show how the separation problem of
the hypergraphic relaxation can be solved by computing maximum flows, providing
a fast independence oracle for our matroids.Comment: Corrects an issue at the end of Section 3. Various other minor
improvements to the expositio
Spanning trees short or small
We study the problem of finding small trees. Classical network design
problems are considered with the additional constraint that only a specified
number of nodes are required to be connected in the solution. A
prototypical example is the MST problem in which we require a tree of
minimum weight spanning at least nodes in an edge-weighted graph. We show
that the MST problem is NP-hard even for points in the Euclidean plane. We
provide approximation algorithms with performance ratio for the
general edge-weighted case and for the case of points in the
plane. Polynomial-time exact solutions are also presented for the class of
decomposable graphs which includes trees, series-parallel graphs, and bounded
bandwidth graphs, and for points on the boundary of a convex region in the
Euclidean plane. We also investigate the problem of finding short trees, and
more generally, that of finding networks with minimum diameter. A simple
technique is used to provide a polynomial-time solution for finding -trees
of minimum diameter. We identify easy and hard problems arising in finding
short networks using a framework due to T. C. Hu.Comment: 27 page
Steiner Point Removal with Distortion
In the Steiner point removal (SPR) problem, we are given a weighted graph
and a set of terminals of size . The objective is to
find a minor of with only the terminals as its vertex set, such that
the distance between the terminals will be preserved up to a small
multiplicative distortion. Kamma, Krauthgamer and Nguyen [KKN15] used a
ball-growing algorithm with exponential distributions to show that the
distortion is at most . Cheung [Che17] improved the analysis of
the same algorithm, bounding the distortion by . We improve the
analysis of this ball-growing algorithm even further, bounding the distortion
by
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