We propose a simple and natural approximation algorithm for the problem of finding a 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph of minimum total edge cost in a graph. The algorithm maintains a spanning forest starting with an empty edge set. In each iteration, a new edge incident to a leaf is selected in a natural greedy manner and added to the forest. If this produces a cycle, this cycle is contracted. This growing phase ends when the graph has been contracted into a single node and a subsequent cleanup step removes redundant edges in reverse order.
We analyze the algorithm using the primal-dual method showing that its solution value is at most 3 times the optimum. Although this only matches the ratio of existing primal-dual algorithms, we require only a single growing phase, thereby addressing a question by Williamson. Also, we consider our algorithm to be not only conceptually simpler than the known approximation algorithms but also easier to implement in its entirety. For n and m being the number of nodes and edges, respectively, it runs in O(min{nm, m + n^2 log n}) time and O(m) space without data structures more sophisticated than binary heaps and graphs, and without graph algorithms beyond depth-first search.
We present the first polynomial-time approximation schemes, i.e., (1 + ε)-approximation algorithm for any constant ε > 0, for the minimum three-edge connected spanning subgraph problem and the minimum three-vertex connected spanning subgraph problem in undirected planar graphs. Both the approximation schemes run in linear time.
Given a $2$-vertex-twinless connected directed graph $G=(V,E)$, the minimum $2$-vertex-twinless connected spanning subgraph problem is to find a minimum cardinality edge subset $E^{t} \subseteq E$ such that the subgraph $(V,E^{t})$ is $2$-vertex-twinless connected. Let $G^{1}$ be a minimal $2$-vertex-connected subgraph of $G$. In this paper we present a $(2+a_{t}/2)$-approximation algorithm for the minimum $2$-vertex-twinless connected spanning subgraph problem, where $a_{t}$ is the number of twinless articulation points in $G^{1}$.
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a strongly biconnected directed graph. In this paper we consider the problem of computing an edge subset $H \subseteq E$ of minimum size such that the directed subgraph $(V,H)$ is strongly biconnected.
In the weighted minimum strongly connected spanning subgraph (WMSCSS) problem we must purchase a minimum-cost strongly connected spanning subgraph of a digraph. We show that half-integral linear program (LP) solutions for WMSCSS can be efficiently rounded to integral solutions at a multiplicative $1.5$ cost. This rounding matches a known $1.5$ integrality gap lower bound for a half-integral instance. More generally, we show that LP solutions whose non-zero entries are at least a value $f > 0$ can be rounded at a multiplicative cost of $2 - f$.
We obtain a polynomial-time 17/12-approximation algorithm for the minimum-cost 2-vertex-connected spanning subgraph problem, restricted to graphs of minimum degree at least 3. Our algorithm uses the framework of ear-decompositions for approximating connectivity problems, which was previously used in algorithms for finding the smallest 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph by Cheriyan, Sebő and Szigeti (SIAM J.Discrete Math. 2001) who gave a 17/12-approximation algorithm for this problem, and by Sebő and Vygen (Combinatorica 2014), who improved the approximation ratio to 4/3.
Our motivation is to improve on the best approximation guarantee known for the problem of finding a minimum-cost 2-node connected spanning subgraph of a given undirected graph with nonnegative edge costs. We present an LP (Linear Programming) relaxation based on partition constraints. The special case where the input contains a spanning tree of zero cost is called 2NC-TAP. We present a greedy algorithm for 2NC-TAP, and we analyze it via dual-fitting for our partition LP relaxation. Keywords: 2-node connected graphs, approximation algorithms, connectivity augmentation, greedy algorithm, network…
A directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is strongly biconnected if $G$ is strongly connected and its underlying graph is biconnected. A strongly biconnected directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is called $2$-vertex-strongly biconnected if $|V|\geq 3$ and the induced subgraph on $V\setminus\left\lbrace w\right\rbrace $ is strongly biconnected for every vertex $w\in V$. In this paper we study the following problem. Given a $2$-vertex-strongly biconnected directed graph $G=(V,E)$, compute an edge subset $E^{2sb} \subseteq E$ of minimum size such that the subgraph $(V,E^{2sb})$ is $2$-vertex-strongly biconnected.
