27,171 research outputs found
Combinatorial complexity in o-minimal geometry
In this paper we prove tight bounds on the combinatorial and topological
complexity of sets defined in terms of definable sets belonging to some
fixed definable family of sets in an o-minimal structure. This generalizes the
combinatorial parts of similar bounds known in the case of semi-algebraic and
semi-Pfaffian sets, and as a result vastly increases the applicability of
results on combinatorial and topological complexity of arrangements studied in
discrete and computational geometry. As a sample application, we extend a
Ramsey-type theorem due to Alon et al., originally proved for semi-algebraic
sets of fixed description complexity to this more general setting.Comment: 25 pages. Revised version. To appear in the Proc. London Math. So
Random Sampling in Computational Algebra: Helly Numbers and Violator Spaces
This paper transfers a randomized algorithm, originally used in geometric
optimization, to computational problems in commutative algebra. We show that
Clarkson's sampling algorithm can be applied to two problems in computational
algebra: solving large-scale polynomial systems and finding small generating
sets of graded ideals. The cornerstone of our work is showing that the theory
of violator spaces of G\"artner et al.\ applies to polynomial ideal problems.
To show this, one utilizes a Helly-type result for algebraic varieties. The
resulting algorithms have expected runtime linear in the number of input
polynomials, making the ideas interesting for handling systems with very large
numbers of polynomials, but whose rank in the vector space of polynomials is
small (e.g., when the number of variables and degree is constant).Comment: Minor edits, added two references; results unchange
Patrolling a Street Network is Strongly NP-Complete but in P for Tree Structures
We consider the following problem: Given a finite set of straight line
segments in the plane, determine the positions of a minimal number of points on
the segments, from which guards can see all segments. This problem can be
interpreted as looking for a minimal number of locations of policemen, guards,
cameras or other sensors, that can observe a network of streets, corridors,
tunnels, tubes, etc. We show that the problem is strongly NP-complete even for
a set of segments with a cubic graph structure, but in P for tree structures
Metric combinatorics of convex polyhedra: cut loci and nonoverlapping unfoldings
This paper is a study of the interaction between the combinatorics of
boundaries of convex polytopes in arbitrary dimension and their metric
geometry.
Let S be the boundary of a convex polytope of dimension d+1, or more
generally let S be a `convex polyhedral pseudomanifold'. We prove that S has a
polyhedral nonoverlapping unfolding into R^d, so the metric space S is obtained
from a closed (usually nonconvex) polyhedral ball in R^d by identifying pairs
of boundary faces isometrically. Our existence proof exploits geodesic flow
away from a source point v in S, which is the exponential map to S from the
tangent space at v. We characterize the `cut locus' (the closure of the set of
points in S with more than one shortest path to v) as a polyhedral complex in
terms of Voronoi diagrams on facets. Analyzing infinitesimal expansion of the
wavefront consisting of points at constant distance from v on S produces an
algorithmic method for constructing Voronoi diagrams in each facet, and hence
the unfolding of S. The algorithm, for which we provide pseudocode, solves the
discrete geodesic problem. Its main construction generalizes the source
unfolding for boundaries of 3-polytopes into R^2. We present conjectures
concerning the number of shortest paths on the boundaries of convex polyhedra,
and concerning continuous unfolding of convex polyhedra. We also comment on the
intrinsic non-polynomial complexity of nonconvex polyhedral manifolds.Comment: 47 pages; 21 PostScript (.eps) figures, most in colo
Bounds for the genus of a normal surface
This paper gives sharp linear bounds on the genus of a normal surface in a
triangulated compact, orientable 3--manifold in terms of the quadrilaterals in
its cell decomposition---different bounds arise from varying hypotheses on the
surface or triangulation. Two applications of these bounds are given. First,
the minimal triangulations of the product of a closed surface and the closed
interval are determined. Second, an alternative approach to the realisation
problem using normal surface theory is shown to be less powerful than its dual
method using subcomplexes of polytopes.Comment: 38 pages, 25 figure
Byzantine Approximate Agreement on Graphs
Consider a distributed system with n processors out of which f can be Byzantine faulty. In the approximate agreement task, each processor i receives an input value x_i and has to decide on an output value y_i such that
1) the output values are in the convex hull of the non-faulty processors\u27 input values,
2) the output values are within distance d of each other.
Classically, the values are assumed to be from an m-dimensional Euclidean space, where m >= 1.
In this work, we study the task in a discrete setting, where input values with some structure expressible as a graph. Namely, the input values are vertices of a finite graph G and the goal is to output vertices that are within distance d of each other in G, but still remain in the graph-induced convex hull of the input values. For d=0, the task reduces to consensus and cannot be solved with a deterministic algorithm in an asynchronous system even with a single crash fault. For any d >= 1, we show that the task is solvable in asynchronous systems when G is chordal and n > (omega+1)f, where omega is the clique number of G. In addition, we give the first Byzantine-tolerant algorithm for a variant of lattice agreement. For synchronous systems, we show tight resilience bounds for the exact variants of these and related tasks over a large class of combinatorial structures
- …