16 Search Results for "Dueholm Hansen, Thomas"

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.31
Lower Bounds for Ranking-Based Pivot Rules

Authors: Yann Disser, Georg Loho, Matthew Maat, and Nils Mosis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)

Abstract
The existence of a polynomial pivot rule for the simplex method for linear programming, policy iteration for Markov decision processes, and strategy improvement for parity games each are prominent open problems in their respective fields. While numerous natural candidates for efficient rules have been eliminated, all existing lower bound constructions are tailored to individual or small sets of pivot rules. We introduce a unified framework for formalizing classes of rules according to the information about the input that they rely on. Within this framework, we show lower bounds for ranking-based classes of rules that base their decisions on orderings of the improving pivot steps induced by the underlying data. Our first result is a superpolynomial lower bound for strategy improvement, obtained via a family of sink parity games, which applies to memory-based generalizations of Bland’s rule that only access the input by comparing the ranks of improving edges in some global order. Our second result is a subexponential lower bound for policy iteration, obtained via a family of Markov decision processes, which applies to memoryless rules that only access the input by comparing improving actions according to their ranks in a global order, their reduced costs, and the associated improvements in objective value. Both results carry over to the simplex method for linear programming.
Cite as

Yann Disser, Georg Loho, Matthew Maat, and Nils Mosis. Lower Bounds for Ranking-Based Pivot Rules. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 31:1-31:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{disser_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.31,
  author =	{Disser, Yann and Loho, Georg and Maat, Matthew and Mosis, Nils},
  title =	{{Lower Bounds for Ranking-Based Pivot Rules}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{31:1--31:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.31},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255207},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.31},
  annote =	{Keywords: lower bounds, Markov decision processes, parity games, pivot rules, policy iteration, simplex method}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.59
When Is Local Search Both Effective and Efficient?

Authors: Artem Kaznatcheev and Sofia Vazquez Alferez

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)

Abstract
Combinatorial optimization problems implicitly define fitness landscapes that combine the numeric structure of the "fitness" function to be maximized with the combinatorial structure of which assignments are "adjacent". Local search starts at an assignment in this landscape and successively moves assignments until no further improvement is possible among the adjacent assignments. Classic analyses of local search algorithms have focused more on the question of effectiveness ("did we find a good solution?") and often implicitly assumed that there are no doubts about their efficiency ("did we find it quickly?"). But there are many reasons to doubt the efficiency of local search. Even if we focus on fitness landscapes on the hypercube that are single peaked on every subcube (known as semismooth fitness landscapes, completely unimodal pseudo-Boolean functions, or acyclic unique sink orientations) where effectiveness is obvious, many local search algorithms are known to be inefficient. Since fitness landscapes are unwieldy exponentially large objects, we focus on their polynomial-sized representations by instances of valued constraint satisfaction problems (VCSP). We define a "direction" for valued constraints such that directed VCSPs generate semismooth fitness landscapes. We call directed VCSPs oriented if they do not have any pair of variables with arcs in both directions. Since recognizing if a VCSP-instance is directed or oriented is coNP-complete, we generalized oriented VCSPs as conditionally-smooth fitness landscapes where the structural property of "conditionally-smooth" is recognizable in polynomial time for a VCSP-instance. We prove that many popular local search algorithms like random ascent, simulated annealing, history-based rules, jumping rules, and the Kernighan-Lin heuristic are very efficient on conditionally-smooth landscapes. But conditionally-smooth landscapes are still expressive enough so that other well-regarded local search algorithms like steepest ascent and random facet require a super-polynomial number of steps to find the fitness peak.
Cite as

Artem Kaznatcheev and Sofia Vazquez Alferez. When Is Local Search Both Effective and Efficient?. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 59:1-59:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{kaznatcheev_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.59,
  author =	{Kaznatcheev, Artem and Vazquez Alferez, Sofia},
  title =	{{When Is Local Search Both Effective and Efficient?}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{59:1--59:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.59},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255480},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.59},
  annote =	{Keywords: valued constraint satisfaction problem, local search, algorithm analysis, constraint graphs, pseudo-Boolean functions, parameterized complexity}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.26
Faster Dynamic 2-Edge Connectivity in Directed Graphs

