Fun with Sub-linear Time Algorithms

Massively parallel computation (MPC) algorithms for graph problems have witnessed a resurgence of interest in recent years. Despite major progress for numerous graph problems however, the complexity of the sparse graph connectivity problem in this model has remained elusive: While classical logarithmic-round PRAM algorithms for finding connected components in any n-vertex graph have been known for more than three decades (and imply the same bounds for MPC model), no o(log n)-round MPC algorithms are known for this task with truly sublinear in n memory per machine (which is the only interesting regime for sparse graphs with O(n) edges). It is conjectured that an o(log n)-round algorithm for connectivity on general sparse graphs with n1-Ω (1) per-machine memory may not exist, a conjecture that also forms the basis for multiple conditional hardness results on the round complexity of other problems in the MPC model.We take an opportunistic approach towards the sparse graph connectivity problem by designing an algorithm with improved performance in terms of the connectivity structure of the input graph. Formally, we design an MPC algorithm that finds all connected components with spectral gap at least λ in a graph in O(log log n + log(1/λ)) MPC rounds and nδ memory per machine for any constant δ ∈ (0,1). While this algorithm still requires Θ(log n) rounds in the worst-case, it achieves an exponential round reduction on well-connected'' components with λ ≥ 1/polylog(n) using only nδ memory per machine and l(n) total memory, and still operates in o(log n)l rounds even when λ = 1/no(1).En-route to our main result, we design a new distributed data structure for performing independent random walks from all vertices simultaneously, as well as a new leader-election algorithm with exponentially faster round complexity on random graphs.

This paper initiates the study of algorithms (minimizing cache misses) from the perspective of fine-grained complexity (conditional polynomial lower bounds). Specifically, we aim to answer why sparse graph problems are so hard, and why the Longest Common Subsequence problem gets a savings of a factor of the size of cache times the length of a cache line, but no more. We take the reductions and techniques from complexity and fine-grained complexity and apply them to the model to generate new (conditional) lower bounds as well as new faster algorithms. We also prove the existence of a hierarchy for the model, which motivates the fine-grained reductions. - Using fine-grained reductions, we give an algorithm for distinguishing 2 vs. 3 diameter and radius that runs in O(|E|^2/(MB)) cache misses, which for sparse graphs improves over the previous O(|V|^2/B) running time. - We give new reductions from radius and diameter to Wiener index and median. These reductions are new in both the RAM and models. - We show meaningful reductions between problems that have linear-time solutions in the RAM model. The reductions use low complexity (typically O(n/B)), and thus help to finely capture between I/O linear time O(n/B) and RAM linear O(n). - We generate new assumptions based on the difficulty of improving sparse graph problem running times in the model. We create conjectures that the current best known algorithms for Single Source Shortest Paths (SSSP), diameter, and radius are optimal. - From these I/O-model assumptions, we show that many of the known reductions in the word-RAM model can naturally extend to hold in the model as well (e.g., a lower bound on the complexity of Longest Common Subsequence that matches the best known running time). - We prove an analog of the Time Hierarchy Theorem in the model, further motivating the study of fine-grained algorithmic differences.

This thesis studies exponential time algorithms that give optimum solutions to optimization problems which are highly unlikely to be solvable to optimality in polynomial time. Such algorithms are designed and upper bounds on their running times are analyzed, for pro-blems from graph theory, constraint satisfaction, and computational biology. It is studied how restrictions on one computationally hard parameter affect the running time of algorithms for computing another parameter. Algorithms are obtained to compute minimum dominating sets, minimum bandwidth and topological bandwidth layouts, and other hard parameters, in time exponential only in the maximum number of leaves in a spanning tree of a graph. For sparse graphs, algorithms find minimum connected dominating sets in time exponential only in the optimum value. These algorithms are based on kernels of small size, meaning that arbitrary instances are polynomial-time compressible to equivalent instances whose size depends on the parameter alone. Lower and upper bounds on the number and size of certain combinatorial objects are proved. For minimal feedback vertex sets in tournaments, improved bounds on their number and a polynomial-space polynomial-delay algorithm for their enumeration are given. For subcubic planar graphs, fast algorithms finding large induced matchings are given. Fixed-parameter algorithms are presented for maximization problems whose optimum solution value grows as an unbounded function with the instance size. Polynomial kernels are obtained for all permutation constraint satisfaction problems with ternary constraints, and independent set problems in restricted graph classes, when these problems are parameterized above tight lower bounds on their solution value. Polynomial space algorithms with subexponential time requirement are obtained for the minimum triplet inconsistency problem in phylogenetics, and basically all bidimensional problems in sparse graphs such as graphs excluding a fixed minor.

We develop novel methods for constructing nearly Hamilton cycles in sublinear expanders with good regularity properties, as well as new techniques for finding such expanders in general graphs. These methods are of independent interest due to their potential for various applications to embedding problems in sparse graphs. In particular, using these tools, we make substantial progress towards a 20‐year‐old conjecture of Verstraëte, which asserts that for any given graph , nearly all vertices of every ‐regular graph can be covered by vertex‐disjoint ‐subdivisions. This significantly extends previous work on the conjecture by Kelmans, Mubayi and Sudakov, Alon and Kühn and Osthus. Additionally, we present applications of our methods to two other problems.

