We present a linear-time algorithm for simplifying flow networks on directed planar graphs: Given a directed planar graph on $n$ vertices, a source vertex $s$ and a sink vertex $t$, our algorithm removes all the arcs that do not participate in any simple $s,t$-path in linear-time. The output graph produced by our algorithm satisfies the prerequisite needed by the $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm of Weihe [FOCS'94 \& JCSS'97] for computing maximum $s,t$-flow in directed planar graphs. Previously, Weihe's algorithm could not run in $O(n\log n)$-time due to the absence of the preprocessing step; all the preceding algorithms run in $\tildeΩ(n^2)$-time [Misiolek-Chen, COCOON'05 \& IPL'06; Biedl, Brejov{á} and Vinar, MFCS'00]. Consequently, this provides an alternative $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm for computing maximum $s,t$-flow in directed planar graphs in addition to the known $O(n\log n)$-time algorithms [Borradaile-Klein, SODA'06 \& J.ACM'09; Erickson, SODA'10].
Our algorithm can be seen as a (truly) linear-time $s,t$-flow sparsifier for directed planar graphs, which runs faster than any maximum $s,t$-flow algorithm (which can also be seen of as a sparsifier). The simplified structures of the resulting graph might be useful in future developments of maximum $s,t$-flow algorithms in both directed and undirected planar graphs.
An oriented graph is a directed graph without directed 2-cycles. Poljak and Turzík (1986) proved that every connected oriented graph $G$ on $n$ vertices and $m$ arcs contains an acyclic subgraph with at least $\frac{m}{2}+\frac{n-1}{4}$ arcs. Raman and Saurabh (2006) gave another proof of this result and left it as an open question to establish the parameterized complexity of the following problem: does $G$ have an acyclic subgraph with least $\frac{m}{2}+\frac{n-1}{4}+k$ arcs, where $k$ is the parameter? We answer this question by showing that the problem can be solved by an algorithm of runt…
We present the first semi-streaming PTAS for the minimum feedback arc set problem on directed tournaments in a small number of passes. Namely, we obtain a $(1 + \varepsilon)$-approximation in polynomial time $O \left( \text{poly}(n) 2^{\text{poly}(1/\varepsilon)} \right)$, with $p$ passes in $n^{1+1/p} \cdot \text{poly}\left(\frac{\log n}{\varepsilon}\right)$ space. The only previous algorithm with this pass/space trade-off gave a $3$-approximation (SODA, 2020), and other polynomial-time algorithms which achieved a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximation did so with quadratic memory or with a linear n…
We consider the problem of layering general directed graphs under height and possibly also width constraints. Given a directed graph G = (V,A) and a maximal height, we propose a layering approach that minimizes a weighted sum of the number of reversed arcs, the arc lengths, and the width of the drawing. We call this the Compact Generalized Layering Problem (CGLP). Here, the width of a drawing is defined as the maximum sum of the number of vertices placed on a layer and the number of dummy vertices caused by arcs traversing the layer. The CGLP is NP-hard. We present two MIP models for this prob…
Motion planning is a fundamental problem of robotics with applications in many areas of computer science and beyond. Its restriction to graphs has been investigated in the literature for it allows to concentrate on the combinatorial problem abstracting from geometric considerations. In this paper, we consider motion planning over directed graphs, which are of interest for asymmetric communication networks. Directed graphs generalize undirected graphs, while introducing a new source of complexity to the motion planning problem: moves are not reversible. We first consider the class of acyclic di…
We present an on-line algorithm for maintaining a topological order of a directed acyclic graph as arcs are added, and detecting a cycle when one is created. Our algorithm takes O(m^{1/2}) amortized time per arc, where m is the total number of arcs. For sparse graphs, this bound improves the best previous bound by a logarithmic factor and is tight to within a constant factor for a natural class of algorithms that includes all the existing ones. Our main insight is that the bidirectional search method of previous algorithms does not require an ordered search, but can be more general. This allow…
