On The Power of Tree Projections: Structural Tractability of Enumerating CSP Solutions

The problem of deciding whether CSP instances admit solutions has been deeply studied in the literature, and several structural tractability results have been derived so far. However, constraint satisfaction comes in practice as a computation problem where the focus is either on finding one solution, or on enumerating all solutions, possibly projected to some given set of output variables. The paper investigates the structural tractability of the problem of enumerating (possibly projected) solutions, where tractability means here computable with polynomial delay (WPD), since in general exponentially many solutions may be computed. A general framework based on the notion of tree projection of hypergraphs is considered, which generalizes all known decomposition methods. Tractability results have been obtained both for classes of structures where output variables are part of their specification, and for classes of structures where computability WPD must be ensured for any possible set of output variables. These results are shown to be tight, by exhibiting dichotomies for classes of structures having bounded arity and where the tree decomposition method is considered

A note on minors determined by clones of semilattices

The C-minor partial orders determined by the clones generated by a semilattice operation (and possibly the constant operations corresponding to its identity or zero elements) are shown to satisfy the descending chain condition.Comment: 6 pages, proofs improved, introduction and references adde

Combinatorics

This is the report on the Oberwolfach workshop on Combinatorics, held 1–7 January 2006. Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics studying families of mainly, but not exclusively, finite or countable structures – discrete objects. The discrete objects considered in the workshop were graphs, set systems, discrete geometries, and matrices. The programme consisted of 15 invited lectures, 18 contributed talks, and a problem session focusing on recent developments in graph theory, coding theory, discrete geometry, extremal combinatorics, Ramsey theory, theoretical computer science, and probabilistic combinatorics

Courcelle\u27s Theorem: Overview and Applications

Courcelle\u27s Theorem states that any graph property expressible in monadic second order logic can be decidedin O(f(k)n) for graphs of treewidth k. This paper gives a broad overview of how this theorem is proved and outlines tools available to help express graph properties in monadic second order logic

Combinatorics

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Combinatorics, Probability and Computing

One of the exciting phenomena in mathematics in recent years has been the widespread and surprisingly effective use of probabilistic methods in diverse areas. The probabilistic point of view has turned out to b