Sublinear Fully Distributed Partition with Applications

We present new efficient deterministic and randomized distributed algorithms for decomposing a graph with n nodes into a disjoint set of connected clusters with radius at most k−1 and having O(n ^1+1/k ) intercluster edges. We show how to implement our algorithms in the distributed CONGEST\mathcal{CONGEST} model of computation, i.e., limited message size, which improves the time complexity of previous algorithms (Moran and Snir in Theor. Comput. Sci. 243(1–2):217–241, 2000; Awerbuch in J. ACM 32:804–823, 1985; Peleg in Distributed Computing: A Locality-Sensitive Approach, 2000) from O(n) to O(n ^1−1/k ). We apply our algorithms for constructing low stretch graph spanners and network synchronizers in sublinear deterministic time in the CONGEST\mathcal{CONGEST} model.     

Deterministically Isolating a Perfect Matching in Bipartite Planar Graphs

We present a deterministic Logspace procedure, which, given a bipartite planar graph on n vertices, assigns O(log n) bits long weights to its edges so that the minimum weight perfect matching in the graph becomes unique. The Isolation Lemma as described in Mulmuley et al. (Combinatorica 7(1):105–131, 1987) achieves the same for general graphs using randomness, whereas we can do it deterministically when restricted to bipartite planar graphs. As a consequence, we reduce both decision and construction versions of the perfect matching problem in bipartite planar graphs to testing whether a matrix is singular, under the promise that its determinant is 0 or 1, thus obtaining a highly parallel SPL\mathsf{SPL} algorithm for both decision and construction versions of the bipartite perfect matching problem. This improves the earlier known bounds of non-uniform SPL\mathsf{SPL} by Allender et al. (J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 59(2):164–181, 1999) and NC\mathsf{NC} ² by Miller and Naor (SIAM J. Comput. 24:1002–1017, 1995), and by Mahajan and Varadarajan (Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), pp. 351–357, 2000). It also rekindles the hope of obtaining a deterministic parallel algorithm for constructing a perfect matching in non-bipartite planar graphs, which has been open for a long time. Further we try to find the lower bound on the number of bits needed for deterministically isolating a perfect matching. We show that our particular method for isolation will require Ω(log n) bits. Our techniques are elementary.     

Optimal Algorithms for the Path/Tree-Shaped Facility Location Problems in Trees

Extensive facility location models in networks deal with the location of special types of subgraphs such as paths or trees and can be considered as extensions of classical facility location models. In this paper we consider the problem of locating a path-shaped or tree-shaped (extensive) facility in trees, under the condition that existing facilities are already located. We introduce a parametric-pruning method to solve the conditional discrete/continuous extensive weighted 1-center location problems in trees in linear time. This improves the recent results of O(nlog n) by Tamir et al. (J. Algebra 56:50–75, [2005]).     

All-Pairs Shortest Paths with Real Weights in <Emphasis Type="Italic">O</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis><Superscript>3</Superscript>/log <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>) Time

We describe an O(n ³/log n)-time algorithm for the all-pairs-shortest-paths problem for a real-weighted directed graph with n vertices. This slightly improves a series of previous, slightly subcubic algorithms by Fredman (SIAM J. Comput. 5:49–60, 1976), Takaoka (Inform. Process. Lett. 43:195–199, 1992), Dobosiewicz (Int. J. Comput. Math. 32:49–60, 1990), Han (Inform. Process. Lett. 91:245–250, 2004), Takaoka (Proc. 10th Int. Conf. Comput. Comb., Lect. Notes Comput. Sci., vol. 3106, pp. 278–289, Springer, 2004), and Zwick (Proc. 15th Int. Sympos. Algorithms and Computation, Lect. Notes Comput. Sci., vol. 3341, pp. 921–932, Springer, 2004). The new algorithm is surprisingly simple and different from previous ones. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Proc. 9th Workshop Algorithms Data Struct. (WADS), Lect. Notes Comput. Sci., vol. 3608, pp. 318–324, Springer, 2005.     

