It is shown that one can count @math -edge paths in an @math -vertex graph and @math -set @math -packings on an @math -element universe, respectively, in time @math and @math , up to a factor polynomial in @math , @math , and @math ; in polynomial space, the bounds hold if multiplied by @math or @math , respectively. These are implications of a more general result: given two set families on an @math -element universe, one can count the disjoint pairs of sets in the Cartesian product of the two families with @math basic operations, where @math is the number of members in the two families and their subsets.
Concerning set packings the situation is analogous, albeit the research has been somewhat less extensive. Deciding whether a given family of @math subsets of an @math -element universe contains a @math -packing is known to be W[1]-hard @cite_5 , and thus it is unlikely that the problem is fixed parameter tractable, that is, solvable in time @math for some function @math and constant @math . If @math is fairly large, say exponential in @math , the fastest known algorithms actually count the packings by employing the inclusion--exclusion machinery @cite_23 @cite_3 and run in time @math . This bound holds also for the presented algorithm (cf. Theorem ).
@cite_5 @cite_3 @cite_23
2045326192 2074359677
Given a set @math with @math elements and a family @math of subsets, we show how to partition @math into @math such subsets in @math time. We also consider variations of this problem where the subsets may overlap or are weighted, and we solve the decision, counting, summation, and optimization versions of these problems. Our algorithms are based on the principle of inclusion-exclusion and the zeta transform. In effect we get exact algorithms in @math time for several well-studied partition problems including domatic number, chromatic number, maximum @math -cut, bin packing, list coloring, and the chromatic polynomial. We also have applications to Bayesian learning with decision graphs and to model-based data clustering. If only polynomial space is available, our algorithms run in time @math if membership in @math can be decided in polynomial time. We solve chromatic number in @math time and domatic number in @math time. Finally, we present a family of polynomial space approximation algorithms that find a number between @math and @math in time @math . A graph @math is called @math -full if @math contains a subgraph @math of @math edges such that, for any non-empty @math , @math holds. Here, @math denotes the set of vertices incident to @math . It is known that the family of edge sets of @math -full graphs forms a family of matroid, known as the sparsity matroid of @math . In this paper, we give a constant-time approximation algorithm for the rank of the sparsity matroid of a degree-bounded undirected graph. This leads to a constant-time tester for @math -fullness in the bounded-degree model, (i.e., we can decide with high probability whether an input graph satisfies a property @math or far from @math ). Depending on the values of @math and @math , it can test various properties of a graph such as connectivity, rigidity, and how many spanning trees can be packed. Based on this result, we also propose a constant-time tester for @math -edge-connected-orientability in the bounded-degree model, where an undirected graph @math is called @math -edge-connected-orientable if there exists an orientation @math of @math with a vertex @math such that @math contains @math arc-disjoint dipaths from @math to each vertex @math and @math arc-disjoint dipaths from each vertex @math to @math . A tester is called a one-sided error tester for @math if it always accepts a graph satisfying @math . We show, for @math and (proper) @math , any one-sided error tester for @math -fullness and @math -edge-connected-orientability requires @math queries. Given a directed graph @math and a list @math of terminal pairs, the Directed Steiner Network problem asks for a minimum-cost subgraph of @math that contains a directed @math path for every @math . The special case Directed Steiner Tree (when we ask for paths from a root @math to terminals @math ) is known to be fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the number of terminals, while the special case Strongly Connected Steiner Subgraph (when we ask for a path from every @math to every other @math ) is known to be W[1]-hard. We systematically explore the complexity landscape of directed Steiner problems to fully understand which other special cases are FPT or W[1]-hard. Formally, if @math is a class of directed graphs, then we look at the special case of Directed Steiner Network where the list @math of requests form a directed graph that is a member of @math . Our main result is a complete characterization of the classes @math resulting in fixed-parameter tractable special cases: we show that if every pattern in @math has the combinatorial property of being "transitively equivalent to a bounded-length caterpillar with a bounded number of extra edges," then the problem is FPT, and it is W[1]-hard for every recursively enumerable @math not having this property. This complete dichotomy unifies and generalizes the known results showing that Directed Steiner Tree is FPT [Dreyfus and Wagner, Networks 1971], @math -Root Steiner Tree is FPT for constant @math [Such 'y, WG 2016], Strongly Connected Steiner Subgraph is W[1]-hard [, SIAM J. Discrete Math. 2011], and Directed Steiner Network is solvable in polynomial-time for constant number of terminals [Feldman and Ruhl, SIAM J. Comput. 