We describe algorithms, based on Avis and Fukuda's reverse search paradigm, for listing all maximal independent sets in a sparse graph in polynomial time and delay per output. For bounded degree graphs, our algorithms take constant time per set generated; for minor-closed graph families, the time is O ( n ) per set, and for more general sparse graph families we achieve subquadratic time per set. We also describe new data structures for maintaining a dynamic vertex set S in a sparse or minor-closed graph family, and querying the number of vertices not dominated by S ; for minor-closed graph families the time per update is constant, while it is sublinear for any sparse graph family. We can also maintain a dynamic vertex set in an arbitrary m -edge graph and test the independence of the maintained set in time O (√m) per update. We use the domination data structures as part of our enumeration algorithms.

Given a bipartite graph, the maximum balanced biclique (MBB) problem, discovering a mutually connected while disjoint sets of equal size with the maximum cardinality, plays a significant role for mining the bipartite graph and has numerous applications. Despite the NP-hardness of the MBB problem, in this paper, we show that an exact MBB can be discovered extremely fast in bipartite graphs for real applications. We propose two exact algorithms dedicated for small dense and large sparse bipartite graphs respectively. For dense bipartite graphs, an O*(1.3803n) algorithm is proposed. This algorithm in fact can find an MBB very fast for small dense bipartite graphs that are common for applications such as VLSI design. This is because, using our proposed novel techniques, the search can fast converge to sufficiently dense bipartite graphs which we prove to be polynomial-time solvable. For large sparse bipartite graphs typical for applications such as biological data analysis, an O*(1.3803 δ) algorithm is proposed, where δ is only a few hundred for large sparse bipartite graphs with millions of vertices. The indispensible optimization that leads to this time complexity is: we transform a large sparse bipartite graph into a limited number of dense subgraphs such that each of the dense subgraphs has up to δ vertices and then apply our proposed algorithm for dense bipartite graphs on each of the subgraphs. To further speed up this algorithm, tighter upper bounds, faster heuristics and more effective reductions are proposed, allowing an MBB to be discovered within a few seconds for bipartite graphs with millions of vertices. Extensive experiments are conducted on synthetic and real large bipartite graphs to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed algorithms and techniques.

We consider the fine-grained complexity of sparse graph problems that currently have O(mn) time algorithms, where m is the number of edges and n is the number of vertices in the input graph. This class includes several important path problems on both directed and undirected graphs, including APSP, MWC (Minimum Weight Cycle), Radius, Eccentricities, BC (Betweenness Centrality), etc. We introduce the notion of a sparse reduction which preserves the sparsity of graphs, and we present near linear-time sparse reductions between various pairs of graph problems in the O(mn) class. There are many sub-cubic reductions between graph problems in the O(mn) class, but surprisingly few of these preserve sparsity. In the directed case, our results give a partial order on a large collection of problems in the O(mn) class (along with some equivalences), and many of our reductions are very nontrivial. In the undirected case we give two nontrivial sparse reductions: from MWC to APSP, and from unweighted ANSC (all nodes shortest cycles) to unweighted APSP. We develop a new ‘bit-sampling’ method for these sparse reductions on undirected graphs, which also gives rise to improved or simpler algorithms for cycle finding problems in undirected graphs. We formulate the the notion of MWC hardness, which is based on the assumption that a minimum weight cycle in a directed graph cannot be computed in time polynomially smaller than mn. Our sparse reductions for directed path problems in the O(mn) class establish that several problems in this class, including 2-SiSP (second simple shortest path), s-t Replacement Paths, Radius, Eccentricities and BC are MWC hard. Our sparse reductions give MWC hardness a status for the O(mn) class similar to 3SUM hardness for the quadratic class, since they show sub-mn hardness for a large collection of fundamental and well-studied graph problems that have maintained an O(mn) time bound for over half a century. We also identify Eccentricities and BC as key problems in the O(mn) class which are simultaneously MWC-hard, SETH-hard and k-DSH-hard, where SETH is the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis, and k-DSH is the hypothesis that a dominating set of size k cannot be computed in time polynomially smaller than nk. Our framework using sparse reductions is very relevant to real-world graphs, which tend to be sparse and for which the O(mn) time algorithms are the ones typically used in practice, and not the O(n3) time algorithms.

In this paper, we first review several integer programming formulations for the minimum spanning tree problem, and then adapt these formulations for solving the minimum spanning forest problem in sparse graphs. Some properties for the spanning forest and connected components are studied, and then we present the integer programming formulation for finding the largest connected component, which has been widely used for network vulnerability analysis.

