arXiv subjects

Nicolas Bousquet

Publications and source records attributed to Nicolas Bousquet.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Parameterized Complexity of Independent Set in H-Free Graphs

In this paper, we investigate the complexity of Maximum Independent Set (MIS) in the class of $H$-free graphs, that is, graphs excluding a fixed graph as an induced subgraph. Given that the problem remains $NP$-hard for most graphs $H$, we study its fixed-parameter tractability and make progress towards a dichotomy between $FPT$ and $W[1]$-hard cases. We first show that MIS remains $W[1]$-hard in graphs forbidding simultaneously $K_{1, 4}$, any finite set of cycles of length at least $4$, and any finite set of trees with at least two branching vertices. In particular, this answers an open question of Dabrowski et al. concerning $C_4$-free graphs. Then we extend the polynomial algorithm of Alekseev when $H$ is a disjoint union of edges to an $FPT$ algorithm when $H$ is a disjoint union of cliques. We also provide a framework for solving several other cases, which is a generalization of the concept of \emph{iterative expansion} accompanied by the extraction of a particular structure using Ramsey's theorem. Iterative expansion is a maximization version of the so-called \emph{iterative compression}. We believe that our framework can be of independent interest for solving other similar graph problems. Finally, we present positive and negative results on the existence of polynomial (Turing) kernels for several graphs $H$.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Distributed coloring in sparse graphs with fewer colors

This paper is concerned with efficiently coloring sparse graphs in the distributed setting with as few colors as possible. According to the celebrated Four Color Theorem, planar graphs can be colored with at most 4 colors, and the proof gives a (sequential) quadratic algorithm finding such a coloring. A natural problem is to improve this complexity in the distributed setting. Using the fact that planar graphs contain linearly many vertices of degree at most 6, Goldberg, Plotkin, and Shannon obtained a deterministic distributed algorithm coloring $n$-vertex planar graphs with 7 colors in $O(\log n)$ rounds. Here, we show how to color planar graphs with 6 colors in $\mbox{polylog}(n)$ rounds. Our algorithm indeed works more generally in the list-coloring setting and for sparse graphs (for such graphs we improve by at least one the number of colors resulting from an efficient algorithm of Barenboim and Elkin, at the expense of a slightly worst complexity). Our bounds on the number of colors turn out to be quite sharp in general. Among other results, we show that no distributed algorithm can color every $n$-vertex planar graph with 4 colors in $o(n)$ rounds.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

Shortest Reconfiguration of Matchings

Imagine that unlabelled tokens are placed on the edges of a graph, such that no two tokens are placed on incident edges. A token can jump to another edge if the edges having tokens remain independent. We study the problem of determining the distance between two token configurations (resp., the corresponding matchings), which is given by the length of a shortest transformation. We give a polynomial-time algorithm for the case that at least one of the two configurations is not inclusion-wise maximal and show that otherwise, the problem admits no polynomial-time sublogarithmic-factor approximation unless P = NP. Furthermore, we show that the distance of two configurations in bipartite graphs is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the size $d$ of the symmetric difference of the source and target configurations, and obtain a $d^\varepsilon$-factor approximation algorithm for every $\varepsilon > 0$ if additionally the configurations correspond to maximum matchings. Our two main technical tools are the Edmonds-Gallai decomposition and a close relation to the Directed Steiner Tree problem. Using the former, we also characterize those graphs whose corresponding configuration graphs are connected. Finally, we show that deciding if the distance between two configurations is equal to a given number $\ell$ is complete for the class $D^P$, and deciding if the diameter of the graph of configurations is equal to $\ell$ is $D^P$-hard.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2018

