Search Results

Documents authored by Kumar, Nikhil

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.45
Nearly-Tight Bounds for Flow Sparsifiers in Quasi-Bipartite Graphs

Authors: Syamantak Das, Nikhil Kumar, and Daniel Vaz

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 306, 49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024)

Abstract
Flow sparsification is a classic graph compression technique which, given a capacitated graph G on k terminals, aims to construct another capacitated graph H, called a flow sparsifier, that preserves, either exactly or approximately, every multicommodity flow between terminals (ideally, with size as a small function of k). Cut sparsifiers are a restricted variant of flow sparsifiers which are only required to preserve maximum flows between bipartitions of the terminal set. It is known that exact cut sparsifiers require 2^Ω(k) many vertices [Krauthgamer and Rika, SODA 2013], with the hard instances being quasi-bipartite graphs, where there are no edges between non-terminals. On the other hand, it has been shown recently that exact (or even (1+ε)-approximate) flow sparsifiers on networks with just 6 terminals require unbounded size [Krauthgamer and Mosenzon, SODA 2023, Chen and Tan, SODA 2024]. In this paper, we construct exact flow sparsifiers of size 3^k³ and exact cut sparsifiers of size 2^k² for quasi-bipartite graphs. In particular, the flow sparsifiers are contraction-based, that is, they are obtained from the input graph by (vertex) contraction operations. Our main contribution is a new technique to construct sparsifiers that exploits connections to polyhedral geometry, and that can be generalized to graphs with a small separator that separates the graph into small components. We also give an improved reduction theorem for graphs of bounded treewidth [Andoni et al., SODA 2011], implying a flow sparsifier of size O(k⋅w) and quality O((log w)/log log w), where w is the treewidth.
Cite as

Syamantak Das, Nikhil Kumar, and Daniel Vaz. Nearly-Tight Bounds for Flow Sparsifiers in Quasi-Bipartite Graphs. In 49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 306, pp. 45:1-45:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{das_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.45,
  author =	{Das, Syamantak and Kumar, Nikhil and Vaz, Daniel},
  title =	{{Nearly-Tight Bounds for Flow Sparsifiers in Quasi-Bipartite Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024)},
  pages =	{45:1--45:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-335-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{306},
  editor =	{Kr\'{a}lovi\v{c}, Rastislav and Ku\v{c}era, Anton{\'\i}n},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.45},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-206018},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.45},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph Sparsification, Cut Sparsifiers, Flow Sparsifiers, Quasi-bipartite Graphs, Bounded Treewidth}
}
Document
APPROX
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.55
A Primal-Dual Algorithm for Multicommodity Flows and Multicuts in Treewidth-2 Graphs

Authors: Tobias Friedrich, Davis Issac, Nikhil Kumar, Nadym Mallek, and Ziena Zeif

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 245, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022)

Abstract
We study the problem of multicommodity flow and multicut in treewidth-2 graphs and prove bounds on the multiflow-multicut gap. In particular, we give a primal-dual algorithm for computing multicommodity flow and multicut in treewidth-2 graphs and prove the following approximate max-flow min-cut theorem: given a treewidth-2 graph, there exists a multicommodity flow of value f with congestion 4, and a multicut of capacity c such that c ≤ 20 f. This implies a multiflow-multicut gap of 80 and improves upon the previous best known bounds for such graphs. Our algorithm runs in polynomial time when all the edges have capacity one. Our algorithm is completely combinatorial and builds upon the primal-dual algorithm of Garg, Vazirani and Yannakakis for multicut in trees and the augmenting paths framework of Ford and Fulkerson.
Cite as

