arXiv subjects

Iyad Kanj

Publications and source records attributed to Iyad Kanj.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Parameterized Algorithms for the Matrix Completion Problem

We consider two matrix completion problems, in which we are given a matrix with missing entries and the task is to complete the matrix in a way that (1) minimizes the rank, or (2) minimizes the number of distinct rows. We study the parameterized complexity of the two aforementioned problems with respect to several parameters of interest, including the minimum number of matrix rows, columns, and rows plus columns needed to cover all missing entries. We obtain new algorithmic results showing that, for the bounded domain case, both problems are fixed-parameter tractable with respect to all aforementioned parameters. We complement these results with a lower-bound result for the unbounded domain case that rules out fixed-parameter tractability w.r.t. some of the parameters under consideration.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Parameterized Algorithms for Recognizing Monopolar and 2-Subcolorable Graphs

A graph $G$ is a $(Π_A,Π_B)$-graph if $V(G)$ can be bipartitioned into $A$ and $B$ such that $G[A]$ satisfies property $Π_A$ and $G[B]$ satisfies property $Π_B$. The $(Π_{A},Π_{B})$-Recognition problem is to recognize whether a given graph is a $(Π_A,Π_B)$-graph. There are many $(Π_{A},Π_{B})$-Recognition problems, including the recognition problems for bipartite, split, and unipolar graphs. We present efficient algorithms for many cases of $(Π_A,Π_B)$-Recognition based on a technique which we dub inductive recognition. In particular, we give fixed-parameter algorithms for two NP-hard $(Π_{A},Π_{B})$-Recognition problems, Monopolar Recognition and 2-Subcoloring. We complement our algorithmic results with several hardness results for $(Π_{A},Π_{B})$-Recognition.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2017

How to navigate through obstacles?

Given a set of obstacles and two points, is there a path between the two points that does not cross more than $k$ different obstacles? This is a fundamental problem that has undergone a tremendous amount of work. It is known to be NP-hard, even when the obstacles are very simple geometric shapes (e.g., unit-length line segments). The problem can be generalized into the following graph problem: Given a planar graph $G$ whose vertices are colored by color sets, two designated vertices $s, t \in V(G)$, and $k \in \mathbb{N}$, is there an $s$-$t$ path in $G$ that uses at most $k$ colors? If each obstacle is connected, the resulting graph satisfies the color-connectivity property, namely that each color induces a connected subgraph. We study the complexity and design algorithms for the above graph problem with an eye on its geometric applications. We prove that without the color-connectivity property, the problem is W[SAT]-hard parameterized by $k$. A corollary of this result is that, unless W[2] $=$ FPT, the problem cannot be approximated in FPT time to within a factor that is a function of $k$. By describing a generic plane embedding of the graph instances, we show that our hardness results translate to the geometric instances of the problem. We then focus on graphs satisfying the color-connectivity property. By exploiting the planarity of the graph and the connectivity of the colors, we develop topological results to "represent" the valid $s$-$t$ paths containing subsets of colors from any vertex $v$. We employ these results to design an FPT algorithm for the problem parameterized by both $k$ and the treewidth of the graph, and extend this result to obtain an FPT algorithm for the parameterization by both $k$ and the length of the path. The latter result directly implies previous FPT results for various obstacle shapes, such as unit disks and fat regions.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2017

Finding Points in General Position

We study computational aspects of the General Position Subset Selection problem defined as follows: Given a set of points in the plane, find a maximum-cardinality subset of points in general position. We prove that General Position Subset Selection is NP-hard, APX-hard, and give several fixed-parameter tractability results as well as a subexponential running time lower bound based on the Exponential Time Hypothesis.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2017

The Complexity of Tree Partitioning

Given a tree $T$ on $n$ vertices, and $k, b, s_1, \ldots, s_b \in N$, the Tree Partitioning problem asks if at most $k$ edges can be removed from $T$ so that the resulting components can be grouped into $b$ groups such that the number of vertices in group $i$ is $s_i$, for $i =1, \ldots, b$. The case when $s_1=\cdots =s_b =n/b$, referred to as the Balanced Tree Partitioning problem, was shown to be NP-complete for trees of maximum degree at most 5, and the complexity of the problem for trees of maximum degree 4 and 3 was posed as an open question. The parameterized complexity of Balanced Tree Partitioning was also posed as an open question in another work. In this paper, we answer both open questions negatively. We show that Balanced Tree Partitioning (and hence, Tree Partitioning) is NP-complete for trees of maximum degree 3, thus closing the door on the complexity of Balanced Tree Partitioning, as the simple case when $T$ is a path is in P. In terms of the parameterized complexity of the problems, we show that both Balanced Tree Partitioning and Tree Partitioning are $W[1]$-complete. Finally, using a compact representation of the solution space for an instance of the problem, we present a dynamic programming algorithm for Tree Partitioning (and hence, for Balanced Tree Partitioning) that runs in subexponential-time $2^{O(\sqrt{n})}$, adding a natural problem to the list of problems that can be solved in subexponential time.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2016

