1,052 research outputs found
Incremental complexity of a bi-objective hypergraph transversal problem
The hypergraph transversal problem has been intensively studied, from both a
theoretical and a practical point of view. In particular , its incremental
complexity is known to be quasi-polynomial in general and polynomial for
bounded hypergraphs. Recent applications in computational biology however
require to solve a generalization of this problem, that we call bi-objective
transversal problem. The instance is in this case composed of a pair of
hypergraphs (A, B), and the aim is to find minimal sets which hit all the
hyperedges of A while intersecting a minimal set of hyperedges of B. In this
paper, we formalize this problem, link it to a problem on monotone boolean
-- formulae of depth 3 and study its incremental complexity
Achieving New Upper Bounds for the Hypergraph Duality Problem through Logic
The hypergraph duality problem DUAL is defined as follows: given two simple
hypergraphs and , decide whether
consists precisely of all minimal transversals of (in which case
we say that is the dual of ). This problem is
equivalent to deciding whether two given non-redundant monotone DNFs are dual.
It is known that non-DUAL, the complementary problem to DUAL, is in
, where
denotes the complexity class of all problems that after a nondeterministic
guess of bits can be decided (checked) within complexity class
. It was conjectured that non-DUAL is in . In this paper we prove this conjecture and actually
place the non-DUAL problem into the complexity class which is a subclass of . We here refer to the logtime-uniform version of
, which corresponds to , i.e., first order
logic augmented by counting quantifiers. We achieve the latter bound in two
steps. First, based on existing problem decomposition methods, we develop a new
nondeterministic algorithm for non-DUAL that requires to guess
bits. We then proceed by a logical analysis of this algorithm, allowing us to
formulate its deterministic part in . From this result, by
the well known inclusion , it follows
that DUAL belongs also to . Finally, by exploiting
the principles on which the proposed nondeterministic algorithm is based, we
devise a deterministic algorithm that, given two hypergraphs and
, computes in quadratic logspace a transversal of
missing in .Comment: Restructured the presentation in order to be the extended version of
a paper that will shortly appear in SIAM Journal on Computin
Simultaneous Embeddability of Two Partitions
We study the simultaneous embeddability of a pair of partitions of the same
underlying set into disjoint blocks. Each element of the set is mapped to a
point in the plane and each block of either of the two partitions is mapped to
a region that contains exactly those points that belong to the elements in the
block and that is bounded by a simple closed curve. We establish three main
classes of simultaneous embeddability (weak, strong, and full embeddability)
that differ by increasingly strict well-formedness conditions on how different
block regions are allowed to intersect. We show that these simultaneous
embeddability classes are closely related to different planarity concepts of
hypergraphs. For each embeddability class we give a full characterization. We
show that (i) every pair of partitions has a weak simultaneous embedding, (ii)
it is NP-complete to decide the existence of a strong simultaneous embedding,
and (iii) the existence of a full simultaneous embedding can be tested in
linear time.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, extended version of a paper to appear at GD 201
Combinatorics and geometry of finite and infinite squaregraphs
Squaregraphs were originally defined as finite plane graphs in which all
inner faces are quadrilaterals (i.e., 4-cycles) and all inner vertices (i.e.,
the vertices not incident with the outer face) have degrees larger than three.
The planar dual of a finite squaregraph is determined by a triangle-free chord
diagram of the unit disk, which could alternatively be viewed as a
triangle-free line arrangement in the hyperbolic plane. This representation
carries over to infinite plane graphs with finite vertex degrees in which the
balls are finite squaregraphs. Algebraically, finite squaregraphs are median
graphs for which the duals are finite circular split systems. Hence
squaregraphs are at the crosspoint of two dualities, an algebraic and a
geometric one, and thus lend themselves to several combinatorial
interpretations and structural characterizations. With these and the
5-colorability theorem for circle graphs at hand, we prove that every
squaregraph can be isometrically embedded into the Cartesian product of five
trees. This embedding result can also be extended to the infinite case without
reference to an embedding in the plane and without any cardinality restriction
when formulated for median graphs free of cubes and further finite
obstructions. Further, we exhibit a class of squaregraphs that can be embedded
into the product of three trees and we characterize those squaregraphs that are
embeddable into the product of just two trees. Finally, finite squaregraphs
enjoy a number of algorithmic features that do not extend to arbitrary median
graphs. For instance, we show that median-generating sets of finite
squaregraphs can be computed in polynomial time, whereas, not unexpectedly, the
corresponding problem for median graphs turns out to be NP-hard.Comment: 46 pages, 14 figure
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