Authors: Loukas Georgiadis, Konstantinos Giannis, and Giuseppe F. Italiano

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

Abstract
Let G be a directed graph with n vertices and m edges. We present a deterministic algorithm that maintains the 2-edge-connected components of G under a sequence of m edge insertions, with a total running time of O(n² log n). This significantly improves upon the previous best bound of O(mn) for graphs that are not very sparse. After each insertion, our algorithm supports the following queries with asymptotically optimal efficiency: - Test in constant time whether two query vertices v and w are 2-edge-connected in G. - Report in O(n) time all the 2-edge-connected components of G. Our approach builds on the recent framework of Georgiadis, Italiano, and Kosinas [FOCS 2024] for computing the 3-edge-connected components of a directed graph in linear time, which leverages the minset-poset technique of Gabow [TALG 2016]. Additionally, we provide a deterministic decremental algorithm for maintaining 2-edge-connectivity in strongly connected directed graphs. Given a sequence of m edge deletions, our algorithm maintains the 2-edge-connected components in total time n^(2+o(1)), while supporting the same queries as the incremental algorithm. This result assumes that the edges of a fixed spanning tree of G and of its reverse graph G^R are not deleted. Previously, the best known bound for the decremental problem was O(mn log n), obtained by a randomized algorithm without restrictions on the deletions. In contrast to prior dynamic algorithms for 2-edge-connectivity in directed graphs, our method avoids the incremental computation of dominator trees, thereby circumventing the known conditional lower bound of Ω(mn).
Cite as

Loukas Georgiadis, Konstantinos Giannis, and Giuseppe F. Italiano. Faster Dynamic 2-Edge Connectivity in Directed Graphs. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 26:1-26:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{georgiadis_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.26,
  author =	{Georgiadis, Loukas and Giannis, Konstantinos and Italiano, Giuseppe F.},
  title =	{{Faster Dynamic 2-Edge Connectivity in Directed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:16},
  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.2025.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-244945},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: Connectivity, dynamic algorithms, directed graphs}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.45
Bounded Weighted Edit Distance: Dynamic Algorithms and Matching Lower Bounds

Authors: Itai Boneh, Egor Gorbachev, and Tomasz Kociumaka

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

Abstract
The edit distance ed(X,Y) of two strings X,Y ∈ Σ^* is the minimum number of character edits (insertions, deletions, and substitutions) needed to transform X into Y. Its weighted counterpart ed^w(X,Y) minimizes the total cost of edits, where the costs of individual edits, depending on the edit type and the characters involved, are specified using a function w, normalized so that each edit costs at least one. The textbook dynamic-programming procedure, given strings X,Y ∈ Σ^{≤ n} and oracle access to w, computes ed^w(X,Y) in 𝒪(n²) time. Nevertheless, one can achieve better running times if the computed distance, denoted k, is small: 𝒪(n+k²) for unit weights [Landau and Vishkin; JCSS'88] and Õ(n+√{nk³}) for arbitrary weights [Cassis, Kociumaka, Wellnitz; FOCS'23]. In this paper, we study the dynamic version of the weighted edit distance problem, where the goal is to maintain ed^w(X,Y) for strings X,Y ∈ Σ^{≤ n} that change over time, with each update specified as an edit in X or Y. Very recently, Gorbachev and Kociumaka [STOC'25] showed that the unweighted distance ed(X,Y) can be maintained in Õ(k) time per update after Õ(n+k²)-time preprocessing; here, k denotes the current value of ed(X,Y). Their algorithm generalizes to small integer weights, but the underlying approach is incompatible with large weights. Our main result is a dynamic algorithm that maintains ed^w(X,Y) in Õ(k^{3-γ}) time per update after Õ(nk^γ)-time preprocessing. Here, γ ∈ [0,1] is a real trade-off parameter and k ≥ 1 is an integer threshold fixed at preprocessing time, with ∞ returned whenever ed^w(X,Y) > k. We complement our algorithm with conditional lower bounds showing fine-grained optimality of our trade-off for γ ∈ [0.5,1) and justifying our choice to fix k. We also generalize our solution to a much more robust setting while preserving the fine-grained optimal trade-off. Our full algorithm maintains X ∈ Σ^{≤ n} subject not only to character edits but also substring deletions and copy-pastes, each supported in Õ(k²) time. Instead of dynamically maintaining Y, it answers queries that, given any string Y specified through a sequence of 𝒪(k) arbitrary edits transforming X into Y, in Õ(k^{3-γ}) time compute ed^w(X,Y) or report that ed^w(X,Y) > k.
Cite as

Itai Boneh, Egor Gorbachev, and Tomasz Kociumaka. Bounded Weighted Edit Distance: Dynamic Algorithms and Matching Lower Bounds. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 45:1-45:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{boneh_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.45,
  author =	{Boneh, Itai and Gorbachev, Egor and Kociumaka, Tomasz},
  title =	{{Bounded Weighted Edit Distance: Dynamic Algorithms and Matching Lower Bounds}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{45:1--45:16},
  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.2025.45},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245139},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.45},
  annote =	{Keywords: Edit distance, dynamic algorithms, conditional lower bounds}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.36
Efficient Contractions of Dynamic Graphs - With Applications