Computing the flip distance between triangulations

Let ${\cal T}$ be a triangulation of a set ${\cal P}$ of $n$ points in the plane, and let $e$ be an edge shared by two triangles in ${\cal T}$ such that the quadrilateral $Q$ formed by these two triangles is convex. A {\em flip} of $e$ is the operation of replacing $e$ by the other diagonal of $Q$ to obtain a new triangulation of ${\cal P}$ from ${\cal T}$. The {\em flip distance} between two triangulations of ${\cal P}$ is the minimum number of flips needed to transform one triangulation into the other. The Flip Distance problem asks if the flip distance between two given triangulations of ${\cal P}$ is at most $k$, for some given $k \in N$. It is a fundamental and a challenging problem. We present an algorithm for the {\sc Flip Distance} problem that runs in time $O(n + k \cdot c^{k})$, for a constant $c \leq 2 \cdot 14^{11}$, which implies that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable. We extend our results to triangulations of polygonal regions with holes, and to labeled triangulated graphs.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2016

Degree Four Plane Spanners: Simpler and Better

Let ${\cal P}$ be a set of $n$ points embedded in the plane, and let ${\cal C}$ be the complete Euclidean graph whose point-set is ${\cal P}$. Each edge in ${\cal C}$ between two points $p, q$ is realized as the line segment $[pq]$, and is assigned a weight equal to the Euclidean distance $|pq|$. In this paper, we show how to construct in $O(n\lg{n})$ time a plane spanner of ${\cal C}$ of maximum degree at most 4 and stretch factor at most 20. This improves a long sequence of results on the construction of plane spanners of ${\cal C}$. Our result matches the smallest known upper bound of 4 by Bonichon et al. on the maximum degree of plane spanners of ${\cal C}$, while significantly improving their stretch factor upper bound from 156.82 to 20. The construction of our spanner is based on Delaunay triangulations defined with respect to the equilateral-triangle distance, and uses a different approach than that used by Bonichon et al. Our approach leads to a simple and intuitive construction of a well-structured spanner, and reveals useful structural properties of the Delaunay triangulations defined with respect to the equilateral-triangle distance. The structure of the constructed spanner implies that when ${\cal P}$ is in convex position, the maximum degree of this spanner is at most 3. Combining the above degree upper bound with the fact that 3 is a lower bound on the maximum degree of any plane spanner of ${\cal C}$ when the point-set ${\cal P}$ is in convex position, the results in this paper give a tight bound of 3 on the maximum degree of plane spanners of ${\cal C}$ for point-sets in convex position.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2015

Well-Formed Separator Sequences, with an Application to Hypergraph Drawing

Given a hypergraph $H$, the Planar Support problem asks whether there is a planar graph $G$ on the same vertex set as $H$ such that each hyperedge induces a connected subgraph of $G$. Planar Support is motivated by applications in graph drawing and data visualization. We show that Planar Support is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the number of hyperedges in the input hypergraph and the outerplanarity number of the sought planar graph. To this end, we develop novel structural results for $r$-outerplanar triangulated disks, showing that they admit sequences of separators with structural properties enabling data reduction. This allows us to obtain a problem kernel for Planar Support, thus showing its fixed-parameter tractability.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2014

Local Backbones

A backbone of a propositional CNF formula is a variable whose truth value is the same in every truth assignment that satisfies the formula. The notion of backbones for CNF formulas has been studied in various contexts. In this paper, we introduce local variants of backbones, and study the computational complexity of detecting them. In particular, we consider k-backbones, which are backbones for sub-formulas consisting of at most k clauses, and iterative k-backbones, which are backbones that result after repeated instantiations of k-backbones. We determine the parameterized complexity of deciding whether a variable is a k-backbone or an iterative k-backbone for various restricted formula classes, including Horn, definite Horn, and Krom. We also present some first empirical results regarding backbones for CNF-Satisfiability (SAT). The empirical results we obtain show that a large fraction of the backbones of structured SAT instances are local, in contrast to random instances, which appear to have few local backbones.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2014

There are Plane Spanners of Maximum Degree 4

Let E be the complete Euclidean graph on a set of points embedded in the plane. Given a constant t >= 1, a spanning subgraph G of E is said to be a t-spanner, or simply a spanner, if for any pair of vertices u,v in E the distance between u and v in G is at most t times their distance in E. A spanner is plane if its edges do not cross. This paper considers the question: "What is the smallest maximum degree that can always be achieved for a plane spanner of E?" Without the planarity constraint, it is known that the answer is 3 which is thus the best known lower bound on the degree of any plane spanner. With the planarity requirement, the best known upper bound on the maximum degree is 6, the last in a long sequence of results improving the upper bound. In this paper we show that the complete Euclidean graph always contains a plane spanner of maximum degree at most 4 and make a big step toward closing the question. Our construction leads to an efficient algorithm for obtaining the spanner from Chew's L1-Delaunay triangulation.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2014

