arXiv subjects

David Eppstein

Publications and source records attributed to David Eppstein.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Princ-wiki-a Mathematica: Wikipedia editing and mathematics

Over the past 20 years, Wikipedia has gone from a rather outlandish idea to a major reference work, with more than 60 million articles across all languages, including nearly 7 million in English [Wiki01]. Around 27,000 of these articles concern mathematics [b], and Wikipedia is the first place that many of us go to learn about a new mathematical idea. In this overview, we will discuss how to go about creating or editing an article on a mathematical subject. (Most of this applies equally to topics from other technical fields.) We will also discuss biographies of mathematicians, articles on mathematical books, and the social dynamics of the Wikipedia editor community.

math.HO↗

arXiv2024

Fast Schulze Voting Using Quickselect

The Schulze voting method aggregates voter preference data using maxmin-weight graph paths, achieving the Condorcet property that a candidate who would win every head-to-head contest will also win the overall election. Once the voter preferences among $m$ candidates have been arranged into an $m\times m$ matrix of pairwise election outcomes, a previous algorithm of Sornat, Vassilevska Williams and Xu (EC '21) determines the Schulze winner in randomized expected time $O(m^2\log^4 m)$. We improve this to randomized expected time $O(m^2\log m)$ using a modified version of quickselect.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2024

The Widths of Strict Outerconfluent Graphs

Strict outerconfluent drawing is a style of graph drawing in which vertices are drawn on the boundary of a disk, adjacencies are indicated by the existence of smooth curves through a system of tracks within the disk, and no two adjacent vertices are connected by more than one of these smooth tracks. We investigate graph width parameters on the graphs that have drawings in this style. We prove that the clique-width of these graphs is unbounded, but their twin-width is bounded.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Drawing Planar Graphs and 1-Planar Graphs Using Cubic Bézier Curves with Bounded Curvature

We study algorithms for drawing planar graphs and 1-planar graphs using cubic Bézier curves with bounded curvature. We show that any n-vertex 1-planar graph has a 1-planar RAC drawing using a single cubic Bézier curve per edge, and this drawing can be computed in $O(n)$ time given a combinatorial 1-planar drawing. We also show that any n-vertex planar graph G can be drawn in $O(n)$ time with a single cubic Bézier curve per edge, in an $O(n)\times O(n)$ bounding box, such that the edges have $Θ(1/degree(v))$ angular resolution, for each $v \in G$, and $O(\sqrt{n})$ curvature.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2024

Computational Complexities of Folding

We prove several hardness results on folding origami crease patterns. Flat-folding finite crease patterns is fixed-parameter tractable in the ply of the folded pattern (how many layers overlap at any point) and the treewidth of an associated cell adjacency graph. Under the exponential time hypothesis, the singly-exponential dependence of our algorithm on treewidth is necessary, even for bounded ply. Improving the dependence on ply would require progress on the unsolved map folding problem. Finding the shape of a polyhedron folded from a net with triangular faces and integer edge lengths is not possible in algebraic computation tree models of computation that at each tree node allow either the computation of arbitrary integer roots of real numbers, or the extraction of roots of polynomials with bounded degree and integer coefficients. For a model of reconfigurable origami with origami squares are attached at one edge by a hinge to a rigid surface, moving from one flat-folded state to another by changing the position of one square at a time is PSPACE-complete, and counting flat-folded states is #P-complete. For self-similar square crease patterns with infinitely many folds, testing flat-foldability is undecidable.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2024

Product structure extension of the Alon--Seymour--Thomas theorem

Alon, Seymour and Thomas [1990] proved that every $n$-vertex graph excluding $K_t$ as a minor has treewidth less than $t^{3/2}\sqrt{n}$. Illingworth, Scott and Wood [2022] recently refined this result by showing that every such graph is a subgraph of some graph with treewidth $t-2$, where each vertex is blown up by a complete graph of order $O(\sqrt{tn})$. Solving an open problem of Illingworth, Scott and Wood [2022], we prove that the treewidth bound can be reduced to $4$ while keeping blowups of order $O_t(\sqrt{n})$. As an extension of the Lipton--Tarjan theorem, in the case of planar graphs, we show that the treewidth can be further reduced to $2$, which is best possible. We generalise this result for $K_{3,t}$-minor-free graphs, with blowups of order $O(t\sqrt{n})$. This setting includes graphs embeddable on any fixed surface.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Maintaining Light Spanners via Minimal Updates

