47,700 research outputs found
Digraph Complexity Measures and Applications in Formal Language Theory
We investigate structural complexity measures on digraphs, in particular the
cycle rank. This concept is intimately related to a classical topic in formal
language theory, namely the star height of regular languages. We explore this
connection, and obtain several new algorithmic insights regarding both cycle
rank and star height. Among other results, we show that computing the cycle
rank is NP-complete, even for sparse digraphs of maximum outdegree 2.
Notwithstanding, we provide both a polynomial-time approximation algorithm and
an exponential-time exact algorithm for this problem. The former algorithm
yields an O((log n)^(3/2))- approximation in polynomial time, whereas the
latter yields the optimum solution, and runs in time and space O*(1.9129^n) on
digraphs of maximum outdegree at most two. Regarding the star height problem,
we identify a subclass of the regular languages for which we can precisely
determine the computational complexity of the star height problem. Namely, the
star height problem for bideterministic languages is NP-complete, and this
holds already for binary alphabets. Then we translate the algorithmic results
concerning cycle rank to the bideterministic star height problem, thus giving a
polynomial-time approximation as well as a reasonably fast exact exponential
algorithm for bideterministic star height.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur
Parametric shortest-path algorithms via tropical geometry
We study parameterized versions of classical algorithms for computing
shortest-path trees. This is most easily expressed in terms of tropical
geometry. Applications include shortest paths in traffic networks with variable
link travel times.Comment: 24 pages and 8 figure
Rectangular Layouts and Contact Graphs
Contact graphs of isothetic rectangles unify many concepts from applications
including VLSI and architectural design, computational geometry, and GIS.
Minimizing the area of their corresponding {\em rectangular layouts} is a key
problem. We study the area-optimization problem and show that it is NP-hard to
find a minimum-area rectangular layout of a given contact graph. We present
O(n)-time algorithms that construct -area rectangular layouts for
general contact graphs and -area rectangular layouts for trees.
(For trees, this is an -approximation algorithm.) We also present an
infinite family of graphs (rsp., trees) that require (rsp.,
) area.
We derive these results by presenting a new characterization of graphs that
admit rectangular layouts using the related concept of {\em rectangular duals}.
A corollary to our results relates the class of graphs that admit rectangular
layouts to {\em rectangle of influence drawings}.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, 55 references, 1 appendi
Regular Cost Functions, Part I: Logic and Algebra over Words
The theory of regular cost functions is a quantitative extension to the
classical notion of regularity. A cost function associates to each input a
non-negative integer value (or infinity), as opposed to languages which only
associate to each input the two values "inside" and "outside". This theory is a
continuation of the works on distance automata and similar models. These models
of automata have been successfully used for solving the star-height problem,
the finite power property, the finite substitution problem, the relative
inclusion star-height problem and the boundedness problem for monadic-second
order logic over words. Our notion of regularity can be -- as in the classical
theory of regular languages -- equivalently defined in terms of automata,
expressions, algebraic recognisability, and by a variant of the monadic
second-order logic. These equivalences are strict extensions of the
corresponding classical results. The present paper introduces the cost monadic
logic, the quantitative extension to the notion of monadic second-order logic
we use, and show that some problems of existence of bounds are decidable for
this logic. This is achieved by introducing the corresponding algebraic
formalism: stabilisation monoids.Comment: 47 page
Phase Transition for Glauber Dynamics for Independent Sets on Regular Trees
We study the effect of boundary conditions on the relaxation time of the
Glauber dynamics for the hard-core model on the tree. The hard-core model is
defined on the set of independent sets weighted by a parameter ,
called the activity. The Glauber dynamics is the Markov chain that updates a
randomly chosen vertex in each step. On the infinite tree with branching factor
, the hard-core model can be equivalently defined as a broadcasting process
with a parameter which is the positive solution to
, and vertices are occupied with probability
when their parent is unoccupied. This broadcasting process
undergoes a phase transition between the so-called reconstruction and
non-reconstruction regions at . Reconstruction has
been of considerable interest recently since it appears to be intimately
connected to the efficiency of local algorithms on locally tree-like graphs,
such as sparse random graphs. In this paper we show that the relaxation time of
the Glauber dynamics on regular -ary trees of height and
vertices, undergoes a phase transition around the reconstruction threshold. In
particular, we construct a boundary condition for which the relaxation time
slows down at the reconstruction threshold. More precisely, for any , for with any boundary condition, the relaxation time is
and . In contrast, above the reconstruction
threshold we show that for every , for ,
the relaxation time on with any boundary condition is , and we construct a boundary condition where the relaxation time is
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