26 Search Results for "Sommer, Frank"


Document
A Parameterized-Complexity Framework for Finding Local Optima

Authors: Robert Ganian, Hung P. Hoang, Christian Komusiewicz, and Nils Morawietz

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)


Abstract
Local search is a fundamental optimization technique that is both widely used in practice and deeply studied in theory, yet its computational complexity remains poorly understood. The traditional frameworks, PLS and the standard algorithm problem, introduced by Johnson, Papadimitriou, and Yannakakis (1988) fail to capture the methodology of local search algorithms: PLS is concerned with finding a local optimum and not with using local search, while the standard algorithm problem restricts each improvement step to follow a fixed pivoting rule. In this work, we introduce a novel formulation of local search which provides a middle ground between these models. In particular, the task is to output not only a local optimum but also a chain of local improvements leading to it. With this framework, we aim to capture the challenge in designing a good pivoting rule. Especially, when combined with the parameterized complexity paradigm, it enables both strong lower bounds and meaningful tractability results. Unlike previous works that combined parameterized complexity with local search, our framework targets the whole task of finding a local optimum and not only a single improvement step. Focusing on two representative meta-problems - Subset Weight Optimization Problem with the c-swap neighborhood and Weighted Circuit with the flip neighborhood - we establish fixed-parameter tractability results related to the number of distinct weights, while ruling out an analogous result when parameterizing by the distance to the nearest optimum via a new type of reduction.

Cite as

Robert Ganian, Hung P. Hoang, Christian Komusiewicz, and Nils Morawietz. A Parameterized-Complexity Framework for Finding Local Optima. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 66:1-66:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{ganian_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.66,
  author =	{Ganian, Robert and Hoang, Hung P. and Komusiewicz, Christian and Morawietz, Nils},
  title =	{{A Parameterized-Complexity Framework for Finding Local Optima}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{66:1--66:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.66},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253532},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.66},
  annote =	{Keywords: Local Search, Parameterized Complexity, PLS}
}
Document
Timeline Problems in Temporal Graphs: Vertex Cover vs. Dominating Set

Authors: Anton Herrmann, Christian Komusiewicz, Nils Morawietz, and Frank Sommer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 358, 20th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2025)


Abstract
A temporal graph is a finite sequence of graphs, called snapshots, over the same vertex set. Many temporal graph problems turn out to be much more difficult than their static counterparts. One such problem is Timeline Vertex Cover (also known as MinTimeline_∞), a temporal analogue to the classical Vertex Cover problem. In this problem, one is given a temporal graph 𝒢 and two integers k and 𝓁, and the goal is to cover each edge of each snapshot by selecting for each vertex at most k activity intervals of length at most 𝓁 each. Here, an edge uv in the ith snapshot is covered, if an activity interval of u or v is active at time i. In this work, we continue the algorithmic study of Timeline Vertex Cover and introduce the Timeline Dominating Set problem where we want to dominate all vertices in each snapshot by the selected activity intervals. We analyze both problems from a classical and parameterized point of view and also consider partial problem versions, where the goal is to cover (dominate) at least t edges (vertices) of the snapshots. With respect to the parameterized complexity, we consider the temporal graph parameters vertex-interval-membership-width (vimw) and interval-membership-width (imw). We show that all considered problems admit FPT-algorithms when parameterized by vimw+k+𝓁. This provides a smaller parameter combination than the ones used for previously known FPT-algorithms for Timeline Vertex Cover. Surprisingly, for imw+k+𝓁, Timeline Dominating Set turns out to be easier than Timeline Vertex Cover, by also admitting an FPT-algorithm, whereas the vertex cover version is NP-hard even if imw+k+𝓁 is constant. We also consider parameterization by combinations of n, the vertex set size, with k or 𝓁 and parameterization by t. Here, we show for example that both partial problems are fixed-parameter tractable for t which significantly improves and generalizes a previous result for a special case of Partial Timeline Vertex Cover with k = 1.

