Schaefer's theorem for graphs

Schaefer's theorem is a complexity classification result for so-called Boolean constraint satisfaction problems: it states that every Boolean constraint satisfaction problem is either contained in one out of six classes and can be solved in polynomial time, or is NP-complete. We present an analog of this dichotomy result for the propositional logic of graphs instead of Boolean logic. In this generalization of Schaefer's result, the input consists of a set W of variables and a conjunction \Phi\ of statements ("constraints") about these variables in the language of graphs, where each statement is taken from a fixed finite set \Psi\ of allowed quantifier-free first-order formulas; the question is whether \Phi\ is satisfiable in a graph. We prove that either \Psi\ is contained in one out of 17 classes of graph formulas and the corresponding problem can be solved in polynomial time, or the problem is NP-complete. This is achieved by a universal-algebraic approach, which in turn allows us to use structural Ramsey theory. To apply the universal-algebraic approach, we formulate the computational problems under consideration as constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) whose templates are first-order definable in the countably infinite random graph. Our method to classify the computational complexity of those CSPs is based on a Ramsey-theoretic analysis of functions acting on the random graph, and we develop general tools suitable for such an analysis which are of independent mathematical interest.Comment: 54 page

2008 (Winter)

Abstracts of the talks given at the 2008 Winter Colloquium

06401 Abstracts Collection -- Complexity of Constraints

From 01.10.06 to 06.10.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06401 ``Complexity of Constraints\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Grafos com poucos cruzamentos e o número de cruzamentos do Kp,q em superfícies topológicas

Orientador: Orlando LeeTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: O número de cruzamentos de um grafo G em uma superfície ? é o menor número de cruzamentos de arestas dentre todos os possíveis desenhos de G em ?. Esta tese aborda dois problemas distintos envolvendo número de cruzamentos de grafos: caracterização de grafos com número de cruzamentos igual a um e determinação do número de cruzamentos do Kp,q em superfícies topológicas. Para grafos com número de cruzamentos um, apresentamos uma completa caracterização estrutural. Também desenvolvemos um algoritmo "prático" para reconhecer estes grafos. Em relação ao número de cruzamentos do Kp,q em superfícies, mostramos que para um inteiro positivo p e uma superfície ? fixos, existe um conjunto finito D(p,?) de desenhos "bons" de grafos bipartidos completos Kp,r (possivelmente variando o r) tal que, para todo inteiro q e todo desenho D de Kp,q, existe um desenho bom D' de Kp,q obtido através de duplicação de vértices de um desenho D'' em D(p,?) tal que o número de cruzamentos de D' é menor ou igual ao número de cruzamentos de D. Em particular, para todo q suficientemente grande, existe algum desenho do Kp,q com o menor número de cruzamentos possível que é obtido a partir de algum desenho de D(p,?) através da duplicação de vértices do mesmo. Esse resultado é uma extensão de outro obtido por Cristian et. al. para esferaAbstract: The crossing number of a graph G in a surface ? is the least amount of edge crossings among all possible drawings of G in ?. This thesis deals with two problems on crossing number of graphs: characterization of graphs with crossing number one and determining the crossing number of Kp,q in topological surfaces. For graphs with crossing number one, we present a complete structural characterization. We also show a "practical" algorithm for recognition of such graphs. For the crossing number of Kp,q in surfaces, we show that for a fixed positive integer p and a fixed surface ?, there is a finite set D(p,?) of good drawings of complete bipartite graphs Kp,r (with distinct values of r) such that, for every positive integer q and every good drawing D of Kp,q, there is a good drawing D' of Kp,q obtained from a drawing D'' of D(p,?) by duplicating vertices of D'' and such that the crossing number of D' is at most the crossing number of D. In particular, for any large enough q, there exists some drawing of Kp,q with fewest crossings which can be obtained from a drawing of D(p,?) by duplicating vertices. This extends a result of Christian et. al. for the sphereDoutoradoCiência da ComputaçãoDoutor em Ciência da Computação2014/14375-9FAPES

Computational Complexity of SAT, XSAT and NAE-SAT for linear and mixed Horn CNF formulas

The Boolean conjunctive normal form (CNF) satisfiability problem, called SAT for short, gets as input a CNF formula and has to decide whether this formula admits a satisfying truth assignment. As is well known, the remarkable result by S. Cook in 1971 established SAT as the first and genuine complete problem for the complexity class NP. In this thesis we consider SAT for a subclass of CNF, the so called Mixed Horn formula class (MHF). A formula F in MHF consists of a 2-CNF part P and a Horn part H. We propose that MHF has a central relevance in CNF because many prominent NP-complete problems, e.g. Feedback Vertex Set, Vertex Cover, Dominating Set and Hitting Set, can easily be encoded as MHF. Furthermore, we show that SAT remains NP-complete for some interesting subclasses of MHF. We also provide algorithms for some of these subclasses solving SAT in a better running time than O(2^0.5284n) which is the best bound for MHF so far. One of these subclasses consists of formulas, where the Horn part is negative monotone and the variable graph corresponding to the positive 2-CNF part P consists of disjoint triangles only. Regarding the other subclass consisting of certain k-uniform linear mixed Horn formulas, we provide an algorithm solving SAT in time O(k^(n/k)), for k>=4. Additionally, we consider mixed Horn formulas F in MHF for which holds: H is negative monotone, c=3. We also prove the NP-completeness of XSAT for CNF formulas which are l-regular meaning that every variable occurs exactly l times, where l>=3 is a fixed integer. On that basis, we can provide the NP-completeness of XSAT for the subclass of linear and l-regular formulas. This result is transferable to the monotone case. Moreover, we provide an algorithm solving XSAT for the subclass of monotone, linear and l-regular formulas faster than the so far best algorithm from J. M. Byskov et al. for CNF-XSAT with a running time of O(2^0.2325n). Using some connections to finite projective planes, we can also show that XSAT remains NP-complete for linear and l-regular formulas that in addition are l-uniform whenever l=q+1, where q is a prime power. Thus XSAT most likely is NP-complete for the other values of l>= 3, too. Apart from that, we are interested in exact linear formulas: Here each pair of distinct clauses has exactly one variable in common. We show that NAESAT is polynomial-time decidable restricted to exact linear formulas. Reinterpreting this result enables us to give a partial answer to a long-standing open question mentioned by T. Eiter: Classify the computational complexity of the symmetrical intersecting unsatisfiability problem (SIM-UNSAT). Then we show the NP-completeness of XSAT for monotone and exact linear formulas, which we can also establish for the subclass of formulas whose clauses have length at least k, k>=3. This is somehow surprising since both SAT and not-all-equal SAT are polynomial-time solvable for exact linear formulas. However, for k=3,4,5,6 we can show that XSAT is polynomial-time solvable for the k-uniform, monotone and exact linear formula class