Parameterized Inapproximability of Target Set Selection and Generalizations

In this paper, we consider the Target Set Selection problem: given a graph and a threshold value $thr(v)$ for any vertex $v$ of the graph, find a minimum size vertex-subset to "activate" s.t. all the vertices of the graph are activated at the end of the propagation process. A vertex $v$ is activated during the propagation process if at least $thr(v)$ of its neighbors are activated. This problem models several practical issues like faults in distributed networks or word-to-mouth recommendations in social networks. We show that for any functions $f$ and $\rho$ this problem cannot be approximated within a factor of $\rho(k)$ in $f(k) \cdot n^{O(1)}$ time, unless FPT = W[P], even for restricted thresholds (namely constant and majority thresholds). We also study the cardinality constraint maximization and minimization versions of the problem for which we prove similar hardness results

Influence Diffusion in Social Networks under Time Window Constraints

We study a combinatorial model of the spread of influence in networks that generalizes existing schemata recently proposed in the literature. In our model, agents change behaviors/opinions on the basis of information collected from their neighbors in a time interval of bounded size whereas agents are assumed to have unbounded memory in previously studied scenarios. In our mathematical framework, one is given a network $G=(V,E)$, an integer value $t(v)$ for each node $v\in V$, and a time window size $\lambda$. The goal is to determine a small set of nodes (target set) that influences the whole graph. The spread of influence proceeds in rounds as follows: initially all nodes in the target set are influenced; subsequently, in each round, any uninfluenced node $v$ becomes influenced if the number of its neighbors that have been influenced in the previous $\lambda$ rounds is greater than or equal to $t(v)$. We prove that the problem of finding a minimum cardinality target set that influences the whole network $G$ is hard to approximate within a polylogarithmic factor. On the positive side, we design exact polynomial time algorithms for paths, rings, trees, and complete graphs.Comment: An extended abstract of a preliminary version of this paper appeared in: Proceedings of 20th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (Sirocco 2013), Lectures Notes in Computer Science vol. 8179, T. Moscibroda and A.A. Rescigno (Eds.), pp. 141-152, 201

Parameterized Approximability of Maximizing the Spread of Influence in Networks

Abstract. In this paper, we consider the problem of maximizing the spread of influence through a social network. Here, we are given a graph G = (V, E), a positive integer k and a threshold value thr(v) attached to each vertex v ∈ V. The objective is then to find a subset of k vertices to “activate ” such that the number of activated vertices at the end of a propagation process is maximum. A vertex v gets activated if at least thr(v) of its neighbors are. We show that this problem is strongly inapproximable in fpt-time with respect to (w.r.t.) parameter k even for very restrictive thresholds. For unanimity thresholds, we prove that the problem is inapproximable in polynomial time and the decision version is W[1]-hard w.r.t. parameter k. On the positive side, it becomes r(n)approximable in fpt-time w.r.t. parameter k for any strictly increasing function r. Moreover, we give an fpt-time algorithm to solve the decision version for bounded degree graphs.

The impact of the air transport liberalisation on the accessibility of European regions

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe