258 research outputs found
Improved Parameterized Algorithms for Constraint Satisfaction
For many constraint satisfaction problems, the algorithm which chooses a
random assignment achieves the best possible approximation ratio. For instance,
a simple random assignment for {\sc Max-E3-Sat} allows 7/8-approximation and
for every \eps >0 there is no polynomial-time (7/8+\eps)-approximation
unless P=NP. Another example is the {\sc Permutation CSP} of bounded arity.
Given the expected fraction of the constraints satisfied by a random
assignment (i.e. permutation), there is no (\rho+\eps)-approximation
algorithm for every \eps >0, assuming the Unique Games Conjecture (UGC).
In this work, we consider the following parameterization of constraint
satisfaction problems. Given a set of constraints of constant arity, can we
satisfy at least constraint, where is the expected fraction
of constraints satisfied by a random assignment? {\sc Constraint Satisfaction
Problems above Average} have been posed in different forms in the literature
\cite{Niedermeier2006,MahajanRamanSikdar09}. We present a faster parameterized
algorithm for deciding whether equations can be simultaneously
satisfied over . As a consequence, we obtain -variable
bikernels for {\sc boolean CSPs} of arity for every fixed , and for {\sc
permutation CSPs} of arity 3. This implies linear bikernels for many problems
under the "above average" parameterization, such as {\sc Max--Sat}, {\sc
Set-Splitting}, {\sc Betweenness} and {\sc Max Acyclic Subgraph}. As a result,
all the parameterized problems we consider in this paper admit -time
algorithms.
We also obtain non-trivial hybrid algorithms for every Max -CSP: for every
instance , we can either approximate beyond the random assignment
threshold in polynomial time, or we can find an optimal solution to in
subexponential time.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper has been accepted for IPEC 201
Parameterized Constraint Satisfaction Problems: a Survey
We consider constraint satisfaction problems parameterized above or below guaranteed values. One example is MaxSat parameterized above m/2: given a CNF formula F with m clauses, decide whether there is a truth assignment that satisfies at least m/2 + k clauses, where k is the parameter. Among other problems we deal with are MaxLin2-AA (given a system of linear equations over F_2 in which each equation has a positive integral weight, decide whether there is an assignment to the variables that satisfies equations of total weight at least W/2+k, where W is the total weight of all equations), Max-r-Lin2-AA (the same as MaxLin2-AA, but each equation has at most r variables, where r is a constant) and Max-r-Sat-AA (given a CNF formula F with m clauses in which each clause has at most r literals, decide whether there is a truth assignment satisfying at least sum_{i=1}^m (1-2^{r_i})+k clauses, where k is the parameter, r_i is the number of literals in clause i, and r is a constant). We also consider Max-r-CSP-AA, a natural generalization of both Max-r-Lin2-AA and Max-r-Sat-AA, order (or, permutation) constraint satisfaction problems parameterized above the average value and some other problems related to MaxSat. We discuss results, both polynomial kernels and parameterized algorithms, obtained for the problems mainly in the last few years as well as some open questions
Kernels for Below-Upper-Bound Parameterizations of the Hitting Set and Directed Dominating Set Problems
In the {\sc Hitting Set} problem, we are given a collection of
subsets of a ground set and an integer , and asked whether has a
-element subset that intersects each set in . We consider two
parameterizations of {\sc Hitting Set} below tight upper bounds: and
. In both cases is the parameter. We prove that the first
parameterization is fixed-parameter tractable, but has no polynomial kernel
unless coNPNP/poly. The second parameterization is W[1]-complete,
but the introduction of an additional parameter, the degeneracy of the
hypergraph , makes the problem not only fixed-parameter
tractable, but also one with a linear kernel. Here the degeneracy of
is the minimum integer such that for each the
hypergraph with vertex set and edge set containing all edges of
without vertices in , has a vertex of degree at most
In {\sc Nonblocker} ({\sc Directed Nonblocker}), we are given an undirected
graph (a directed graph) on vertices and an integer , and asked
whether has a set of vertices such that for each vertex there is an edge (arc) from a vertex in to . {\sc Nonblocker} can be
viewed as a special case of {\sc Directed Nonblocker} (replace an undirected
graph by a symmetric digraph). Dehne et al. (Proc. SOFSEM 2006) proved that
{\sc Nonblocker} has a linear-order kernel. We obtain a linear-order kernel for
{\sc Directed Nonblocker}
Fully polynomial FPT algorithms for some classes of bounded clique-width graphs
Parameterized complexity theory has enabled a refined classification of the
difficulty of NP-hard optimization problems on graphs with respect to key
structural properties, and so to a better understanding of their true
difficulties. More recently, hardness results for problems in P were achieved
using reasonable complexity theoretic assumptions such as: Strong Exponential
Time Hypothesis (SETH), 3SUM and All-Pairs Shortest-Paths (APSP). According to
these assumptions, many graph theoretic problems do not admit truly
subquadratic algorithms, nor even truly subcubic algorithms (Williams and
Williams, FOCS 2010 and Abboud, Grandoni, Williams, SODA 2015). A central
technique used to tackle the difficulty of the above mentioned problems is
fixed-parameter algorithms for polynomial-time problems with polynomial
dependency in the fixed parameter (P-FPT). This technique was introduced by
Abboud, Williams and Wang in SODA 2016 and continued by Husfeldt (IPEC 2016)
and Fomin et al. (SODA 2017), using the treewidth as a parameter. Applying this
technique to clique-width, another important graph parameter, remained to be
done. In this paper we study several graph theoretic problems for which
hardness results exist such as cycle problems (triangle detection, triangle
counting, girth, diameter), distance problems (diameter, eccentricities, Gromov
hyperbolicity, betweenness centrality) and maximum matching. We provide
hardness results and fully polynomial FPT algorithms, using clique-width and
some of its upper-bounds as parameters (split-width, modular-width and
-sparseness). We believe that our most important result is an -time algorithm for computing a maximum matching where
is either the modular-width or the -sparseness. The latter generalizes
many algorithms that have been introduced so far for specific subclasses such
as cographs, -lite graphs, -extendible graphs and -tidy
graphs. Our algorithms are based on preprocessing methods using modular
decomposition, split decomposition and primeval decomposition. Thus they can
also be generalized to some graph classes with unbounded clique-width
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