Applying Modular Decomposition to Parameterized Cluster Editing Problems

A graph G is said to be a bicluster graph if G is a disjoint union of bicliques (complete bipartite subgraphs), and a cluster graph if G is a disjoint union of cliques (complete subgraphs). In this work, we study the parameterized versions of the NP-hard Bicluster Graph Editing and Cluster Graph Editing problems. The former consists of obtaining a bicluster graph by making the minimum number of modifications in the edge set of an input bipartite graph. When at most k modifications are allowed (Bicluster(k) Graph Editing problem), this problem is FPT, and can be solved in O(4 ^k nm) time by a standard search tree algorithm. We develop an algorithm of time complexity O(4 ^k +n+m), which uses a strategy based on modular decomposition techniques; we slightly generalize the original problem as the input graph is not necessarily bipartite. The algorithm first builds a problem kernel with O(k ²) vertices in O(n+m) time, and then applies a bounded search tree. We also show how this strategy based on modular decomposition leads to a new way of obtaining a problem kernel with O(k ²) vertices for the Cluster(k) Graph Editing problem, in O(n+m) time. This problem consists of obtaining a cluster graph by modifying at most k edges in an input graph. A previous FPT algorithm of time O(1.92 ^k +n ³) for this problem was presented by Gramm et al. (Theory Comput. Syst. 38(4), 373–392, 2005, Algorithmica 39(4), 321–347, 2004). In their solution, a problem kernel with O(k ²) vertices is built in O(n ³) time.     

Fuzzy groups: Some group-theoretic analogs

We prove a number of results about fuzzy groups involving the concepts of fuzzy cosets and fuzzy normal subgroups which are analogs of important results from group theory. Also, we introduce analogs of some group-theoretic concepts such as characteristic subgroup, normalizer, and Abelian groups. We prove that if μ is a fuzzy subgroup of a group G such that the fuzzy index of μ is the smallest prime dividing the order of G, then μ is a fuzzy normal subgroup. Also, we show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the fuzzy (right) cosets of a fuzzy subgroup μ of a group G and the (right) cosets of a certain subgroup H of G.     

Additive tree 2-spanners of permutation graphs

Let G be a connected graph. A spanning tree T of G is a tree t-spanner if the distance between any two vertices in T is at most t times their distance in G. If their distances in T and G differ by at most t, then T is an additive tree t-spanner of G. In this paper, we show that any permutation graph has an additive tree 2-spanner, and it can be found in O(n) time sequentially or in O(log n) time with O(n/log n) processors on the EREW PRAM computational model by using a previously published algorithm for finding a tree 3-spanner of a permutation graph.     

Bose-Mesner algebra on finite <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis> coset graphs and its application on continuous time quantum walks

Continuous-time quantum walk (CTQW) over finite group schemes is investigated, where it is shown that some properties of a CTQW over a group scheme defined on a finite group G induces a CTQW over group scheme defined on G/H, where H is a normal subgroup of G with prime index. This reduction can be helpful in analyzing CTQW on underlying graphs of group schemes. Even though this claim is proved for normal subgroups with prime index (using the Clifford’s theorem from representation theory), it is checked in some examples that for other normal subgroups or even non-normal subgroups, the result is also true! Moreover, it is shown that the Bose-Mesner (BM) algebra associated with the group scheme over G is isomorphic to the corresponding BM algebra of the association scheme defined over the coset space G/H up to the scale factor |H|. In fact, we show that the underlying graph defined over group G is a covering space for the quotient graph defined over G/H, so that CTQW over the graph on G, starting from any arbitrary vertex, is isomorphic to the CTQW over the quotient graph on G/H if we take the sum of the amplitudes corresponding to the vertices belonging to the same cosets.     