The Directed Orienteering Problem

This paper studies vehicle routing problems on asymmetric metrics. Our starting point is the directed k-TSP problem: given an asymmetric metric (V,d), a root r∈V and a target k≤|V|, compute the minimum length tour that contains r and at least k other vertices. We present a polynomial time O(\fraclog² nloglogn·logk)O(\frac{\log^{2} n}{\log\log n}\cdot\log k)-approximation algorithm for this problem. We use this algorithm for directed k-TSP to obtain an O(\fraclog² nloglogn)O(\frac{\log^{2} n}{\log\log n})-approximation algorithm for the directed orienteering problem. This answers positively, the question of poly-logarithmic approximability of directed orienteering, an open problem from Blum et al. (SIAM J. Comput. 37(2):653–670, 2007). The previously best known results were quasi-polynomial time algorithms with approximation guarantees of O(log ² k) for directed k-TSP, and O(log n) for directed orienteering (Chekuri and Pal in IEEE Symposium on Foundations in Computer Science, pp. 245–253, 2005). Using the algorithm for directed orienteering within the framework of Blum et al. (SIAM J. Comput. 37(2):653–670, 2007) and Bansal et al. (ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pp. 166–174, 2004), we also obtain poly-logarithmic approximation algorithms for the directed versions of discounted-reward TSP and vehicle routing problem with time-windows.     

A modular approach to shared-memory consensus,with applications to the probabilistic-write model

We show that consensus can be solved by an alternating sequence of adopt-commit objects (Gafni in Proceedings of the seventeenth annual ACM symposium on principles of distributed computing, pp 143–152, 1998; Alistarh et al. in ISAAC, Lecture notes in computer science, vol 5878. Springer, Berlin, pp 943–953, 2009), which detect agreement, and conciliators, which ensure agreement with some probability. We observe that most known randomized consensus algorithms have this structure. We give a deterministic implementation of an m-valued adopt-commit object for an unbounded number of processes that uses lg m + Θ(log log m) space and individual work. We also give a randomized conciliator for any number of values in the probabilistic-write model with n processes that guarantees agreement with constant probability while using one multi-writer register, O(log n) expected individual work, and Θ(n) expected total work. Combining these objects gives a consensus protocol for the probabilistic-write model that uses O(log m + log n) individual work and O(n log m) total work. No previous protocol in this model uses sublinear individual work or linear total work for constant m.     

A note on the alternating group network

The class of alternating group networks was introduced in the late 1990’s as an alternative to the alternating group graphs as interconnection networks. Recently, additional properties for the alternating group networks have been published. In particular, Zhou et al., J. Supercomput (2009), doi:, was published very recently in this journal. We show that this so-called new interconnection topology is in fact isomorphic to the (n,n−2)-star, a member of the well-known (n,k)-stars, 1≤k≤n−1, a class of popular networks proposed earlier for which a large amount of work have already been done. Specifically, the problem in Zhou et al., J. Supercomput (2009), doi:, was addressed in Lin and Duh, Inf. Sci. 178(3), 788–801, 2008, when k = n−2.     

A randomized algorithm for the on-line weighted bipartite matching problem

We study the on-line minimum weighted bipartite matching problem in arbitrary metric spaces. Here, n not necessary disjoint points of a metric space M are given, and are to be matched on-line with n points of M revealed one by one. The cost of a matching is the sum of the distances of the matched points, and the goal is to find or approximate its minimum. The competitive ratio of the deterministic problem is known to be Θ(n), see (Kalyanasundaram, B., Pruhs, K. in J. Algorithms 14(3):478–488, 1993) and (Khuller, S., et al. in Theor. Comput. Sci. 127(2):255–267, 1994). It was conjectured in (Kalyanasundaram, B., Pruhs, K. in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1442, pp. 268–280, 1998) that a randomized algorithm may perform better against an oblivious adversary, namely with an expected competitive ratio Θ(log n). We prove a slightly weaker result by showing a o(log ³ n) upper bound on the expected competitive ratio. As an application the same upper bound holds for the notoriously hard fire station problem, where M is the real line, see (Fuchs, B., et al. in Electonic Notes in Discrete Mathematics, vol. 13, 2003) and (Koutsoupias, E., Nanavati, A. in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2909, pp. 179–191, 2004). The authors were partially supported by OTKA grants T034475 and T049398.     

