arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Ryuhei Uehara.
We study the complexity of symmetric assembly puzzles: given a collection of simple polygons, can we translate, rotate, and possibly flip them so that their interior-disjoint union is line symmetric? On the negative side, we show that the problem is strongly NP-complete even if the pieces are all polyominos. On the positive side, we show that the problem can be solved in polynomial time if the number of pieces is a fixed constant.
Suppose that two independent sets $I$ and $J$ of a graph with $\vert I \vert = \vert J \vert$ are given, and a token is placed on each vertex in $I$. The Sliding Token problem is to determine whether there exists a sequence of independent sets which transforms $I$ into $J$ so that each independent set in the sequence results from the previous one by sliding exactly one token along an edge in the graph. It is one of the representative reconfiguration problems that attract the attention from the viewpoint of theoretical computer science. For a yes-instance of a reconfiguration problem, finding a shortest reconfiguration sequence has a different aspect. In general, even if it is polynomial time solvable to decide whether two instances are reconfigured with each other, it can be $\mathsf{NP}$-hard to find a shortest sequence between them. In this paper, we show that the problem for finding a shortest sequence between two independent sets is polynomial time solvable for spiders (i.e., trees having exactly one vertex of degree at least three).
A cube is used as a fair die of 6 faces. However, there are many dice of different shapes on the market. To make them fair, most of them usually have some symmetric shapes. We here classify these variants of dice on the market into two groups. We first consider that a sphere as a model of a fair die with infinity faces. Based on this model, many symmetric shapes can be modeled as dice obtained by caving spheres. We also have a familiar fair device; a coin. That is, a fair coin can be seen as a fair die with 2 faces. However, a real coin has a thickness, and hence it is, in fact, an unfair die with 3 faces. From this viewpoint, we propose a way for designing a fair die with n faces for arbitrary n.
We investigate the computational complexity of the following problem. We are given a graph in which each vertex has an initial and a target color. Each pair of adjacent vertices can swap their current colors. Our goal is to perform the minimum number of swaps so that the current and target colors agree at each vertex. When the colors are chosen from {1,2,...,c}, we call this problem c-Colored Token Swapping since the current color of a vertex can be seen as a colored token placed on the vertex. We show that c-Colored Token Swapping is NP-complete for c = 3 even if input graphs are restricted to connected planar bipartite graphs of maximum degree 3. We then show that 2-Colored Token Swapping can be solved in polynomial time for general graphs and in linear time for trees. Besides, we show that, the problem for complete graphs is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the number of colors, while it is known to be NP-complete when the number of colors is unbounded.
Given two independent sets $I, J$ of a graph $G$, and imagine that a token (coin) is placed at each vertex of $I$. The Sliding Token problem asks if one could transform $I$ to $J$ via a sequence of elementary steps, where each step requires sliding a token from one vertex to one of its neighbors so that the resulting set of vertices where tokens are placed remains independent. This problem is $\mathsf{PSPACE}$-complete even for planar graphs of maximum degree $3$ and bounded-treewidth. In this paper, we show that Sliding Token can be solved efficiently for cactus graphs and block graphs, and give upper bounds on the length of a transformation sequence between any two independent sets of these graph classes. Our algorithms are designed based on two main observations. First, all structures that forbid the existence of a sequence of token slidings between $I$ and $J$, if exist, can be found in polynomial time. A sufficient condition for determining no-instances can be easily derived using this characterization. Second, without such forbidden structures, a sequence of token slidings between $I$ and $J$ does exist. In this case, one can indeed transform $I$ to $J$ (and vice versa) using a polynomial number of token-slides.
When can a plane graph with prescribed edge lengths and prescribed angles (from among $\{0,180^\circ, 360^\circ$\}) be folded flat to lie in an infinitesimally thin line, without crossings? This problem generalizes the classic theory of single-vertex flat origami with prescribed mountain-valley assignment, which corresponds to the case of a cycle graph. We characterize such flat-foldable plane graphs by two obviously necessary but also sufficient conditions, proving a conjecture made in 2001: the angles at each vertex should sum to $360^\circ$, and every face of the graph must itself be flat foldable. This characterization leads to a linear-time algorithm for testing flat foldability of plane graphs with prescribed edge lengths and angles, and a polynomial-time algorithm for counting the number of distinct folded states.
We study the computational complexity of the Buttons \& Scissors game and obtain sharp thresholds with respect to several parameters. Specifically we show that the game is NP-complete for $C = 2$ colors but polytime solvable for $C = 1$. Similarly the game is NP-complete if every color is used by at most $F = 4$ buttons but polytime solvable for $F \leq 3$. We also consider restrictions on the board size, cut directions, and cut sizes. Finally, we introduce several natural two-player versions of the game and show that they are PSPACE-complete.
