76 research outputs found
Constant-degree graph expansions that preserve the treewidth
Many hard algorithmic problems dealing with graphs, circuits, formulas and
constraints admit polynomial-time upper bounds if the underlying graph has
small treewidth. The same problems often encourage reducing the maximal degree
of vertices to simplify theoretical arguments or address practical concerns.
Such degree reduction can be performed through a sequence of splittings of
vertices, resulting in an _expansion_ of the original graph. We observe that
the treewidth of a graph may increase dramatically if the splittings are not
performed carefully. In this context we address the following natural question:
is it possible to reduce the maximum degree to a constant without substantially
increasing the treewidth?
Our work answers the above question affirmatively. We prove that any simple
undirected graph G=(V, E) admits an expansion G'=(V', E') with the maximum
degree <= 3 and treewidth(G') <= treewidth(G)+1. Furthermore, such an expansion
will have no more than 2|E|+|V| vertices and 3|E| edges; it can be computed
efficiently from a tree-decomposition of G. We also construct a family of
examples for which the increase by 1 in treewidth cannot be avoided.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, the main result used by quant-ph/051107
Walking Through Waypoints
We initiate the study of a fundamental combinatorial problem: Given a
capacitated graph , find a shortest walk ("route") from a source to a destination that includes all vertices specified by a set
: the \emph{waypoints}. This waypoint routing problem
finds immediate applications in the context of modern networked distributed
systems. Our main contribution is an exact polynomial-time algorithm for graphs
of bounded treewidth. We also show that if the number of waypoints is
logarithmically bounded, exact polynomial-time algorithms exist even for
general graphs. Our two algorithms provide an almost complete characterization
of what can be solved exactly in polynomial-time: we show that more general
problems (e.g., on grid graphs of maximum degree 3, with slightly more
waypoints) are computationally intractable
EPG-representations with small grid-size
In an EPG-representation of a graph each vertex is represented by a path
in the rectangular grid, and is an edge in if and only if the paths
representing an share a grid-edge. Requiring paths representing edges
to be x-monotone or, even stronger, both x- and y-monotone gives rise to three
natural variants of EPG-representations, one where edges have no monotonicity
requirements and two with the aforementioned monotonicity requirements. The
focus of this paper is understanding how small a grid can be achieved for such
EPG-representations with respect to various graph parameters.
We show that there are -edge graphs that require a grid of area
in any variant of EPG-representations. Similarly there are
pathwidth- graphs that require height and area in
any variant of EPG-representations. We prove a matching upper bound of
area for all pathwidth- graphs in the strongest model, the one where edges
are required to be both x- and y-monotone. Thus in this strongest model, the
result implies, for example, , and area bounds
for bounded pathwidth graphs, bounded treewidth graphs and all classes of
graphs that exclude a fixed minor, respectively. For the model with no
restrictions on the monotonicity of the edges, stronger results can be achieved
for some graph classes, for example an area bound for bounded treewidth
graphs and bound for graphs of bounded genus.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017
Counting Problems in Parameterized Complexity
This survey is an invitation to parameterized counting problems for readers with a background in parameterized algorithms and complexity. After an introduction to the peculiarities of counting complexity, we survey the parameterized approach to counting problems, with a focus on two topics of recent interest: Counting small patterns in large graphs, and counting perfect matchings and Hamiltonian cycles in well-structured graphs.