Subcomplete generalizations of graph isomorphism

We present eight group-theoretic problems in NP one of which is a reformulation of graph isomorphism. We give technical evidence that none of the problems is NP-complete, and give polynomial time reductions among the problems. There is a good possibility that seven of these problems are harder than graph isomorphism (relative to polynomial time reduction), so that they might be examples of natural problems of intermediate difficulty, situated properly between the class of NP-complete problems and the class P of problems decidable in deterministic polynomial time. Because of strong structural similarity, two of the apparently harder problems can be interpreted as generalized isomorphism and generalized automorphism, respectively. Whether these problems ultimately prove to be harder than graph isomorphism seems to depend, in part, on the open problem whether every permutation group of degree n arises as the automorphism group of a combinatorial structure of size polynomial in n. Finally, we give an O(n² · k) algorithm for constructing the centralizer of a permutation group of degree n presented by a generating set of k permutations. Note that we may assume that k is O(n · log n), without loss of generality. This problem is a special case of one of the harder group-theoretic problems. From the method of constructing the centralizer, we recover results about the group-theoretic structure of the centralizer. Furthermore, applying our algorithm for intersecting with a normalizing permutation group, we show how to find the center of a permutation group of degree n in O(n⁶) steps, having constructed the centralizer of the group first.     

Algorithm portfolio selection as a bandit problem with unbounded losses

We propose a method that learns to allocate computation time to a given set of algorithms, of unknown performance, with the aim of solving a given sequence of problem instances in a minimum time. Analogous meta-learning techniques are typically based on models of algorithm performance, learned during a separate offline training sequence, which can be prohibitively expensive. We adopt instead an online approach, named GAMBLETA, in which algorithm performance models are iteratively updated, and used to guide allocation on a sequence of problem instances. GAMBLETA is a general method for selecting among two or more alternative algorithm portfolios. Each portfolio has its own way of allocating computation time to the available algorithms, possibly based on performance models, in which case its performance is expected to improve over time, as more runtime data becomes available. The resulting exploration-exploitation trade-off is represented as a bandit problem. In our previous work, the algorithms corresponded to the arms of the bandit, and allocations evaluated by the different portfolios were mixed, using a solver for the bandit problem with expert advice, but this required the setting of an arbitrary bound on algorithm runtimes, invalidating the optimal regret of the solver. In this paper, we propose a simpler version of GAMBLETA, in which the allocators correspond to the arms, such that a single portfolio is selected for each instance. The selection is represented as a bandit problem with partial information, and an unknown bound on losses. We devise a solver for this game, proving a bound on its expected regret. We present experiments based on results from several solver competitions, in various domains, comparing GAMBLETA with another online method.     

基于对称破坏的子图同构约束求解算法

为避免子图同构问题求解中重复解的产生,提高子图同构问题的约束求解效率,提出一种基于对称破坏的子图同构约束求解算法。基于解的对称破坏思想,改进自同构检测过程,通过置换群操作生成对称破坏字典序约束,构建子图同构问题的一种约束满足问题(CSP)模型,结合CSP的回溯算法对其求解。实验结果表明,该算法有效减少了对重复解的搜索,与传统算法相比明显提高了搜索效率。     

Constructing normalisers in finite soluble groups

This paper describes algorithms for constructing a Hall π-subgroup H of a finite soluble group G and the normaliser N_G(H). If G has composition length n, then H and N_G(H) can be constructed using O(n⁴ log |G|) and O(n⁵ log |G|) group multiplications, respectively. These algorithms may be used to construct other important subgroups such as Carter subgroups, system normalisers and relative system normalisers. Computer implementations of these algorithms can compute a Sylow 3-subgroup of a group with n = 84, and its normaliser in 47 seconds and 30 seconds, respectively. Constructing normalisers of arbitrary subgroups of a finite soluble group can be complicated. This is shown by an example where constructing a normaliser is equivalent to constructing a discrete logarithm in a finite field. However, there are no known polynomial algorithms for constructing discrete logarithms.     

On the complexity of approximating k-set packing

Given a k-uniform hypergraph, the Maximum k -Set Packing problem is to find the maximum disjoint set of edges. We prove that this problem cannot be efficiently approximated to within a factor of unless P = NP. This improves the previous hardness of approximation factor of by Trevisan. This result extends to the problem of k-Dimensional-Matching.     

Analysis of symmetric or partially symmetric structures

This paper combines group-theoretic methods with substructuring techniques to treat the symmetric or partially symmetric structures subjected to arbitrary loads. First, for a given substructure module, whose symmetry group is G, it gives a method to find the generalized displacements associated with irreducible representations of G based on some concepts presented in this paper, and then points out that for these displacements the analysis problem for a substructure module can be divided into a series of uncoupled subproblems. For each subproblem the triangularization as well as condensation can be carried out individually. Finally a simplified calculation formula of condensed stiffness coefficients for the original displacements is established, in which only the coefficients relating to the displacements in the basic region are necessary to be calculated.A series of computer programs has been developed by the methods presented in this paper [1–4]. These programs enable us to reduce the CPU time and save the memory noticeably.     

