arXiv subjects

Pablo Pérez-Lantero

Publications and source records attributed to Pablo Pérez-Lantero.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

The Euclidean $k$-Matching Problem is NP-hard

Let $G$ be a complete edge-weighted graph on $n$ vertices. To each subset of vertices of $G$ assign the cost of the minimum spanning tree of the subset as its weight. Suppose that $n$ is a multiple of some fixed positive integer $k$. The $k$-matching problem is the problem of finding a partition of the vertices of $G$ into $k$-sets, that minimizes the sum of the weights of the $k$-sets. The case $k=3$ has been shown to be NP-hard [Johnsson et al.,1998]. In the Euclidean version, the vertices of $G$ are points in the plane and the weight of an edge is the Euclidean distance between its endpoints. We call this problem the Euclidean $k$-matching problem. We show that, for every fixed $k \ge 3$, the Euclidean $k$-matching is NP-hard. This resolves an open problem in the literature and provides the first theoretical justification for the use of known heuristic methods in the case $k=3$. We also show that the problem remains NP-hard if the trees are required to be paths.

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arXiv2025

On maximum-sum matchings of bichromatic points

Huemer et al. (Discrete Math, 2019) proved that for any two finite point sets $R$ and $B$ in the plane with $|R| = |B|$, the perfect matching that matches points of $R$ with points of $B$, and maximizes the total squared Euclidean distance of the matched pairs, has the property that all the disks induced by the matching have a nonempty common intersection. A pair of matched points induces the disk that has the segment connecting the points as diameter. In this note, we characterize these maximum-sum matchings for some family of continuous (semi-)metrics, focusing on both the Euclidean distance and squared Euclidean distance. Using this characterization, we give a different but simpler proof for the common intersection property proved by Huemer et al..

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arXiv2025

Matching random colored points with rectangles (Corrigendum)

Given $n>0$, let $S\subset [0,1]^2$ be a set of $n$ points, chosen uniformly at random. Let $R\cup B$ be a random partition, or coloring, of $S$ in which each point of $S$ is included in $R$ uniformly at random with probability $1/2$. Corujo et al.~(JOCO 2023) studied the random variable $M(n)$ equal to the number of points of $S$ that are covered by the rectangles of a maximum matching of $S$ using pairwise-disjoint rectangles. Each rectangle is axis-aligned and covers exactly two points of $S$ of the same color. They designed a deterministic algorithm to match points of $S$, and the algorithm was modeled as a discrete stochastic process over a finite set of states. After claiming that the stochastic process is a Markov chain, they proved that almost surely $M(n)\ge 0.83\,n$ for $n$ large enough. The issue is that such a process is not actually a Markov one, as we discuss in this note. We argue this issue, and correct it by obtaining the same result but considering that the stochastic process is not Markov, but satisfies some kind of first-order homogeneity property that allows us to compute its marginal distributions.

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arXiv2024

Maximum rectilinear convex subsets

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane. We consider a variation of the classical Erdős-Szekeres problem, presenting efficient algorithms with $O(n^3)$ running time and $O(n^2)$ space complexity that compute: (1) A subset $S$ of $P$ such that the boundary of the rectilinear convex hull of $S$ has the maximum number of points from $P$, (2) a subset $S$ of $P$ such that the boundary of the rectilinear convex hull of $S$ has the maximum number of points from $P$ and its interior contains no element of $P$, (3) a subset $S$ of $P$ such that the rectilinear convex hull of $S$ has maximum area and its interior contains no element of $P$, and (4) when each point of $P$ is assigned a weight, positive or negative, a subset $S$ of $P$ that maximizes the total weight of the points in the rectilinear convex hull of $S$. We also revisit the problems of computing a maximum-area orthoconvex polygon and computing a maximum-area staircase polygon, amidst a point set in a rectangular domain. We obtain new and simpler algorithms to solve both problems with the same complexity as in the state of the art.