Authors: Monika Henzinger, Evangelos Kosinas, Robin Münk, and Harald Räcke

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

Abstract
A non-trivial minimum cut (NMC) sparsifier is a multigraph Ĝ that preserves all non-trivial minimum cuts of a given undirected graph G. We introduce a flexible data structure for fully dynamic graphs that can efficiently provide an NMC sparsifier upon request at any point during the sequence of updates. We employ simple dynamic forest data structures to achieve a fast from-scratch construction of the sparsifier at query time. Based on the strength of the adversary and desired type of time bounds, the data structure comes with different guarantees. Specifically, let G be a fully dynamic simple graph with n vertices and minimum degree δ. Then our data structure supports an insertion/deletion of an edge to/from G in n^o(1) worst-case time. Furthermore, upon request, it can return w.h.p. an NMC sparsifier of G that has O(n/δ) vertices and O(n) edges, in Ô(n) time. The probabilistic guarantees hold against an adaptive adversary. Alternatively, the update and query times can be improved to Õ(1) and Õ(n) respectively, if amortized-time guarantees are sufficient, or if the adversary is oblivious. Throughout the paper, we use Õ to hide polylogarithmic factors and Ô to hide subpolynomial (i.e., n^o(1)) factors. We discuss two applications of our new data structure. First, it can be used to efficiently report a cactus representation of all minimum cuts of a fully dynamic simple graph. Building this cactus for the NMC sparsifier instead of the original graph allows for a construction time that is sublinear in the number of edges. Against an adaptive adversary, we can with high probability output the cactus representation in worst-case Ô(n) time. Second, our data structure allows us to efficiently compute the maximal k-edge-connected subgraphs of undirected simple graphs, by repeatedly applying a minimum cut algorithm on the NMC sparsifier. Specifically, we can compute with high probability the maximal k-edge-connected subgraphs of a simple graph with n vertices and m edges in Õ(m+n²/k) time. This improves the best known time bounds for k = Ω(n^{1/8}) and naturally extends to the case of fully dynamic graphs.
Cite as

Monika Henzinger, Evangelos Kosinas, Robin Münk, and Harald Räcke. Efficient Contractions of Dynamic Graphs - With Applications. In 33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 351, pp. 36:1-36:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{henzinger_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2025.36,
  author =	{Henzinger, Monika and Kosinas, Evangelos and M\"{u}nk, Robin and R\"{a}cke, Harald},
  title =	{{Efficient Contractions of Dynamic Graphs - With Applications}},
  booktitle =	{33rd Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2025)},
  pages =	{36:1--36:14},
  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.2025.36},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-245047},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2025.36},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph Algorithms, Cut Sparsifiers, Dynamic Algorithms}
}
Document
Invited Talk
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.2
Higher Connectivity in Directed Graphs (Invited Talk)

