20,700 research outputs found
Complexity of Discrete Energy Minimization Problems
Discrete energy minimization is widely-used in computer vision and machine
learning for problems such as MAP inference in graphical models. The problem,
in general, is notoriously intractable, and finding the global optimal solution
is known to be NP-hard. However, is it possible to approximate this problem
with a reasonable ratio bound on the solution quality in polynomial time? We
show in this paper that the answer is no. Specifically, we show that general
energy minimization, even in the 2-label pairwise case, and planar energy
minimization with three or more labels are exp-APX-complete. This finding rules
out the existence of any approximation algorithm with a sub-exponential
approximation ratio in the input size for these two problems, including
constant factor approximations. Moreover, we collect and review the
computational complexity of several subclass problems and arrange them on a
complexity scale consisting of three major complexity classes -- PO, APX, and
exp-APX, corresponding to problems that are solvable, approximable, and
inapproximable in polynomial time. Problems in the first two complexity classes
can serve as alternative tractable formulations to the inapproximable ones.
This paper can help vision researchers to select an appropriate model for an
application or guide them in designing new algorithms.Comment: ECCV'16 accepte
Inapproximability of Combinatorial Optimization Problems
We survey results on the hardness of approximating combinatorial optimization
problems
Structural Rounding: Approximation Algorithms for Graphs Near an Algorithmically Tractable Class
We develop a framework for generalizing approximation algorithms from the structural graph algorithm literature so that they apply to graphs somewhat close to that class (a scenario we expect is common when working with real-world networks) while still guaranteeing approximation ratios. The idea is to edit a given graph via vertex- or edge-deletions to put the graph into an algorithmically tractable class, apply known approximation algorithms for that class, and then lift the solution to apply to the original graph. We give a general characterization of when an optimization problem is amenable to this approach, and show that it includes many well-studied graph problems, such as Independent Set, Vertex Cover, Feedback Vertex Set, Minimum Maximal Matching, Chromatic Number, (l-)Dominating Set, Edge (l-)Dominating Set, and Connected Dominating Set.
To enable this framework, we develop new editing algorithms that find the approximately-fewest edits required to bring a given graph into one of a few important graph classes (in some cases these are bicriteria algorithms which simultaneously approximate both the number of editing operations and the target parameter of the family). For bounded degeneracy, we obtain an O(r log{n})-approximation and a bicriteria (4,4)-approximation which also extends to a smoother bicriteria trade-off. For bounded treewidth, we obtain a bicriteria (O(log^{1.5} n), O(sqrt{log w}))-approximation, and for bounded pathwidth, we obtain a bicriteria (O(log^{1.5} n), O(sqrt{log w} * log n))-approximation. For treedepth 2 (related to bounded expansion), we obtain a 4-approximation. We also prove complementary hardness-of-approximation results assuming P != NP: in particular, these problems are all log-factor inapproximable, except the last which is not approximable below some constant factor 2 (assuming UGC)
NP-hardness of circuit minimization for multi-output functions
Can we design efficient algorithms for finding fast algorithms? This question is captured by various circuit minimization problems, and algorithms for the corresponding tasks have significant practical applications. Following the work of Cook and Levin in the early 1970s, a central question is whether minimizing the circuit size of an explicitly given function is NP-complete. While this is known to hold in restricted models such as DNFs, making progress with respect to more expressive classes of circuits has been elusive.
In this work, we establish the first NP-hardness result for circuit minimization of total functions in the setting of general (unrestricted) Boolean circuits. More precisely, we show that computing the minimum circuit size of a given multi-output Boolean function f : {0,1}^n ? {0,1}^m is NP-hard under many-one polynomial-time randomized reductions. Our argument builds on a simpler NP-hardness proof for the circuit minimization problem for (single-output) Boolean functions under an extended set of generators.
Complementing these results, we investigate the computational hardness of minimizing communication. We establish that several variants of this problem are NP-hard under deterministic reductions. In particular, unless ? = ??, no polynomial-time computable function can approximate the deterministic two-party communication complexity of a partial Boolean function up to a polynomial. This has consequences for the class of structural results that one might hope to show about the communication complexity of partial functions
On the complexity of nonlinear mixed-integer optimization
This is a survey on the computational complexity of nonlinear mixed-integer
optimization. It highlights a selection of important topics, ranging from
incomputability results that arise from number theory and logic, to recently
obtained fully polynomial time approximation schemes in fixed dimension, and to
strongly polynomial-time algorithms for special cases.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures; to appear in: Mixed-Integer Nonlinear
Optimization, IMA Volumes, Springer-Verla
Pre-Reduction Graph Products: Hardnesses of Properly Learning DFAs and Approximating EDP on DAGs
The study of graph products is a major research topic and typically concerns
the term , e.g., to show that . In this paper, we
study graph products in a non-standard form where is a
"reduction", a transformation of any graph into an instance of an intended
optimization problem. We resolve some open problems as applications.
(1) A tight -approximation hardness for the minimum
consistent deterministic finite automaton (DFA) problem, where is the
sample size. Due to Board and Pitt [Theoretical Computer Science 1992], this
implies the hardness of properly learning DFAs assuming (the
weakest possible assumption).
(2) A tight hardness for the edge-disjoint paths (EDP)
problem on directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), where denotes the number of
vertices.
(3) A tight hardness of packing vertex-disjoint -cycles for large .
(4) An alternative (and perhaps simpler) proof for the hardness of properly
learning DNF, CNF and intersection of halfspaces [Alekhnovich et al., FOCS 2004
and J. Comput.Syst.Sci. 2008]
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