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arXiv2023

Center of maximum-sum matchings of bichromatic points

Let $R$ and $B$ be two disjoint point sets in the plane with $|R|=|B|=n$. Let $\mathcal{M}=\{(r_i,b_i),i=1,2,\ldots,n\}$ be a perfect matching that matches points of $R$ with points of $B$ and maximizes $\sum_{i=1}^n\|r_i-b_i\|$, the total Euclidean distance of the matched pairs. In this paper, we prove that there exists a point $o$ of the plane (the center of $\mathcal{M}$) such that $\|r_i-o\|+\|b_i-o\|\le \sqrt{2}~\|r_i-b_i\|$ for all $i\in\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Rectilinear Convex Hull of Points in 3D

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^3$ in general position, and let $RCH(P)$ be the rectilinear convex hull of $P$. In this paper we obtain an optimal $O(n\log n)$-time and $O(n)$-space algorithm to compute $RCH(P)$. We also obtain an efficient $O(n\log^2 n)$-time and $O(n\log n)$-space algorithm to compute and maintain the set of vertices of the rectilinear convex hull of $P$ as we rotate $\mathbb R^3$ around the $z$-axis. Finally we study some properties of the rectilinear convex hulls of point sets in $\mathbb{R}^3$.

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arXiv2020

Non-crossing Monotone Paths and Binary Trees in Edge-ordered Complete Geometric Graphs

An edge-ordered graph is a graph with a total ordering of its edges. A path $P=v_1v_2\ldots v_k$ in an edge-ordered graph is called increasing if $(v_iv_{i+1}) > (v_{i+1}v_{i+2})$ for all $i = 1,\ldots,k-2$; it is called decreasing if $(v_iv_{i+1}) < (v_{i+1}v_{i+2})$ for all $i = 1,\ldots,k-2$. We say that $P$ is monotone if it is increasing or decreasing. A rooted tree $T$ in an edge-ordered graph is called monotone if either every path from the root of to a leaf is increasing or every path from the root to a leaf is decreasing. Let $G$ be a graph. In a straight-line drawing $D$ of $G$, its vertices are drawn as different points in the plane and its edges are straight line segments. Let $\overlineα(G)$ be the maximum integer such that every edge-ordered straight-line drawing of $G$ %under any edge labeling contains a monotone non-crossing path of length $\overlineα(G)$. Let $\overlineτ(G)$ be the maximum integer such that every edge-ordered straight-line drawing of $G$ %under any edge labeling contains a monotone non-crossing complete binary tree of size $\overlineτ(G)$. In this paper we show that $\overline α(K_n) = Ω(\log\log n)$, $\overline α(K_n) = O(\log n)$, $\overline τ(K_n) = Ω(\log\log \log n)$ and $\overline τ(K_n) = O(\sqrt{n \log n})$.

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arXiv2019

On Maximum-Sum Matchings of Points

Huemer et al. (Discrete Mathematics, 2019) proved that for any two point sets $R$ and $B$ with $|R|=|B|$, the perfect matching that matches points of $R$ with points of $B$, and maximizes the total \emph{squared} Euclidean distance of the matched pairs, verifies that all the disks induced by the matching have a common point. Each pair of matched points $p\in R$ and $q\in B$ induces the disk of smallest diameter that covers $p$ and $q$. Following this research line, in this paper we consider the perfect matching that maximizes the total Euclidean distance. First, we prove that this new matching for $R$ and $B$ does not always ensure the common intersection property of the disks. Second, we extend the study of this new matching for sets of $2n$ uncolored points in the plane, where a matching is just a partition of the points into $n$ pairs. As the main result, we prove that in this case all disks of the matching do have a common point. This implies a big improvement on a conjecture of Andy Fingerhut in 1995, about a maximum matching of $2n$ points in the plane.

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arXiv2019

On weighted sums of numbers of convex polygons in point sets

Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points in general position in the plane, and let $X_{k,\ell}(S)$ be the number of convex $k$-gons with vertices in $S$ that have exactly $\ell$ points of $S$ in their interior. We prove several equalities for the numbers $X_{k,\ell}(S)$. This problem is related to the Erdős-Szekeres theorem. Some of the obtained equations also extend known equations for the numbers of empty convex polygons to polygons with interior points. Analogous results for higher dimension are shown as well.