Authors: Giuseppe F. Italiano

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

Abstract
The computation of edge-connected components in directed and undirected graphs is a well studied problem that is motivated by several applications (see, e.g., [Hiroshi Nagamochi and Toshihide Ibaraki, 2008]). Let G = (V,E) be a strongly connected directed graph with m edges and n vertices. An edge e ∈ E is a strong bridge if G ⧵ e is not strongly connected. More generally, a set of edges C ⊆ E is a cut if G ⧵ C is not strongly connected. If |C| = k then we refer to C as a k-sized cut of G. Hence, a strong bridge is a 1-sized cut of G. A digraph G is k-edge-connected if it has no (k-1)-cuts. We say that two vertices v and w are k-edge-connected, and we denote this relation by v ↔_{k} w, if there are k edge-disjoint directed paths from v to w and k edge-disjoint directed paths from w to v. (Note that a path from v to w and a path from w to v need not be edge-disjoint). By Menger’s theorem [Karl Menger, 1927], v ↔_{k} w if and only if the removal of any set of at most k-1 edges leaves v and w in the same strongly connected component. We define a k-edge-connected component of a digraph G = (V,E) as a maximal subset U ⊆ V such that u ↔_{k} v for all u, v ∈ U. The k-edge-connected components of G form a partition of V, since v ↔_{k} w is an equivalence relation [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2016]. Connectivity-related problems are known to be much more difficult in directed graphs than in undirected graphs (see, e.g., [Harold N. Gabow, 2016; Monika Henzinger et al., 2020; Ken-Ichi Kawarabayashi and Mikkel Thorup, 2018]). Indeed, there is a fundamental difference in the structure of the cuts in the two scenarios. Specifically, it has been established more than 60 years ago [Gomory and Hu, 1961] that edge cuts in undirected graphs have a nice structure, as defined by the Gomory-Hu tree (or cut tree), which plays a special role in identifying, for any k, the k-edge-connected components of undirected graphs. Furthermore, many efficient algorithms for computing Gomory-Hu trees are available (see e.g., [Amir Abboud et al., 2021; Amir Abboud et al., 2022; Amir Abboud et al., 2023; Chen et al., 2022; Hariharan et al., 2007; Li et al., 2022]). On the contrary, in directed graphs edge cuts have a more complicated structure, and it was proved by Benczúr [Benczúr, 1995] that in this case cut trees do not even exist. It is thus not surprising that, while it is known how to compute the k-edge-connected components of undirected graphs in linear time for k ≤ 5 [Harold N. Gabow, 2000; Zvi Galil and Giuseppe F. Italiano, 1991; Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2021; John E. Hopcroft and Robert E. Tarjan, 1973; Kosinas, 2024; Wojciech Nadara et al., 2021; Hiroshi Nagamochi and Toshihide Ibaraki, 1992; Robert E. Tarjan, 1972; Yung H. Tsin, 2009], the situation is more challenging for directed graphs, where linear-time algorithms are only known for k ≤ 2 [Robert E. Tarjan, 1972; Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2020]. Also, as argued in [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2023], there is a substantial increase in the inherent difficulty of the problem of computing k-edge-connected components in digraphs for k = 3 compared to k = 2. Indeed, for k = 2 any pair of vertices s,t that are not 2-edge-connected can be separated by only O(n) s-t min-cuts of size 1, for which we can define a total order [Giuseppe F. Italiano et al., 2012]. For k = 3, any pair of vertices s,t that are 2-edge-connected but not 3-edge-connected, can be separated by as many as O(n²) s-t min-cuts of size 2, which are also not totally ordered. This makes it difficult to explore the effect of removing each such cut of size 2 on the strong connectivity of the graph, similar to what was done for the case of k = 2 [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2020]. Until recently, the best-known bound for computing the k-edge-connected components of a digraph, for constant k ≥ 3, was O(mn) by Nagamochi and Watanabe [Hiroshi Nagamochi and Toshimasa Watanabe, 1993]. Georgiadis et al. [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2023] presented a randomized (Monte-Carlo) algorithm that computes the 3-edge-connected components of a digraph with m edges in Õ(m^{3/2}) time. Their algorithm involves a nontrivial extension of the framework of [Forster et al., 2020; Nanongkai et al., 2019] for deciding whether a digraph is (k+1)-edge-connected. It applies a local search procedure [Shiri Chechik et al., 2017; Forster et al., 2020] for identifying 2-in or 2-out sets, i.e., vertex sets S ⊆ V such that there are at most 2 edges from V ⧵ S to S or from S to V⧵ S. After finding such a set S, [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2023] applies an efficient graph operation for replacing S with a gadget of small size that preserves the pairwise connectivity among the vertices of V ⧵ S. As in [Forster et al., 2020; Nanongkai et al., 2019], local search is initiated from sampled edges, but the overall scheme is more complicated to guarantee that enough 2-in sets or 2-out sets are identified that separate vertices that are not 3-edge-connected. Recently, Georgiadis, Italiano and Kosinas [Georgiadis et al., 2024] improved significantly the bound of [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2023] by showing how to compute the 3-edge-connected components of a digraph in linear time with a deterministic algorithm. Their algorithm differs substantially from [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2023], as it is based on a new characterization of 2-sized cuts in digraphs, which requires new techniques and a suitable combination of the notions of 2-connectivity-light graphs [Loukas Georgiadis et al., 2023] and of maximally edge-disjoint strongly divergent spanning trees [Loukas Georgiadis and Robert E. Tarjan, 2015; Robert E. Tarjan, 1976]. In particular, Georgiadis, Italiano and Kosinas [Georgiadis et al., 2024] showed how to modify the minset-poset technique of Gabow [Harold N. Gabow, 2016], in order to find the 3-edge-connected components of a digraph with m edges in O(m) time. In the invited talk, I will survey some of this recent work on higher connectivity on directed graphs.
Cite as

Giuseppe F. Italiano. Higher Connectivity in Directed Graphs (Invited Talk). In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 2:1-2:4, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{italiano:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.2,
  author =	{Italiano, Giuseppe F.},
  title =	{{Higher Connectivity in Directed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:4},
  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.2025.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241096},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Connectivity, Directed graphs, Graph algorithms}
}
Document
Research
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.Grossi.7
Conditional Lower Bounds for String Matching in Labelled Graphs

Authors: Massimo Equi

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 132, From Strings to Graphs, and Back Again: A Festschrift for Roberto Grossi's 60th Birthday (2025)