We study the problem of maintaining a lightweight bounded-degree $(1+\varepsilon)$-spanner of a dynamic point set in a $d$-dimensional Euclidean space, where $\varepsilon>0$ and $d$ are arbitrary constants. In our fully-dynamic setting, points are allowed to be inserted as well as deleted, and our objective is to maintain a $(1+\varepsilon)$-spanner that has constant bounds on its maximum degree and its lightness (the ratio of its weight to that of the minimum spanning tree), while minimizing the recourse, which is the number of edges added or removed by each point insertion or deletion. We present a fully-dynamic algorithm that handles point insertion with amortized constant recourse and point deletion with amortized $O(\logΔ)$ recourse, where $Δ$ is the aspect ratio of the point set.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2023

The Complexity of Iterated Reversible Computation

We study a class of functional problems reducible to computing $f^{(n)}(x)$ for inputs $n$ and $x$, where $f$ is a polynomial-time bijection. As we prove, the definition is robust against variations in the type of reduction used in its definition, and in whether we require $f$ to have a polynomial-time inverse or to be computible by a reversible logic circuit. These problems are characterized by the complexity class $\mathsf{FP}^{\mathsf{PSPACE}}$, and include natural $\mathsf{FP}^{\mathsf{PSPACE}}$-complete problems in circuit complexity, cellular automata, graph algorithms, and the dynamical systems described by piecewise-linear transformations.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2023

Orthogonal dissection into few rectangles

We describe a polynomial time algorithm that takes as input a polygon with axis-parallel sides but irrational vertex coordinates, and outputs a set of as few rectangles as possible into which it can be dissected by axis-parallel cuts and translations. The number of rectangles is the rank of the Dehn invariant of the polygon. The same method can also be used to dissect an axis-parallel polygon into a simple polygon with the minimum possible number of edges. When rotations or reflections are allowed, we can approximate the minimum number of rectangles to within a factor of two.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2023

Rapid mixing for the hardcore Glauber dynamics and other Markov chains in bounded-treewidth graphs

We give a new rapid mixing result for a natural random walk on the independent sets of a graph $G$. We show that when $G$ has bounded treewidth, this random walk -- known as the Glauber dynamics for the hardcore model -- mixes rapidly for all fixed values of the standard parameter $λ> 0$, giving a simple alternative to existing sampling algorithms for these structures. We also show rapid mixing for analogous Markov chains on dominating sets, $b$-edge covers, $b$-matchings, maximal independent sets, and maximal $b$-matchings. (For $b$-matchings, maximal independent sets, and maximal $b$-matchings we also require bounded degree.) Our results imply simpler alternatives to known algorithms for the sampling and approximate counting problems in these graphs. We prove our results by applying a divide-and-conquer framework we developed in a previous paper, as an alternative to the projection-restriction technique introduced by Jerrum, Son, Tetali, and Vigoda. We extend this prior framework to handle chains for which the application of that framework is not straightforward, strengthening existing results by Dyer, Goldberg, and Jerrum and by Heinrich for the Glauber dynamics on $q$-colorings of graphs of bounded treewidth and bounded degree.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2023

On the Biplanarity of Blowups

The 2-blowup of a graph is obtained by replacing each vertex with two non-adjacent copies; a graph is biplanar if it is the union of two planar graphs. We disprove a conjecture of Gethner that 2-blowups of planar graphs are biplanar: iterated Kleetopes are counterexamples. Additionally, we construct biplanar drawings of 2-blowups of planar graphs whose duals have two-path induced path partitions, and drawings with split thickness two of 2-blowups of 3-chromatic planar graphs, and of graphs that can be decomposed into a Hamiltonian path and a dual Hamiltonian path.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Manipulating Weights to Improve Stress-Graph Drawings of 3-Connected Planar Graphs