Cite as

Anton Herrmann, Christian Komusiewicz, Nils Morawietz, and Frank Sommer. Timeline Problems in Temporal Graphs: Vertex Cover vs. Dominating Set. In 20th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 358, pp. 12:1-12:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{herrmann_et_al:LIPIcs.IPEC.2025.12,
  author =	{Herrmann, Anton and Komusiewicz, Christian and Morawietz, Nils and Sommer, Frank},
  title =	{{Timeline Problems in Temporal Graphs: Vertex Cover vs. Dominating Set}},
  booktitle =	{20th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2025)},
  pages =	{12:1--12:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-407-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{358},
  editor =	{Agrawal, Akanksha and van Leeuwen, Erik Jan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.IPEC.2025.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-251446},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.IPEC.2025.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: NP-hard problem, FPT-algorithm, interval-membership-width, Color coding}
}
Document
Enumeration Kernels for Vertex Cover and Feedback Vertex Set

Authors: Marin Bougeret, Guilherme C. M. Gomes, Vinicius F. dos Santos, and Ignasi Sau

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 358, 20th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2025)


Abstract
Enumerative kernelization is a recent and promising area sitting at the intersection of parameterized complexity and enumeration algorithms. Its study began with the paper of Creignou et al. [Theory Comput. Syst., 2017], and development in the area has started to accelerate with the work of Golovach et al. [J. Comput. Syst. Sci., 2022]. The latter introduced polynomial-delay enumeration kernels and applied them in the study of structural parameterizations of the Matching Cut problem and some variants. Few other results, mostly on Longest Path and some generalizations of Matching Cut, have also been developed. However, little success has been seen in enumeration versions of Vertex Cover and Feedback Vertex Set, some of the most studied problems in kernelization. In this paper, we address this shortcoming. Our first result is a polynomial-delay enumeration kernel with 2k vertices for Enum Vertex Cover, where we wish to list all solutions with at most k vertices. This is obtained by developing a non-trivial lifting algorithm for the classical crown decomposition reduction rule, and directly improves upon the kernel with 𝒪(k²) vertices derived from the work of Creignou et al. Our other result is a polynomial-delay enumeration kernel with 𝒪(k³) vertices and edges for Enum Feedback Vertex Set; the proof is inspired by some ideas of Thomassé [TALG, 2010], but with a weaker bound on the kernel size due to difficulties in applying the q-expansion technique.

Cite as

Marin Bougeret, Guilherme C. M. Gomes, Vinicius F. dos Santos, and Ignasi Sau. Enumeration Kernels for Vertex Cover and Feedback Vertex Set. In 20th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 358, pp. 23:1-23:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bougeret_et_al:LIPIcs.IPEC.2025.23,
  author =	{Bougeret, Marin and C. M. Gomes, Guilherme and dos Santos, Vinicius F. and Sau, Ignasi},
  title =	{{Enumeration Kernels for Vertex Cover and Feedback Vertex Set}},
  booktitle =	{20th International Symposium on Parameterized and Exact Computation (IPEC 2025)},
  pages =	{23:1--23:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-407-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{358},
  editor =	{Agrawal, Akanksha and van Leeuwen, Erik Jan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.IPEC.2025.23},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-251552},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.IPEC.2025.23},
  annote =	{Keywords: Kernelization, Enumeration, Vertex cover, Crown decomposition, Feedback vertex set}
}
Document
Space-Efficient Depth-First Search via Augmented Succinct Graph Encodings

Authors: Michael Elberfeld, Frank Kammer, and Johannes Meintrup

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 359, 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)


Abstract
We call a graph G separable if a balanced separator can be computed for G of size O(n^ε) with ε < 1. Many real-world graphs are separable such as graphs of bounded genus, graphs of constant treewidth, and graphs excluding a fixed minor. In particular, the well-known planar graphs are separable. We present a succinct encoding of separable graphs G such that, after the encoding is computed, any number of depth-first searches (DFS) can be performed from any given start vertex, each in o(n) time and o(n) bits in the word RAM model. After the execution of a DFS, the succinct encoding of G is augmented such that the DFS tree is encoded inside the encoding while maintaining succinctness. Afterward, the encoding provides common DFS-related queries in constant time. These queries include queries such as lowest-common ancestor of two given vertices in the DFS tree or queries that output the lowpoint of a given vertex in the DFS tree. Furthermore, for planar graphs, we show that the succinct encoding can be computed in O(n) bits and expected linear time, and a compact variant can be constructed in O(n) time and bits. For other separable graph classes 𝒢 the runtime and space usage depends on the specific algorithms used to find balanced separators in graphs of 𝒢.