Abstract
The problem of String Matching in Labelled Graphs (SMLG) is one possible generalization of the classic problem of finding a string inside another of greater length. In its most general form, SMLG asks to find a match for a string into a graph, which can be directed or undirected. As for string matching, many different variations are possible. For example, the match could be exact or approximate, and the match could lie on a path or a walk. Some of these variations easily fall into the NP-hard realm, while other variants are solvable in polynomial time. For the latter ones, fine-grained complexity has been a game changer in proving quadratic conditional lower bounds, allowing to finally close the gap with those upper bounds that remained unmatched for almost two decades. If the match is allowed to be approximate, SMLG enjoys the same conditional quadratic lower bounds shown for example for edit distance (Backurs and Indyk, STOC '15). The case that really requires ad hoc conditional lower bounds is the one of finding an exact match that lies on a walk. In this work, we focus on explaining various conditional lower bounds for this version of SMLG, with the goal of giving an overall perspective that could help understand which aspects of the problem make it quadratic. We will introduce the reader to the field of fine-grained complexity and show how it can successfully provide the exact type of lower bounds needed for polynomial problems such as SMLG.
Cite as

Massimo Equi. Conditional Lower Bounds for String Matching in Labelled Graphs. In From Strings to Graphs, and Back Again: A Festschrift for Roberto Grossi's 60th Birthday. Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 132, pp. 7:1-7:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{equi:OASIcs.Grossi.7,
  author =	{Equi, Massimo},
  title =	{{Conditional Lower Bounds for String Matching in Labelled Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{From Strings to Graphs, and Back Again: A Festschrift for Roberto Grossi's 60th Birthday},
  pages =	{7:1--7:13},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-391-1},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{132},
  editor =	{Conte, Alessio and Marino, Andrea and Rosone, Giovanna and Vitter, Jeffrey Scott},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.Grossi.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-238063},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.Grossi.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: conditional lower bounds, strong exponential time hypothesis, fine-grained complexity, string matching, graphs}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.95
ARRIVAL: Recursive Framework & 𝓁₁-Contraction

Authors: Sebastian Haslebacher

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
ARRIVAL is the problem of deciding which out of two possible destinations will be reached first by a token that moves deterministically along the edges of a directed graph, according to so-called switching rules. It is known to lie in NP ∩ CoNP, but not known to lie in 𝖯. The state-of-the-art algorithm due to Gärtner et al. (ICALP `21) runs in time 2^{𝒪(√n log n)} on an n-vertex graph. We prove that ARRIVAL can be solved in time 2^{𝒪(k log² n)} on n-vertex graphs of treewidth k. Our algorithm is derived by adapting a simple recursive algorithm for a generalization of ARRIVAL called G-ARRIVAL. This simple recursive algorithm acts as a framework from which we can also rederive the subexponential upper bound of Gärtner et al. Our second result is a reduction from G-ARRIVAL to the problem of finding an approximate fixed point of an 𝓁₁-contracting function f : [0, 1]ⁿ → [0, 1]ⁿ. Finding such fixed points is a well-studied problem in the case of the 𝓁₂-metric and the 𝓁_∞-metric, but little is known about the 𝓁₁-case. Both of our results highlight parallels between ARRIVAL and the Simple Stochastic Games (SSG) problem. Concretely, Chatterjee et al. (SODA `23) gave an algorithm for SSG parameterized by treewidth that achieves a similar bound as we do for ARRIVAL, and SSG is known to reduce to 𝓁_∞-contraction.
Cite as

Sebastian Haslebacher. ARRIVAL: Recursive Framework & 𝓁₁-Contraction. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 95:1-95:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{haslebacher:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.95,
  author =	{Haslebacher, Sebastian},
  title =	{{ARRIVAL: Recursive Framework \& 𝓁₁-Contraction}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{95:1--95:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.95},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-234723},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.95},
  annote =	{Keywords: ARRIVAL, G-ARRIVAL, Deterministic Random Walk, Rotor-Routing, 𝓁₁-Contraction, Banach Fixed Point}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145
Reducing Stochastic Games to Semidefinite Programming

Authors: Manuel Bodirsky, Georg Loho, and Mateusz Skomra

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
We present a polynomial-time reduction from max-average constraints to the feasibility problem for semidefinite programs. This shows that Condon’s simple stochastic games, stochastic mean payoff games, and in particular mean payoff games and parity games can all be reduced to semidefinite programming.
Cite as

Manuel Bodirsky, Georg Loho, and Mateusz Skomra. Reducing Stochastic Games to Semidefinite Programming. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 145:1-145:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{bodirsky_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145,
  author =	{Bodirsky, Manuel and Loho, Georg and Skomra, Mateusz},
  title =	{{Reducing Stochastic Games to Semidefinite Programming}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{145:1--145:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235224},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.145},
  annote =	{Keywords: Mean-payoff games, stochastic games, semidefinite programming, max-average constraints, max-atom problem}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.14
Algorithms for the Diverse-k-SAT Problem: The Geometry of Satisfying Assignments

Authors: Per Austrin, Ioana O. Bercea, Mayank Goswami, Nutan Limaye, and Adarsh Srinivasan