The \emph{vitality} of an arc/node of a graph with respect to the maximum flow between two fixed nodes $s$ and $t$ is defined as the reduction of the maximum flow caused by the removal of that arc/node. In this paper we address the issue of determining the vitality of arcs and/or nodes for the maximum flow problem. We show how to compute the vitality of all arcs in a general undirected graph by solving only $2(n-1)$ max flow instances and, In $st$-planar graphs (directed or undirected) we show how to compute the vitality of all arcs and all nodes in $O(n)$ worst-case time. Moreover, after dete…
In the Directed Long Cycle Hitting Set} problem we are given a directed graph $G$, and the task is to find a set $S$ of at most $k$ vertices/arcs such that $G-S$ has no cycle of length longer than $\ell$. We show that the problem can be solved in time $2^{\mathcal O(\ell k^3\log k + k^5\log k\log\ell)}\cdot n^{\mathcal O(1)}$, that is, it is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) parameterized by $k$ and $\ell$. This algorithm can be seen as a far-reaching generalization of the fixed-parameter tractability of {\sc Mixed Graph Feedback Vertex Set} [Bonsma and Lokshtanov WADS 2011], which is already a …
In this note we describe an application of low-high orders in fault-tolerant network design. Baswana et al. [DISC 2015] study the following reachability problem. We are given a flow graph $G = (V, A)$ with start vertex $s$, and a spanning tree $T =(V, A_T)$ rooted at $s$. We call a set of arcs $A'$ valid if the subgraph $G' = (V, A_T \cup A')$ of $G$ has the same dominators as $G$. The goal is to find a valid set of minimum size. Baswana et al. gave an $O(m \log{n})$-time algorithm to compute a minimum-size valid set in $O(m \log{n})$ time, where $n = |V|$ and $m = |A|$. Here we provide a simp…
An out-tree $T$ of a directed graph $D$ is a rooted tree subgraph with all arcs directed outwards from the root. An out-branching is a spanning out-tree. By $l(D)$ and $l_s(D)$ we denote the maximum number of leaves over all out-trees and out-branchings of $D$, respectively. We give fixed parameter tractable algorithms for deciding whether $l_s(D)\geq k$ and whether $l(D)\geq k$ for a digraph $D$ on $n$ vertices, both with time complexity $2^{O(k\log k)} \cdot n^{O(1)}$. This improves on previous algorithms with complexity $2^{O(k^3\log k)} \cdot n^{O(1)}$ and $2^{O(k\log^2 k)} \cdot n^{O(1)}$…
We present an $O(nm)$ algorithm for all-pairs shortest paths computations in a directed graph with $n$ nodes, $m$ arcs, and nonnegative integer arc costs. This matches the complexity bound attained by Thorup \cite{Thorup1999} for the all-pairs problems in undirected graphs. The main insight is that shortest paths problems with approximately balanced directed cost functions can be solved similarly to the undirected case. The algorithm finds an approximately balanced reduced cost function in an $O(m\sqrt{n}\log n)$ preprocessing step. Using these reduced costs, every shortest path query can be s…
The NP-hard EFFECTORS problem on directed graphs is motivated by applications in network mining, particularly concerning the analysis of probabilistic information-propagation processes in social networks. In the corresponding model the arcs carry probabilities and there is a probabilistic diffusion process activating nodes by neighboring activated nodes with probabilities as specified by the arcs. The point is to explain a given network activation state as well as possible by using a minimum number of "effector nodes"; these are selected before the activation process starts. We correct, comple…
An out-branching of a directed graph is a rooted spanning tree with all arcs directed outwards from the root. We consider the problem of deciding whether a given directed graph D has an out-branching with at least k leaves (Directed Spanning k-Leaf). We prove that this problem is fixed parameter tractable, when k is chosen as the parameter. Previously this was only known for restricted classes of directed graphs. The main new ingredient in our approach is a lemma that shows that given a locally optimal out-branching of a directed graph in which every arc is part of at least one out-branching, …
\textsc{Directed Token Sliding} asks, given a directed graph and two sets of pairwise nonadjacent vertices, whether one can reach from one set to the other by repeatedly applying a local operation that exchanges a vertex in the current set with one of its out-neighbors, while keeping the nonadjacency. It can be seen as a reconfiguration process where a token is placed on each vertex in the current set, and the local operation slides a token along an arc respecting its direction. Previously, such a problem was extensively studied on undirected graphs, where the edges have no directions and thus…
