11,886 research outputs found
Minimum Stable Cut and Treewidth
A stable or locally-optimal cut of a graph is a cut whose weight cannot be increased by changing the side of a single vertex. Equivalently, a cut is stable if all vertices have the (weighted) majority of their neighbors on the other side. Finding a stable cut is a prototypical PLS-complete problem that has been studied in the context of local search and of algorithmic game theory.
In this paper we study Min Stable Cut, the problem of finding a stable cut of minimum weight, which is closely related to the Price of Anarchy of the Max Cut game. Since this problem is NP-hard, we study its complexity on graphs of low treewidth, low degree, or both. We begin by showing that the problem remains weakly NP-hard on severely restricted trees, so bounding treewidth alone cannot make it tractable. We match this hardness with a pseudo-polynomial DP algorithm solving the problem in time (?? W)^{O(tw)}n^{O(1)}, where tw is the treewidth, ? the maximum degree, and W the maximum weight. On the other hand, bounding ? is also not enough, as the problem is NP-hard for unweighted graphs of bounded degree. We therefore parameterize Min Stable Cut by both tw and ? and obtain an FPT algorithm running in time 2^{O(?tw)}(n+log W)^{O(1)}. Our main result for the weighted problem is to provide a reduction showing that both aforementioned algorithms are essentially optimal, even if we replace treewidth by pathwidth: if there exists an algorithm running in (nW)^{o(pw)} or 2^{o(?pw)}(n+log W)^{O(1)}, then the ETH is false. Complementing this, we show that we can, however, obtain an FPT approximation scheme parameterized by treewidth, if we consider almost-stable solutions, that is, solutions where no single vertex can unilaterally increase the weight of its incident cut edges by more than a factor of (1+?).
Motivated by these mostly negative results, we consider Unweighted Min Stable Cut. Here our results already imply a much faster exact algorithm running in time ?^{O(tw)}n^{O(1)}. We show that this is also probably essentially optimal: an algorithm running in n^{o(pw)} would contradict the ETH
On the complexity of computing the -restricted edge-connectivity of a graph
The \emph{-restricted edge-connectivity} of a graph , denoted by
, is defined as the minimum size of an edge set whose removal
leaves exactly two connected components each containing at least vertices.
This graph invariant, which can be seen as a generalization of a minimum
edge-cut, has been extensively studied from a combinatorial point of view.
However, very little is known about the complexity of computing .
Very recently, in the parameterized complexity community the notion of
\emph{good edge separation} of a graph has been defined, which happens to be
essentially the same as the -restricted edge-connectivity. Motivated by the
relevance of this invariant from both combinatorial and algorithmic points of
view, in this article we initiate a systematic study of its computational
complexity, with special emphasis on its parameterized complexity for several
choices of the parameters. We provide a number of NP-hardness and W[1]-hardness
results, as well as FPT-algorithms.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
The Parameterized Complexity of the Minimum Shared Edges Problem
We study the NP-complete Minimum Shared Edges (MSE) problem. Given an
undirected graph, a source and a sink vertex, and two integers p and k, the
question is whether there are p paths in the graph connecting the source with
the sink and sharing at most k edges. Herein, an edge is shared if it appears
in at least two paths. We show that MSE is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the
treewidth of the input graph and the number k of shared edges combined. We show
that MSE is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to p, but does not admit a
polynomial-size kernel (unless NP is contained in coNP/poly). In the proof of
the fixed-parameter tractability of MSE parameterized by p, we employ the
treewidth reduction technique due to Marx, O'Sullivan, and Razgon [ACM TALG
2013].Comment: 35 pages, 16 figure
Parameterized Complexity Dichotomy for Steiner Multicut
The Steiner Multicut problem asks, given an undirected graph G, terminals
sets T1,...,Tt V(G) of size at most p, and an integer k, whether
there is a set S of at most k edges or nodes s.t. of each set Ti at least one
pair of terminals is in different connected components of G \ S. This problem
generalizes several graph cut problems, in particular the Multicut problem (the
case p = 2), which is fixed-parameter tractable for the parameter k [Marx and
Razgon, Bousquet et al., STOC 2011].
We provide a dichotomy of the parameterized complexity of Steiner Multicut.
That is, for any combination of k, t, p, and the treewidth tw(G) as constant,
parameter, or unbounded, and for all versions of the problem (edge deletion and
node deletion with and without deletable terminals), we prove either that the
problem is fixed-parameter tractable or that the problem is hard (W[1]-hard or
even (para-)NP-complete). We highlight that:
- The edge deletion version of Steiner Multicut is fixed-parameter tractable
for the parameter k+t on general graphs (but has no polynomial kernel, even on
trees). We present two proofs: one using the randomized contractions technique
of Chitnis et al, and one relying on new structural lemmas that decompose the
Steiner cut into important separators and minimal s-t cuts.
- In contrast, both node deletion versions of Steiner Multicut are W[1]-hard
for the parameter k+t on general graphs.
- All versions of Steiner Multicut are W[1]-hard for the parameter k, even
when p=3 and the graph is a tree plus one node. Hence, the results of Marx and
Razgon, and Bousquet et al. do not generalize to Steiner Multicut.
Since we allow k, t, p, and tw(G) to be any constants, our characterization
includes a dichotomy for Steiner Multicut on trees (for tw(G) = 1), and a
polynomial time versus NP-hardness dichotomy (by restricting k,t,p,tw(G) to
constant or unbounded).Comment: As submitted to journal. This version also adds a proof of
fixed-parameter tractability for parameter k+t using the technique of
randomized contraction
Efficient Generation of Stable Planar Cages for Chemistry
In this paper we describe an algorithm which generates all colored planar
maps with a good minimum sparsity from simple motifs and rules to connect them.
An implementation of this algorithm is available and is used by chemists who
want to quickly generate all sound molecules they can obtain by mixing some
basic components.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. Accepted at the 14th International Symposium on
Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2015
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