2 Search Results for "Schorr, Christian"

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2024.20

Targeted Branching for the Maximum Independent Set Problem Using Graph Neural Networks

Authors: Kenneth Langedal, Demian Hespe, and Peter Sanders

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 301, 22nd International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2024)

Abstract

Identifying a maximum independent set is a fundamental NP-hard problem. This problem has several real-world applications and requires finding the largest possible set of vertices not adjacent to each other in an undirected graph. Over the past few years, branch-and-bound and branch-and-reduce algorithms have emerged as some of the most effective methods for solving the problem exactly. Specifically, the branch-and-reduce approach, which combines branch-and-bound principles with reduction rules, has proven particularly successful in tackling previously unmanageable real-world instances. This progress was largely made possible by the development of more effective reduction rules. Nevertheless, other key components that can impact the efficiency of these algorithms have not received the same level of interest. Among these is the branching strategy, which determines which vertex to branch on next. Until recently, the most widely used strategy was to choose the vertex of the highest degree. In this work, we present a graph neural network approach for selecting the next branching vertex. The intricate nature of current branch-and-bound solvers makes supervised and reinforcement learning difficult. Therefore, we use a population-based genetic algorithm to evolve the model’s parameters instead. Our proposed approach results in a speedup on 73% of the benchmark instances with a median speedup of 24%.

Cite as

Kenneth Langedal, Demian Hespe, and Peter Sanders. Targeted Branching for the Maximum Independent Set Problem Using Graph Neural Networks. In 22nd International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 301, pp. 20:1-20:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{langedal_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2024.20,
  author =	{Langedal, Kenneth and Hespe, Demian and Sanders, Peter},
  title =	{{Targeted Branching for the Maximum Independent Set Problem Using Graph Neural Networks}},
  booktitle =	{22nd International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2024)},
  pages =	{20:1--20:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-325-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{301},
  editor =	{Liberti, Leo},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2024.20},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-203853},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2024.20},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graphs, Independent Set, Vertex Cover, Graph Neural Networks, Branch-and-Reduce}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2021.17

Targeted Branching for the Maximum Independent Set Problem

Authors: Demian Hespe, Sebastian Lamm, and Christian Schorr

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 190, 19th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2021)

Abstract

Finding a maximum independent set is a fundamental NP-hard problem that is used in many real-world applications. Given an unweighted graph, this problem asks for a maximum cardinality set of pairwise non-adjacent vertices. In recent years, some of the most successful algorithms for solving this problem are based on the branch-and-bound or branch-and-reduce paradigms. In particular, branch-and-reduce algorithms, which combine branch-and-bound with reduction rules, have been able to achieve substantial results, solving many previously infeasible real-world instances. These results were to a large part achieved by developing new, more practical reduction rules. However, other components that have been shown to have a significant impact on the performance of these algorithms have not received as much attention. One of these is the branching strategy, which determines what vertex is included or excluded in a potential solution. Even now, the most commonly used strategy selects vertices solely based on their degree and does not take into account other factors that contribute to the performance of the algorithm. In this work, we develop and evaluate several novel branching strategies for both branch-and-bound and branch-and-reduce algorithms. Our strategies are based on one of two approaches which are motivated by existing research. They either (1) aim to decompose the graph into two or more connected components which can then be solved independently, or (2) try to remove vertices that hinder the application of a reduction rule which can lead to smaller graphs. Our experimental evaluation on a large set of real-world instances indicates that our strategies are able to improve the performance of the state-of-the-art branch-and-reduce algorithm by Akiba and Iwata. To be more specific, our reduction-based packing branching rule is able to outperform the default branching strategy of selecting a vertex of highest degree on 65% of all instances tested. Furthermore, our decomposition-based strategy based on edge cuts is able to achieve a speedup of 2.29 on sparse networks (1.22 on all instances).

Cite as

Demian Hespe, Sebastian Lamm, and Christian Schorr. Targeted Branching for the Maximum Independent Set Problem. In 19th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 190, pp. 17:1-17:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)

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@InProceedings{hespe_et_al:LIPIcs.SEA.2021.17,
  author =	{Hespe, Demian and Lamm, Sebastian and Schorr, Christian},
  title =	{{Targeted Branching for the Maximum Independent Set Problem}},
  booktitle =	{19th International Symposium on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2021)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-185-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{190},
  editor =	{Coudert, David and Natale, Emanuele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2021.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-137893},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SEA.2021.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graphs, Combinatorial Optimization, Independent Set, Vertex Cover, Clique, Branch-and-Reduce, Branch-and-Bound, Data Reduction}
}

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1 Lamm, Sebastian
1 Langedal, Kenneth
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2 Mathematics of computing → Graph algorithms
1 Computing methodologies → Neural networks
1 Mathematics of computing → Combinatorial optimization
1 Theory of computation → Branch-and-bound

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2 Graphs
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