On Minimum Average Stretch Spanning Trees in Polygonal 2-trees

A spanning tree of an unweighted graph is a minimum average stretch spanning tree if it minimizes the ratio of sum of the distances in the tree between the end vertices of the graph edges and the number of graph edges. We consider the problem of computing a minimum average stretch spanning tree in polygonal 2-trees, a super class of 2-connected outerplanar graphs. For a polygonal 2-tree on $n$ vertices, we present an algorithm to compute a minimum average stretch spanning tree in $O(n \log n)$ time. This algorithm also finds a minimum fundamental cycle basis in polygonal 2-trees.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figure

An Improved Algorithm for Computing All the Best Swap Edges of a Tree Spanner

A tree sigma-spanner of a positively real-weighted n-vertex and m-edge undirected graph G is a spanning tree T of G which approximately preserves (i.e., up to a multiplicative stretch factor sigma) distances in G. Tree spanners with provably good stretch factors find applications in communication networks, distributed systems, and network design. However, finding an optimal or even a good tree spanner is a very hard computational task. Thus, if one has to face a transient edge failure in T, the overall effort that has to be afforded to rebuild a new tree spanner (i.e., computational costs, set-up of new links, updating of the routing tables, etc.) can be rather prohibitive. To circumvent this drawback, an effective alternative is that of associating with each tree edge a best possible (in terms of resulting stretch) swap edge -- a well-established approach in the literature for several other tree topologies. Correspondingly, the problem of computing all the best swap edges of a tree spanner is a challenging algorithmic problem, since solving it efficiently means to exploit the structure of shortest paths not only in G, but also in all the scenarios in which an edge of T has failed. For this problem we provide a very efficient solution, running in O(n^2 log^4 n) time, which drastically improves (almost by a quadratic factor in n in dense graphs!) on the previous known best result

On the Minimum Spanning Tree Distribution in Grids

We study the minimum spanning tree distribution on the space of spanning trees of the $n$-by-$n$ grid for large $n$. We establish bounds on the decay rates of the probability of the most and the least probable spanning trees as $n\rightarrow\infty$

The Zoo of Tree Spanner Problems

Tree spanner problems have important applications in network design, e.g. in the telecommunications industry. Mathematically, there have been considered quite a number of maxstretch tree spanner problems and of average stretch tree spanner problems. We propose a unified notation for 20 tree spanner problems, which we investigate for graphs with general positive weights, with metric weights, and with unit weights. This covers several prominent problems of combinatorial optimization. Having this notation at hand, we can clearly identify which problems coincide. In the case of unweighted graphs, the formally 20 problems collapse to only five different problems. Moreover, our systematic notation for tree spanner problems enables us to identify a tree spanner problem whose complexity status has not been solved so far. We are able to provide an NP-hardness proof. Furthermore, due to our new notation of tree spanner problems, we are able to detect that an inapproximability result that is due to Galbiati (2001, 2003) in fact applies to the classical max-stretch tree spanner problem. We conclude that the inapproximability factor for this problem thus is 2 − ε, instead of only 1+ √ 5 2 according to Peleg and Reshef (1999)