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A 21/16-Approximation for the Minimum 3-Path Partition Problem

Authors: Yong Chen, Randy Goebel, Bing Su, Weitian Tong, Yao Xu, and An Zhang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 149, 30th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2019)


Abstract
The minimum k-path partition (Min-k-PP for short) problem targets to partition an input graph into the smallest number of paths, each of which has order at most k. We focus on the special case when k=3. Existing literature mainly concentrates on the exact algorithms for special graphs, such as trees. Because of the challenge of NP-hardness on general graphs, the approximability of the Min-3-PP problem attracts researchers' attention. The first approximation algorithm dates back about 10 years and achieves an approximation ratio of 3/2, which was recently improved to 13/9 and further to 4/3. We investigate the 3/2-approximation algorithm for the Min-3-PP problem and discover several interesting structural properties. Instead of studying the unweighted Min-3-PP problem directly, we design a novel weight schema for l-paths, l in {1, 2, 3}, and investigate the weighted version. A greedy local search algorithm is proposed to generate a heavy path partition. We show the achieved path partition has the least 1-paths, which is also the key ingredient for the algorithms with ratios 13/9 and 4/3. When switching back to the unweighted objective function, we prove the approximation ratio 21/16 via amortized analysis.

Cite as

Yong Chen, Randy Goebel, Bing Su, Weitian Tong, Yao Xu, and An Zhang. A 21/16-Approximation for the Minimum 3-Path Partition Problem. In 30th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 149, pp. 46:1-46:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)


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@InProceedings{chen_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2019.46,
  author =	{Chen, Yong and Goebel, Randy and Su, Bing and Tong, Weitian and Xu, Yao and Zhang, An},
  title =	{{A 21/16-Approximation for the Minimum 3-Path Partition Problem}},
  booktitle =	{30th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2019)},
  pages =	{46:1--46:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-130-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{149},
  editor =	{Lu, Pinyan and Zhang, Guochuan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2019.46},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-115422},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2019.46},
  annote =	{Keywords: 3-path partition, exact set cover, approximation algorithm, local search, amortized analysis}
}
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