At SODA 2009, Demaine et al. presented a novel connection between binary search trees (BSTs) and subsets of points on the plane. This connection was independently discovered by Derryberry et al. As part of their results, Demaine et al. considered GreedyFuture, an offline BST algorithm that greedily rearranges the search path to minimize the cost of future searches. They showed that GreedyFuture is actually an online algorithm in their geometric view, and that there is a way to turn GreedyFuture into an online BST algorithm with only a constant factor increase in total search cost. Demaine et al. conjectured this algorithm was dynamically optimal, but no upper bounds were given in their paper. We prove the first non-trivial upper bounds for the cost of search operations using GreedyFuture including giving an access lemma similar to that found in Sleator and Tarjan's classic paper on splay trees.
A consensus tree is a phylogenetic tree that captures the similarity between a set of conflicting phylogenetic trees. The problem of computing a consensus tree is a major step in phylogenetic tree reconstruction. It also finds applications in predicting a species tree from a set of gene trees. This paper focuses on two of the most well-known and widely used oconsensus tree methods: the greedy consensus tree and the frequency difference consensus tree. Given $k$ conflicting trees each with $n$ leaves, the previous fastest algorithms for these problems were $O(k n^2)$ for the greedy consensus tr…
This short article presents a new implementation for decision trees. By introducing pre-sorted deques, the leaf-wise greedy tree growing strategy no longer needs to re-sort data at each node, and takes O(kn) time and O(1) extra memory locating the best split and branching. The consistent, superior performance - plus its simplicity and guarantee in producing the same classification results as the standard decision trees - makes the new implementation a drop-in replacement for depth-wise tree induction with strong performance.
The Hop-Constrained Steiner Tree problem (HCST) is challenging NP-hard problem arising in the design of centralized telecommunication networks where the reliability constraints matter. In this paper three iterative greedy algorithms are described to find efficient optimized solution to solve HCST on both sparse and dense graphs. In the third algorithm, we adopt the idea of Kruskal algorithm for the HCST problem to reach a better solution. This is the first time such algorithm is utilized in a problem with hop-constrained condition. Computational results on a number of problem instances are der…
In their seminal paper [Sleator and Tarjan, J.ACM, 1985], the authors conjectured that the splay tree is dynamically optimal binary search tree (BST). In spite of decades of intensive research, the problem remains open. Perhaps a more basic question, which has also attracted much attention, is if there exists any dynamically optimal BST algorithm. One such candidate is GREEDY which is a simple and intuitive BST algorithm [Lucas, Rutgers Tech. Report, 1988; Munro, ESA, 2000; Demaine, Harmon, Iacono, Kane and Patrascu, SODA, 2009]. [Demaine et al., SODA, 2009] showed a novel connection between a…
Binary search trees (BSTs) are one of the most basic and widely used data structures. The best static tree for serving a sequence of queries (searches) can be computed by dynamic programming. In contrast, when the BSTs are allowed to be dynamic (i.e. change by rotations between searches), we still do not know how to compute the optimal algorithm (OPT) for a given sequence. One of the candidate algorithms whose serving cost is suspected to be optimal up-to a (multiplicative) constant factor is known by the name Greedy Future (GF). In an equivalent geometric way of representing queries on BSTs, …
Fast Algorithms for Constructing Maximum Entropy Summary Trees
卡洛夫Shirley最近提出了摘要树作为一种新的方法来可视化大根树（Eurovis 2013），并给出了用于生成输入n节点根树的最大熵k节点摘要树的算法。然而，生成最优汇总树的算法只是伪多项式（并且仅适用于整数权重）;作者留下了多项式时间算法的开放存在性。此外，作者还提供了一个加性近似算法和贪婪启发式，都工作在真正的权重。本文展示了如何在O（k^2 n + n log n）的时间内构造实权重的最大熵k节点汇总树（实际上，与前面给出的贪婪启发式的时间界一样小）;如何加速近似算法，使其在O（n +（k^4/eps？）log（k/eps？）），以及如何加速贪心算法，使其时间复杂度为O（kn + nlogn）。总之，这些结果使摘要树成为比以前更实用的工具。
Greedy BST (or simply Greedy) is an online self-adjusting binary search tree defined in the geometric view ([Lucas, 1988; Munro, 2000; Demaine, Harmon, Iacono, Kane, Patrascu, SODA 2009). Along with Splay trees (Sleator, Tarjan 1985), Greedy is considered the most promising candidate for being dynamically optimal, i.e., starting with any initial tree, their access costs on any sequence is conjectured to be within $O(1)$ factor of the offline optimal. However, in the past four decades, the question has remained elusive even for highly restricted input. In this paper, we prove new bounds on the …
We present a technique that allows for improving on some relative greedy procedures by well-chosen (non-oblivious) local search algorithms. Relative greedy procedures are a particular type of greedy algorithm that start with a simple, though weak, solution, and iteratively replace parts of this starting solution by stronger components. Some well-known applications of relative greedy algorithms include approximation algorithms for Steiner Tree and, more recently, for connectivity augmentation problems. The main application of our technique leads to a $(1.5+ε)$-approximation for Weighted Tree Au…
Decision Tree is a classic formulation of active learning: given $n$ hypotheses with nonnegative weights summing to 1 and a set of tests that each partition the hypotheses, output a decision tree using the provided tests that uniquely identifies each hypothesis and has minimum (weighted) average depth. Previous works showed that the greedy algorithm achieves a $O(\log n)$ approximation ratio for this problem and it is NP-hard beat a $O(\log n)$ approximation, settling the complexity of the problem. However, for Uniform Decision Tree, i.e. Decision Tree with uniform weights, the story is more s…