Connectivity related concepts are of fundamental interest in graph theory. The area has received extensive attention over four decades, but many problems remain unsolved, especially for directed graphs. A directed graph is 2-edge-connected (resp., 2-vertex-connected) if the removal of any edge (resp., vertex) leaves the graph strongly connected. In this paper we present improved algorithms for computing the maximal 2-edge- and 2-vertex-connected subgraphs of a given directed graph. These problems were first studied more than 35 years ago, with O(mn) time algorithms for graphs with m edges and n vertices being known since the late 1980s. In contrast, the same problems for undirected graphs are known to be solvable in linear time. Henzinger et al. [ICALP 2015] recently introduced O(n2) time algorithms for the directed case, thus improving the running times for dense graphs. Our new algorithms run in time O(m3/2), which further improves the running times for sparse graphs.The notion of 2-connectivity naturally generalizes to k-connectivity for k > 2. For constant values of k, we extend one of our algorithms to compute the maximal k-edge-connected in time O(m3/2 log n), improving again for sparse graphs the best known algorithm by Henzinger et al. [ICALP 2015] that runs in O(n2 log n) time.

We consider the question of whether adaptivity can improve the complexity of property testing algorithms in the dense graphs model. It is known that there can be at most a quadratic gap between adaptive and non-adaptive testers in this model, but it was not known whether any gap indeed exists. In this work we reveal such a gap.Specifically, we focus on the well studied property of bipartiteness. Bogdanov and Trevisan (IEEE Symposium on Computational Complexity, 2004) proved a lower bound of Ω(1/ε 2) on the query complexity of non-adaptive testing algorithms for bipartiteness. This lower bound holds for graphs with maximum degree O(εn). Our main result is an adaptive testing algorithm for bipartiteness of graphs with maximum degree O(εn) whose query complexity is \(\tilde{O}(1/\epsilon^{3/2})\). A slightly modified version of our algorithm can be used to test the combined property of being bipartite and having maximum degree O(εn). Thus we demonstrate that adaptive testers are stronger than non-adaptive testers in the dense graphs model.We note that the upper bound we obtain is tight up-to polylogarithmic factors, in view of the Ω(1/ε 3/2) lower bound of Bogdanov and Trevisan for adaptive testers. In addition we show that \(\tilde{O}(1/\epsilon^{3/2})\) queries also suffice when (almost) all vertices have degree \(\Omega(\sqrt \epsilon \cdot n)\). In this case adaptivity is not necessary.KeywordsQuery ComplexityTesting AlgorithmAdaptive TesterDense GraphNeighbor QueryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

We consider the problem of testing bipartiteness in the adjacency matrix model. The best known algorithm, due to Alon and Krivelevich, distinguishes between bipartite graphs and graphs that are /spl epsi/-far from bipartite using 0(1//spl epsi//sup 2/) queries. We show that this is optimal for non-adaptive algorithms, up to polylogarithmic factors. We also show a lower bound of /spl Omega/(1//spl epsi//sup 3/2/) for adaptive algorithms.

This paper initiates the study of the maximum neighborhood degree realization problem. Given a sequence D=(d1,…,dn) of non-negative integers, the goal is to construct a simple graph with vertices v1,…,vn such that for every i∈[1,n], the maximum degree in the neighborhood of vi is exactly di (or output null if no such graph exists). Depending upon whether or not the realizing graph is required to be connected, and whether or not the neighborhood of a vertex is closed (that is, the neighborhood includes the vertex itself), the problem has four natural settings. We provide complete realizability criteria for all four settings of the problem. Our conditions are verifiable in linear time and our realizations can be constructed in polynomial time. In addition, we prove tight/approximate bounds for the number of maximum neighboring degree profiles of length n that are realizable.

For any positive integer k, the total k-domatic partition problem is to partition the vertices of a graph G into k pairwise disjoint total dominating sets. In this paper, we study the problem for planar graphs, chordal bipartite graphs, convex bipartite graphs, and bipartite permutation graphs. We show that the total 3-domatic partition problem on planar graphs is NP-complete. Moreover, we give an alternative algorithm to solve the total k-domatic partition problem for chordal bipartite graphs with weak elimination orderings, and adapt it to solve the problem in linear time for bipartite permutation graphs and convex bipartite graphs even if Gamma-free forms of the adjacency matrices of the considered graphs are not given.

Let D(G) be the smallest quantifier depth of a first-order formula which is true for a graph G but false for any other non-isomorphic graph. This can be viewed as a measure for the descriptive complexity of G in first-order logic. We show that almost surely $D(G)=\Theta(\frac{\ln n}{\ln\ln n})$ , where G is a random tree of order n or the giant component of a random graph $\C G(n,\frac cn)$ with constant c<1. These results rely on computing the maximum of D(T) for a tree T of order n and maximum degree l, so we study this problem as well.

In this paper we present an algorithm for maintaining a spanner over a dynamic set of points in constant doubling dimension metric spaces. For a set S of points in ℝ d , a t-spanner is a sparse graph on the points of S such that there is a path in the spanner between any pair of points whose total length is at most t times the distance between the points. We present the first fully dynamic algorithm for maintaining a spanner whose update time depends solely on the number of points in S. In particular, we show how to maintain a (1+e)-spanner with O(n/e d ) edges, where points can be inserted to S in an amortized update time of O(log n) and deleted from S in an amortized update time of $\tilde{O}(n^{1/3})$. As a by-product of our techniques we obtain a simple incremental algorithm for constructing a (1+e)-spanner with O(n/e d ) edges in constant doubling dimension metric spaces whose running time is O(nlog n).