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)

Abstract
Given a k-CNF formula and an integer s ≥ 2, we study algorithms that obtain s solutions to the formula that are as dispersed as possible. For s = 2, this problem of computing the diameter of a k-CNF formula was initiated by Creszenzi and Rossi, who showed strong hardness results even for k = 2. The current best upper bound [Angelsmark and Thapper '04] goes to 4ⁿ as k → ∞. As our first result, we show that this quadratic blow up is not necessary by utilizing the Fast-Fourier transform (FFT) to give a O^*(2ⁿ) time exact algorithm for computing the diameter of any k-CNF formula. For s > 2, the problem was raised in the SAT community (Nadel '11) and several heuristics have been proposed for it, but no algorithms with theoretical guarantees are known. We give exact algorithms using FFT and clique-finding that run in O^*(2^{(s-1)n}) and O^*(s² |Ω_{𝐅}|^{ω ⌈ s/3 ⌉}) respectively, where |Ω_{𝐅}| is the size of the solutions space of the formula 𝐅 and ω is the matrix multiplication exponent. However, current SAT algorithms for finding one solution run in time O^*(2^{ε_{k}n}) for ε_{k} ≈ 1-Θ(1/k), which is much faster than all above run times. As our main result, we analyze two popular SAT algorithms - PPZ (Paturi, Pudlák, Zane '97) and Schöning’s ('02) algorithms, and show that in time poly(s)O^*(2^{ε_{k}n}), they can be used to approximate diameter as well as the dispersion (s > 2) problem. While we need to modify Schöning’s original algorithm for technical reasons, we show that the PPZ algorithm, without any modification, samples solutions in a geometric sense. We believe this geometric sampling property of PPZ may be of independent interest. Finally, we focus on diverse solutions to NP-complete optimization problems, and give bi-approximations running in time poly(s)O^*(2^{ε n}) with ε < 1 for several problems such as Maximum Independent Set, Minimum Vertex Cover, Minimum Hitting Set, Feedback Vertex Set, Multicut on Trees and Interval Vertex Deletion. For all of these problems, all existing exact methods for finding optimal diverse solutions have a runtime with at least an exponential dependence on the number of solutions s. Our methods show that by relaxing to bi-approximations, this dependence on s can be made polynomial.
Cite as

Per Austrin, Ioana O. Bercea, Mayank Goswami, Nutan Limaye, and Adarsh Srinivasan. Algorithms for the Diverse-k-SAT Problem: The Geometry of Satisfying Assignments. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 14:1-14:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{austrin_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.14,
  author =	{Austrin, Per and Bercea, Ioana O. and Goswami, Mayank and Limaye, Nutan and Srinivasan, Adarsh},
  title =	{{Algorithms for the Diverse-k-SAT Problem: The Geometry of Satisfying Assignments}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-233916},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Exponential time algorithms, Satisfiability, k-SAT, PPZ, Sch\"{o}ning, Dispersion, Diversity}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.42
Local Enumeration: The Not-All-Equal Case

Authors: Mohit Gurumukhani, Ramamohan Paturi, Michael Saks, and Navid Talebanfard

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 327, 42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025)

Abstract
Gurumukhani et al. (CCC'24) proposed the local enumeration problem Enum(k, t) as an approach to break the Super Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SSETH): for a natural number k and a parameter t, given an n-variate k-CNF with no satisfying assignment of Hamming weight less than t(n), enumerate all satisfying assignments of Hamming weight exactly t(n). Furthermore, they gave a randomized algorithm for Enum(k, t) and employed new ideas to analyze the first non-trivial case, namely k = 3. In particular, they solved Enum(3, n/2) in expected 1.598ⁿ time. A simple construction shows a lower bound of 6^{n/4} ≈ 1.565ⁿ. In this paper, we show that to break SSETH, it is sufficient to consider a simpler local enumeration problem NAE-Enum(k, t): for a natural number k and a parameter t, given an n-variate k-CNF with no satisfying assignment of Hamming weight less than t(n), enumerate all Not-All-Equal (NAE) solutions of Hamming weight exactly t(n), i.e., those that satisfy and falsify some literal in every clause. We refine the algorithm of Gurumukhani et al. and show that it optimally solves NAE-Enum(3, n/2), namely, in expected time poly(n) ⋅ 6^{n/4}.
Cite as

Mohit Gurumukhani, Ramamohan Paturi, Michael Saks, and Navid Talebanfard. Local Enumeration: The Not-All-Equal Case. In 42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 327, pp. 42:1-42:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{gurumukhani_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2025.42,
  author =	{Gurumukhani, Mohit and Paturi, Ramamohan and Saks, Michael and Talebanfard, Navid},
  title =	{{Local Enumeration: The Not-All-Equal Case}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025)},
  pages =	{42:1--42:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-365-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{327},
  editor =	{Beyersdorff, Olaf and Pilipczuk, Micha{\l} and Pimentel, Elaine and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.42},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-228680},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.42},
  annote =	{Keywords: Depth 3 circuits, k-CNF satisfiability, Circuit lower bounds, Majority function}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.39
A Quasi-Polynomial Time Algorithm for Multi-Arrival on Tree-Like Multigraphs