2006], and moreover reveals a large continent of tractable cases that were not known before. The bin packing problem is to find the minimum number of bins of size one to pack a list of items with sizes a 1 ,…, a n in (0,1]. Using uniform sampling, which selects a random element from the input list each time, we develop a randomized @math time (1+e )-approximation scheme for the bin packing problem. We show that every randomized algorithm with uniform random sampling needs @math time to give an (1+e )-approximation. For each function s (n ): N →N , define ∑(s (n )) to be the set of all bin packing problems with the sum of item sizes equal to s (n ). We show that ∑(n b ) is NP-hard for every b ∈(0,1]. This implies a dense sublinear time hierarchy of approximation schemes for a class of NP-hard problems, which are derived from the bin packing problem. We also show a randomized streaming approximation scheme for the bin packing problem such that it needs only constant updating time and constant space, and outputs an (1+e )-approximation in @math time. Let S (δ )-bin packing be the class of bin packing problems with each input item of size at least δ . This research also gives a natural example of NP-hard problem (S (δ )-bin packing) that has a constant time approximation scheme, and a constant time and space sliding window streaming approximation scheme, where δ is a positive constant. A Fixed-Parameter Tractable ( ) @math -approximation algorithm for a minimization (resp. maximization) parameterized problem @math is an FPT algorithm that, given an instance @math computes a solution of cost at most @math (resp. @math ) if a solution of cost at most (resp. at least) @math exists; otherwise the output can be arbitrary. For well-known intractable problems such as the W[1]-hard Clique and W[2]-hard Set Cover problems, the natural question is whether we can get any -approximation. It is widely believed that both Clique and Set-Cover admit no FPT @math -approximation algorithm, for any increasing function @math . Assuming standard conjectures such as the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) eth-paturi and the Projection Games Conjecture (PGC) r3 , we make the first progress towards proving this conjecture by showing that 1. Under the ETH and PGC, there exist constants @math such that the Set Cover problem does not admit an FPT approximation algorithm with ratio @math in @math time, where @math is the size of the universe and @math is the number of sets. 2. Unless @math , for every @math there exists a constant @math such that Clique has no FPT cost approximation with ratio @math in @math time, where @math is the number of vertices in the graph. In the second part of the paper we consider various W[1]-hard problems such as , , Directed Steiner Network and . For all these problem we give polynomial time @math -approximation algorithms for some small function @math (the largest approximation ratio we give is @math ). In the three-dimensional (3D) strip packing problem, we are given a set of 3D rectangular items and a 3D box @math . The goal is to pack all the items in @math such that the height of the packing is minimized. We consider the most basic version of the problem, where the items must be packed with their edges parallel to the edges of @math and cannot be rotated. Building upon Caprara's work for the two-dimensional (2D) bin packing problem, we obtain an algorithm that, given any @math , achieves an approximation of @math , where @math is the well-known number that occurs naturally in the context of bin packing. Our key idea is to establish a connection between bin packing solutions for an arbitrary instance @math and the strip packing solutions for the corresponding instance obtained from @math by applying the harmonic transformation to certain dimensions. Based on this connection, we also give a simple alternate proof of the @math approximation for 2D ... Given a polygon @math , for two points @math and @math contained in the polygon, their is the length of the shortest @math -path within @math . A of radius @math centered at a point @math is the set of points in @math whose geodesic distance to @math is at most @math . We present a polynomial time @math -approximation algorithm for finding a densest geodesic unit disk packing in @math . Allowing arbitrary radii but constraining the number of disks to be @math , we present a @math -approximation algorithm for finding a packing in @math with @math geodesic disks whose minimum radius is maximized. We then turn our focus on of @math and present a @math -approximation algorithm for covering @math with @math geodesic disks whose maximal radius is minimized. Furthermore, we show that all these problems are @math -hard in polygons with holes. Lastly, we present a polynomial time exact algorithm which covers a polygon with two geodesic disks of minimum maximal radius. The NP-hard Subset Interconnection Design problem, also known as Minimum Topic-Connected Overlay, is motivated by numerous applications including the design of scalable overlay networks and vacuum systems. It has as input a finite set @math and a collection of subsets @math , and asks for a minimum-cardinality edge set @math such that for the graph @math all induced subgraphs @math are connected. We study Subset Interconnection