109,200 research outputs found
Phase Transitions of the Typical Algorithmic Complexity of the Random Satisfiability Problem Studied with Linear Programming
Here we study the NP-complete -SAT problem. Although the worst-case
complexity of NP-complete problems is conjectured to be exponential, there
exist parametrized random ensembles of problems where solutions can typically
be found in polynomial time for suitable ranges of the parameter. In fact,
random -SAT, with as control parameter, can be solved quickly
for small enough values of . It shows a phase transition between a
satisfiable phase and an unsatisfiable phase. For branch and bound algorithms,
which operate in the space of feasible Boolean configurations, the empirically
hardest problems are located only close to this phase transition. Here we study
-SAT () and the related optimization problem MAX-SAT by a linear
programming approach, which is widely used for practical problems and allows
for polynomial run time. In contrast to branch and bound it operates outside
the space of feasible configurations. On the other hand, finding a solution
within polynomial time is not guaranteed. We investigated several variants like
including artificial objective functions, so called cutting-plane approaches,
and a mapping to the NP-complete vertex-cover problem. We observed several
easy-hard transitions, from where the problems are typically solvable (in
polynomial time) using the given algorithms, respectively, to where they are
not solvable in polynomial time. For the related vertex-cover problem on random
graphs these easy-hard transitions can be identified with structural properties
of the graphs, like percolation transitions. For the present random -SAT
problem we have investigated numerous structural properties also exhibiting
clear transitions, but they appear not be correlated to the here observed
easy-hard transitions. This renders the behaviour of random -SAT more
complex than, e.g., the vertex-cover problem.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Single-machine scheduling with stepwise tardiness costs and release times
We study a scheduling problem that belongs to the yard operations component of the railroad planning problems, namely the hump sequencing problem. The scheduling problem is characterized as a single-machine problem with stepwise tardiness cost objectives. This is a new scheduling criterion which is also relevant in the context of traditional machine scheduling problems. We produce complexity results that characterize some cases of the problem as pseudo-polynomially solvable. For the difficult-to-solve cases of the problem, we develop mathematical programming formulations, and propose heuristic algorithms. We test the formulations and heuristic algorithms on randomly generated single-machine scheduling problems and real-life datasets for the hump sequencing problem. Our experiments show promising results for both sets of problems
Optimal web-scale tiering as a flow problem
We present a fast online solver for large scale parametric max-flow problems as they occur in portfolio optimization, inventory management, computer vision, and logistics. Our algorithm solves an integer linear program in an online fashion. It exploits total unimodularity of the constraint matrix and a Lagrangian relaxation to solve the problem as a convex online game. The algorithm generates approximate solutions of max-flow problems by performing stochastic gradient descent on a set of flows. We apply the algorithm to optimize tier arrangement of over 84 million web pages on a layered set of caches to serve an incoming query stream optimally
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