Tobias Friedrich, Davis Issac, Nikhil Kumar, Nadym Mallek, and Ziena Zeif. A Primal-Dual Algorithm for Multicommodity Flows and Multicuts in Treewidth-2 Graphs. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 245, pp. 55:1-55:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{friedrich_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.55,
  author =	{Friedrich, Tobias and Issac, Davis and Kumar, Nikhil and Mallek, Nadym and Zeif, Ziena},
  title =	{{A Primal-Dual Algorithm for Multicommodity Flows and Multicuts in Treewidth-2 Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2022)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-249-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{245},
  editor =	{Chakrabarti, Amit and Swamy, Chaitanya},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-171774},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2022.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation Algorithms, Multicommodity Flow, Multicut}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.51
Skeletons and Minimum Energy Scheduling

Authors: Antonios Antoniadis, Gunjan Kumar, and Nikhil Kumar

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 212, 32nd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2021)

Abstract
Consider the problem where n jobs, each with a release time, a deadline and a required processing time are to be feasibly scheduled in a single- or multi-processor setting so as to minimize the total energy consumption of the schedule. A processor has two available states: a sleep state where no energy is consumed but also no processing can take place, and an active state which consumes energy at a rate of one, and in which jobs can be processed. Transitioning from the active to the sleep does not incur any further energy cost, but transitioning from the sleep to the active state requires q energy units. Jobs may be preempted and (in the multi-processor case) migrated. The single-processor case of the problem is known to be solvable in polynomial time via an involved dynamic program, whereas the only known approximation algorithm for the multi-processor case attains an approximation factor of 3 and is based on rounding the solution to a linear programming relaxation of the problem. In this work, we present efficient and combinatorial approximation algorithms for both the single- and the multi-processor setting. Before, only an algorithm based on linear programming was known for the multi-processor case. Our algorithms build upon the concept of a skeleton, a basic (and not necessarily feasible) schedule that captures the fact that some processor(s) must be active at some time point during an interval. Finally, we further demonstrate the power of skeletons by providing a 2-approximation algorithm for the multiprocessor case, thus improving upon the recent breakthrough 3-approximation result. Our algorithm is based on a novel rounding scheme of a linear-programming relaxation of the problem which incorporates skeletons.
Cite as

Antonios Antoniadis, Gunjan Kumar, and Nikhil Kumar. Skeletons and Minimum Energy Scheduling. In 32nd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 212, pp. 51:1-51:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{antoniadis_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.51,
  author =	{Antoniadis, Antonios and Kumar, Gunjan and Kumar, Nikhil},
  title =	{{Skeletons and Minimum Energy Scheduling}},
  booktitle =	{32nd International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2021)},
  pages =	{51:1--51:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-214-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{212},
  editor =	{Ahn, Hee-Kap and Sadakane, Kunihiko},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.51},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-154849},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2021.51},
  annote =	{Keywords: scheduling, energy-efficiency, approximation algorithms, dynamic programming, combinatorial algorithms}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.41
Multicommodity Flows in Planar Graphs with Demands on Faces

Authors: Nikhil Kumar

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 181, 31st International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2020)

Abstract
We consider the problem of multicommodity flows in planar graphs. Seymour [Seymour, 1981] showed that if the union of supply and demand graphs is planar, then the cut condition is also sufficient for routing demands. Okamura-Seymour [Okamura and Seymour, 1981] showed that if the supply graph is planar and all demands are incident on one face, then again the cut condition is sufficient for routing demands. We consider a common generalization of these settings where the end points of each demand are on the same face of the planar graph. We show that if the source sink pairs on each face of the graph are such that sources and sinks appear contiguously on the cycle bounding the face, then the flow cut gap is at most 3. We come up with a notion of approximating demands on a face by convex combination of laminar demands to prove this result.
Cite as

Nikhil Kumar. Multicommodity Flows in Planar Graphs with Demands on Faces. In 31st International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 181, pp. 41:1-41:11, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{kumar:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.41,
  author =	{Kumar, Nikhil},
  title =	{{Multicommodity Flows in Planar Graphs with Demands on Faces}},
  booktitle =	{31st International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2020)},
  pages =	{41:1--41:11},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-173-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{181},
  editor =	{Cao, Yixin and Cheng, Siu-Wing and Li, Minming},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.41},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-133857},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.41},
  annote =	{Keywords: Combinatorial Optimization, Multicommodity Flow, Network Design}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2020.55
Dual Half-Integrality for Uncrossable Cut Cover and Its Application to Maximum Half-Integral Flow