Frozen $(Δ+1)$-colourings of bounded degree graphs

Let $G$ be a graph of maximum degree $Δ$ and $k$ be an integer. The $k$-recolouring graph of $G$ is the graph whose vertices are $k$-colourings of $G$ and where two $k$-colourings are adjacent if they differ at exactly one vertex. It is well-known that the $k$-recolouring graph is connected for $k\geq Δ+2$. Feghali, Johnson and Paulusma [Journal of Graph Theory, 83(4):340--358] showed that the $(Δ+1)$-recolouring graph is composed by a unique connected component of size at least $2$ and (possibly many) isolated vertices. In this paper, we study the proportion of isolated vertices (also called frozen colourings) in the $(Δ+1)$-recolouring graph. Our main contribution is to show that, if $G$ is connected, the proportion of frozen colourings of $G$ is exponentially smaller than the total number of colourings. This motivates the study of the Glauber dynamics on $(Δ+1)$-colourings. In contrast to the conjectured mixing time for $k\geq Δ+2$ colours, we show that the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for $(Δ+1)$-colourings can be of quadratic order. Finally, we prove some results about the existence of graphs with large girth and frozen colourings, and study frozen colourings in random regular graphs.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

Reconfiguration of graphs with connectivity constraints

A graph $G$ realizes the degree sequence $S$ if the degrees of its vertices is $S$. Hakimi gave a necessary and sufficient condition to guarantee that there exists a connected multigraph realizing $S$. Taylor later proved that any connected multigraph can be transformed into any other via a sequence of flips (maintaining connectivity at any step). A flip consists in replacing two edges $ab$ and $cd$ by the diagonals $ac$ and $bd$. In this paper, we study a generalization of this problem. A set of subsets of vertices $\mathcal{CC}$ is \emph{nested} if for every $C,C' \in \mathcal{CC}$ either $C \cap C' = \emptyset$ or one is included in the other. We are interested in multigraphs realizing a degree sequence $S$ and such that all the sets of a nested collection $\mathcal{CC}$ induce connected subgraphs. Such constraints naturally appear in tandem mass spectrometry. We show that it is possible to decide in polynomial if there exists a graph realizing $S$ where all the sets in $\mathcal{CC}$ induce connected subgraphs. Moreover, we prove that all such graphs can be obtained via a sequence of flips such that all the intermediate graphs also realize $S$ and where all the sets of $\mathcal{CC}$ induce connected subgraphs. Our proof is algorithmic and provides a polynomial time approximation algorithm on the shortest sequence of flips between two graphs whose ratio depends on the depth of the nested partition.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2018

Bayesian prior elicitation and selection for extreme values

A major issue of extreme value analysis is the determination of the shape parameter $ξ$ common to Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) and Generalized Pareto (GP) distributions, which drives the tail behavior, and is of major impact on the estimation of return levels and periods. Many practitioners make the choice of a Bayesian framework to conduct this assessment for accounting of parametric uncertainties, which are typically high in such analyses characterized by a low number of observations. Nonetheless, such approaches can provide large credibility domains for $ξ$, including negative and positive values, which does not allow to conclude on the nature of the tail. Considering the block maxima framework, a generic approach of the determination of the value and sign of $ξ$ arises from model selection between the Fréchet, Gumbel and Weibull possible domains of attraction conditionally to observations. Opposite to the common choice of the GEV as an appropriate model for {\it sampling} extreme values, this model selection must be conducted with great care. The elicitation of proper, informative and easy-to use priors is conducted based on the following principle: for all parameter dimensions they act as posteriors of noninformative priors and virtual samples. Statistics of these virtual samples can be assessed from prior predictive information, and a compatibility rule can be carried out to complete the calibration, even though they are only semi-conjugated. Besides, the model selection is conducted using a mixture encompassing framework, which allows to tackle the computation of Bayes factors. Motivating by a real case-study involving the elicitation of expert knowledge on meteorological magnitudes, the overall methodology is illustrated by toy examples too.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2018

Exact distance coloring in trees

For an integer $q\ge 2$ and an even integer $d$, consider the graph obtained from a large complete $q$-ary tree by connecting with an edge any two vertices at distance exactly $d$ in the tree. This graph has clique number $q+1$, and the purpose of this short note is to prove that its chromatic number is $Θ\big(\tfrac{d \log q}{\log d}\big)$. It was not known that the chromatic number of this graph grows with $d$. As a simple corollary of our result, we give a negative answer to a problem of van den Heuvel and Naserasr, asking whether there is a constant $C$ such that for any odd integer $d$, any planar graph can be colored with at most $C$ colors such that any pair of vertices at distance exactly $d$ have distinct colors. Finally, we study interval coloring of trees (where vertices at distance at least $d$ and at most $cd$, for some real $c>1$, must be assigned distinct colors), giving a sharp upper bound in the case of bounded degree trees.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

