2,629 research outputs found
Applications of incidence bounds in point covering problems
In the Line Cover problem a set of n points is given and the task is to cover
the points using either the minimum number of lines or at most k lines. In
Curve Cover, a generalization of Line Cover, the task is to cover the points
using curves with d degrees of freedom. Another generalization is the
Hyperplane Cover problem where points in d-dimensional space are to be covered
by hyperplanes. All these problems have kernels of polynomial size, where the
parameter is the minimum number of lines, curves, or hyperplanes needed. First
we give a non-parameterized algorithm for both problems in O*(2^n) (where the
O*(.) notation hides polynomial factors of n) time and polynomial space,
beating a previous exponential-space result. Combining this with incidence
bounds similar to the famous Szemeredi-Trotter bound, we present a Curve Cover
algorithm with running time O*((Ck/log k)^((d-1)k)), where C is some constant.
Our result improves the previous best times O*((k/1.35)^k) for Line Cover
(where d=2), O*(k^(dk)) for general Curve Cover, as well as a few other bounds
for covering points by parabolas or conics. We also present an algorithm for
Hyperplane Cover in R^3 with running time O*((Ck^2/log^(1/5) k)^k), improving
on the previous time of O*((k^2/1.3)^k).Comment: SoCG 201
On Covering Points with Conics and Strips in the Plane
Geometric covering problems have always been of focus in computer scientific research. The generic geometric covering problem asks to cover a set S of n objects with another set of objects whose cardinality is minimum, in a geometric setting. Many versions of geometric cover have been studied in detail, one of which is line cover: Given a set of points in the plane, find the minimum number of lines to cover them. In Euclidean space Rm, this problem is known as Hyperplane Cover, where lines are replaced by affine hyperplanes bounded by dimension d. Line cover is NP-hard, so is its hyperplane analogue. Our thesis focuses on few extensions of hyperplane cover and line cover.
One of the techniques used to study NP-hard problems is Fixed Parameter Tractability (FPT), where, in addition to input size, a parameter k is provided for input instance. We ask to solve the problem with respect to k, such that the running time is a function in both n and k, strictly polynomial in n, while the exponential component is limited to k. In this thesis, we study FPT and parameterized complexity theory, the theory of classifying hard problems involving a parameter k.
We focus on two new geometric covering problems: covering a set of points in the plane with conics (conic cover) and covering a set of points with strips or fat lines of given width in the plane (fat line cover). A conic is a non-degenerate curve of degree two in the plane. A fat line is defined as a strip of finite width w. In this dissertation, we focus on the parameterized versions of these two problems, where, we are asked to cover the set of points with k conics or k fat lines. We use the existing techniques of FPT algorithms, kernelization and approximation algorithms to study these problems. We do a comprehensive study of these problems, starting with NP-hardness results to studying their parameterized hardness in terms of parameter k.
We show that conic cover is fixed parameter tractable, and give an algorithm of running time O∗ ((k/1.38)^4k), where, O∗ implies that the running time is some polynomial in input size. Utilizing special properties of a parabola, we are able to achieve a faster algorithm and show a running time of O∗ ((k/1.15)^3k).
For fat line cover, first we establish its NP-hardness, then we explore algorithmic possibilities with respect to parameterized complexity theory. We show W [1]-hardness of fat line cover with respect to the number of fat lines, by showing a parameterized reduction from the problem of stabbing axis-parallel squares in the plane. A parameterized reduction is an algorithm which transforms an instance of one parameterized problem into an instance of another parameterized problem using a FPT-algorithm. In addition, we show that some restricted versions of fat line cover are also W [1]-hard. Further, in this thesis, we explore a restricted version of fat line cover, where the set of points are integer coordinates and allow only axis-parallel lines to cover them. We show that the problem is still NP-hard. We also show that this version is fixed parameter tractable having a kernel size of O (k^2) and give a FPT-algorithm with a running time of O∗ (3^k). Finally, we conclude our study on this problem by giving an approximation algorithm for this version having a constant approximation ratio 2
Hyperbolic intersection graphs and (quasi)-polynomial time
We study unit ball graphs (and, more generally, so-called noisy uniform ball
graphs) in -dimensional hyperbolic space, which we denote by .
Using a new separator theorem, we show that unit ball graphs in
enjoy similar properties as their Euclidean counterparts, but in one dimension
lower: many standard graph problems, such as Independent Set, Dominating Set,
Steiner Tree, and Hamiltonian Cycle can be solved in
time for any fixed , while the same problems need
time in . We also show that these algorithms in
are optimal up to constant factors in the exponent under ETH.
This drop in dimension has the largest impact in , where we
introduce a new technique to bound the treewidth of noisy uniform disk graphs.
The bounds yield quasi-polynomial () algorithms for all of the
studied problems, while in the case of Hamiltonian Cycle and -Coloring we
even get polynomial time algorithms. Furthermore, if the underlying noisy disks
in have constant maximum degree, then all studied problems can
be solved in polynomial time. This contrasts with the fact that these problems
require time under ETH in constant maximum degree
Euclidean unit disk graphs.
Finally, we complement our quasi-polynomial algorithm for Independent Set in
noisy uniform disk graphs with a matching lower bound
under ETH. This shows that the hyperbolic plane is a potential source of
NP-intermediate problems.Comment: Short version appears in SODA 202
Parametric shortest-path algorithms via tropical geometry
We study parameterized versions of classical algorithms for computing
shortest-path trees. This is most easily expressed in terms of tropical
geometry. Applications include shortest paths in traffic networks with variable
link travel times.Comment: 24 pages and 8 figure
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