We provide linear-time algorithms for geometric graphs with sublinearly many edge crossings. That is, we provide algorithms running in @math time on connected geometric graphs having @math vertices and @math pairwise crossings, where @math is smaller than @math by an iterated logarithmic factor. Specific problems that we study include Voronoi diagrams and single-source shortest paths. Our algorithms all run in linear time in the standard comparison-based computational model; hence, we make no assumptions about the distribution or bit complexities of edge weights, nor do we utilize unusual bit-level operations on memory words. Instead, our algorithms are based on a planarization method that “zeros in” on edge crossings, together with methods for applying planar separator decompositions to geometric graphs with sublinearly many crossings. Incidentally, our planarization algorithm also solves an open computational geometry problem of Chazelle for triangulating a self-intersecting polygonal chain having @math segments and @math crossings in linear time, for the case when @math is sublinear in @math by an iterated logarithmic factor.
The specific problems for which we provide linear-time algorithms are well known in the general algorithms and computational geometry literatures. For general graphs with @math vertices and @math edges, excellent work can be found on efficient algorithms in the comparison model, including single-source shortest paths @cite_23 @cite_44 @cite_26 , which can be found in @math time @cite_22 , and Voronoi diagrams @cite_5 @cite_29 , whose graph-theoretic version can be constructed in @math time @cite_6 @cite_24 . None of these algorithms run in linear time, even for planar graphs. Linear-time algorithms for planar graphs are known for single-source shortest paths @cite_27 , but these unfortunately do not immediately translate into linear-time algorithms for non-planar geometric graphs. In addition, there are a number of efficient shortest-path algorithms that make assumptions about edge weights @cite_46 @cite_35 @cite_51 @cite_47 ; hence, they are not applicable in the comparison model.
@cite_35 @cite_47 @cite_26 @cite_22 @cite_29 @cite_6 @cite_44 @cite_24 @cite_27 @cite_23 @cite_5 @cite_46 @cite_51
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We present a deterministic near-linear time algorithm that computes the edge-connectivity and finds a minimum cut for a simple undirected unweighted graph G with n vertices and m edges. This is the first o(mn) time deterministic algorithm for the problem. In near-linear time we can also construct the classic cactus representation of all minimum cuts. The previous fastest deterministic algorithm by Gabow from STOC'91 took O(m+λ2 n), where λ is the edge connectivity, but λ could be Ω(n). At STOC'96 Karger presented a randomized near linear time Monte Carlo algorithm for the minimum cut problem. As he points out, there is no better way of certifying the minimality of the returned cut than to use Gabow's slower deterministic algorithm and compare sizes. Our main technical contribution is a near-linear time algorithm that contracts vertex sets of a simple input graph G with minimum degree δ, producing a multigraph G with O(m δ) edges which preserves all minimum cuts of G with at least two vertices on each side. In our deterministic near-linear time algorithm, we will decompose the problem via low-conductance cuts found using PageRank a la Brin and Page (1998), as analyzed by Andersson, Chung, and Lang at FOCS'06. Normally such algorithms for low-conductance cuts are randomized Monte Carlo algorithms, because they rely on guessing a good start vertex. However, in our case, we have so much structure that no guessing is needed. Let G = (V(G), E(G)) be a weighted directed graph and let P be a shortest path from s to t in G. In the replacement paths problem we are required to compute for every edge e in P, the length of a shortest path from s to t that avoids e. The fastest known algorithm for solving the problem in weighted directed graphs is the trivial one: each edge in P is removed from the graph in its turn and the distance from s to t in the modified graph is computed. The running time of this algorithm is O (mn + n2 log n), where n = |V(G)| and m = |E(G)|. The replacement paths problem is strongly motivated by two different applications. First, the fastest algorithm to compute the k simple shortest paths from s to t in directed graphs [21, 13] repeatedly computes the replacement paths from s to t. Its running time is O(kn(m + n log n)). Second, the computation of Vickrey pricing of edges in distributed networks can be reduced to the replacement paths problem. An open question raised by Nisan and Ronen [16] asks whether it is possible to compute the Vickrey pricing faster than the trivial algorithm described in the previous paragraph. In this paper we present a near-linear time algorithm for computing replacement paths in weighted planar directed graphs. In particular, the algorithm computes the lengths of the replacement paths in O(n log3 n) time. This result immediately improves the running time of the two applications mentioned above by almost a linear factor. Our algorithm is obtained by combining several new ideas with a data structure of Klein [12] that supports multi-source shortest paths queries in planar directed graphs in logarithmic time. Our algorithm can be adapted to address the variant of the problem in which one is interested in the replacement path itself (rather than the length of the path). In that case the algorithm is executed in a preprocessing stage constructing a data structure that supports replacement path queries in time O(h), where h is the number of hops in the replacement path. In addition, we can handle the variant in which vertices should be avoided instead of edges. Problems related to computing optimal paths have been abundant in computer science since its emergence as a field. Yet for a large number of such problems we still do not know whether the state-of-the-art algorithms are the best possible. A notable example of this phenomenon is the all pairs shortest paths problem in a directed graph with real edge weights. The best algorithm (modulo small polylogarithmic improvements) for this problem runs in cubic time, a running time known since the 1960s (by Floyd and Warshall). Our grasp of many such fundamental algorithmic questions is far from optimal, and the major goal of this thesis is to bring some new insights into efficiently solving path problems in graphs. We focus on several path problems optimizing different measures: shortest paths, maximum bottleneck paths, minimum nondecreasing paths, and various extensions. For the all-pairs versions of these path problems we use an algebraic approach. We obtain improved algorithms using reductions to fast matrix multiplication. For maximum bottleneck paths and minimum nondecreasing paths we are the first to break the cubic barrier, obtaining truly subcubic strongly polynomial algorithms. We also consider a nonalgebraic, combinatorial approach, which is considered more efficient in practice compared to methods based on fast matrix multiplication. We present a combinatorial data structure that maintains a matrix so that products with given sparse vectors can be computed efficiently. This allows us to obtain good running times for path problems in unweighted sparse graphs. This thesis also gives algorithms for some single source path problems. We obtain the first linear time algorithm for the single source minimum nondecreasing paths problem. We give some extensions to this, including an algorithm to find cheapest minimum nondecreasing paths. Besides finding optimal paths, we consider the related problem of finding optimal cycles. In particular, we focus on the problem of finding in a weighted graph a triangle of maximum weight sum. We obtain the first truly subcubic algorithm for finding a maximum weight triangle in a node-weighted graph. We also present algorithms for the edge-weighted case. These algorithms immediately imply good algorithms for finding maximum weight k-cliques, or arbitrary maximum weight pattern subgraphs of fixed size. We give a linear-time algorithm for single-source shortest paths in planar graphs with nonnegative edge-lengths. Our algorithm also yields a linear-time algorithm for maximum flow in a planar graph with the source and sink on the same face. For the case where negative edge-lengths are allowed, we give an algorithm requiringO(n4 3log(nL)) time, whereLis the absolute value of the most negative length. This algorithm can be used to obtain similar bounds for computing a feasible flow in a planar network, for finding a perfect matching in a planar bipartite graph, and for finding a maximum flow in a planar graph when the source and sink are not on the same face. We also give parallel and dynamic versions of these algorithms.