Authors: Ebrahim Ghorbani, Jonah Leander Hoff, and Matthias Mnich

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 327, 42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025)

Abstract
Propp machines, or rotor-router models, are a classic tool to simulate random systems in forms of Markov chains by deterministic systems. To this end, the nodes of the Markov chain are replaced by switching nodes, which maintain a queue over their outgoing arcs, and a particle sent through the system traverses the top arc of the queue which is then moved to the end of the queue and the particle arrives at the next node. A key question to answer about such systems is whether a single particle can reach a particular target node, given as input an initial configuration of the queues at all switching nodes. This question was introduced by Dohrau et al. (2017) under the name of Arrival. A major open question is whether Arrival can be solved in polynomial time, as it is known to lie in NP ∩ co-NP; yet the fastest known algorithm for general instances takes subexponential time (Gärtner et al., ICALP 2021). We consider a generalized version of Arrival introduced by Auger et al. (RP 2023), which requires routing multiple (potentially exponentially many) particles through a rotor graph. The Multi-Arrival problem is to determine the particle configuration that results from moving all particles from a given initial configuration to sinks. Auger et al. showed that for path-like rotor graphs with a certain uniform rotor order, the problem can be solved in polynomial time. Our main result is a quasi-polynomial-time algorithm for Multi-Arrival on tree-like rotor graphs for arbitrary rotor orders. Tree-like rotor graphs are directed multigraphs which can be obtained from undirected trees by replacing each edge by an arbitrary number of arcs in either or both directions. For trees of bounded contracted height, such as paths, the algorithm runs in polynomial time and thereby generalizes the result by Auger et al.. Moreover, we give a polynomial-time algorithm for Multi-Arrival on tree-like rotor graphs without parallel arcs.
Cite as

Ebrahim Ghorbani, Jonah Leander Hoff, and Matthias Mnich. A Quasi-Polynomial Time Algorithm for Multi-Arrival on Tree-Like Multigraphs. In 42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 327, pp. 39:1-39:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{ghorbani_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2025.39,
  author =	{Ghorbani, Ebrahim and Leander Hoff, Jonah and Mnich, Matthias},
  title =	{{A Quasi-Polynomial Time Algorithm for Multi-Arrival on Tree-Like Multigraphs}},
  booktitle =	{42nd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2025)},
  pages =	{39:1--39:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-365-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{327},
  editor =	{Beyersdorff, Olaf and Pilipczuk, Micha{\l} and Pimentel, Elaine and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.39},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-228658},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2025.39},
  annote =	{Keywords: Arrival, Rotor-routing, Tree-like Multigraph, Path-Like Multigraph, Fixed-Parameter Tractability}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.60
ARRIVAL: Next Stop in CLS

Authors: Bernd Gärtner, Thomas Dueholm Hansen, Pavel Hubácek, Karel Král, Hagar Mosaad, and Veronika Slívová

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 107, 45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018)

Abstract
We study the computational complexity of Arrival, a zero-player game on n-vertex switch graphs introduced by Dohrau, Gärtner, Kohler, Matousek, and Welzl. They showed that the problem of deciding termination of this game is contained in NP n coNP. Karthik C. S. recently introduced a search variant of Arrival and showed that it is in the complexity class PLS. In this work, we significantly improve the known upper bounds for both the decision and the search variants of Arrival. First, we resolve a question suggested by Dohrau et al. and show that the decision variant of Arrival is in UP n coUP. Second, we prove that the search variant of Arrival is contained in CLS. Third, we give a randomized O(1.4143^n)-time algorithm to solve both variants. Our main technical contributions are (a) an efficiently verifiable characterization of the unique witness for termination of the Arrival game, and (b) an efficient way of sampling from the state space of the game. We show that the problem of finding the unique witness is contained in CLS, whereas it was previously conjectured to be FPSPACE-complete. The efficient sampling procedure yields the first algorithm for the problem that has expected runtime O(c^n) with c<2.
Cite as

Bernd Gärtner, Thomas Dueholm Hansen, Pavel Hubácek, Karel Král, Hagar Mosaad, and Veronika Slívová. ARRIVAL: Next Stop in CLS. In 45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 107, pp. 60:1-60:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)