Iterative flattening search for resource constrained scheduling

Iterative flattening search (ifs) is a meta-heuristic strategy for solving multi-capacity scheduling problems. Given an initial solution, ifs iteratively applies: (1) a relaxation-step, in which a subset of scheduling decisions are randomly retracted from the current solution; and (2) a flattening-step, in which a new solution is incrementally recomputed from this partial schedule. Whenever a better solution is found, it is retained, and, upon termination, the best solution found during the search is returned. Prior research has shown ifs to be an effective and scalable heuristic procedure for minimizing schedule makespan in multi-capacity resource settings. In this paper we experimentally investigate the impact on ifs performance of algorithmic variants of the flattening step. The variants considered are distinguished by different computational requirements and correspondingly vary in the type and depth of search performed. The analysis is centered around the idea that given a time bound to the overall optimization procedure, the ifs optimization process is driven by two different and contrasting mechanisms: the random sampling performed by iteratively applying the “relaxation/flattening” cycle and the search conducted within the constituent flattening procedure. On one hand, one might expect that efficiency of the flattening process is key: the faster the flattening procedure, the greater the number of iterations (and number of sampled solutions) for a given time bound; and hence the greater the probability of finding better quality solutions. On the other hand, the use of more accurate (and more costly) flattening procedures can increase the probability of obtaining better quality solutions even if their greater computational cost reduces the number of ifs iterations. Comparative results on well-studied benchmark problems are presented that clarify this tradeoff with respect to previously proposed flattening strategies, identify qualitative guidelines for the design of effective ifs procedures, and suggest some new directions for future work in this area.     

The complexity for partitioning graphs by monochromatic trees,cycles and paths

Let G be an edge-coloured graph. We show in this paper that it is NP-hard to find the minimum number of vertex disjoint monochromatic trees which cover the vertices of the graph G. We also show that there is no constant factor approximation algorithm for the problem unless P?=?NP. The same results hold for the problem of finding the minimum number of vertex disjoint monochromatic cycles (paths, respectively) which cover the vertices of the graph.     

On the uniform finite generation of SO(n, )

A Lie group G, generated by two one-parameter subgroups is said to be uniformly finitely generated by them if there exists a positive integer N such that every element of G can be expressed as a product of at most N elements chosen alternately from the two one-parameter subgroups. In this paper we construct pairs of generators of so(n) whose one-parameter subgroups uniformly finitely generate SO(n) and as a consequence, we put an upper bound on the number of switches required to join any two points on a manifold M trajectories of two particular vector fields on M.     

A Cubic Kernel for Feedback Vertex Set and Loop Cutset

The Feedback Vertex Set problem on unweighted, undirected graphs is considered. Improving upon a result by Burrage et al. (Proceedings 2nd International Workshop on Parameterized and Exact Computation, pp. 192–202, 2006), we show that this problem has a kernel with O(k ³) vertices, i.e., there is a polynomial time algorithm, that given a graph G and an integer k, finds a graph G′ with O(k ³) vertices and integer k′≤k, such that G has a feedback vertex set of size at most k, if and only if G′ has a feedback vertex set of size at most k′. Moreover, the algorithm can be made constructive: if the reduced instance G′ has a feedback vertex set of size k′, then we can easily transform a minimum size feedback vertex set of G′ into a minimum size feedback vertex set of G. This kernelization algorithm can be used as the first step of an FPT algorithm for Feedback Vertex Set, but also as a preprocessing heuristic for Feedback Vertex Set.     

Fuzzy subgroups: Some characterizations. II

We consider an analysis of fuzzy subgroups in terms of the corresponding family of level subgroups. Given a finite chain of subgroups of a group G, we prove that there exists a fuzzy subgroup of G whose level subgroups are exactly the subgroups of this chain. As a corollary we obtain an interpretation of the number of chains of subgroups of a group G in which a subgroup H is a member. When the group G is a supersolvable group, some further interpretation of this number is obtained.     