Cite as

Michael Elberfeld, Frank Kammer, and Johannes Meintrup. Space-Efficient Depth-First Search via Augmented Succinct Graph Encodings. In 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 359, pp. 29:1-29:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{elberfeld_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.29,
  author =	{Elberfeld, Michael and Kammer, Frank and Meintrup, Johannes},
  title =	{{Space-Efficient Depth-First Search via Augmented Succinct Graph Encodings}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)},
  pages =	{29:1--29:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-408-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{359},
  editor =	{Chen, Ho-Lin and Hon, Wing-Kai and Tsai, Meng-Tsung},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.29},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-249379},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.29},
  annote =	{Keywords: Depth-First Search, Succinct, Space Efficient, Separable Graphs, Planar Graphs, Table Lookup, r-Division}
}
Document
TEE Is Not a Healer: Rollback-Resistant Reliable Storage

Authors: Sadegh Keshavarzi, Gregory Chockler, and Alexey Gotsman

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 356, 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)


Abstract
Recent advances in secure hardware technologies, such as Intel SGX or ARM TrustZone, offer an opportunity to substantially reduce the costs of Byzantine fault-tolerance by placing the program code and state within a secure enclave known as a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). However, the protection offered by a TEE only applies during program execution. Once power is switched off, the non-volatile portion of the program state becomes vulnerable to rollback attacks wherein it is undetectably reverted to an older version. In this paper we consider the problem of implementing reliable read/write registers out of failure-prone replicas subject to state rollbacks. To this end, we introduce a new unified model that captures multiple failure types that can affect a TEE-based system and establish tight bounds on the fault-tolerance of register constructions in this model. We consider both the static case, where failure thresholds hold throughout the entire execution, and the dynamic case, where any number of replicas can roll back, provided these failures do not occur too often. Our dynamic register emulation algorithm, TEE-Rex , provides the first correct implementation of a distributed state recovery procedure that requires neither durable storage nor specialized hardware, such as trusted monotonic counters.

Cite as

Sadegh Keshavarzi, Gregory Chockler, and Alexey Gotsman. TEE Is Not a Healer: Rollback-Resistant Reliable Storage. In 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 356, pp. 39:1-39:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{keshavarzi_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2025.39,
  author =	{Keshavarzi, Sadegh and Chockler, Gregory and Gotsman, Alexey},
  title =	{{TEE Is Not a Healer: Rollback-Resistant Reliable Storage}},
  booktitle =	{39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)},
  pages =	{39:1--39:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-402-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{356},
  editor =	{Kowalski, Dariusz R.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.39},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248560},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.39},
  annote =	{Keywords: Trusted execution environments, fault tolerance, crash recovery}
}
Document
Going Beyond Surfaces in Diameter Approximation

Authors: Michał Włodarczyk

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)


Abstract
Calculating the diameter of an undirected graph requires quadratic running time under the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis and this barrier works even against any approximation better than 3/2. For planar graphs with positive edge weights, there are known (1+ε)-approximation algorithms with running time poly(1/ε, log n)⋅ n. However, these algorithms rely on shortest path separators and this technique falls short to yield efficient algorithms beyond graphs of bounded genus. In this work we depart from embedding-based arguments and obtain diameter approximations relying on VC set systems and the local treewidth property. We present two orthogonal extensions of the planar case by giving (1+ε)-approximation algorithms with the following running times: - 𝒪_h((1/ε)^𝒪(h) ⋅ nlog² n)-time algorithm for graphs excluding an apex graph of size h as a minor, - 𝒪_d((1/ε)^𝒪(d) ⋅ nlog² n)-time algorithm for the class of d-apex graphs. As a stepping stone, we obtain efficient (1+ε)-approximate distance oracles for graphs excluding an apex graph of size h as a minor. Our oracle has preprocessing time 𝒪_h((1/ε)⁸⋅ nlog nlog W) and query time 𝒪_h((1/ε)²⋅log n log W), where W is the metric stretch. Such oracles have been so far only known for bounded genus graphs. All our algorithms are deterministic.

