4,531 research outputs found
Approximating Minimum Bounded Degree Spanning Trees to within One of Optimal
In the Minimum Bounded Degree Spanning Tree problem, we are given an undirected graph G=(V,E) with a degree upper bound Bv on each vertex v∈V, and the task is to find a spanning tree of minimum cost that satisfies all the degree bounds. Let OPT be the cost of an optimal solution to this problem. In this paper, we present a polynomial time algorithm which returns a spanning tree T of cost at most OPT and dT(v)≤Bv+1 for all v, where dT(v) denotes the degree of v in T. This generalizes a result of Fürer and Raghavachari [1994] to weighted graphs, and settles a conjecture of Goemans [2006] affirmatively. The algorithm generalizes when each vertex v has a degree lower bound Av and a degree upper bound Bv, and returns a spanning tree with cost at most OPT and Av−1≤dT(v) ≤ Bv+1 for all v ∈ V. This is essentially the best possible. The main technique used is an extension of the iterative rounding method introduced by Jain [2001] for the design of approximation algorithms
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
Near-linear Time Algorithm for Approximate Minimum Degree Spanning Trees
Given a graph , we wish to compute a spanning tree whose maximum
vertex degree, i.e. tree degree, is as small as possible. Computing the exact
optimal solution is known to be NP-hard, since it generalizes the Hamiltonian
path problem. For the approximation version of this problem, a
time algorithm that computes a spanning tree of degree at most is
previously known [F\"urer \& Raghavachari 1994]; here denotes the
minimum tree degree of all the spanning trees. In this paper we give the first
near-linear time approximation algorithm for this problem. Specifically
speaking, we propose an time algorithm that
computes a spanning tree with tree degree for any constant .
Thus, when , we can achieve approximate solutions with
constant approximate ratio arbitrarily close to 1 in near-linear time.Comment: 17 page
Squarepants in a Tree: Sum of Subtree Clustering and Hyperbolic Pants Decomposition
We provide efficient constant factor approximation algorithms for the
problems of finding a hierarchical clustering of a point set in any metric
space, minimizing the sum of minimimum spanning tree lengths within each
cluster, and in the hyperbolic or Euclidean planes, minimizing the sum of
cluster perimeters. Our algorithms for the hyperbolic and Euclidean planes can
also be used to provide a pants decomposition, that is, a set of disjoint
simple closed curves partitioning the plane minus the input points into subsets
with exactly three boundary components, with approximately minimum total
length. In the Euclidean case, these curves are squares; in the hyperbolic
case, they combine our Euclidean square pants decomposition with our tree
clustering method for general metric spaces.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures. This version replaces the proof of what is now
Lemma 5.2, as the previous proof was erroneou
Low-Degree Spanning Trees of Small Weight
The degree-d spanning tree problem asks for a minimum-weight spanning tree in
which the degree of each vertex is at most d. When d=2 the problem is TSP, and
in this case, the well-known Christofides algorithm provides a
1.5-approximation algorithm (assuming the edge weights satisfy the triangle
inequality).
In 1984, Christos Papadimitriou and Umesh Vazirani posed the challenge of
finding an algorithm with performance guarantee less than 2 for Euclidean
graphs (points in R^n) and d > 2. This paper gives the first answer to that
challenge, presenting an algorithm to compute a degree-3 spanning tree of cost
at most 5/3 times the MST. For points in the plane, the ratio improves to 3/2
and the algorithm can also find a degree-4 spanning tree of cost at most 5/4
times the MST.Comment: conference version in Symposium on Theory of Computing (1994
Bicriteria Network Design Problems
We study a general class of bicriteria network design problems. A generic
problem in this class is as follows: Given an undirected graph and two
minimization objectives (under different cost functions), with a budget
specified on the first, find a <subgraph \from a given subgraph-class that
minimizes the second objective subject to the budget on the first. We consider
three different criteria - the total edge cost, the diameter and the maximum
degree of the network. Here, we present the first polynomial-time approximation
algorithms for a large class of bicriteria network design problems for the
above mentioned criteria. The following general types of results are presented.
First, we develop a framework for bicriteria problems and their
approximations. Second, when the two criteria are the same %(note that the cost
functions continue to be different) we present a ``black box'' parametric
search technique. This black box takes in as input an (approximation) algorithm
for the unicriterion situation and generates an approximation algorithm for the
bicriteria case with only a constant factor loss in the performance guarantee.
Third, when the two criteria are the diameter and the total edge costs we use a
cluster-based approach to devise a approximation algorithms --- the solutions
output violate both the criteria by a logarithmic factor. Finally, for the
class of treewidth-bounded graphs, we provide pseudopolynomial-time algorithms
for a number of bicriteria problems using dynamic programming. We show how
these pseudopolynomial-time algorithms can be converted to fully
polynomial-time approximation schemes using a scaling technique.Comment: 24 pages 1 figur
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