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arXiv2019

Matching points with disks with a common intersection

We consider matchings with diametral disks between two sets of points R and B. More precisely, for each pair of matched points p in R and q in B, we consider the disk through p and q with the smallest diameter. We prove that for any R and B such that |R|=|B|, there exists a perfect matching such that the diametral disks of the matched point pairs have a common intersection. In fact, our result is stronger, and shows that a maximum weight perfect matching has this property.

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arXiv2019

$K_{1,3}$-covering red and blue points in the plane

We say that a finite set of red and blue points in the plane in general position can be $K_{1,3}$-covered if the set can be partitioned into subsets of size $4$, with $3$ points of one color and $1$ point of the other color, in such a way that, if at each subset the fourth point is connected by straight-line segments to the same-colored points, then the resulting set of all segments has no crossings. We consider the following problem: Given a set $R$ of $r$ red points and a set $B$ of $b$ blue points in the plane in general position, how many points of $R\cup B$ can be $K_{1,3}$-covered? and we prove the following results: (1) If $r=3g+h$ and $b=3h+g$, for some non-negative integers $g$ and $h$, then there are point sets $R\cup B$, like $\{1,3\}$-equitable sets (i.e., $r=3b$ or $b=3r$) and linearly separable sets, that can be $K_{1,3}$-covered. (2) If $r=3g+h$, $b=3h+g$ and the points in $R\cup B$ are in convex position, then at least $r+b-4$ points can be $K_{1,3}$-covered, and this bound is tight. (3) There are arbitrarily large point sets $R\cup B$ in general position, with $r=b+1$, such that at most $r+b-5$ points can be $K_{1,3}$-covered. (4) If $b\le r\le 3b$, then at least $\frac{8}{9}(r+b-8)$ points of $R\cup B$ can be $K_{1,3}$-covered. For $r>3b$, there are too many red points and at least $r-3b$ of them will remain uncovered in any $K_{1,3}$-covering. Furthermore, in all the cases we provide efficient algorithms to compute the corresponding coverings.

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arXiv2018

On the intersection graph of the disks with diameters the sides of a convex $n$-gon

Given a convex $n$-gon, we can draw $n$ disks (called side disks) where each disk has a different side of the polygon as diameter and the midpoint of the side as its center. The intersection graph of such disks is the undirected graph with vertices the $n$ disks and two disks are adjacent if and only if they have a point in common. Such a graph was introduced by Huemer and Pérez-Lantero in 2016, proved to be planar and Hamiltonian. In this paper we study further combinatorial properties of this graph. We prove that the treewidth is at most 3, by showing an $O(n)$-time algorithm that builds a tree decomposition of width at most 3, given the polygon as input. This implies that we can construct the intersection graph of the side disks in $O(n)$ time. We further study the independence number of this graph, which is the maximum number of pairwise disjoint disks. The planarity condition implies that for every convex $n$-gon we can select at least $\lceil n/4 \rceil$ pairwise disjoint disks, and we prove that for every $n\ge 3$ there exist convex $n$-gons in which we cannot select more than this number. Finally, we show that our class of graphs includes all outerplanar Hamiltonian graphs except the cycle of length four, and that it is a proper subclass of the planar Hamiltonian graphs.

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arXiv2018

Computing Coverage Kernels Under Restricted Settings

We consider the Minimum Coverage Kernel problem: given a set $B$ of $d$-dimensional boxes, find a subset of $B$ of minimum size covering the same region as $B$. This problem is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard, but as for many $\mathsf{NP}$-hard problems on graphs, the problem becomes solvable in polynomial time under restrictions on the graph induced by $B$. We consider various classes of graphs, show that Minimum Coverage Kernel remains $\mathsf{NP}$-hard even for severely restricted instances, and provide two polynomial time approximation algorithms for this problem.