Detecting and modeling worst-case dependence structures between random inputs of computational reliability models

Uncertain information on input parameters of reliability models is usually modeled by considering these parameters as random, and described by marginal distributions and a dependence structure of these variables. In numerous real-world applications, while information is mainly provided by marginal distributions, typically from samples , little is really known on the dependence structure itself. Faced with this problem of incomplete or missing information, risk studies are often conducted by considering independence of input variables, at the risk of including irrelevant situations. This approach is especially used when reliability functions are considered as black-box computational models. Such analyses remain weakened in absence of in-depth model exploration, at the possible price of a strong risk misestimation. Considering the frequent case where the reliability output is a quantile, this article provides a methodology to improve risk assessment, by exploring a set of pessimistic dependencies using a copula-based strategy. In dimension greater than two, a greedy algorithm is provided to build input regular vine copulas reaching a minimum quantile to which a reliability admissible limit value can be compared, by selecting pairwise components of sensitive influence on the result. The strategy is tested over toy models and a real industrial case-study. The results highlight that current approaches can provide non-conservative results, and that a nontrivial dependence structure can be exhibited to define a worst-case scenario.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2018

EPTAS for Max Clique on Disks and Unit Balls

We propose a polynomial-time algorithm which takes as input a finite set of points of $\mathbb R^3$ and compute, up to arbitrary precision, a maximum subset with diameter at most $1$. More precisely, we give the first randomized EPTAS and deterministic PTAS for Maximum Clique in unit ball graphs. Our approximation algorithm also works on disk graphs with arbitrary radii. Almost three decades ago, an elegant polynomial-time algorithm was found for Maximum Clique on unit disk graphs [Clark, Colbourn, Johnson; Discrete Mathematics '90]. Since then, it has been an intriguing open question whether or not tractability can be extended to general disk graphs. Recently, it was shown that the disjoint union of two odd cycles is never the complement of a disk graph [Bonnet, Giannopoulos, Kim, Rzążewski, Sikora; SoCG '18]. This enabled the authors to derive a QPTAS and a subexponential algorithm for Max Clique on disk graphs. In this paper, we improve the approximability to a randomized EPTAS (and a deterministic PTAS). More precisely, we obtain a randomized EPTAS for computing the independence number on graphs having no disjoint union of two odd cycles as an induced subgraph, bounded VC-dimension, and large independence number. We then address the question of computing Max Clique for disks in higher dimensions. We show that intersection graphs of unit balls, like disk graphs, do not admit the complement of two odd cycles as an induced subgraph. This, in combination with the first result, straightforwardly yields a randomized EPTAS for Max Clique on unit ball graphs. In stark contrast, we show that on ball and unit 4-dimensional disk graphs, Max Clique is NP-hard and does not admit an approximation scheme even in subexponential-time, unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis fails.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2017

An innovative solution for breast cancer textual big data analysis

The digitalization of stored information in hospitals now allows for the exploitation of medical data in text format, as electronic health records (EHRs), initially gathered for other purposes than epidemiology. Manual search and analysis operations on such data become tedious. In recent years, the use of natural language processing (NLP) tools was highlighted to automatize the extraction of information contained in EHRs, structure it and perform statistical analysis on this structured information. The main difficulties with the existing approaches is the requirement of synonyms or ontology dictionaries, that are mostly available in English only and do not include local or custom notations. In this work, a team composed of oncologists as domain experts and data scientists develop a custom NLP-based system to process and structure textual clinical reports of patients suffering from breast cancer. The tool relies on the combination of standard text mining techniques and an advanced synonym detection method. It allows for a global analysis by retrieval of indicators such as medical history, tumor characteristics, therapeutic responses, recurrences and prognosis. The versatility of the method allows to obtain easily new indicators, thus opening up the way for retrospective studies with a substantial reduction of the amount of manual work. With no need for biomedical annotators or pre-defined ontologies, this language-agnostic method reached an good extraction accuracy for several concepts of interest, according to a comparison with a manually structured file, without requiring any existing corpus with local or new notations.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2017

