Guarding Networks Through Heterogeneous Mobile Guards

In this article, the issue of guarding multi-agent systems against a sequence of intruder attacks through mobile heterogeneous guards (guards with different ranges) is discussed. The article makes use of graph theoretic abstractions of such systems in which agents are the nodes of a graph and edges represent interconnections between agents. Guards represent specialized mobile agents on specific nodes with capabilities to successfully detect and respond to an attack within their guarding range. Using this abstraction, the article addresses the problem in the context of eternal security problem in graphs. Eternal security refers to securing all the nodes in a graph against an infinite sequence of intruder attacks by a certain minimum number of guards. This paper makes use of heterogeneous guards and addresses all the components of the eternal security problem including the number of guards, their deployment and movement strategies. In the proposed solution, a graph is decomposed into clusters and a guard with appropriate range is then assigned to each cluster. These guards ensure that all nodes within their corresponding cluster are being protected at all times, thereby achieving the eternal security in the graph.Comment: American Control Conference, Chicago, IL, 201

Protecting a Graph with Mobile Guards

Mobile guards on the vertices of a graph are used to defend it against attacks on either its vertices or its edges. Various models for this problem have been proposed. In this survey we describe a number of these models with particular attention to the case when the attack sequence is infinitely long and the guards must induce some particular configuration before each attack, such as a dominating set or a vertex cover. Results from the literature concerning the number of guards needed to successfully defend a graph in each of these problems are surveyed.Comment: 29 pages, two figures, surve

Efficient Emptiness Check for Timed B\"uchi Automata (Extended version)

The B\"uchi non-emptiness problem for timed automata refers to deciding if a given automaton has an infinite non-Zeno run satisfying the B\"uchi accepting condition. The standard solution to this problem involves adding an auxiliary clock to take care of the non-Zenoness. In this paper, it is shown that this simple transformation may sometimes result in an exponential blowup. A construction avoiding this blowup is proposed. It is also shown that in many cases, non-Zenoness can be ascertained without extra construction. An on-the-fly algorithm for the non-emptiness problem, using non-Zenoness construction only when required, is proposed. Experiments carried out with a prototype implementation of the algorithm are reported.Comment: Published in the Special Issue on Computer Aided Verification - CAV 2010; Formal Methods in System Design, 201

Um problema de dominação eterna : classes de grafos, métodos de resolução e perspectiva prática

Orientadores: Cid Carvalho de Souza, Orlando LeeTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: O problema do conjunto dominante m-eterno é um problema de otimização em grafos que tem sido muito estudado nos últimos anos e para o qual se têm listado aplicações em vários domínios. O objetivo é determinar o número mínimo de guardas que consigam defender eternamente ataques nos vértices de um grafo; denominamos este número o índice de dominação m-eterna do grafo. Nesta tese, estudamos o problema do conjunto dominante m-eterno: lidamos com aspectos de natureza teórica e prática e abordamos o problema restrito a classes especícas de grafos e no caso geral. Examinamos o problema do conjunto dominante m-eterno com respeito a duas classes de grafos: os grafos de Cayley e os conhecidos grafos de intervalo próprios. Primeiramente, mostramos ser inválido um resultado sobre os grafos de Cayley presente na literatura, provamos que o resultado é válido para uma subclasse destes grafos e apresentamos outros achados. Em segundo lugar, fazemos descobertas em relação aos grafos de intervalo próprios, incluindo que, para estes grafos, o índice de dominação m-eterna é igual à cardinalidade máxima de um conjunto independente e, por consequência, o índice de dominação m-eterna pode ser computado em tempo linear. Tratamos de uma questão que é fundamental para aplicações práticas do problema do conjunto dominante m-eterno, mas que tem recebido relativamente pouca atenção. Para tanto, introduzimos dois métodos heurísticos, nos quais formulamos e resolvemos modelos de programação inteira e por restrições para computar limitantes ao índice de dominação m-eterna. Realizamos um vasto experimento para analisar o desempenho destes métodos. Neste processo, geramos um benchmark contendo 750 instâncias e efetuamos uma avaliação prática de limitantes ao índice de dominação m-eterna disponíveis na literatura. Por m, propomos e implementamos um algoritmo exato para o problema do conjunto dominante m-eterno e contribuímos para o entendimento da sua complexidade: provamos que a versão de decisão do problema é NP-difícil. Pelo que temos conhecimento, o algoritmo proposto foi o primeiro método exato a ser desenvolvido e implementado para o problema do conjunto dominante m-eternoAbstract: The m-eternal dominating set problem is a graph-protection optimization problem that has been an active research topic in the recent years and reported to have applications in various domains. It asks for the minimum number of guards that can eternally defend attacks on the vertices of a graph; this number is called the m-eternal domination number of the graph. In this thesis, we study the m-eternal dominating set problem by dealing with aspects of theoretical and practical nature and tackling the problem restricted to specic classes of graphs and in the general case. We examine the m-eternal dominating set problem for two classes of graphs: Cayley graphs and the well-known proper interval graphs. First, we disprove a published result on the m-eternal domination number of Cayley graphs, show that the result is valid for a subclass of these graphs, and report further ndings. Secondly, we present several discoveries regarding proper interval graphs, including that, for these graphs, the m- eternal domination number equals the maximum size of an independent set and, as a consequence, the m-eternal domination number can be computed in linear time. We address an issue that is fundamental to practical applications of the m-eternal dominating set problem but that has received relatively little attention. To this end, we introduce two heuristic methods, in which we propose and solve integer and constraint programming models to compute bounds on the m-eternal domination number. By performing an extensive experiment to validate the features of these methods, we generate a 750-instance benchmark and carry out a practical evaluation of bounds for the m-eternal domination number available in the literature. Finally, we propose and implement an exact algorithm for the m-eternal dominating set problem and contribute to the knowledge on its complexity: we prove that the decision version of the problem is NP-hard. As far as we know, the proposed algorithm was the first developed and implemented exact method for the m-eternal dominating set problemDoutoradoCiência da ComputaçãoDoutor em Ciência da Computação141964/2013-8CAPESCNP