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arXiv2018

On the Diameter of Tree Associahedra

We consider a natural notion of search trees on graphs, which we show is ubiquitous in various areas of discrete mathematics and computer science. Search trees on graphs can be modified by local operations called rotations, which generalize rotations in binary search trees. The rotation graph of search trees on a graph $G$ is the skeleton of a polytope called the graph associahedron of $G$. We consider the case where the graph $G$ is a tree. We construct a family of trees $G$ on $n$ vertices and pairs of search trees on $G$ such that the minimum number of rotations required to transform one search tree into the other is $Ω(n\log n)$. This implies that the worst-case diameter of tree associahedra is $Θ(n\log n)$, which answers a question from Thibault Manneville and Vincent Pilaud. The proof relies on a notion of projection of a search tree which may be of independent interest.

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arXiv2018

Colored ray configurations

We study the cyclic color sequences induced at infinity by colored rays with apices being a given balanced finite bichromatic point set. We first study the case in which the rays are required to be pairwise disjoint. We derive a lower bound on the number of color sequences that can be realized from any such fixed point set and examine color sequences that can be realized regardless of the point set, exhibiting negative examples as well. We also provide a tight upper bound on the number of configurations that can be realized from a point set, and point sets for which there are asymptotically less configurations than that number. In addition, we provide algorithms to decide whether a color sequence is realizable from a given point set in a line or in general position. We address afterwards the variant of the problem where the rays are allowed to intersect. We prove that for some configurations and point sets, the number of ray crossings must be $Θ(n^2)$ and study then configurations that can be realized by rays that pairwise cross. We show that there are point sets for which the number of configurations that can be realized by pairwise-crossing rays is asymptotically smaller than the number of configurations realizable by pairwise-disjoint rays. We provide also point sets from which any configuration can be realized by pairwise-crossing rays and show that there is no configuration that can be realized by pairwise-crossing rays from every point set.

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arXiv2017

Depth Distribution in High Dimensions

Motivated by the analysis of range queries in databases, we introduce the computation of the Depth Distribution of a set $\mathcal{B}$ of axis aligned boxes, whose computation generalizes that of the Klee's Measure and of the Maximum Depth. In the worst case over instances of fixed input size $n$, we describe an algorithm of complexity within $O({n^\frac{d+1}{2}\log n})$, using space within $O({n\log n})$, mixing two techniques previously used to compute the Klee's Measure. We refine this result and previous results on the Klee's Measure and the Maximum Depth for various measures of difficulty of the input, such as the profile of the input and the degeneracy of the intersection graph formed by the boxes.

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arXiv2016

The intersection graph of the disks with diameters the sides of a convex $n$-gon

Given a convex polygon of $n$ sides, one can draw $n$ disks (called side disks) where each disk has a different side of the polygon as diameter and the midpoint of the side as its center. The intersection graph of such disks is the undirected graph with vertices the $n$ disks and two disks are adjacent if and only if they have a point in common. We prove that for every convex polygon this graph is planar. Particularly, for $n=5$, this shows that for any convex pentagon there are two disks among the five side disks that do not intersect, which means that $K_5$ is never the intersection graph of such five disks. For $n=6$, we then have that for any convex hexagon the intersection graph of the side disks does not contain $K_{3,3}$ as subgraph.

math.MG↗

arXiv2016

Drawing the Almost Convex Set in an Integer Grid of Minimum Size

In 2001, Károlyi, Pach and Tóth introduced a family of point sets to solve an Erdős-Szekeres type problem; which have been used to solve several other Edős-Szekeres type problems. In this paper we refer to these sets as nested almost convex sets. A nested almost convex set $\mathcal{X}$ has the property that the interior of every triangle determined by three points in the same convex layer of $\mathcal{X}$, contains exactly one point of $\mathcal{X}$. In this paper, we introduce a characterization of nested almost convex sets. Our characterization implies that there exists at most one (up to order type) nested almost convex set of $n$ points. We use our characterization to obtain a linear time algorithm to construct nested almost convex sets of $n$ points, with integer coordinates of absolute values at most $O(n^{\log_2 5})$. Finally, we use our characterization to obtain an $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm to determine whether a set of points is a nested almost convex set.

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