On the Ordered List Subgraph Embedding Problems

In the (parameterized) Ordered List Subgraph Embedding problem (p-OLSE) we are given two graphs $G$ and $H$, each with a linear order defined on its vertices, a function $L$ that associates with every vertex in $G$ a list of vertices in $H$, and a parameter $k$. The question is to decide if we can embed (one-to-one) a subgraph $S$ of $G$ of $k$ vertices into $H$ such that: (1) every vertex of $S$ is mapped to a vertex from its associated list, (2) the linear orders inherited by $S$ and its image under the embedding are respected, and (3) if there is an edge between two vertices in $S$ then there is an edge between their images. If we require the subgraph $S$ to be embedded as an induced subgraph, we obtain the Ordered List Induced Subgraph Embedding problem (p-OLISE). The p-OLSE and p-OLISE problems model various problems in Bioinformatics related to structural comparison/alignment of proteins. We investigate the complexity of p-OLSE and p-OLISE with respect to the following structural parameters: the width $Δ_L$ of the function $L$ (size of the largest list), and the maximum degree $Δ_H$ of $H$ and $Δ_G$ of $G$. In terms of the structural parameters under consideration, we draw a complete complexity landscape of p-OLSE and p-OLISE (and their optimization versions) with respect to the computational frameworks of classical complexity, parameterized complexity, and approximation.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2013

Algorithms for Cut Problems on Trees

We study the {\sc multicut on trees} and the {\sc generalized multiway Cut on trees} problems. For the {\sc multicut on trees} problem, we present a parameterized algorithm that runs in time $O^{*}(ρ^k)$, where $ρ= \sqrt{\sqrt{2} + 1} \approx 1.555$ is the positive root of the polynomial $x^4-2x^2-1$. This improves the current-best algorithm of Chen et al. that runs in time $O^{*}(1.619^k)$. For the {\sc generalized multiway cut on trees} problem, we show that this problem is solvable in polynomial time if the number of terminal sets is fixed; this answers an open question posed in a recent paper by Liu and Zhang. By reducing the {\sc generalized multiway cut on trees} problem to the {\sc multicut on trees} problem, our results give a parameterized algorithm that solves the {\sc generalized multiway cut on trees} problem in time $O^{*}(ρ^k)$, where $ρ= \sqrt{\sqrt{2} + 1} \approx 1.555$ time.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2013

On the Subexponential Time Complexity of CSP

A CSP with n variables ranging over a domain of d values can be solved by brute-force in d^n steps (omitting a polynomial factor). With a more careful approach, this trivial upper bound can be improved for certain natural restrictions of the CSP. In this paper we establish theoretical limits to such improvements, and draw a detailed landscape of the subexponential-time complexity of CSP. We first establish relations between the subexponential-time complexity of CSP and that of other problems, including CNF-Sat. We exploit this connection to provide tight characterizations of the subexponential-time complexity of CSP under common assumptions in complexity theory. For several natural CSP parameters, we obtain threshold functions that precisely dictate the subexponential-time complexity of CSP with respect to the parameters under consideration. Our analysis provides fundamental results indicating whether and when one can significantly improve on the brute-force search approach for solving CSP.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2011

What makes normalized weighted satisfiability tractable

We consider the weighted antimonotone and the weighted monotone satisfiability problems on normalized circuits of depth at most $t \geq 2$, abbreviated {\sc wsat$^-[t]$} and {\sc wsat$^+[t]$}, respectively. These problems model the weighted satisfiability of antimonotone and monotone propositional formulas (including weighted anitmonoone/monotone {\sc cnf-sat}) in a natural way, and serve as the canonical problems in the definition of the parameterized complexity hierarchy. We characterize the parameterized complexity of {\sc wsat$^-[t]$} and {\sc wsat$^+[t]$} with respect to the genus of the circuit. For {\sc wsat$^-[t]$}, which is $W[t]$-complete for odd $t$ and $W[t-1]$-complete for even $t$, the characterization is precise: We show that {\sc wsat$^-[t]$} is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) if the genus of the circuit is $n^{o(1)}$ ($n$ is the number of the variables in the circuit), and that it has the same $W$-hardness as the general {\sc wsat$^-[t]$} problem (i.e., with no restriction on the genus) if the genus is $n^{O(1)}$. For {\sc wsat$^+[2]$} (i.e., weighted monotone {\sc cnf-sat}), which is $W[2]$-complete, the characterization is also precise: We show that {\sc wsat$^+[2]$} is FPT if the genus is $n^{o(1)}$ and $W[2]$-complete if the genus is $n^{O(1)}$. For {\sc wsat$^+[t]$} where $t > 2$, which is $W[t]$-complete for even $t$ and $W[t-1]$-complete for odd $t$, we show that it is FPT if the genus is $O(\sqrt{\log{n}})$, and that it has the same $W$-hardness as the general {\sc wsat$^+[t]$} problem if the genus is $n^{O(1)}$.

cs.CC↗