53 research outputs found
On fractionality of the path packing problem
In this paper, we study fractional multiflows in undirected graphs. A
fractional multiflow in a graph G with a node subset T, called terminals, is a
collection of weighted paths with ends in T such that the total weights of
paths traversing each edge does not exceed 1. Well-known fractional path
packing problem consists of maximizing the total weight of paths with ends in a
subset S of TxT over all fractional multiflows. Together, G,T and S form a
network. A network is an Eulerian network if all nodes in N\T have even
degrees.
A term "fractionality" was defined for the fractional path packing problem by
A. Karzanov as the smallest natural number D so that there exists a solution to
the problem that becomes integer-valued when multiplied by D. A. Karzanov has
defined the class of Eulerian networks in terms of T and S, outside which D is
infinite and proved that whithin this class D can be 1,2 or 4. He conjectured
that D should be 1 or 2 for this class of networks. In this paper we prove this
conjecture.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures in .eps format, 2 latex files, main file is
kc13.tex Resubmission due to incorrectly specified CS type of the article; no
changes to the context have been mad
Deterministic Distributed Edge-Coloring via Hypergraph Maximal Matching
We present a deterministic distributed algorithm that computes a
-edge-coloring, or even list-edge-coloring, in any -node graph
with maximum degree , in rounds. This answers
one of the long-standing open questions of \emph{distributed graph algorithms}
from the late 1980s, which asked for a polylogarithmic-time algorithm. See,
e.g., Open Problem 4 in the Distributed Graph Coloring book of Barenboim and
Elkin. The previous best round complexities were by
Panconesi and Srinivasan [STOC'92] and
by Fraigniaud, Heinrich, and Kosowski [FOCS'16]. A corollary of our
deterministic list-edge-coloring also improves the randomized complexity of
-edge-coloring to poly rounds.
The key technical ingredient is a deterministic distributed algorithm for
\emph{hypergraph maximal matching}, which we believe will be of interest beyond
this result. In any hypergraph of rank --- where each hyperedge has at most
vertices --- with nodes and maximum degree , this algorithm
computes a maximal matching in rounds.
This hypergraph matching algorithm and its extensions lead to a number of
other results. In particular, a polylogarithmic-time deterministic distributed
maximal independent set algorithm for graphs with bounded neighborhood
independence, hence answering Open Problem 5 of Barenboim and Elkin's book, a
-round deterministic
algorithm for -approximation of maximum matching, and a
quasi-polylogarithmic-time deterministic distributed algorithm for orienting
-arboricity graphs with out-degree at most ,
for any constant , hence partially answering Open Problem 10 of
Barenboim and Elkin's book
Combinatorial Optimization
Combinatorial Optimization is a very active field that benefits from bringing together ideas from different areas, e.g., graph theory and combinatorics, matroids and submodularity, connectivity and network flows, approximation algorithms and mathematical programming, discrete and computational geometry, discrete and continuous problems, algebraic and geometric methods, and applications. We continued the long tradition of triannual Oberwolfach workshops, bringing together the best researchers from the above areas, discovering new connections, and establishing new and deepening existing international collaborations
Branching strategies for mixed-integer programs containing logical constraints and decomposable structure
Decision-making optimisation problems can include discrete selections, e.g. selecting a route, arranging non-overlapping items or designing a network of items. Branch-and-bound (B&B), a widely applied divide-and-conquer framework, often solves such problems by considering a continuous approximation, e.g. replacing discrete variable domains by a continuous superset. Such approximations weaken the logical relations, e.g. for discrete variables corresponding to Boolean variables. Branching in B&B reintroduces logical relations by dividing the search space. This thesis studies designing B&B branching strategies, i.e. how to divide the search space, for optimisation problems that contain both a logical and a continuous structure.
We begin our study with a large-scale, industrially-relevant optimisation problem where the objective consists of machine-learnt gradient-boosted trees (GBTs) and convex penalty functions. GBT functions contain if-then queries which introduces a logical structure to this problem. We propose decomposition-based rigorous bounding strategies and an iterative heuristic that can be embedded into a B&B algorithm. We approach branching with two strategies: a pseudocost initialisation and strong branching that target the structure of GBT and convex penalty aspects of the optimisation objective, respectively. Computational tests show that our B&B approach outperforms state-of-the-art solvers in deriving rigorous bounds on optimality.
Our second project investigates how satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) derived unsatisfiable cores may be utilised in a B&B context. Unsatisfiable cores are subsets of constraints that explain an infeasible result. We study two-dimensional bin packing (2BP) and develop a B&B algorithm that branches on SMT unsatisfiable cores. We use the unsatisfiable cores to derive cuts that break 2BP symmetries. Computational results show that our B&B algorithm solves 20% more instances when compared with commercial solvers on the tested instances.
Finally, we study convex generalized disjunctive programming (GDP), a framework that supports logical variables and operators. Convex GDP includes disjunctions of mathematical constraints, which motivate branching by partitioning the disjunctions. We investigate separation by branching, i.e. eliminating solutions that prevent rigorous bound improvement, and propose a greedy algorithm for building the branches. We propose three scoring methods for selecting the next branching disjunction. We also analyse how to leverage infeasibility to expedite the B&B search. Computational results show that our scoring methods can reduce the number of explored B&B nodes by an order of magnitude when compared with scoring methods proposed in literature. Our infeasibility analysis further reduces the number of explored nodes.Open Acces
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