Suppose that we are given two independent sets I_b and I_r of a graph such that |I_b|=|I_r|, and imagine that a token is placed on each vertex in |I_b|. Then, the sliding token problem is to determine whether there exists a sequence of independent sets which transforms I_b into I_r so that each independent set in the sequence results from the previous one by sliding exactly one token along an edge in the graph. The sliding token problem is one of the reconfiguration problems that attract the attention from the viewpoint of theoretical computer science. The reconfiguration problems tend to be PSPACE-complete in general, and some polynomial time algorithms are shown in restricted cases. Recently, the problems that aim at finding a shortest reconfiguration sequence are investigated. For the 3SAT problem, a trichotomy for the complexity of finding the shortest sequence has been shown, that is, it is in P, NP-complete, or PSPACE-complete in certain conditions. In general, even if it is polynomial time solvable to decide whether two instances are reconfigured with each other, it can be NP-complete to find a shortest sequence between them. Namely, finding a shortest sequence between two independent sets can be more difficult than the decision problem of reconfigurability between them. In this paper, we show that the problem for finding a shortest sequence between two independent sets is polynomial time solvable for some graph classes which are subclasses of the class of interval graphs. More precisely, we can find a shortest sequence between two independent sets on a graph G in polynomial time if either G is a proper interval graph, a trivially perfect graph, or a caterpillar. As far as the authors know, this is the first polynomial time algorithm for the shortest sliding token problem for a graph class that requires detours.
Consider an undirected graph modeling a social network, where the vertices represent users, and the edges do connections among them. In the competitive diffusion game, each of a number of players chooses a vertex as a seed to propagate his/her opinion, and then it spreads along the edges in the graphs. The objective of every player is to maximize the number of vertices the opinion infects. In this paper, we investigate a computational problem of asking whether a pure Nash equilibrium exists in the competitive diffusion game on unweighed and weighted graphs, and present several negative and positive results. We first prove that the problem is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the number of players even for unweighted graphs. We also show that the problem is NP-hard even for series-parallel graphs with positive integer weights, and is NP-hard even for forests with arbitrary integer weights. Furthermore, we show that the problem for forest of paths with arbitrary weights is solvable in pseudo-polynomial time; and it is solvable in quadratic time if a given graph is unweighted. We also prove that the problem for chain, cochain, and threshold graphs with arbitrary integer weights is solvable in polynomial time.
In this paper, we study how to fold a specified origami crease pattern in order to minimize the impact of paper thickness. Specifically, origami designs are often expressed by a mountain-valley pattern (plane graph of creases with relative fold orientations), but in general this specification is consistent with exponentially many possible folded states. We analyze the complexity of finding the best consistent folded state according to two metrics: minimizing the total number of layers in the folded state (so that a "flat folding" is indeed close to flat), and minimizing the total amount of paper required to execute the folding (where "thicker" creases consume more paper). We prove both problems strongly NP-complete even for 1D folding. On the other hand, we prove the first problem fixed-parameter tractable in 1D with respect to the number of layers.
We consider the height of random k-trees and k-Apollonian networks. These random graphs are not really trees, but instead have a tree-like structure. The height will be the maximum distance of a vertex from the root. We show that w.h.p. the height of random k-trees and k-Apollonian networks is asymptotic to clog t, where t is the number of vertices, and c=c(k) is given as the solution to a transcendental equation. The equations are slightly different for the two types of process. In the limit as k-->oo the height of both processes is asymptotic to log t/(k log 2).
Suppose that we are given two independent sets $I_b$ and $I_r$ of a graph such that $|I_b|=|I_r|$, and imagine that a token is placed on each vertex in $I_b$. Then, the sliding token problem is to determine whether there exists a sequence of independent sets which transforms $I_b$ into $I_r$ so that each independent set in the sequence results from the previous one by sliding exactly one token along an edge in the graph. This problem is known to be PSPACE-complete even for planar graphs, and also for bounded treewidth graphs. In this paper, we thus study the problem restricted to trees, and give the following three results: (1) the decision problem is solvable in linear time; (2) for a yes-instance, we can find in quadratic time an actual sequence of independent sets between $I_b$ and $I_r$ whose length (i.e., the number of token-slides) is quadratic; and (3) there exists an infinite family of instances on paths for which any sequence requires quadratic length.
The tangram and Sei Shonagon Chie no Ita are popular dissection puzzles consisting of seven pieces. Each puzzle can be formed by identifying edges from sixteen identical right isosceles triangles. It is known that the tangram can form 13 convex polygons. We show that Sei Shonagon Chie no Ita can form 16 convex polygons, propose a new puzzle that can form 19, no 7 piece puzzle can form 20, and 11 pieces are necessary and sufficient to form all 20 polygons formable by 16 identical isosceles right triangles. Finally, we examine the number of convex polygons formable by different quantities of these triangles.
This paper investigates the popular card game UNO from the viewpoint of algorithmic combinatorial game theory. We define simple and concise mathematical models for the game, including both cooperative and uncooperative versions, and analyze their computational complexity. In particular, we prove that even a single-player version of UNO is NP-complete, although some restricted cases are in P. Surprisingly, we show that the uncooperative two-player version is also in P.
The flooding games, which are called Flood-It, Mad Virus, or HoneyBee, are a kind of coloring games and they have been becoming popular online. In these games, each player colors one specified cell in his/her turn, and all connected neighbor cells of the same color are also colored by the color. This flooding or coloring spreads on the same color cells. It is natural to consider these new coloring games on more general boards, or general graphs. Recently, computational complexities of the variants of the flooding games on several graph classes have been studied. In this paper, we investigate the flooding games on some graph classes characterized by interval representations. Our results state that the number of colors is a key parameter to determine the computational complexity of the flooding games. When the number of colors is a fixed constant, these games can be solved in polynomial time on an interval graph. On the other hand, if the number of colors is not bounded, the flooding game is NP-complete on a proper interval graph. We also state similar results for split graphs.