We provide a new bi-criteria $\tilde{O}(\log^2 k)$ competitive algorithm for explainable $k$-means clustering. Explainable $k$-means was recently introduced by Dasgupta, Frost, Moshkovitz, and Rashtchian (ICML 2020). It is described by an easy to interpret and understand (threshold) decision tree or diagram. The cost of the explainable $k$-means clustering equals to the sum of costs of its clusters; and the cost of each cluster equals the sum of squared distances from the points in the cluster to the center of that cluster. The best non bi-criteria algorithm for explainable clustering $\tilde{…
This paper introduces a novel scheduling problem, where jobs occupy a triangular shape on the time line. This problem is motivated by scheduling jobs with different criticality levels. A measure is introduced, namely the binary tree ratio. It is shown that the greedy algorithm solves the problem to optimality when the binary tree ratio of the input instance is at most 2. We also show that the problem is unary NP-hard for instances with binary tree ratio strictly larger than 2, and provide a quasi polynomial time approximation scheme (QPTAS). The approximation ratio of Greedy on general instanc…
We use a greedy strategy to list the spanning trees of the fan graph, $F_n$, such that successive trees differ by pivoting a single edge around a vertex. It is the first greedy algorithm for exhaustively generating spanning trees using such a minimal change operation. The resulting listing is then studied to find a recursive algorithm that produces the same listing in $O(1)$-amortized time using $O(n)$ space. Additionally, we present $O(n)$-time algorithms for ranking and unranking the spanning trees for our listing; an improvement over the generic $O(n^3)$-time algorithm for ranking and unran…
The Steiner tree problem is one of the classic and most fundamental $\mathcal{NP}$-hard problems: given an arbitrary weighted graph, seek a minimum-cost tree spanning a given subset of the vertices (terminals). Byrka \emph{et al}. proposed a $1.3863+ε$-approximation algorithm in which the linear program is solved at every iteration after contracting a component. Goemans \emph{et al}. shown that it is possible to achieve the same approximation guarantee while only solving hypergraphic LP relaxation once. However, optimizing hypergraphic LP relaxation exactly is strongly NP-hard. This article pr…
We study the problem of maximizing the number of spanning trees in a connected graph by adding at most $k$ edges from a given candidate edge set. We give both algorithmic and hardness results for this problem: - We give a greedy algorithm that, using submodularity, obtains an approximation ratio of $(1 - 1/e - ε)$ in the exponent of the number of spanning trees for any $ε> 0$ in time $\tilde{O}(m ε^{-1} + (n + q) ε^{-3})$, where $m$ and $q$ is the number of edges in the original graph and the candidate edge set, respectively. Our running time is optimal with respect to the input size up to log…
We consider the problem of listing all spanning trees of a graph $G$ such that successive trees differ by pivoting a single edge around a vertex. Such a listing is called a "pivot Gray code", and it has more stringent conditions than known "revolving-door" Gray codes for spanning trees. Most revolving-door algorithms employ a standard edge-deletion/edge-contraction recursive approach which we demonstrate presents natural challenges when requiring the "pivot" property. Our main result is the discovery of a greedy strategy to list the spanning trees of the fan graph in a pivot Gray code order. I…
Many tasks use data housed in relational databases to train boosted regression tree models. In this paper, we give a relational adaptation of the greedy algorithm for training boosted regression trees. For the subproblem of calculating the sum of squared residuals of the dataset, which dominates the runtime of the boosting algorithm, we provide a $(1 + ε)$-approximation using the tensor sketch technique. Employing this approximation within the relational boosted regression trees algorithm leads to learning similar model parameters, but with asymptotically better runtime.
To tackle the exponentiality associated with NP-hard problems, two paradigms have been proposed. First, Branch & Bound, like Dynamic Programming, achieve efficient exact inference but requires extensive information and analysis about the problem at hand. Second, meta-heuristics are easier to implement but comparatively inefficient. As a result, a number of problems have been left unoptimized and plain greedy solutions are used. We introduce a theoretical framework and propose a powerful yet simple search method called Dilemma First Search (DFS). DFS exploits the decision heuristic needed for t…
Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）；University of Michigan（密歇根大学）
This paper investigates the following natural greedy procedure for clustering in the bi-criterion setting: iteratively grow a set of centers, in each round adding the center from a candidate set that maximally decreases clustering cost. In the case of $k$-medians and $k$-means, the key results are as follows. $\bullet$ When the method considers all data points as candidate centers, then selecting $\mathcal{O}(k\log(1/\varepsilon))$ centers achieves cost at most $2+\varepsilon$ times the optimal cost with $k$ centers. $\bullet$ Alternatively, the same guarantees hold if each round samples $\mat…
Any Boolean function corresponds with a complete full binary decision tree. This tree can in turn be represented in a maximally compact form as a direct acyclic graph where common subtrees are factored and shared, keeping only one copy of each unique subtree. This yields the celebrated and widely used structure called reduced ordered binary decision diagram (ROBDD). We propose to revisit the classical compaction process to give a new way of enumerating ROBDDs of a given size without considering fully expanded trees and the compaction step. Our method also provides an unranking procedure for th…