Design in the context of polynomial-time data reduction rules that preserve the possibility of constructing optimal solutions. Our contribution is threefold: First, we show the incorrectness of earlier polynomial-time data reduction rules. Second, we show linear-time solvability in case of a constant number @math of subsets, implying fixed-parameter tractability for the parameter @math . Third, we provide a fixed-parameter tractability result for small subset sizes and tree-like output graphs. To achieve our results, we elaborate o... Subset Sum is a classical optimization problem taught to undergraduates as an example of an NP-hard problem, which is amenable to dynamic programming, yielding polynomial running time if the input numbers are relatively small. Formally, given a set @math of @math positive integers and a target integer @math , the Subset Sum problem is to decide if there is a subset of @math that sums up to @math . Dynamic programming yields an algorithm with running time @math . Recently, the authors [SODA '17] improved the running time to @math , and it was further improved to @math by a somewhat involved randomized algorithm by Bringmann [SODA '17], where @math hides polylogarithmic factors. Here, we present a new and significantly simpler algorithm with running time @math . While not the fastest, we believe the new algorithm and analysis are simple enough to be presented in an algorithms class, as a striking example of a divide-and-conquer algorithm that uses FFT to a problem that seems (at first) unrelated. In particular, the algorithm and its analysis can be described in full detail in two pages (see pages 3-5). This paper proposes a new approximation algorithm @math for packing rectangles into a strip with unit width and unbounded height so as to minimize the total height of the packing. It is shown that for any list @math of rectangles, @math , where @math is the strip height actually used by the algorithm @math when applied to @math and OPT @math is the minimum possible height within which the rectangles in @math can be packed. Makespan scheduling on identical machines is one of the most basic and fundamental packing problems studied in the discrete optimization literature. It asks for an assignment of @math jobs to a set of @math identical machines that minimizes the makespan. The problem is strongly NP-hard, and thus we do not expect a @math -approximation algorithm with a running time that depends polynomially on @math . Furthermore, [3] recently showed that a running time of @math for any @math would imply that the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) fails. A long sequence of algorithms have been developed that try to obtain low dependencies on @math , the better of which achieves a running time of @math [11]. In this paper we obtain an algorithm with a running time of @math , which is tight under ETH up to logarithmic factors on the exponent. Our main technical contribution is a new structural result on the configuration-IP. More precisely, we show the existence of a highly symmetric and sparse optimal solution, in which all but a constant number of machines are assigned a configuration with small support. This structure can then be exploited by integer programming techniques and enumeration. We believe that our structural result is of independent interest and should find applications to other settings. In particular, we show how the structure can be applied to the minimum makespan problem on related machines and to a larger class of objective functions on parallel machines. For all these cases we obtain an efficient PTAS with running time @math . In a packing integer program, we are given a matrix @math and column vectors @math with nonnegative entries. We seek a vector @math of nonnegative integers, which maximizes @math subject to @math The edge and vertex-disjoint path problems together with their unsplittable flow generalization are NP-hard problems with a multitude of applications in areas such as routing, scheduling and bin packing. These two categories of problems are known to be conceptually related, but this connection has largely been ignored in terms of approximation algorithms. We explore the topic of approximating disjoint-path problems using polynomial-size packing integer programs. Motivated by the disjoint paths applications, we introduce the study of a class of packing integer programs, called column-restricted. We develop improved approximation algorithms for column-restricted programs, a result that we believe is of independent interest. Additional approximation algorithms for disjoint-paths are presented that are simple to implement and achieve good performance when the input has a special structure. The multiple knapsack problem (MKP) is a natural and well-known generalization of the single knapsack problem and is defined as follows. We are given a set of @math items and @math bins (knapsacks) such that each item @math has a profit @math and a size @math , and each bin @math has a capacity @math . The goal is to find a subset of items of maximum profit such that they have a feasible packing in the bins. MKP is a special case of the generalized assignment problem (GAP) where the profit and the size of an item can vary based on the specific bin that it is assigned to. GAP is APX-hard and a 2-approximation, for it is implicit in the work of Shmoys and Tardos [Math. Program. A, 62 (1993), pp. 461-474], and