While this survey presupposes familiarity with parameterized algorithms and complexity, we aim at explaining all relevant notions from counting complexity in a self-contained way
Size-Treewidth Tradeoffs for Circuits Computing the Element Distinctness Function
In this work we study the relationship between size and treewidth of circuits computing variants of the element distinctness function. First, we show that for each n, any circuit of treewidth t computing the element distinctness function delta_n:{0,1}^n -> {0,1} must have size at least Omega((n^2)/(2^{O(t)}*log(n))). This result provides a non-trivial generalization of a super-linear lower bound for the size of Boolean formulas (treewidth 1) due to Neciporuk. Subsequently, we turn our attention to read-once circuits, which are circuits where each variable labels at most one input vertex. For each n, we show that any read-once circuit of treewidth t and size s computing a variant tau_n:{0,1}^n -> {0,1} of the element distinctness function must satisfy the inequality t * log(s) >= Omega(n/log(n)). Using this inequality in conjunction with known results in structural graph theory, we show that for each fixed graph H, read-once circuits computing tau_n which exclude H as a minor must have size at least Omega(n^2/log^{4}(n)). For certain well studied functions, such as the triangle-freeness function, this last lower bound can be improved to Omega(n^2/log^2(n))
On the first-order transduction quasiorder of hereditary classes of graphs
Logical transductions provide a very useful tool to encode classes of
structures inside other classes of structures, and several important class
properties can be defined in terms of transductions. In this paper we study
first-order (FO) transductions and the quasiorder they induce on infinite
classes of finite graphs. Surprisingly, this quasiorder is very complex, though
shaped by the locality properties of first-order logic. This contrasts with the
conjectured simplicity of the monadic second order (MSO) transduction
quasiorder. We first establish a local normal form for FO transductions, which
is of independent interest. This normal form allows to prove, among other
results, that the local variants of (monadic) stability and (monadic)
dependence are equivalent to their non-local versions. Then we prove that the
quotient partial order is a bounded distributive join-semilattice, and that the
subposet of additive classes is also a bounded distributive join-semilattice.
We characterize transductions of paths, cubic graphs, and cubic trees in terms
of bandwidth, bounded degree, and treewidth. We establish that the classes of
all graphs with pathwidth at most , for form a strict hierarchy in
the FO transduction quasiorder and leave open whether the same holds for the
classes of all graphs with treewidth at most . We identify the obstructions
for a class to be a transduction of a class with bounded degree, leading to an
interesting transduction duality formulation. Eventually, we discuss a notion
of dense analogs of sparse transduction-preserved class properties, and propose
several related conjectures
Dynamic programming on bipartite tree decompositions
We revisit a graph width parameter that we dub bipartite treewidth, along
with its associated graph decomposition that we call bipartite tree
decomposition. Bipartite treewidth can be seen as a common generalization of
treewidth and the odd cycle transversal number. Intuitively, a bipartite tree
decomposition is a tree decomposition whose bags induce almost bipartite graphs
and whose adhesions contain at most one vertex from the bipartite part of any
other bag, while the width of such decomposition measures how far the bags are
from being bipartite. Adapted from a tree decomposition originally defined by
Demaine, Hajiaghayi, and Kawarabayashi [SODA 2010] and explicitly defined by
Tazari [Th. Comp. Sci. 2012], bipartite treewidth appears to play a crucial
role for solving problems related to odd-minors, which have recently attracted
considerable attention. As a first step toward a theory for solving these
problems efficiently, the main goal of this paper is to develop dynamic
programming techniques to solve problems on graphs of small bipartite
treewidth. For such graphs, we provide a number of para-NP-completeness
results, FPT-algorithms, and XP-algorithms, as well as several open problems.
In particular, we show that -Subgraph-Cover, Weighted Vertex
Cover/Independent Set, Odd Cycle Transversal, and Maximum Weighted Cut are
parameterized by bipartite treewidth. We provide the following complexity
dichotomy when is a 2-connected graph, for each of -Subgraph-Packing,
-Induced-Packing, -Scattered-Packing, and -Odd-Minor-Packing problem:
if is bipartite, then the problem is para-NP-complete parameterized by
bipartite treewidth while, if is non-bipartite, then it is solvable in
XP-time. We define 1--treewidth by replacing the bipartite graph
class by any class . Most of the technology developed here works for
this more general parameter.Comment: Presented in IPEC 202
Extremal density for sparse minors and subdivisions
We prove an asymptotically tight bound on the extremal density guaranteeing
subdivisions of bounded-degree bipartite graphs with a mild separability
condition. As corollaries, we answer several questions of Reed and Wood on
embedding sparse minors. Among others,
average degree is sufficient to force the
grid as a topological minor;
average degree forces every -vertex planar graph
as a minor, and the constant is optimal, furthermore, surprisingly, the
value is the same for -vertex graphs embeddable on any fixed surface;
a universal bound of on average degree forcing every
-vertex graph in any nontrivial minor-closed family as a minor, and the
constant 2 is best possible by considering graphs with given treewidth.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figure
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