Cite as

Michał Włodarczyk. Going Beyond Surfaces in Diameter Approximation. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 39:1-39:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{wlodarczyk:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.39,
  author =	{W{\l}odarczyk, Micha{\l}},
  title =	{{Going Beyond Surfaces in Diameter Approximation}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{39:1--39:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.39},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245076},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.39},
  annote =	{Keywords: diameter, approximation, distance oracles, graph minors, treewidth}
}
Document
Fault-Tolerant Matroid Bases

Authors: Matthias Bentert, Fedor V. Fomin, Petr A. Golovach, and Laure Morelle

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 351, 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)


Abstract
We investigate the problem of constructing fault-tolerant bases in matroids. Given a matroid ℳ and a redundancy parameter k, a k-fault-tolerant basis is a minimum-size set of elements such that, even after the removal of any k elements, the remaining subset still spans the entire ground set. Since matroids generalize linear independence across structures such as vector spaces, graphs, and set systems, this problem unifies and extends several fault-tolerant concepts appearing in prior research. Our main contribution is a fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) algorithm for the k-fault-tolerant basis problem, parameterized by both k and the rank r of the matroid. This two-variable parameterization by k + r is shown to be tight in the following sense. On the one hand, the problem is already NP-hard for k = 1. On the other hand, it is Para-NP-hard for r ≥ 3 and polynomial-time solvable for r ≤ 2.

Cite as

Matthias Bentert, Fedor V. Fomin, Petr A. Golovach, and Laure Morelle. Fault-Tolerant Matroid Bases. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 83:1-83:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bentert_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.83,
  author =	{Bentert, Matthias and Fomin, Fedor V. and Golovach, Petr A. and Morelle, Laure},
  title =	{{Fault-Tolerant Matroid Bases}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{83:1--83:14},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-395-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{351},
  editor =	{Benoit, Anne and Kaplan, Haim and Wild, Sebastian and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.83},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245511},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.83},
  annote =	{Keywords: Parameterized Complexity, matroids, robust bases}
}
Document
Navigating Exoplanetary Systems in Augmented Reality: Preliminary Insights on ExoAR

Authors: Bryson Lawton, Frank Maurer, and Daniel Zielasko

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 130, Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025)


Abstract
With thousands of exoplanets now confirmed by space missions such as NASA’s Kepler and TESS, scientific interest and public curiosity about these distant worlds continue to grow. However, current visualization tools for exploring exoplanetary systems often lack sufficient scientific accuracy or interactive features, limiting their educational effectiveness and analytical utility. To help address this gap, we developed ExoAR, an augmented reality tool designed to offer immersive, scientifically sound visualizations of all known exoplanetary systems using data directly sourced from NASA’s Exoplanet Archive. By leveraging augmented reality’s strengths, ExoAR enables users to immerse themselves in interactive, dynamic 3D models of these planetary systems with data-driven representations of planets and their host stars. The application also allows users to adjust various visualization scales independently, a capability designed to aid comprehension of comparative astronomical properties such as orbital mechanics, planetary sizes, and stellar classifications. To begin assessing ExoAR’s potential as an educational and analytical tool and inform future iterations, a pilot user study was conducted. Its findings indicate that participants found ExoAR improved user engagement and spatial understanding compared to NASA’s Eyes on Exoplanets application, a non-immersive exoplanetary system visualization tool. This work-in-progress paper presents these early insights, acknowledges current system limitations, and outlines future directions for more rigorously evaluating and further improving ExoAR’s capabilities for both educational and scientific communities.

