6 research outputs found
Data Reductions and Combinatorial Bounds for Improved Approximation Algorithms
Kernelization algorithms in the context of Parameterized Complexity are often
based on a combination of reduction rules and combinatorial insights. We will
expose in this paper a similar strategy for obtaining polynomial-time
approximation algorithms. Our method features the use of
approximation-preserving reductions, akin to the notion of parameterized
reductions. We exemplify this method to obtain the currently best approximation
algorithms for \textsc{Harmless Set}, \textsc{Differential} and
\textsc{Multiple Nonblocker}, all of them can be considered in the context of
securing networks or information propagation
From Causes for Database Queries to Repairs and Model-Based Diagnosis and Back
In this work we establish and investigate connections between causes for
query answers in databases, database repairs wrt. denial constraints, and
consistency-based diagnosis. The first two are relatively new research areas in
databases, and the third one is an established subject in knowledge
representation. We show how to obtain database repairs from causes, and the
other way around. Causality problems are formulated as diagnosis problems, and
the diagnoses provide causes and their responsibilities. The vast body of
research on database repairs can be applied to the newer problems of computing
actual causes for query answers and their responsibilities. These connections,
which are interesting per se, allow us, after a transition -inspired by
consistency-based diagnosis- to computational problems on hitting sets and
vertex covers in hypergraphs, to obtain several new algorithmic and complexity
results for database causality.Comment: To appear in Theory of Computing Systems. By invitation to special
issue with extended papers from ICDT 2015 (paper arXiv:1412.4311
Towards Optimal and Expressive Kernelization for d-Hitting Set
d-Hitting Set is the NP-hard problem of selecting at most k vertices of a
hypergraph so that each hyperedge, all of which have cardinality at most d,
contains at least one selected vertex. The applications of d-Hitting Set are,
for example, fault diagnosis, automatic program verification, and the
noise-minimizing assignment of frequencies to radio transmitters.
We show a linear-time algorithm that transforms an instance of d-Hitting Set
into an equivalent instance comprising at most O(k^d) hyperedges and vertices.
In terms of parameterized complexity, this is a problem kernel. Our
kernelization algorithm is based on speeding up the well-known approach of
finding and shrinking sunflowers in hypergraphs, which yields problem kernels
with structural properties that we condense into the concept of expressive
kernelization.
We conduct experiments to show that our kernelization algorithm can kernelize
instances with more than 10^7 hyperedges in less than five minutes.
Finally, we show that the number of vertices in the problem kernel can be
further reduced to O(k^{d-1}) with additional O(k^{1.5 d}) processing time by
nontrivially combining the sunflower technique with d-Hitting Set problem
kernels due to Abu-Khzam and Moser.Comment: This version gives corrected experimental results, adds additional
figures, and more formally defines "expressive kernelization
FPT-approximation for FPT problems
Over the past decade, many results have focused on the design of parameterized approximation algorithms for W[1]-hard problems. However, there are fundamental problems within the class FPT for which the best known algorithms have seen no progress over the course of the decade. In this paper, we expand the study of FPT-approximation and initiate a systematic study of FPT-approximation for problems that are in FPT. We design FPT-approximation algorithms for problems that are in FPT, with running times that are significantly faster than the corresponding best known FPT-algorithm, and while achieving approximation ratios that are significantly better than what is possible in polynomial time
Parameterized approximation algorithms for HITTING SET
We are going to analyze simple search tree algorithms for approximating d -Hitting Set, focussing on the case of factor-2 approximations for d = 3. We also derive several results for hypergraph instances of bounded degree, including a new polynomial-time approximation