Wu and Grumbach introduced the concept of strongly biconnected directed graphs. A directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is called strongly biconnected if the directed graph $G$ is strongly connected and the underlying undirected graph of $G$ is biconnected. A strongly biconnected directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is said to be $2$- edge strongly biconnected if it has at least three vertices and the directed subgraph $(V,E\setminus\left\lbrace e\right\rbrace )$ is strongly biconnected for all $e \in E$. Let $G=(V,E)$ be a $2$-edge-strongly biconnected directed graph. In this paper we study the problem of computing a…
Let $G$ be a strongly connected directed graph. We consider the following three problems, where we wish to compute the smallest strongly connected spanning subgraph of $G$ that maintains respectively: the $2$-edge-connected blocks of $G$ (\textsf{2EC-B}); the $2$-edge-connected components of $G$ (\textsf{2EC-C}); both the $2$-edge-connected blocks and the $2$-edge-connected components of $G$ (\textsf{2EC-B-C}). All three problems are NP-hard, and thus we are interested in efficient approximation algorithms. For \textsf{2EC-C} we can obtain a $3/2$-approximation by combining previously known re…
In this paper, we study the $k$-forest problem in the model of resource augmentation. In the $k$-forest problem, given an edge-weighted graph $G(V,E)$, a parameter $k$, and a set of $m$ demand pairs $\subseteq V \times V$, the objective is to construct a minimum-cost subgraph that connects at least $k$ demands. The problem is hard to approximate---the best-known approximation ratio is $O(\min\{\sqrt{n}, \sqrt{k}\})$. Furthermore, $k$-forest is as hard to approximate as the notoriously-hard densest $k$-subgraph problem. While the $k$-forest problem is hard to approximate in the worst-case, we s…
Constructing a sparse spanning subgraph is a fundamental primitive in graph theory. In this paper, we study this problem in the Centralized Local model, where the goal is to decide whether an edge is part of the spanning subgraph by examining only a small part of the input; yet, answers must be globally consistent and independent of prior queries. Unfortunately, maximally sparse spanning subgraphs, i.e., spanning trees, cannot be constructed efficiently in this model. Therefore, we settle for a spanning subgraph containing at most $(1+\varepsilon)n$ edges (where $n$ is the number of vertices a…
In the $k$-edge-connected spanning subgraph ($k$ECSS) problem, our goal is to compute a minimum-cost sub-network that is resilient against up to $k$ link failures: Given an $n$-node $m$-edge graph with a cost function on the edges, our goal is to compute a minimum-cost $k$-edge-connected spanning subgraph. This NP-hard problem generalizes the minimum spanning tree problem and is the "uniform case" of a much broader class of survival network design problems (SNDP). A factor of two has remained the best approximation ratio for polynomial-time algorithms for the whole class of SNDP, even for a sp…
We introduce the minimum labelling spanning bi-connected subgraph problem (MLSBP) replacing connectivity by bi-connectivity in the well known minimum labelling spanning tree problem (MLSTP). A graph is bi-connected if, for every two vertices, there are, at least, two vertex-disjoint paths joining them. The problem consists in finding the spanning bi-connected subgraph or block with minimum set of labels. We adapt the exact method of the MLSTP to solve the MLSTB and the basic greedy constructive heuristic, the maximum vertex covering algorithm (MVCA). This proce- dure is a basic component in th…
Subgraph reconfiguration is a family of problems focusing on the reachability of the solution space in which feasible solutions are subgraphs, represented either as sets of vertices or sets of edges, satisfying a prescribed graph structure property. Although there has been previous work that can be categorized as subgraph reconfiguration, most of the related results appear under the name of the property under consideration; for example, independent set, clique, and matching. In this paper, we systematically clarify the complexity status of subgraph reconfiguration with respect to graph structu…