A permuted factors approach for the linearization of polynomial matrices

In Antoniou and Vologiannidis (Electron J Linear Algebra 11:78–87, 2004; 15:107–114, 2006), a new family of companion forms associated with a regular polynomial matrix T (s) has been presented, using products of permutations of n elementary matrices, generalizing similar results presented in Fiedler (Linear Algebra Its Appl 371:325–331, 2003) where the scalar case was considered. In this paper, extending this “permuted factors” approach, we present a broader family of companion-like linearizations, using products of up to n(n−1)/2 elementary matrices, where n is the degree of the polynomial matrix. Under given conditions, the proposed linearizations can be shown to consist of block entries where the coefficients of the polynomial matrix appear intact. Additionally, we provide a criterion for those linearizations to be block symmetric. We also illustrate several new block symmetric linearizations of the original polynomial matrix T (s), where in some of them the constraint of nonsingularity of the constant term and the coefficient of maximum degree are not a prerequisite.     

Speed-Up Theorems in Type-2 Computations Using Oracle Turing Machines

A classic result known as the speed-up theorem in machine-independent complexity theory shows that there exist some computable functions that do not have best programs for them (Blum in J. ACM 14(2):322–336, 1967 and J. ACM 18(2):290–305, 1971). In this paper we lift this result into type-2 computations. Although the speed-up phenomenon is essentially inherited from type-1 computations, we observe that a direct application of the original proof to our type-2 speed-up theorem is problematic because the oracle queries can interfere with the speed of the programs and hence the cancellation strategy used in the original proof is no longer correct at type-2. We also argue that a type-2 analog of the operator speed-up theorem (Meyer and Fischer in J. Symb. Log. 37:55–68, 1972) does not hold, which suggests that this curious speed-up phenomenon disappears in higher-typed computations beyond type-2. The result of this paper adds one more piece of evidence to support the general type-2 complexity theory under the framework proposed in Li (Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Theoretical Computer Science, pp. 471–484, 2004 and Proceedings of Computability in Europe: Logical Approach to Computational Barriers, pp. 182–192, 2006) and Li and Royer (On type-2 complexity classes: Preliminary report, pp. 123–138, 2001) as a reasonable setup.     

Short collusion-secure fingerprint codes against three pirates

In this article, we propose a new construction of probabilistic collusion-secure fingerprint codes against up to three pirates and give a theoretical security evaluation. Our pirate tracing algorithm combines a scoring method analogous to Tardos codes (J ACM 55:1–24, 2008) with an extension of parent search techniques of some preceding 2-secure codes. Numerical examples show that our code lengths are significantly shorter than (about 30–40% of) the shortest known c-secure codes by Nuida et al. (Des Codes Cryptogr 52:339–362, 2009) with c = 3.     

Approximation Algorithms for Reconstructing the Duplication History of Tandem Repeats

Computing the duplication history of a tandem repeated region is an important problem in computational biology (Fitch in Genetics 86:623–644, 1977; Jaitly et al. in J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 65:494–507, 2002; Tang et al. in J. Comput. Biol. 9:429–446, 2002). In this paper, we design a polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) for the case where the size of the duplication block is 1. Our PTAS is faster than the previously best PTAS in Jaitly et al. (J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 65:494–507, 2002). For example, to achieve a ratio of 1.5, our PTAS takes O(n ⁵) time while the PTAS in Jaitly et al. (J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 65:494–507, 2002) takes O(n ¹¹) time. We also design a ratio-6 polynomial-time approximation algorithm for the case where the size of each duplication block is at most 2. This is the first polynomial-time approximation algorithm with a guaranteed ratio for this case. Part of work was done during a Z.-Z. Chen visit at City University of Hong Kong.     

On the air damping of flexible microbeam in free space at the free-molecule regime

Predicting air damping is crucial in the design of high Q microelectromechanical systems. In the past, air damping of rigid microbeam in free space at molecular regime is usually estimated using the free molecular model proposed by Christian (Vacuum 16:175–178, 1966), air damping of flexible microbeam is estimated using the model proposed by Blom (J Vac Sci Technol B 10:19–26, 1992). The relation between the two models is Q _Blom = 3Q _Christian. In this paper, a general proof is presented that shows the Christian’s model is valid for the air damping of flexible microbeam in free space at molecular regime. By comparing with the experimental results available in the literatures (Blom et al. in J Vac Sci Technol B 10:19–26, 1992; Yasumura et al. in J Micromech Syst 9:117–125, 2000), we conclude that the Christian’s model is the best choice in predicting the air damping of flexible microbeam in free space at the molecular regime.     

