2,179 research outputs found
An Efficient Algorithm for Computing Network Reliability in Small Treewidth
We consider the classic problem of Network Reliability. A network is given
together with a source vertex, one or more target vertices, and probabilities
assigned to each of the edges. Each edge appears in the network with its
associated probability and the problem is to determine the probability of
having at least one source-to-target path. This problem is known to be NP-hard.
We present a linear-time fixed-parameter algorithm based on a parameter
called treewidth, which is a measure of tree-likeness of graphs. Network
Reliability was already known to be solvable in polynomial time for bounded
treewidth, but there were no concrete algorithms and the known methods used
complicated structures and were not easy to implement. We provide a
significantly simpler and more intuitive algorithm that is much easier to
implement.
We also report on an implementation of our algorithm and establish the
applicability of our approach by providing experimental results on the graphs
of subway and transit systems of several major cities, such as London and
Tokyo. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first exact algorithm for
Network Reliability that can scale to handle real-world instances of the
problem.Comment: 14 page
Fixed-parameter tractability and lower bounds for stabbing problems
We study the following general stabbing problem from a parameterized
complexity point of view: Given a set of translates of an
object in \Rd, find a set of lines with the property that every object in
is ''stabbed'' (intersected) by at least one line.
We show that when consists of axis-parallel unit squares in \Rtwo the
(decision) problem of stabbing with axis-parallel lines is W[1]-hard with
respect to (and thus, not fixed-parameter tractable unless FPT=W[1]) while
it becomes fixed-parameter tractable when the squares are disjoint. We also
show that the problem of stabbing a set of disjoint unit squares in \Rtwo
with lines of arbitrary directions is W[1]--hard with respect to . Several
generalizations to other types of objects and lines with arbitrary directions
are also presented. Finally, we show that deciding whether a set of unit balls
in \Rd can be stabbed by one line is W[1]--hard with respect to the dimension
.Comment: Based on the MSc. Thesis of Daniel Werner, Free University Berlin,
Berlin, German
A Survey on Approximation in Parameterized Complexity: Hardness and Algorithms
Parameterization and approximation are two popular ways of coping with
NP-hard problems. More recently, the two have also been combined to derive many
interesting results. We survey developments in the area both from the
algorithmic and hardness perspectives, with emphasis on new techniques and
potential future research directions
Fast Algorithms for Parameterized Problems with Relaxed Disjointness Constraints
In parameterized complexity, it is a natural idea to consider different
generalizations of classic problems. Usually, such generalization are obtained
by introducing a "relaxation" variable, where the original problem corresponds
to setting this variable to a constant value. For instance, the problem of
packing sets of size at most into a given universe generalizes the Maximum
Matching problem, which is recovered by taking . Most often, the
complexity of the problem increases with the relaxation variable, but very
recently Abasi et al. have given a surprising example of a problem ---
-Simple -Path --- that can be solved by a randomized algorithm with
running time . That is, the complexity of the
problem decreases with . In this paper we pursue further the direction
sketched by Abasi et al. Our main contribution is a derandomization tool that
provides a deterministic counterpart of the main technical result of Abasi et
al.: the algorithm for -Monomial
Detection, which is the problem of finding a monomial of total degree and
individual degrees at most in a polynomial given as an arithmetic circuit.
Our technique works for a large class of circuits, and in particular it can be
used to derandomize the result of Abasi et al. for -Simple -Path. On our
way to this result we introduce the notion of representative sets for
multisets, which may be of independent interest. Finally, we give two more
examples of problems that were already studied in the literature, where the
same relaxation phenomenon happens. The first one is a natural relaxation of
the Set Packing problem, where we allow the packed sets to overlap at each
element at most times. The second one is Degree Bounded Spanning Tree,
where we seek for a spanning tree of the graph with a small maximum degree
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