Authors: Naveen Garg and Nikhil Kumar

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 173, 28th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2020)

Abstract
Given an edge weighted graph and a forest F, the 2-edge connectivity augmentation problem is to pick a minimum weighted set of edges, E', such that every connected component of E' ∪ F is 2-edge connected. Williamson et al. gave a 2-approximation algorithm (WGMV) for this problem using the primal-dual schema. We show that when edge weights are integral, the WGMV procedure can be modified to obtain a half-integral dual. The 2-edge connectivity augmentation problem has an interesting connection to routing flow in graphs where the union of supply and demand is planar. The half-integrality of the dual leads to a tight 2-approximate max-half-integral-flow min-multicut theorem.
Cite as

Naveen Garg and Nikhil Kumar. Dual Half-Integrality for Uncrossable Cut Cover and Its Application to Maximum Half-Integral Flow. In 28th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 173, pp. 55:1-55:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{garg_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2020.55,
  author =	{Garg, Naveen and Kumar, Nikhil},
  title =	{{Dual Half-Integrality for Uncrossable Cut Cover and Its Application to Maximum Half-Integral Flow}},
  booktitle =	{28th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2020)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-162-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{173},
  editor =	{Grandoni, Fabrizio and Herman, Grzegorz and Sanders, Peter},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2020.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-129214},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2020.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: Combinatorial Optimization, Multicommodity Flow, Network Design}
}
Document
APPROX
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2020.55
A Constant Factor Approximation for Capacitated Min-Max Tree Cover

Authors: Syamantak Das, Lavina Jain, and Nikhil Kumar

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 176, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2020)

Abstract
Given a graph G = (V,E) with non-negative real edge lengths and an integer parameter k, the (uncapacitated) Min-Max Tree Cover problem seeks to find a set of at most k trees which together span V and each tree is a subgraph of G. The objective is to minimize the maximum length among all the trees. In this paper, we consider a capacitated generalization of the above and give the first constant factor approximation algorithm. In the capacitated version, there is a hard uniform capacity (λ) on the number of vertices a tree can cover. Our result extends to the rooted version of the problem, where we are given a set of k root vertices, R and each of the covering trees is required to include a distinct vertex in R as the root. Prior to our work, the only result known was a (2k-1)-approximation algorithm for the special case when the total number of vertices in the graph is kλ [Guttmann-Beck and Hassin, J. of Algorithms, 1997]. Our technique circumvents the difficulty of using the minimum spanning tree of the graph as a lower bound, which is standard for the uncapacitated version of the problem [Even et al.,OR Letters 2004] [Khani et al.,Algorithmica 2010]. Instead, we use Steiner trees that cover λ vertices along with an iterative refinement procedure that ensures that the output trees have low cost and the vertices are well distributed among the trees.
Cite as

Syamantak Das, Lavina Jain, and Nikhil Kumar. A Constant Factor Approximation for Capacitated Min-Max Tree Cover. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 176, pp. 55:1-55:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{das_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2020.55,
  author =	{Das, Syamantak and Jain, Lavina and Kumar, Nikhil},
  title =	{{A Constant Factor Approximation for Capacitated Min-Max Tree Cover}},
  booktitle =	{Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2020)},
  pages =	{55:1--55:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-164-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{176},
  editor =	{Byrka, Jaros{\l}aw and Meka, Raghu},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2020.55},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-126581},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2020.55},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximation Algorithms, Graph Algorithms, Min-Max Tree Cover, Vehicle Routing, Steiner Tree}
}
Questions / Remarks / Feedback
X

Feedback for Dagstuhl Publishing


Thanks for your feedback!

Feedback submitted

Could not send message

Please try again later or send an E-mail
© 2023-2024 Schloss Dagstuhl – LZI GmbH Imprint Privacy Contact