1,397 research outputs found
Approximating the Minimum Equivalent Digraph
The MEG (minimum equivalent graph) problem is, given a directed graph, to
find a small subset of the edges that maintains all reachability relations
between nodes. The problem is NP-hard. This paper gives an approximation
algorithm with performance guarantee of pi^2/6 ~ 1.64. The algorithm and its
analysis are based on the simple idea of contracting long cycles. (This result
is strengthened slightly in ``On strongly connected digraphs with bounded cycle
length'' (1996).) The analysis applies directly to 2-Exchange, a simple ``local
improvement'' algorithm, showing that its performance guarantee is 1.75.Comment: conference version in ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms
(1994
On Approximating the Sum-Rate for Multiple-Unicasts
We study upper bounds on the sum-rate of multiple-unicasts. We approximate
the Generalized Network Sharing Bound (GNS cut) of the multiple-unicasts
network coding problem with independent sources. Our approximation
algorithm runs in polynomial time and yields an upper bound on the joint source
entropy rate, which is within an factor from the GNS cut. It
further yields a vector-linear network code that achieves joint source entropy
rate within an factor from the GNS cut, but \emph{not} with
independent sources: the code induces a correlation pattern among the sources.
Our second contribution is establishing a separation result for vector-linear
network codes: for any given field there exist networks for which
the optimum sum-rate supported by vector-linear codes over for
independent sources can be multiplicatively separated by a factor of
, for any constant , from the optimum joint entropy
rate supported by a code that allows correlation between sources. Finally, we
establish a similar separation result for the asymmetric optimum vector-linear
sum-rates achieved over two distinct fields and
for independent sources, revealing that the choice of field
can heavily impact the performance of a linear network code.Comment: 10 pages; Shorter version appeared at ISIT (International Symposium
on Information Theory) 2015; some typos correcte
Approximating the Smallest Spanning Subgraph for 2-Edge-Connectivity in Directed Graphs
Let be a strongly connected directed graph. We consider the following
three problems, where we wish to compute the smallest strongly connected
spanning subgraph of that maintains respectively: the -edge-connected
blocks of (\textsf{2EC-B}); the -edge-connected components of
(\textsf{2EC-C}); both the -edge-connected blocks and the -edge-connected
components of (\textsf{2EC-B-C}). All three problems are NP-hard, and thus
we are interested in efficient approximation algorithms. For \textsf{2EC-C} we
can obtain a -approximation by combining previously known results. For
\textsf{2EC-B} and \textsf{2EC-B-C}, we present new -approximation
algorithms that run in linear time. We also propose various heuristics to
improve the size of the computed subgraphs in practice, and conduct a thorough
experimental study to assess their merits in practical scenarios
Orienting Graphs to Optimize Reachability
The paper focuses on two problems: (i) how to orient the edges of an
undirected graph in order to maximize the number of ordered vertex pairs (x,y)
such that there is a directed path from x to y, and (ii) how to orient the
edges so as to minimize the number of such pairs. The paper describes a
quadratic-time algorithm for the first problem, and a proof that the second
problem is NP-hard to approximate within some constant 1+epsilon > 1. The
latter proof also shows that the second problem is equivalent to
``comparability graph completion''; neither problem was previously known to be
NP-hard
On the Approximability of Digraph Ordering
Given an n-vertex digraph D = (V, A) the Max-k-Ordering problem is to compute
a labeling maximizing the number of forward edges, i.e.
edges (u,v) such that (u) < (v). For different values of k, this
reduces to Maximum Acyclic Subgraph (k=n), and Max-Dicut (k=2). This work
studies the approximability of Max-k-Ordering and its generalizations,
motivated by their applications to job scheduling with soft precedence
constraints. We give an LP rounding based 2-approximation algorithm for
Max-k-Ordering for any k={2,..., n}, improving on the known
2k/(k-1)-approximation obtained via random assignment. The tightness of this
rounding is shown by proving that for any k={2,..., n} and constant
, Max-k-Ordering has an LP integrality gap of 2 -
for rounds of the
Sherali-Adams hierarchy.
A further generalization of Max-k-Ordering is the restricted maximum acyclic
subgraph problem or RMAS, where each vertex v has a finite set of allowable
labels . We prove an LP rounding based
approximation for it, improving on the
approximation recently given by Grandoni et al.
(Information Processing Letters, Vol. 115(2), Pages 182-185, 2015). In fact,
our approximation algorithm also works for a general version where the
objective counts the edges which go forward by at least a positive offset
specific to each edge.
The minimization formulation of digraph ordering is DAG edge deletion or
DED(k), which requires deleting the minimum number of edges from an n-vertex
directed acyclic graph (DAG) to remove all paths of length k. We show that
both, the LP relaxation and a local ratio approach for DED(k) yield
k-approximation for any .Comment: 21 pages, Conference version to appear in ESA 201
Reachability of Consensus and Synchronizing Automata
We consider the problem of determining the existence of a sequence of
matrices driving a discrete-time consensus system to consensus. We transform
this problem into one of the existence of a product of the transition
(stochastic) matrices that has a positive column. We then generalize some
results from automata theory to sets of stochastic matrices. We obtain as a
main result a polynomial-time algorithm to decide the existence of a sequence
of matrices achieving consensus.Comment: Update after revie
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