Cite as

Bryson Lawton, Frank Maurer, and Daniel Zielasko. Navigating Exoplanetary Systems in Augmented Reality: Preliminary Insights on ExoAR. In Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 130, pp. 20:1-20:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{lawton_et_al:OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.20,
  author =	{Lawton, Bryson and Maurer, Frank and Zielasko, Daniel},
  title =	{{Navigating Exoplanetary Systems in Augmented Reality: Preliminary Insights on ExoAR}},
  booktitle =	{Advancing Human-Computer Interaction for Space Exploration (SpaceCHI 2025)},
  pages =	{20:1--20:13},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-384-3},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{130},
  editor =	{Bensch, Leonie and Nilsson, Tommy and Nisser, Martin and Pataranutaporn, Pat and Schmidt, Albrecht and Sumini, Valentina},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.20},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-240106},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.SpaceCHI.2025.20},
  annote =	{Keywords: Immersive Analytics, Data Visualization, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanet, Augmented Reality, AR}
}
Document
Fantastic Flips and Where to Find Them: A General Framework for Parameterized Local Search on Partitioning Problems

Authors: Niels Grüttemeier, Nils Morawietz, and Frank Sommer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 349, 19th International Symposium on Algorithms and Data Structures (WADS 2025)


Abstract
Parameterized local search combines classic local search heuristics with the paradigm of parameterized algorithmics. While most local search algorithms aim to improve given solutions by performing one single operation on a given solution, the parameterized approach aims to improve a solution by performing k simultaneous operations. Herein, k is a parameter called search radius for which the value can be chosen by a user. One major goal in the field of parameterized local search is to outline the trade-off between the size of k and the running time of the local search step. In this work, we introduce an abstract framework that generalizes natural parameterized local search approaches for a large class of partitioning problems: Given n items that are partitioned into b bins and a target function that evaluates the quality of the current partition, one asks whether it is possible to improve the solution by removing up to k items from their current bins and reassigning them to other bins. Among others, our framework applies for the local search versions of problems like Cluster Editing, Vector Bin Packing, and Nash Social Welfare. Motivated by a real-world application of the problem Vector Bin Packing, we introduce a parameter called number of types τ ≤ n and show that all problems fitting in our framework can be solved in τ^k ⋅ 2^𝒪(k) ⋅ |I|^𝒪(1) time, where |I| denotes the total input size. In case of Cluster Editing, the parameter τ generalizes the well-known parameter neighborhood diversity of the input graph. We complement these algorithms by showing that for all considered problems, an algorithm significantly improving over our algorithm with running time τ^k ⋅ 2^𝒪(k) ⋅ |I|^𝒪(1) would contradict the Exponential Time Hypothesis. Additionally, we show that even on very restricted instances, all considered problems are W[1]-hard when parameterized by the search radius k alone. In case of the local search version of Vector Bin Packing, we provide an even stronger W[1]-hardness result.

Cite as

Niels Grüttemeier, Nils Morawietz, and Frank Sommer. Fantastic Flips and Where to Find Them: A General Framework for Parameterized Local Search on Partitioning Problems. In 19th International Symposium on Algorithms and Data Structures (WADS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 349, pp. 32:1-32:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{gruttemeier_et_al:LIPIcs.WADS.2025.32,
  author =	{Gr\"{u}ttemeier, Niels and Morawietz, Nils and Sommer, Frank},
  title =	{{Fantastic Flips and Where to Find Them: A General Framework for Parameterized Local Search on Partitioning Problems}},
  booktitle =	{19th International Symposium on Algorithms and Data Structures (WADS 2025)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-398-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{349},
  editor =	{Morin, Pat and Oh, Eunjin},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.WADS.2025.32},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-242631},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.WADS.2025.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: Flip-Neighborhood, Cluster Editing, Vector Bin Packing, Vertex Cover, NP-hard problem, Max c-Cut}
}
Document
Solving Partial Dominating Set and Related Problems Using Twin-Width