Decomposition techniques applied to the Clique-Stable set Separation problem

In a graph, a Clique-Stable Set separator (CS-separator) is a family $\mathcal{C}$ of cuts (bipartitions of the vertex set) such that for every clique $K$ and every stable set $S$ with $K \cap S = \emptyset$, there exists a cut $( W,W')$ in $\mathcal{C}$ such that $K \subseteq W$ and $S \subseteq W'$. Starting from a question concerning extended formulations of the Stable Set polytope and a related complexity communication problem, Yannakakis [17] asked in 1991 the following questions: does every graph admit a polynomial-size CS-separator? If not, does every perfect graph do? Several positive and negative results related to this question were given recently. Here we show how graph decomposition can be used to prove that a class of graphs admits a polynomial CS-separator. We apply this method to apple-free graphs and cap-free graphs.

math.CO↗

arXiv2017

A Vizing-like theorem for union vertex-distinguishing edge coloring

We introduce a variant of the vertex-distinguishing edge coloring problem, where each edge is assigned a subset of colors. The label of a vertex is the union of the sets of colors on edges incident to it. In this paper we investigate the problem of finding a coloring with the minimum number of colors where every vertex receives a distinct label. Finding such a coloring generalizes several other well-known problems of vertex-distinguishing colorings in graphs.We show that for any graph (without connected component reduced to an edge or a single vertex), the minimum number of colors for which such a coloring exists can only take 3possible values depending on the order of the graph. Moreover, we provide the exact value for paths, cycles and complete binary trees.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2017

Token Jumping in minor-closed classes

Given two $k$-independent sets $I$ and $J$ of a graph $G$, one can ask if it is possible to transform the one into the other in such a way that, at any step, we replace one vertex of the current independent set by another while keeping the property of being independent. Deciding this problem, known as the Token Jumping (TJ) reconfiguration problem, is PSPACE-complete even on planar graphs. Ito et al. proved in 2014 that the problem is FPT parameterized by $k$ if the input graph is $K_{3,\ell}$-free. We prove that the result of Ito et al. can be extended to any $K_{\ell,\ell}$-free graphs. In other words, if $G$ is a $K_{\ell,\ell}$-free graph, then it is possible to decide in FPT-time if $I$ can be transformed into $J$. As a by product, the TJ-reconfiguration problem is FPT in many well-known classes of graphs such as any minor-free class.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2017

Computing maximum cliques in $B_2$-EPG graphs

EPG graphs, introduced by Golumbic et al. in 2009, are edge-intersection graphs of paths on an orthogonal grid. The class $B_k$-EPG is the subclass of EPG graphs where the path on the grid associated to each vertex has at most $k$ bends. Epstein et al. showed in 2013 that computing a maximum clique in $B_1$-EPG graphs is polynomial. As remarked in [Heldt et al., 2014], when the number of bends is at least $4$, the class contains $2$-interval graphs for which computing a maximum clique is an NP-hard problem. The complexity status of the Maximum Clique problem remains open for $B_2$ and $B_3$-EPG graphs. In this paper, we show that we can compute a maximum clique in polynomial time in $B_2$-EPG graphs given a representation of the graph. Moreover, we show that a simple counting argument provides a ${2(k+1)}$-approximation for the coloring problem on $B_k$-EPG graphs without knowing the representation of the graph. It generalizes a result of [Epstein et al, 2013] on $B_1$-EPG graphs (where the representation was needed).