Multi-instance clustering with applications to multi-instance prediction

In the setting of multi-instance learning, each object is represented by a bag composed of multiple instances instead of by a single instance in a traditional learning setting. Previous works in this area only concern multi-instance prediction problems where each bag is associated with a binary (classification) or real-valued (regression) label. However, unsupervised multi-instance learning where bags are without labels has not been studied. In this paper, the problem of unsupervised multi-instance learning is addressed where a multi-instance clustering algorithm named Bamic is proposed. Briefly, by regarding bags as atomic data items and using some form of distance metric to measure distances between bags, Bamic adapts the popular k -Medoids algorithm to partition the unlabeled training bags into k disjoint groups of bags. Furthermore, based on the clustering results, a novel multi-instance prediction algorithm named Bartmip is developed. Firstly, each bag is re-represented by a k-dimensional feature vector, where the value of the i-th feature is set to be the distance between the bag and the medoid of the i-th group. After that, bags are transformed into feature vectors so that common supervised learners are used to learn from the transformed feature vectors each associated with the original bag’s label. Extensive experiments show that Bamic could effectively discover the underlying structure of the data set and Bartmip works quite well on various kinds of multi-instance prediction problems.     

Some results on the generalized star-height problem

We prove some results related to the generalized star-height problem. In this problem, as opposed to the restricted star-height problem, complementation is considered as a basic operator. We first show that the class of languages of star-height ≤ n is closed under certain operations (left and right quotients, inverse alphabetic morphisms, injective star-free substitutions). It is known that languages recognized by a commutative group are of star-height 1. We extend this result to nilpotent groups of class 2 and to the groups that divide a semidirect product of a commutative group by ( /2 )ⁿ. In the same direction, we show that one of the languages that were conjectured to be of star-height 2 during the past ten years is in fact of star-height 1. Next we show that if a rational language L is recognized by a monoid of the variety generated by wreath products of the form M (G N), where M and N are aperiodic monoids, and G is a commutative group, the L is of star-height ≤ 1. Finally we show that every rational language is the inverse image, under some morphism between free monoids, of a language of (resticted) star-height 1.     

On partitions of functions on finite sets

Let D and R be finite sets with cardinality n and m respectivelyR ^D be the set of all functions from D into R, and G and H be permutation groups acting on D and R respectively. Two functions f and g in R ^D are said to be related if there exists a σ in G and a τ in H with f(σd) = τg(d) for every d in D. Since the relation is an equivalence relation, R ^D is partitioned into disjoint classes. Roughly, by using the cycle indices of G and H, de Bruijn's theorem determines the number of equivalence classes, and Pólya's theorem, with H being the identity group, gives the function counting series, Pólya-de Bruijn's theorem has many applications (for instance, see Pólya and Read [6]). The theorem and its applications, basically, centered around the partitions of functions. Here, we present an algorithm to determine which functions in R ^D belong to the same equivalent class. Our algorithm does not use the cycle indices of G and H (to compute the cycle index of a given group, in general, is difficult), but it uses the generators of G and H, and the m-nary numbers to code the functions in R ^D . Our algorithm also gives the function counting series and the number of equivalence classes. An important application is that for each positive integer n, we use our algorithm and the symmetric group S _n to determine all isomorphic and nonisomorphic graphs and directed graphs with n vertices.     

Multicolorings of Series-Parallel Graphs

Let G be a graph, and let each vertex v of G have a positive integer weight ω(v). A multicoloring of G is to assign each vertex v a set of ω(v) colors so that any pair of adjacent vertices receive disjoint sets of colors. This paper presents an algorithm to find a multicoloring of a given series-parallel graph G with the minimum number of colors in time O(n W), where n is the number of vertices and W is the maximum weight of vertices in G.     

A GENERALIZATION OF THE KNAPSACK ALGORITHM USING GALOIS FIELDS

We prove a generalization of a theorem of Rejewski. This theorem shows how one can solve an equation of the form XY=α in a symmetric group, where α is a given permutation and X and Y are each of order two with a specified number of disjoint transpositions. The number of solutions is also part of the theorem. Using this theorem we outline what we believe was the Polish solution (or very close to it) to the Enigma assuming that one had no data from daily keys. With some assumptions on independence of events, we show that the Polish Cipher Bureau would probably have broken the Enigma in just over four years.