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@InProceedings{gartner_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.60,
  author =	{G\"{a}rtner, Bernd and Hansen, Thomas Dueholm and Hub\'{a}cek, Pavel and Kr\'{a}l, Karel and Mosaad, Hagar and Sl{\'\i}vov\'{a}, Veronika},
  title =	{{ARRIVAL: Next Stop in CLS}},
  booktitle =	{45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018)},
  pages =	{60:1--60:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-076-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{107},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Kaklamanis, Christos and Marx, D\'{a}niel and Sannella, Donald},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.60},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-90641},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.60},
  annote =	{Keywords: CLS, switch graphs, zero-player game, UP n coUP}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.42
Decremental Data Structures for Connectivity and Dominators in Directed Graphs

Authors: Loukas Georgiadis, Thomas Dueholm Hansen, Giuseppe F. Italiano, Sebastian Krinninger, and Nikos Parotsidis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 80, 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)

Abstract
We introduce a new dynamic data structure for maintaining the strongly connected components (SCCs) of a directed graph (digraph) under edge deletions, so as to answer a rich repertoire of connectivity queries. Our main technical contribution is a decremental data structure that supports sensitivity queries of the form "are u and v strongly connected in the graph G \ w?", for any triple of vertices u, v, w, while G undergoes deletions of edges. Our data structure processes a sequence of edge deletions in a digraph with $n$ vertices in O(m n log n) total time and O(n^2 log n) space, where m is the number of edges before any deletion, and answers the above queries in constant time. We can leverage our data structure to obtain decremental data structures for many more types of queries within the same time and space complexity. For instance for edge-related queries, such as testing whether two query vertices u and v are strongly connected in G \ e, for some query edge e. As another important application of our decremental data structure, we provide the first nontrivial algorithm for maintaining the dominator tree of a flow graph under edge deletions. We present an algorithm that processes a sequence of edge deletions in a flow graph in O(m n log n) total time and O(n^2 log n) space. For reducible flow graphs we provide an O(mn)-time and O(m + n)-space algorithm. We give a conditional lower bound that provides evidence that these running times may be tight up to subpolynomial factors.
Cite as

Loukas Georgiadis, Thomas Dueholm Hansen, Giuseppe F. Italiano, Sebastian Krinninger, and Nikos Parotsidis. Decremental Data Structures for Connectivity and Dominators in Directed Graphs. In 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 80, pp. 42:1-42:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)

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@InProceedings{georgiadis_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.42,
  author =	{Georgiadis, Loukas and Dueholm Hansen, Thomas and Italiano, Giuseppe F. and Krinninger, Sebastian and Parotsidis, Nikos},
  title =	{{Decremental Data Structures for Connectivity and Dominators in Directed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)},
  pages =	{42:1--42:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-041-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{80},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Indyk, Piotr and Kuhn, Fabian and Muscholl, Anca},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.42},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-74455},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.42},
  annote =	{Keywords: dynamic graph algorithms, decremental algorithms, dominator tree, strong connectivity under failures}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.124
Improved Algorithms for Computing the Cycle of Minimum Cost-to-Time Ratio in Directed Graphs

Authors: Karl Bringmann, Thomas Dueholm Hansen, and Sebastian Krinninger

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 80, 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)

Abstract
We study the problem of finding the cycle of minimum cost-to-time ratio in a directed graph with n nodes and m edges. This problem has a long history in combinatorial optimization and has recently seen interesting applications in the context of quantitative verification. We focus on strongly polynomial algorithms to cover the use-case where the weights are relatively large compared to the size of the graph. Our main result is an algorithm with running time ~O(m^{3/4} n^{3/2}), which gives the first improvement over Megiddo's ~O(n^3) algorithm [JACM'83] for sparse graphs (We use the notation ~O(.) to hide factors that are polylogarithmic in n.) We further demonstrate how to obtain both an algorithm with running time n^3/2^{Omega(sqrt(log n)} on general graphs and an algorithm with running time ~O(n) on constant treewidth graphs. To obtain our main result, we develop a parallel algorithm for negative cycle detection and single-source shortest paths that might be of independent interest.
Cite as

Karl Bringmann, Thomas Dueholm Hansen, and Sebastian Krinninger. Improved Algorithms for Computing the Cycle of Minimum Cost-to-Time Ratio in Directed Graphs. In 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 80, pp. 124:1-124:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)

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@InProceedings{bringmann_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.124,
  author =	{Bringmann, Karl and Dueholm Hansen, Thomas and Krinninger, Sebastian},
  title =	{{Improved Algorithms for Computing the Cycle of Minimum Cost-to-Time Ratio in Directed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)},
  pages =	{124:1--124:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-041-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{80},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Indyk, Piotr and Kuhn, Fabian and Muscholl, Anca},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.124},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-74398},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.124},
  annote =	{Keywords: quantitative verification and synthesis, parametric search, shortest paths, negative cycle detection}
}
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