We study methods to manipulate weights in stress-graph embeddings to improve convex straight-line planar drawings of 3-connected planar graphs. Stress-graph embeddings are weighted versions of Tutte embeddings, where solving a linear system places vertices at a minimum-energy configuration for a system of springs. A major drawback of the unweighted Tutte embedding is that it often results in drawings with exponential area. We present a number of approaches for choosing better weights. One approach constructs weights (in linear time) that uniformly spread all vertices in a chosen direction, such as parallel to the $x$- or $y$-axis. A second approach morphs $x$- and $y$-spread drawings to produce a more aesthetically pleasing and uncluttered drawing. We further explore a "kaleidoscope" paradigm for this $xy$-morph approach, where we rotate the coordinate axes so as to find the best spreads and morphs. A third approach chooses the weight of each edge according to its depth in a spanning tree rooted at the outer vertices, such as a Schnyder wood or BFS tree, in order to pull vertices closer to the boundary.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2023

Quasipolynomiality of the Smallest Missing Induced Subgraph

We study the problem of finding the smallest graph that does not occur as an induced subgraph of a given graph. This missing induced subgraph has at most logarithmic size and can be found by a brute-force search, in an $n$-vertex graph, in time $n^{O(\log n)}$. We show that under the Exponential Time Hypothesis this quasipolynomial time bound is optimal. We also consider variations of the problem in which either the missing subgraph or the given graph comes from a restricted graph family; for instance, we prove that the smallest missing planar induced subgraph of a given planar graph can be found in polynomial time.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2023

Geometric Graphs with Unbounded Flip-Width

We consider the flip-width of geometric graphs, a notion of graph width recently introduced by Toruńczyk. We prove that many different types of geometric graphs have unbounded flip-width. These include interval graphs, permutation graphs, circle graphs, intersection graphs of axis-aligned line segments or axis-aligned unit squares, unit distance graphs, unit disk graphs, visibility graphs of simple polygons, $β$-skeletons, 4-polytopes, rectangle of influence graphs, and 3d Delaunay triangulations.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2023

A Parameterized Algorithm for Flat Folding

We prove that testing the flat foldability of an origami crease pattern (either labeled with mountain and valley folds, or unlabeled) is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the ply of the flat-folded state and by the treewidth of an associated planar graph, the cell adjacency graph of an arrangement of polygons formed by the flat-folded state. For flat foldings of bounded ply, our algorithm is single-exponential in the treewidth; this dependence on treewidth is necessary under the exponential time hypothesis.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2023

Lower Bounds for Non-Adaptive Shortest Path Relaxation

We consider single-source shortest path algorithms that perform a sequence of relaxation steps whose ordering depends only on the input graph structure and not on its weights or the results of prior steps. Each step examines one edge of the graph, and replaces the tentative distance to the endpoint of the edge by its minimum with the tentative distance to the start of the edge, plus the edge length. As we prove, among such algorithms, the Bellman-Ford algorithm has optimal complexity for dense graphs and near-optimal complexity for sparse graphs, as a function of the number of edges and vertices in the given graph. Our analysis holds both for deterministic algorithms and for randomized algorithms that find shortest path distances with high probability.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2023

Improved mixing for the convex polygon triangulation flip walk

We prove that the well-studied triangulation flip walk on a convex point set mixes in time O(n^3 log^3 n), the first progress since McShine and Tetali's O(n^5 log n) bound in 1997. In the process we give lower and upper bounds of respectively Omega(1/(sqrt n log n)) and O(1/sqrt n) -- asymptotically tight up to an O(log n) factor -- for the expansion of the associahedron graph K_n. The upper bound recovers Molloy, Reed, and Steiger's Omega(n^{3/2}) bound on the mixing time of the walk. To obtain these results, we introduce a framework consisting of a set of sufficient conditions under which a given Markov chain mixes rapidly. This framework is a purely combinatorial analogue that in some circumstances gives better results than the projection-restriction technique of Jerrum, Son, Tetali, and Vigoda. In particular, in addition to the result for triangulations, we show quasipolynomial mixing for the k-angulation flip walk on a convex point set, for fixed k >= 4.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

On the complexity of embedding in graph products

Graph embedding, especially as a subgraph of a grid, is an old topic in VLSI design and graph drawing. In this paper, we investigate related questions concerning the complexity of embedding a graph $G$ in a host graph that is the strong product of a path $P$ with a graph $H$ that satisfies some properties, such as having small treewidth, pathwidth or tree depth. We show that this is NP-hard, even under numerous restrictions on both $G$ and $H$. In particular, computing the row pathwidth and the row treedepth is NP-hard even for a tree of small pathwidth, while computing the row treewidth is NP-hard even for series-parallel graphs.

cs.CG↗