380 research outputs found
Tree Projections and Constraint Optimization Problems: Fixed-Parameter Tractability and Parallel Algorithms
Tree projections provide a unifying framework to deal with most structural
decomposition methods of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). Within this
framework, a CSP instance is decomposed into a number of sub-problems, called
views, whose solutions are either already available or can be computed
efficiently. The goal is to arrange portions of these views in a tree-like
structure, called tree projection, which determines an efficiently solvable CSP
instance equivalent to the original one. Deciding whether a tree projection
exists is NP-hard. Solution methods have therefore been proposed in the
literature that do not require a tree projection to be given, and that either
correctly decide whether the given CSP instance is satisfiable, or return that
a tree projection actually does not exist. These approaches had not been
generalized so far on CSP extensions for optimization problems, where the goal
is to compute a solution of maximum value/minimum cost. The paper fills the
gap, by exhibiting a fixed-parameter polynomial-time algorithm that either
disproves the existence of tree projections or computes an optimal solution,
with the parameter being the size of the expression of the objective function
to be optimized over all possible solutions (and not the size of the whole
constraint formula, used in related works). Tractability results are also
established for the problem of returning the best K solutions. Finally,
parallel algorithms for such optimization problems are proposed and analyzed.
Given that the classes of acyclic hypergraphs, hypergraphs of bounded
treewidth, and hypergraphs of bounded generalized hypertree width are all
covered as special cases of the tree projection framework, the results in this
paper directly apply to these classes. These classes are extensively considered
in the CSP setting, as well as in conjunctive database query evaluation and
optimization
A Backtracking-Based Algorithm for Computing Hypertree-Decompositions
Hypertree decompositions of hypergraphs are a generalization of tree
decompositions of graphs. The corresponding hypertree-width is a measure for
the cyclicity and therefore tractability of the encoded computation problem.
Many NP-hard decision and computation problems are known to be tractable on
instances whose structure corresponds to hypergraphs of bounded
hypertree-width. Intuitively, the smaller the hypertree-width, the faster the
computation problem can be solved. In this paper, we present the new
backtracking-based algorithm det-k-decomp for computing hypertree
decompositions of small width. Our benchmark evaluations have shown that
det-k-decomp significantly outperforms opt-k-decomp, the only exact hypertree
decomposition algorithm so far. Even compared to the best heuristic algorithm,
we obtained competitive results as long as the hypergraphs are not too large.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, 3 table
Phase Transition in Matched Formulas and a Heuristic for Biclique Satisfiability
A matched formula is a CNF formula whose incidence graph admits a matching
which matches a distinct variable to every clause. We study phase transition in
a context of matched formulas and their generalization of biclique satisfiable
formulas. We have performed experiments to find a phase transition of property
"being matched" with respect to the ratio where is the number of
clauses and is the number of variables of the input formula . We
compare the results of experiments to a theoretical lower bound which was shown
by Franco and Gelder (2003). Any matched formula is satisfiable, moreover, it
remains satisfiable even if we change polarities of any literal occurrences.
Szeider (2005) generalized matched formulas into two classes having the same
property -- var-satisfiable and biclique satisfiable formulas. A formula is
biclique satisfiable if its incidence graph admits covering by pairwise
disjoint bounded bicliques. Recognizing if a formula is biclique satisfiable is
NP-complete. In this paper we describe a heuristic algorithm for recognizing
whether a formula is biclique satisfiable and we evaluate it by experiments on
random formulas. We also describe an encoding of the problem of checking
whether a formula is biclique satisfiable into SAT and we use it to evaluate
the performance of our heuristicComment: Conference version submitted to SOFSEM 2018
(https://beda.dcs.fmph.uniba.sk/sofsem2019/) 18 pages(17 without refernces),
3 figures, 8 tables, an algorithm pseudocod
Oblivious Bounds on the Probability of Boolean Functions
This paper develops upper and lower bounds for the probability of Boolean
functions by treating multiple occurrences of variables as independent and
assigning them new individual probabilities. We call this approach dissociation
and give an exact characterization of optimal oblivious bounds, i.e. when the
new probabilities are chosen independent of the probabilities of all other
variables. Our motivation comes from the weighted model counting problem (or,
equivalently, the problem of computing the probability of a Boolean function),
which is #P-hard in general. By performing several dissociations, one can
transform a Boolean formula whose probability is difficult to compute, into one
whose probability is easy to compute, and which is guaranteed to provide an
upper or lower bound on the probability of the original formula by choosing
appropriate probabilities for the dissociated variables. Our new bounds shed
light on the connection between previous relaxation-based and model-based
approximations and unify them as concrete choices in a larger design space. We
also show how our theory allows a standard relational database management
system (DBMS) to both upper and lower bound hard probabilistic queries in
guaranteed polynomial time.Comment: 34 pages, 14 figures, supersedes: http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.281
Tree Projections and Structural Decomposition Methods: The Power of Local Consistency and Larger Islands of Tractability
Evaluating conjunctive queries and solving constraint satisfaction problems
are fundamental problems in database theory and artificial intelligence,
respectively. These problems are NP-hard, so that several research efforts have
been made in the literature for identifying tractable classes, known as islands
of tractability, as well as for devising clever heuristics for solving
efficiently real-world instances. Many heuristic approaches are based on
enforcing on the given instance a property called local consistency, where (in
database terms) each tuple in every query atom matches at least one tuple in
every other query atom. Interestingly, it turns out that, for many well-known
classes of queries, such as for the acyclic queries, enforcing local
consistency is even sufficient to solve the given instance correctly. However,
the precise power of such a procedure was unclear, but for some very restricted
cases. The paper provides full answers to the long-standing questions about the
precise power of algorithms based on enforcing local consistency. The classes
of instances where enforcing local consistency turns out to be a correct
query-answering procedure are however not efficiently recognizable. In fact,
the paper finally focuses on certain subclasses defined in terms of the novel
notion of greedy tree projections. These latter classes are shown to be
efficiently recognizable and strictly larger than most islands of tractability
known so far, both in the general case of tree projections and for specific
structural decomposition methods
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