Stackelberg Strategies for Selfish Routing in General Multicommodity Networks

A natural generalization of the selfish routing setting arises when some of the users obey a central coordinating authority, while the rest act selfishly. Such behavior can be modeled by dividing the users into an α fraction that are routed according to the central coordinator’s routing strategy (Stackelberg strategy), and the remaining 1−α that determine their strategy selfishly, given the routing of the coordinated users. One seeks to quantify the resulting price of anarchy, i.e., the ratio of the cost of the worst traffic equilibrium to the system optimum, as a function of α. It is well-known that for α=0 and linear latency functions the price of anarchy is at most 4/3 (J. ACM 49, 236–259, 2002). If α tends to 1, the price of anarchy should also tend to 1 for any reasonable algorithm used by the coordinator. We analyze two such algorithms for Stackelberg routing, LLF and SCALE. For general topology networks, multicommodity users, and linear latency functions, we show a price of anarchy bound for SCALE which decreases from 4/3 to 1 as α increases from 0 to 1, and depends only on α. Up to this work, such a tradeoff was known only for the case of two nodes connected with parallel links (SIAM J. Comput. 33, 332–350, 2004), while for general networks it was not clear whether such a result could be achieved, even in the single-commodity case. We show a weaker bound for LLF and also some extensions to general latency functions. The existence of a central coordinator is a rather strong requirement for a network. We show that we can do away with such a coordinator, as long as we are allowed to impose taxes (tolls) on the edges in order to steer the selfish users towards an improved system cost. As long as there is at least a fraction α of users that pay their taxes, we show the existence of taxes that lead to the simulation of SCALE by the tax-payers. The extension of the results mentioned above quantifies the improvement on the system cost as the number of tax-evaders decreases. Research of G. Karakostas supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant and MITACS. Research of S. Kolliopoulos partially supported by the University of Athens under the project Kapodistrias.     

Fast Evaluation of Interlace Polynomials on Graphs of Bounded Treewidth

We consider the multivariate interlace polynomial introduced by Courcelle (Electron. J. Comb. 15(1), 2008), which generalizes several interlace polynomials defined by Arratia, Bollobás, and Sorkin (J. Comb. Theory Ser. B 92(2):199–233, 2004) and by Aigner and van der Holst (Linear Algebra Appl., 2004). We present an algorithm to evaluate the multivariate interlace polynomial of a graph with n vertices given a tree decomposition of the graph of width k. The best previously known result (Courcelle, Electron. J. Comb. 15(1), 2008) employs a general logical framework and leads to an algorithm with running time f(k)⋅n, where f(k) is doubly exponential in k. Analyzing the GF(2)-rank of adjacency matrices in the context of tree decompositions, we give a faster and more direct algorithm. Our algorithm uses 2^3k2+O(k)·n2^{3k^{2}+O(k)}\cdot n arithmetic operations and can be efficiently implemented in parallel.     

A Note on Exact Algorithms for Vertex Ordering Problems on Graphs

In this note, we give a proof that several vertex ordering problems can be solved in O ^∗(2 ⁿ ) time and O ^∗(2 ⁿ ) space, or in O ^∗(4 ⁿ ) time and polynomial space. The algorithms generalize algorithms for the Travelling Salesman Problem by Held and Karp (J. Soc. Ind. Appl. Math. 10:196–210, 1962) and Gurevich and Shelah (SIAM J. Comput. 16:486–502, 1987). We survey a number of vertex ordering problems to which the results apply.     

Linearly ordered semigroups for fuzzy set theory

The fuzzy set theory initiated by Zadeh (Information Control 8:338–353, 1965) was based on the real unit interval [0,1] for support of membership functions with the natural product for intersection operation. This paper proposes to extend this definition by using the more general linearly ordered semigroup structure. As Moisil (Essais sur les Logiques non Chrysippiennes. Académie des Sciences de Roumanie, Bucarest, 1972, p. 162) proposed to define Lukasiewicz logics on an abelian ordered group for truth values set, we give a simple negative answer to the question on the possibility to build a Many-valued logic on a finite abelian ordered group. In a constructive way characteristic properties are step by step deduced from the corresponding set theory to the semigroup order structure. Some results of Clifford on topological semigroups (Clifford, A.H., Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 9:682–687, 1958; Clifford, A.H., Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 88:80–98, 1958), Paalman de Miranda work on I-semigroups (Paalman de Miranda, A.B., Topological Semigroups. Mathematical Centre Tracts, Amsterdam, 1964) and Schweitzer, Sklar on T-norms (Schweizer, B., Sklar, A., Publ. Math. Debrecen 10:69–81, 1963; Schweizer, B., Sklar, A., Pacific J. Math. 10:313–334, 1960; Schweizer, B., Sklar, A., Publ. Math. Debrecen 8:169–186, 1961) are revisited in this framework. As a simple consequence of Faucett theorems (Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 6:741–747, 1955), we prove how canonical properties from the fuzzy set theory point of view lead to the Zadeh choice thus giving another proof of the representation theorem of T-norms. This structural approach shall give a new perspective to tackle the question of G. Moisil about the definition of discrete Many-valued logics as approximation of fuzzy continuous ones.      