thus far, this was also the best known approximation for MKP @. The main result of this paper is a polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) for MKP @. Apart from its inherent theoretical interest as a common generalization of the well-studied knapsack and bin packing problems, it appears to be the strongest special case of GAP that is not APX-hard. We substantiate this by showing that slight generalizations of MKP are APX-hard. Thus our results help demarcate the boundary at which instances of GAP become APX-hard. An interesting aspect of our approach is a PTAS-preserving reduction from an arbitrary instance of MKP to an instance with @math distinct sizes and profits. Let @math be a ground set of @math elements, and let @math be a family of subsets of @math , @math , with a positive cost @math associated with each @math . Consider the following online version of the set cover problem, described as a game between an algorithm and an adversary. An adversary gives elements to the algorithm from @math one by one. Once a new element is given, the algorithm has to cover it by some set of @math containing it. We assume that the elements of @math and the members of @math are known in advance to the algorithm; however, the set @math of elements given by the adversary is not known in advance to the algorithm. (In general, @math may be a strict subset of @math .) The objective is to minimize the total cost of the sets chosen by the algorithm. Let @math denote the family of sets in @math that the algorithm chooses. At the end of the game the adversary also produces (offline) a family of sets @math that covers @math . The performance of the algorithm is the ratio between the cost of @math and the cost of @math . The maximum ratio, taken over all input sequences, is the competitive ratio of the algorithm. We present an @math competitive deterministic algorithm for the problem and establish a nearly matching @math lower bound for all interesting values of @math and @math . The techniques used are motivated by similar techniques developed in computational learning theory for online prediction (e.g., the WINNOW algorithm) together with a novel way of converting a fractional solution into a deterministic online algorithm. We consider the problem of maximizing a nonnegative submodular set function @math over a ground set @math subject to a variety of packing-type constraints including (multiple) matroid constraints, knapsack constraints, and their intersections. In this paper we develop a general framework that allows us to derive a number of new results, in particular, when @math may be a nonmonotone function. Our algorithms are based on (approximately) maximizing the multilinear extension @math of @math over a polytope @math that represents the constraints, and then effectively rounding the fractional solution. Although this approach has been used quite successfully, it has been limited in some important ways. We overcome these limitations as follows. First, we give constant factor approximation algorithms to maximize @math over a downward-closed polytope @math described by an efficient separation oracle. Previously this was known only for monotone functions. For nonmonotone functions, a constant factor was ... We study constant-time approximation algorithms for bounded-degree graphs, which run in time independent of the number of vertices @math . We present an algorithm that decides whether a vertex is contained in a some fixed maximal independent set with expected query complexity @math , where @math is the degree bound. Using this algorithm, we show constant-time approximation algorithms with certain multiplicative error and additive error @math for many other problems, e.g., the maximum matching problem, the minimum vertex cover problem, and the minimum set cover problem, that run exponentially faster than existing algorithms with respect to @math and @math . Our approximation algorithm for the maximum matching problem can be transformed to a two-sided error tester for the property of having a perfect matching. On the contrary, we show that every one-sided error tester for the property requires at least @math queries. Given two graphs @math and @math , the Subgraph Isomorphism problem asks if @math is isomorphic to a subgraph of @math . While NP-hard in general, algorithms exist for various parameterized versions of the problem: for example, the problem can be solved (1) in time @math using the color-coding technique of Alon, Yuster, and Zwick; (2) in time @math using Courcelle's Theorem; (3) in time @math using a result on first-order model checking by Frick and Grohe; or (4) in time @math for connected @math using the algorithm of Matou s ek and Thomas. Already this small sample of results shows that the way an algorithm can depend on the parameters is highly nontrivial and subtle. We develop a framework involving 10 relevant parameters for each of @math and @math (such as treewidth, pathwidth, genus, maximum degree, number of vertices, number of components, etc.), and ask if an algorithm with running time [ f_1(p_1,p_2,..., p_ ) n^ f_2(p_ +1 ,..., p_k) ] exist, where each of @math is one of the 10 parameters depending only on @math or @math . We show that all the questions arising in this framework are answered by a set of 11 maximal positive results (algorithms) and a set of 17 maximal negative results (hardness proofs); some of these results already appear in the