Authors: Jakub Balabán, Daniel Mock, and Peter Rossmanith

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)


Abstract
Partial vertex cover and partial dominating set are two well-investigated optimization problems. While they are W[1]-hard on general graphs, they have been shown to be fixed-parameter tractable on many sparse graph classes, including nowhere-dense classes. In this paper, we demonstrate that these problems are also fixed-parameter tractable with respect to the twin-width of a graph. Indeed, we establish a more general result: every graph property that can be expressed by a logical formula of the form ϕ≡∃ x₁⋯ ∃ x_k ∑_{α ∈ I} #y ψ_α(x₁,…,x_k,y) ≥ t, where ψ_α is a quantifier-free formula for each α ∈ I, t is an arbitrary number, and #y is a counting quantifier, can be evaluated in time f(d,k)n, where n is the number of vertices and d is the width of a contraction sequence that is part of the input. In addition to the aforementioned problems, this includes also connected partial dominating set and independent partial dominating set.

Cite as

Jakub Balabán, Daniel Mock, and Peter Rossmanith. Solving Partial Dominating Set and Related Problems Using Twin-Width. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 13:1-13:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{balaban_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.13,
  author =	{Balab\'{a}n, Jakub and Mock, Daniel and Rossmanith, Peter},
  title =	{{Solving Partial Dominating Set and Related Problems Using Twin-Width}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{13:1--13:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.13},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241203},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.13},
  annote =	{Keywords: Partial Dominating Set, Partial Vertex Cover, meta-algorithm, counting logic, twin-width}
}
Document
Temporal Graph Realization with Bounded Stretch

Authors: George B. Mertzios, Hendrik Molter, Nils Morawietz, and Paul G. Spirakis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)


Abstract
A periodic temporal graph, in its simplest form, is a graph in which every edge appears exactly once in the first Δ time steps, and then it reappears recurrently every Δ time steps, where Δ is a given period length. This model offers a natural abstraction of transportation networks where each transportation link connects two destinations periodically. From a network design perspective, a crucial task is to assign the time-labels on the edges in a way that optimizes some criterion. In this paper we introduce a very natural optimality criterion that captures how the temporal distances of all vertex pairs are "stretched", compared to their physical distances, i.e. their distances in the underlying static (non-temporal) graph. Given a static graph G, the task is to assign to each edge one time-label between 1 and Δ such that, in the resulting periodic temporal graph with period Δ, the duration of the fastest temporal path from any vertex u to any other vertex v is at most α times the distance between u and v in G. Here, the value of α measures how much the shortest paths are allowed to be stretched once we assign the periodic time-labels. Our results span three different directions: First, we provide a series of approximation and NP-hardness results. Second, we provide approximation and fixed-parameter algorithms. Among them, we provide a simple polynomial-time algorithm (the radius-algorithm) which always guarantees an approximation strictly smaller than Δ, and which also computes the optimum stretch in some cases. Third, we consider a parameterized local search extension of the problem where we are given the temporal labeling of the graph, but we are allowed to change the time-labels of at most k edges; for this problem we prove that it is W[2]-hard but admits an XP algorithm with respect to k.

Cite as

George B. Mertzios, Hendrik Molter, Nils Morawietz, and Paul G. Spirakis. Temporal Graph Realization with Bounded Stretch. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 75:1-75:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{mertzios_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.75,
  author =	{Mertzios, George B. and Molter, Hendrik and Morawietz, Nils and Spirakis, Paul G.},
  title =	{{Temporal Graph Realization with Bounded Stretch}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{75:1--75:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.75},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241829},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.75},
  annote =	{Keywords: Temporal graph, periodic temporal labeling, fastest temporal path, graph realization, temporal connectivity, stretch}
}
Document
Count on Your Elders: Laplace vs Gaussian Noise

Authors: Joel Daniel Andersson, Rasmus Pagh, Teresa Anna Steiner, and Sahel Torkamani

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 329, 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)