Space Efficient Dynamic Orthogonal Range Reporting

In this paper we present new space efficient dynamic data structures for orthogonal range reporting. The described data structures support planar range reporting queries in time O(log n+klog log (4n/(k+1))) and space O(nlog log n), or in time O(log n+k) and space O(nlog  ^ε n) for any ε>0. Both data structures can be constructed in O(nlog n) time and support insert and delete operations in amortized time O(log ² n) and O(log nlog log n) respectively. These results match the corresponding upper space bounds of Chazelle (SIAM J. Comput. 17, 427–462, 1988) for the static case. We also present a dynamic data structure for d-dimensional range reporting with search time O(log  ^d−1 n+k), update time O(log  ^d n), and space O(nlog  ^d−2+ε n) for any ε>0. The model of computation used in our paper is a unit cost RAM with word size log n. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry 2005. Work partially supported by IST grant 14036 (RAND-APX).     

Model Checking Weighted Integer Reset Timed Automata

Weighted timed automata (WTA), introduced in Alur et al. (Proceedings of HSCC’01, LNCS, vol. 2034, pp. 49–62, Springer, Berlin, 2001), Behrmann et al. (Proceedings of HSCC’01, LNCS, vol. 2034, pp. 147–161, Springer, Berlin, 2001) are an extension of Alur and Dill (Theor. Comput. Sci. 126(2):183–235, 1994) timed automata, a widely accepted formalism for the modelling and verification of real time systems. Weighted timed automata extend timed automata by allowing costs on the locations and edges. There has been a lot of interest Bouyer et al. (Inf. Process. Lett. 98(5):188–194, 2006), Bouyer et al. (Log. Methods Comput. Sci. 4(2):9, 2008), Brihaye et al. (Proceedings of FORMATS/FTRTFT’04, LNCS, vol. 3253, pp. 277–292, Springer, Berlin, 2004), Brihaye et al. (Inf. Comput. 204(3):408–433, 2006) in studying the model checking problem of weighted timed automata. The properties of interest are written using logic weighted CTL (WCTL), an extension of CTL with costs. It has been shown Bouyer et al. (Log. Methods Comput. Sci. 4(2):9, 2008) that the problem of model checking WTAs with a single clock using WCTL with no external cost variables is decidable, while 3 clocks render the problem undecidable Bouyer et al. (Inf. Process. Lett. 98(5):188–194, 2006). The question of 2 clocks is open. In this paper, we introduce a subclass of weighted timed automata called weighted integer reset timed automata (WIRTA) and study the model checking problem. We give a clock reduction technique for WIRTA. Given a WIRTA A\mathcal{A} with n≥1 clocks, we show that a single clock WIRTA A￠\mathcal{A}' preserving the paths and costs of A\mathcal{A} can be obtained. This gives us the decidability of model checking WIRTA with n≥1 clocks and m≥1 costs using WCTL with no external cost variables. We then show that for a restricted version of WCTL with external cost variables, the model checking problem is undecidable for WIRTA with 3 stopwatch costs and 1 clock. Finally, we show that model checking WTA with 2 clocks and 1 stopwatch cost against WCTL with no external cost variables is undecidable, thereby answering a question that has remained long open.     

On the Long-Time <Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis><Superscript>2</Superscript>-Stability of the Implicit Euler Scheme for the 2D Magnetohydrodynamics Equations

Pursuing our work in Tone (Asymptot. Analysis 51:231–245, 2007) and Tone and Wirosoetisno (SIAM J. Number. Analysis 44:29–40, 2006), we consider in this article the two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics equations, we discretize these equations in time using the implicit Euler scheme and with the aid of the classical and uniform discrete Gronwall lemma, we prove that the scheme is H ²-uniformly stable in time.