In this paper we present an O(n log n) algorithm for finding a maximum flow in a directed planar graph, where the vertices are subject to capacity constraints, in addition to the arcs. If the source and the sink are on the same face, then our algorithm can be implemented in O(n) time. For general (not planar) graphs, vertex capacities do not make the problem more difficult, as there is a simple reduction that eliminates vertex capacities. However, this reduction does not preserve the planarity of the graph. The essence of our algorithm is a different reduction that does preserve the planarity,…
Single-Exponential Algorithms for Directed Feedback Vertex Set on Planar Digraphs
University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校）；The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, HBNI（马哈拉施特拉邦数学科学研究所，HBNI）；University of Bergen（卑尔根大学）；New York University Shanghai（纽约大学上海校区）
We show a flow-augmentation algorithm in directed graphs: There exists a randomized polynomial-time algorithm that, given a directed graph $G$, two vertices $s,t \in V(G)$, and an integer $k$, adds (randomly) to $G$ a number of arcs such that for every minimal $st$-cut $Z$ in $G$ of size at most $k$, with probability $2^{-\mathrm{poly}(k)}$ the set $Z$ becomes a minimum $st$-cut in the resulting graph. We also provide a deterministic counterpart of this procedure. The directed flow-augmentation tool allows us to prove fixed-parameter tractability of a number of problems parameterized by the ca…
For two positive integers $k$ and $\ell$, a $(k \times \ell)$-spindle is the union of $k$ pairwise internally vertex-disjoint directed paths with $\ell$ arcs between two vertices $u$ and $v$. We are interested in the (parameterized) complexity of several problems consisting in deciding whether a given digraph contains a subdivision of a spindle, which generalize both the Maximum Flow and Longest Path problems. We obtain the following complexity dichotomy: for a fixed $\ell \geq 1$, finding the largest $k$ such that an input digraph $G$ contains a subdivision of a $(k \times \ell)$-spindle is p…
A Group Labeled Graph is a pair $(G,Λ)$ where $G$ is an oriented graph and $Λ$ is a mapping from the arcs of $G$ to elements of a group. A (not necessarily directed) cycle $C$ is called non-null if for any cyclic ordering of the arcs in $C$, the group element obtained by `adding' the labels on forward arcs and `subtracting' the labels on reverse arcs is not the identity element of the group. Non-null cycles in group labeled graphs generalize several well-known graph structures, including odd cycles. In this paper, we prove that non-null cycles on Group Labeled Graphs have the half-integral Erd…
Given unit execution time (UET) tasks whose precedence constraints form a directed acyclic graph (DAG), the arcs are associated with unit communication time (UCT) delays. The problem is to schedule the tasks on two processors in order to minimize the makespan. Several polynomial algorithms in the literature are proposed for special classes of digraphs, but the complexity of solving this problem in general case stills a challenging open question. We propose in this paper a linear time algorithm to compute an optimal schedule for the class of DAGs of depth two.
We study the complexity of local graph centrality estimation, with the goal of approximating the centrality score of a given target node while exploring only a sublinear number of nodes/arcs of the graph and performing a sublinear number of elementary operations. We develop a technique, that we apply to the PageRank and Heat Kernel centralities, for building a low-variance score estimator through a local exploration of the graph. We obtain an algorithm that, given any node in any graph of $m$ arcs, with probability $(1-δ)$ computes a multiplicative $(1\pmε)$-approximation of its score by exami…
In the \emph{incremental cycle detection} problem arcs are added to a directed acyclic graph and the algorithm has to report if the new arc closes a cycle. One seeks to minimize the total time to process the entire sequence of arc insertions, or until a cycle appears. In a recent breakthrough, Bender, Fineman, Gilbert and Tarjan \cite{BeFiGiTa11} presented two different algorithms, with time complexity $O(n^2 \log n)$ and $O(m \cdot \min \{m^{1/2}, n^{2/3} \})$, respectively. In this paper we introduce a new technique for incremental cycle detection that allows us to obtain both bounds (up to …