Abstract
In recent years, Gaussian noise has become a popular tool in differentially private algorithms, often replacing Laplace noise which dominated the early literature on differential privacy. Gaussian noise is the standard approach to approximate differential privacy, often resulting in much higher utility than traditional (pure) differential privacy mechanisms. In this paper we argue that Laplace noise may in fact be preferable to Gaussian noise in many settings, in particular when we seek to achieve (ε,δ)-differential privacy for small values of δ. We consider two scenarios: First, we consider the problem of counting under continual observation and present a new generalization of the binary tree mechanism that uses a k-ary number system with negative digits to improve the privacy-accuracy trade-off. Our mechanism uses Laplace noise and whenever δ is sufficiently small it improves the mean squared error over the best possible (ε,δ)-differentially private factorization mechanisms based on Gaussian noise. Specifically, using k = 19 we get an asymptotic improvement over the bound given in the work by Henzinger, Upadhyay and Upadhyay (SODA 2023) when δ = O(T^{-0.92}). Second, we show that the noise added by the Gaussian mechanism can always be replaced by Laplace noise of comparable variance for the same (ε, δ)-differential privacy guarantee, and in fact for sufficiently small δ the variance of the Laplace noise becomes strictly better. This challenges the conventional wisdom that Gaussian noise should be used for high-dimensional noise. Finally, we study whether counting under continual observation may be easier in an average-case sense than in a worst-case sense. We show that, under pure differential privacy, the expected worst-case error for a random input must be Ω(log(T)/ε), matching the known lower bound for worst-case inputs.

Cite as

Joel Daniel Andersson, Rasmus Pagh, Teresa Anna Steiner, and Sahel Torkamani. Count on Your Elders: Laplace vs Gaussian Noise. In 6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 329, pp. 10:1-10:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{andersson_et_al:LIPIcs.FORC.2025.10,
  author =	{Andersson, Joel Daniel and Pagh, Rasmus and Steiner, Teresa Anna and Torkamani, Sahel},
  title =	{{Count on Your Elders: Laplace vs Gaussian Noise}},
  booktitle =	{6th Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2025)},
  pages =	{10:1--10:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-367-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{329},
  editor =	{Bun, Mark},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.10},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-231376},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FORC.2025.10},
  annote =	{Keywords: differential privacy, continual observation, streaming, prefix sums, trees}
}
Document
Temporal Dominating Set and Temporal Vertex Cover Under the Lense of Degree Restrictions

Authors: Anton Herrmann, Christian Komusiewicz, Nils Morawietz, and Frank Sommer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 330, 4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025)


Abstract
We study the Temporal Dominating Set problem, in which one asks whether a temporal graph 𝒢 = (G₁,… , G_T) given as a sequence of snapshot graphs, over the same vertex set V, has a set S of temporal vertices of size at most k such that each vertex v of V is dominated by some w ∈ S in the snapshot that contains w. Additionally, we consider Temporal Partial Dominating Set, where one asks whether at least t (and not necessarily all) vertices of V can be dominated by S and a further generalization in which the solution may only contain a bounded number of temporal vertices from each snapshot. We analyze how the complexity of Temporal (Partial) Dominating Set is influenced by the maximum snapshot degree and the structure of the underlying graph, the graph with vertex set V and whose edge set is the union of all snapshot edge sets. For example, we obtain a complexity dichotomy for the maximum snapshot degree and we show that Temporal Partial Dominating Set is fixed-parameter tractable for tw+Δ, where tw and Δ denote the treewidth and the maximum degree of the underlying graph of 𝒢, respectively. We also show which of our results transfer to the well-studied Temporal Vertex Cover problem. For example, we show that Temporal Vertex Cover is also fixed-parameter tractable for tw+Δ which substantially extends the previously known polynomial-time algorithms for the case that the underlying graph is a path or cycle.

