4,455 research outputs found
Searching for Realizations of Finite Metric Spaces in Tight Spans
An important problem that commonly arises in areas such as internet
traffic-flow analysis, phylogenetics and electrical circuit design, is to find
a representation of any given metric on a finite set by an edge-weighted
graph, such that the total edge length of the graph is minimum over all such
graphs. Such a graph is called an optimal realization and finding such
realizations is known to be NP-hard. Recently Varone presented a heuristic
greedy algorithm for computing optimal realizations. Here we present an
alternative heuristic that exploits the relationship between realizations of
the metric and its so-called tight span . The tight span is a
canonical polytopal complex that can be associated to , and our approach
explores parts of for realizations in a way that is similar to the
classical simplex algorithm. We also provide computational results illustrating
the performance of our approach for different types of metrics, including
-distances and two-decomposable metrics for which it is provably possible
to find optimal realizations in their tight spans.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure
Recognizing and realizing cactus metrics
The problem of realizing finite metric spaces in terms of weighted graphs has many applications. For example, the mathematical and computational properties of metrics that can be realized by trees have been well-studied and such research has laid the foundation of the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees from evolutionary distances. However, as trees may be too restrictive to accurately represent real-world data or phenomena, it is important to understand the relationship between more general graphs and distances. In this paper, we introduce a new type of metric called a cactus metric, that is, a metric that can be realized by a cactus graph. We show that, just as with tree metrics, a cactus metric has a unique optimal realization. In addition, we describe an algorithm that can recognize whether or not a metric is a cactus metric and, if so, compute its optimal realization in time, where is the number of points in the space
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