7,473 research outputs found
Approximation Complexity of Complex-Weighted Degree-Two Counting Constraint Satisfaction Problems
Constraint satisfaction problems have been studied in numerous fields with
practical and theoretical interests. In recent years, major breakthroughs have
been made in a study of counting constraint satisfaction problems (or #CSPs).
In particular, a computational complexity classification of bounded-degree
#CSPs has been discovered for all degrees except for two, where the "degree" of
an input instance is the maximal number of times that each input variable
appears in a given set of constraints. Despite the efforts of recent studies,
however, a complexity classification of degree-2 #CSPs has eluded from our
understandings. This paper challenges this open problem and gives its partial
solution by applying two novel proof techniques--T_{2}-constructibility and
parametrized symmetrization--which are specifically designed to handle
"arbitrary" constraints under randomized approximation-preserving reductions.
We partition entire constraints into four sets and we classify the
approximation complexity of all degree-2 #CSPs whose constraints are drawn from
two of the four sets into two categories: problems computable in
polynomial-time or problems that are at least as hard as #SAT. Our proof
exploits a close relationship between complex-weighted degree-2 #CSPs and
Holant problems, which are a natural generalization of complex-weighted #CSPs.Comment: A4, 10pt, 23 pages. This is a complete version of the paper that
appeared in the Proceedings of the 17th Annual International Computing and
Combinatorics Conference (COCOON 2011), Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
vol.6842, pp.122-133, Dallas, Texas, USA, August 14-16, 201
A Dichotomy Theorem for the Approximate Counting of Complex-Weighted Bounded-Degree Boolean CSPs
We determine the computational complexity of approximately counting the total
weight of variable assignments for every complex-weighted Boolean constraint
satisfaction problem (or CSP) with any number of additional unary (i.e., arity
1) constraints, particularly, when degrees of input instances are bounded from
above by a fixed constant. All degree-1 counting CSPs are obviously solvable in
polynomial time. When the instance's degree is more than two, we present a
dichotomy theorem that classifies all counting CSPs admitting free unary
constraints into exactly two categories. This classification theorem extends,
to complex-weighted problems, an earlier result on the approximation complexity
of unweighted counting Boolean CSPs of bounded degree. The framework of the
proof of our theorem is based on a theory of signature developed from Valiant's
holographic algorithms that can efficiently solve seemingly intractable
counting CSPs. Despite the use of arbitrary complex weight, our proof of the
classification theorem is rather elementary and intuitive due to an extensive
use of a novel notion of limited T-constructibility. For the remaining degree-2
problems, in contrast, they are as hard to approximate as Holant problems,
which are a generalization of counting CSPs.Comment: A4, 10pt, 20 pages. This revised version improves its preliminary
version published under a slightly different title in the Proceedings of the
4th International Conference on Combinatorial Optimization and Applications
(COCOA 2010), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Vol.6508 (Part I),
pp.285--299, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, USA, December 18--20, 201
The complexity of weighted and unweighted #CSP
We give some reductions among problems in (nonnegative) weighted #CSP which
restrict the class of functions that needs to be considered in computational
complexity studies. Our reductions can be applied to both exact and approximate
computation. In particular, we show that a recent dichotomy for unweighted #CSP
can be extended to rational-weighted #CSP.Comment: 11 page
The Complexity of Weighted Boolean #CSP with Mixed Signs
We give a complexity dichotomy for the problem of computing the partition
function of a weighted Boolean constraint satisfaction problem. Such a problem
is parameterized by a set of rational-valued functions, which generalize
constraints. Each function assigns a weight to every assignment to a set of
Boolean variables. Our dichotomy extends previous work in which the weight
functions were restricted to being non-negative. We represent a weight function
as a product of the form (-1)^s g, where the polynomial s determines the sign
of the weight and the non-negative function g determines its magnitude. We show
that the problem of computing the partition function (the sum of the weights of
all possible variable assignments) is in polynomial time if either every weight
function can be defined by a "pure affine" magnitude with a quadratic sign
polynomial or every function can be defined by a magnitude of "product type"
with a linear sign polynomial. In all other cases, computing the partition
function is FP^#P-complete.Comment: 24 page
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