literature, while others are new in this paper. On the algorithmic side, our study reveals for example that an unexpected combination of bounded degree, genus, and feedback vertex set number of @math gives rise to a highly nontrivial algorithm for Subgraph Isomorphism. On the hardness side, we present W[1]-hardness proofs under extremely restricted conditions, such as when @math is a bounded-degree tree of constant pathwidth and @math is a planar graph of bounded pathwidth. The celebrated Time Hierarchy Theorem for Turing machines states, informally, that more problems can be solved given more time. The extent to which a time hierarchy-type theorem holds in the distributed LOCAL model has been open for many years. It is consistent with previous results that all natural problems in the LOCAL model can be classified according to a small constant number of complexities, such as @math , etc. In this paper we establish the first time hierarchy theorem for the LOCAL model and prove that several gaps exist in the LOCAL time hierarchy. 1. We define an infinite set of simple coloring problems called Hierarchical @math -Coloring . A correctly colored graph can be confirmed by simply checking the neighborhood of each vertex, so this problem fits into the class of locally checkable labeling (LCL) problems. However, the complexity of the @math -level Hierarchical @math -Coloring problem is @math , for @math . The upper and lower bounds hold for both general graphs and trees, and for both randomized and deterministic algorithms. 2. Consider any LCL problem on bounded degree trees. We prove an automatic-speedup theorem that states that any randomized @math -time algorithm solving the LCL can be transformed into a deterministic @math -time algorithm. Together with a previous result, this establishes that on trees, there are no natural deterministic complexities in the ranges @math --- @math or @math --- @math . 3. We expose a gap in the randomized time hierarchy on general graphs. Any randomized algorithm that solves an LCL problem in sublogarithmic time can be sped up to run in @math time, which is the complexity of the distributed Lovasz local lemma problem, currently known to be @math and @math . We investigate the approximability of several classes of real-valued functions by functions of a small number of variables ( juntas ). Our main results are tight bounds on the number of variables required to approximate a function @math within @math -error @math over the uniform distribution: 1. If @math is submodular, then it is @math -close to a function of @math variables. This is an exponential improvement over previously known results. We note that @math variables are necessary even for linear functions. 2. If @math is fractionally subadditive (XOS) it is @math -close to a function of @math variables. This result holds for all functions with low total @math -influence and is a real-valued analogue of Friedgut's theorem for boolean functions. We show that @math variables are necessary even for XOS functions. As applications of these results, we provide learning algorithms over the uniform distribution. For XOS functions, we give a PAC learning algorithm that runs in time @math . For submodular functions we give an algorithm in the more demanding PMAC learning model (Balcan and Harvey, 2011) which requires a multiplicative @math factor approximation with probability at least @math over the target distribution. Our uniform distribution algorithm runs in time @math . This is the first algorithm in the PMAC model that over the uniform distribution can achieve a constant approximation factor arbitrarily close to 1 for all submodular functions. As follows from the lower bounds in (, 2013) both of these algorithms are close to optimal. We also give applications for proper learning, testing and agnostic learning with value queries of these classes. This paper addresses the cornerstone family of in distributed computing, and investigates the curious gap between randomized and deterministic solutions under bandwidth restrictions. Our main contribution is in providing tools for derandomizing solutions to local problems, when the @math nodes can only send @math -bit messages in each round of communication. We combine bounded independence, which we show to be sufficient for some algorithms, with the method of conditional expectations and with additional machinery, to obtain the following results. Our techniques give a deterministic maximal independent set (MIS) algorithm in the CONGEST model, where the communication graph is identical to the input graph, in @math rounds, where @math is the diameter of the graph. The best known running time in terms of @math alone is @math , which is super-polylogarithmic, and requires large messages. For the CONGEST model, the only known previous solution is a coloring-based @math -round algorithm, where @math is the maximal degree in the graph. On the way to obtaining the above, we show that in the model, which allows all-to-all communication, there is a deterministic MIS algorithm that runs in @math rounds. , where @math is the maximum degree. When @math , the bound improves to @math and holds also for @math -coloring. In addition, we deterministically construct a @math -spanner with @math edges in @math rounds. For comparison, in the more stringent CONGEST model, the best deterministic algorithm for constructing a @math -spanner with @math edges runs in @math rounds.