Cite as

Anton Herrmann, Christian Komusiewicz, Nils Morawietz, and Frank Sommer. Temporal Dominating Set and Temporal Vertex Cover Under the Lense of Degree Restrictions. In 4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 330, pp. 16:1-16:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{herrmann_et_al:LIPIcs.SAND.2025.16,
  author =	{Herrmann, Anton and Komusiewicz, Christian and Morawietz, Nils and Sommer, Frank},
  title =	{{Temporal Dominating Set and Temporal Vertex Cover Under the Lense of Degree Restrictions}},
  booktitle =	{4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025)},
  pages =	{16:1--16:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-368-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{330},
  editor =	{Meeks, Kitty and Scheideler, Christian},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.16},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-230695},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.16},
  annote =	{Keywords: NP-hard problem, FPT-algorithm, Treewidth, Color coding}
}
Document
Better Late, Then? The Hardness of Choosing Delays to Meet Passenger Demands in Temporal Graphs

Authors: David C. Kutner and Anouk Sommer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 330, 4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025)


Abstract
In train networks, carefully-chosen delays may be beneficial for certain passengers, who would otherwise miss some connection. Given a simple (directed or undirected) temporal graph and a set of passengers (each specifying a starting vertex, an ending vertex, and a desired arrival time), we ask whether it is possible to delay some of the edges of the temporal graph to realize all the passengers' demands. We call this problem DelayBetter (DB), and study it along with two variants: in δ-DelayBetter, each delay must be of at most δ; in (δ-)Path DB, passengers also fully specify the vertices they should visit on their journey. On the positive side, we give a polynomial-time algorithm for Path DB and δ-Path DB, and obtain as a corollary a polynomial-time algorithm for DB and δ-DB on trees. We also provide an fpt algorithm for both problems parameterized by the size of the graph’s Feedback Edge Set together with the number of passengers. On the negative side, we show NP-completeness of (1-)DB on bounded-degree temporal graphs even when the lifetime is 2, and of (10-)DB on bounded-degree planar temporal graphs of lifetime 19. Our results complement previous work studying reachability problems in temporal graphs with delaying operations. This is to our knowledge the first such problem in which the aim is to facilitate travel between specific points (as opposed to facilitating or impeding a broadcast from one or many sources).

Cite as

David C. Kutner and Anouk Sommer. Better Late, Then? The Hardness of Choosing Delays to Meet Passenger Demands in Temporal Graphs. In 4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 330, pp. 7:1-7:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{kutner_et_al:LIPIcs.SAND.2025.7,
  author =	{Kutner, David C. and Sommer, Anouk},
  title =	{{Better Late, Then? The Hardness of Choosing Delays to Meet Passenger Demands in Temporal Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-368-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{330},
  editor =	{Meeks, Kitty and Scheideler, Christian},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-230604},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Temporal Graphs, Computational Complexity, Delay Management, Train Networks}
}
Document
Complexity of Local Search for Euclidean Clustering Problems

Authors: Bodo Manthey, Nils Morawietz, Jesse van Rhijn, and Frank Sommer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 322, 35th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2024)


Abstract
We show that the simplest local search heuristics for two natural Euclidean clustering problems are PLS-hard. First, we show that the Hartigan-Wong method, which is essentially the Flip heuristic, for k-Means clustering is PLS-hard, even when k = 2. Second, we show the same result for the Flip heuristic for Max Cut, even when the edge weights are given by the (squared) Euclidean distances between the points in some set 𝒳 ⊆ R^d; a problem which is equivalent to Min Sum 2-Clustering.

Cite as

Bodo Manthey, Nils Morawietz, Jesse van Rhijn, and Frank Sommer. Complexity of Local Search for Euclidean Clustering Problems. In 35th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 322, pp. 48:1-48:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


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@InProceedings{manthey_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2024.48,
  author =	{Manthey, Bodo and Morawietz, Nils and van Rhijn, Jesse and Sommer, Frank},
  title =	{{Complexity of Local Search for Euclidean Clustering Problems}},
  booktitle =	{35th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2024)},
  pages =	{48:1--48:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-354-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{322},
  editor =	{Mestre, Juli\'{a}n and Wirth, Anthony},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2024.48},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-221755},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2024.48},
  annote =	{Keywords: Local search, PLS-complete, max cut, k-means, partitioning problem, flip-neighborhood}
}
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