5,243 research outputs found
Colored Non-Crossing Euclidean Steiner Forest
Given a set of -colored points in the plane, we consider the problem of
finding trees such that each tree connects all points of one color class,
no two trees cross, and the total edge length of the trees is minimized. For
, this is the well-known Euclidean Steiner tree problem. For general ,
a -approximation algorithm is known, where is the
Steiner ratio.
We present a PTAS for , a -approximation algorithm
for , and two approximation algorithms for general~, with ratios
and
On the complexity of optimal homotopies
In this article, we provide new structural results and algorithms for the
Homotopy Height problem. In broad terms, this problem quantifies how much a
curve on a surface needs to be stretched to sweep continuously between two
positions. More precisely, given two homotopic curves and
on a combinatorial (say, triangulated) surface, we investigate the problem of
computing a homotopy between and where the length of the
longest intermediate curve is minimized. Such optimal homotopies are relevant
for a wide range of purposes, from very theoretical questions in quantitative
homotopy theory to more practical applications such as similarity measures on
meshes and graph searching problems.
We prove that Homotopy Height is in the complexity class NP, and the
corresponding exponential algorithm is the best one known for this problem.
This result builds on a structural theorem on monotonicity of optimal
homotopies, which is proved in a companion paper. Then we show that this
problem encompasses the Homotopic Fr\'echet distance problem which we therefore
also establish to be in NP, answering a question which has previously been
considered in several different settings. We also provide an O(log
n)-approximation algorithm for Homotopy Height on surfaces by adapting an
earlier algorithm of Har-Peled, Nayyeri, Salvatipour and Sidiropoulos in the
planar setting
On the extremal properties of the average eccentricity
The eccentricity of a vertex is the maximum distance from it to another
vertex and the average eccentricity of a graph is the mean value
of eccentricities of all vertices of . The average eccentricity is deeply
connected with a topological descriptor called the eccentric connectivity
index, defined as a sum of products of vertex degrees and eccentricities. In
this paper we analyze extremal properties of the average eccentricity,
introducing two graph transformations that increase or decrease .
Furthermore, we resolve four conjectures, obtained by the system AutoGraphiX,
about the average eccentricity and other graph parameters (the clique number,
the Randi\' c index and the independence number), refute one AutoGraphiX
conjecture about the average eccentricity and the minimum vertex degree and
correct one AutoGraphiX conjecture about the domination number.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure
On the Spectral Gap of a Quantum Graph
We consider the problem of finding universal bounds of "isoperimetric" or
"isodiametric" type on the spectral gap of the Laplacian on a metric graph with
natural boundary conditions at the vertices, in terms of various analytical and
combinatorial properties of the graph: its total length, diameter, number of
vertices and number of edges. We investigate which combinations of parameters
are necessary to obtain non-trivial upper and lower bounds and obtain a number
of sharp estimates in terms of these parameters. We also show that, in contrast
to the Laplacian matrix on a combinatorial graph, no bound depending only on
the diameter is possible. As a special case of our results on metric graphs, we
deduce estimates for the normalised Laplacian matrix on combinatorial graphs
which, surprisingly, are sometimes sharper than the ones obtained by purely
combinatorial methods in the graph theoretical literature
- …