cs.DS↗

arXiv2017

Identifying codes in hereditary classes of graphs and VC-dimension

An identifying code of a graph is a subset of its vertices such that every vertex of the graph is uniquely identified by the set of its neighbours within the code. We show a dichotomy for the size of the smallest identifying code in classes of graphs closed under induced subgraphs. Our dichotomy is derived from the VC-dimension of the considered class C, that is the maximum VC-dimension over the hypergraphs formed by the closed neighbourhoods of elements of C. We show that hereditary classes with infinite VC-dimension have infinitely many graphs with an identifying code of size logarithmic in the number of vertices while classes with finite VC-dimension have a polynomial lower bound. We then turn to approximation algorithms. We show that the problem of finding a smallest identifying code in a given graph from some class is log-APX-hard for any hereditary class of infinite VC-dimension. For hereditary classes of finite VC-dimension, the only known previous results show that we can approximate the identifying code problem within a constant factor in some particular classes, e.g. line graphs, planar graphs and unit interval graphs. We prove that it can be approximate within a factor 6 for interval graphs. In contrast, we show that on C_4-free bipartite graphs (a class of finite VC-dimension) it cannot be approximated to within a factor of c.log(|V|) for some c>0.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2016

On a conjecture of Mohar concerning Kempe equivalence of regular graphs

Let $G$ be a graph with a vertex colouring $α$. Let $a$ and $b$ be two colours. Then a connected component of the subgraph induced by those vertices coloured either $a$ or $b$ is known as a Kempe chain. A colouring of $G$ obtained from $α$ by swapping the colours on the vertices of a Kempe chain is said to have been obtained by a Kempe change. Two colourings of $G$ are Kempe equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by a sequence of Kempe changes. A conjecture of Mohar (2007) asserts that, for $k \geq 3$, all $k$-colourings of a $k$-regular graph that is not complete are Kempe equivalent. It was later shown that all $3$-colourings of a cubic graph that is neither $K_4$ nor the triangular prism are Kempe equivalent. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture holds for each $k\geq 4$. We also report the implications of this result on the validity of the Wang-Swendsen-Kotecký algorithm for the antiferromagnetic Potts model at zero-temperature.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2016

$χ$-bounded families of oriented graphs

A famous conjecture of Gyárfás and Sumner states for any tree $T$ and integer $k$, if the chromatic number of a graph is large enough, either the graph contains a clique of size $k$ or it contains $T$ as an induced subgraph. We discuss some results and open problems about extensions of this conjecture to oriented graphs. We conjecture that for every oriented star $S$ and integer $k$, if the chromatic number of a digraph is large enough, either the digraph contains a clique of size $k$ or it contains $S$ as an induced subgraph. As an evidence, we prove that for any oriented star $S$, every oriented graph with sufficiently large chromatic number contains either a transitive tournament of order $3$ or $S$ as an induced subdigraph. We then study for which sets ${\cal P}$ of orientations of $P_4$ (the path on four vertices) similar statements hold. We establish some positive and negative results.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2016

Token Sliding on Chordal Graphs

Let I be an independent set of a graph G. Imagine that a token is located on any vertex of I. We can now move the tokens of I along the edges of the graph as long as the set of tokens still defines an independent set of G. Given two independent sets I and J, the Token Sliding problem consists in deciding whether there exists a sequence of independent sets which transforms I into J so that every pair of consecutive independent sets of the sequence can be obtained via a token move. This problem is known to be PSPACE-complete even on planar graphs. In 2014, Demaine et al. asked whether the Token Sliding reconfiguration problem is polynomial time solvable on interval graphs and more generally in chordal graphs. Yamada and Uehara showed in 2016 that a polynomial time transformation can be found in proper interval graphs. In this paper, we answer the first question of Demaine et al. and generalize the result of Yamada and Uehara by showing that we can decide in polynomial time whether two independent sets of an interval graph are in the same connected component. Moveover, we answer similar questions by showing that: (i) determining if there exists a token sliding transformation between every pair of k-independent sets in an interval graph can be decided in polynomial time; (ii) deciding this problem becomes co-NP-hard and even co-W[2]-hard (parameterized by the size of the independent set) on split graphs, a sub-class of chordal graphs.

cs.DM↗