Constructing a spanning tree of a graph is one of the most basic tasks in graph theory. We consider a relaxed version of this problem in the setting of local algorithms. The relaxation is that the constructed subgraph is a sparse spanning subgraph containing at most $(1+ε)n$ edges (where $n$ is the number of vertices and $ε$ is a given approximation/sparsity parameter). In the local setting, the goal is to quickly determine whether a given edge $e$ belongs to such a subgraph, without constructing the whole subgraph, but rather by inspecting (querying) the local neighborhood of $e$. The challen…
Given an undirected node-weighted graph, the Maximum-Weight Connected Subgraph problem (MWCS) is to identify a subset of nodes of maximalsum of weights that induce a connected subgraph. MWCS is closely related to the well-studied Prize Collecting Steiner Tree problem and has many applications in different areas, including computational biology, network design and computer vision. The problem is NP-hard and even hard to approximate within a constant factor. In this work we describe an algorithmic scheme for solving MWCS to provable optimality, which is based on preprocessing rules, new results …
In the minimum $k$-edge-connected spanning subgraph ($k$-ECSS) problem the goal is to find the minimum weight subgraph resistant to up to $k-1$ edge failures. This is a central problem in network design, and a natural generalization of the minimum spanning tree (MST) problem. While the MST problem has been studied extensively by the distributed computing community, for $k \geq 2$ less is known in the distributed setting. In this paper, we present fast randomized distributed approximation algorithms for $k$-ECSS in the CONGEST model. Our first contribution is an $\widetilde{O}(D + \sqrt{n})$-ro…
Constructing a spanning tree of a graph is one of the most basic tasks in graph theory. Motivated by several recent studies of local graph algorithms, we consider the following variant of this problem. Let G be a connected bounded-degree graph. Given an edge $e$ in $G$ we would like to decide whether $e$ belongs to a connected subgraph $G'$ consisting of $(1+ε)n$ edges (for a prespecified constant $ε>0$), where the decision for different edges should be consistent with the same subgraph $G'$. Can this task be performed by inspecting only a {\em constant} number of edges in $G$? Our main result…
The minimum-cost $k$-edge-connected spanning subgraph ($k$-ECSS) problem is a generalization and strengthening of the well-studied minimum-cost spanning tree (MST) problem. While the round complexity of distributedly computing the latter has been well-understood, the former remains mostly open, especially as soon as $k\geq 3$. In this paper, we present the first distributed algorithm that computes an approximation of $k$-ECSS in sublinear time for general $k$. Concretely, we describe a randomized distributed algorithm that, in $\tilde{O}(k(D+k\sqrt{n}))$ rounds, computes a $k$-edge-connected s…
Subgraph enumeration problems ask to output all subgraphs of an input graph that belongs to the specified graph class or satisfy the given constraint. These problems have been widely studied in theoretical computer science. As far, many efficient enumeration algorithms for the fundamental substructures such as spanning trees, cycles, and paths, have been developed. This paper addresses the enumeration problem of bipartite subgraphs. Even though bipartite graphs are quite fundamental and have numerous applications in both theory and application, its enumeration algorithms have not been intensiv…
The minimum-weight $2$-edge-connected spanning subgraph (2-ECSS) problem is a natural generalization of the well-studied minimum-weight spanning tree (MST) problem, and it has received considerable attention in the area of network design. The latter problem asks for a minimum-weight subgraph with an edge connectivity of $1$ between each pair of vertices while the former strengthens this edge-connectivity requirement to $2$. Despite this resemblance, the 2-ECSS problem is considerably more complex than MST. While MST admits a linear-time centralized exact algorithm, 2-ECSS is NP-hard and the be…
Let $H_n$ be a graph on $n$ vertices and let $\ber{H_n}$ denote the complement of $H_n$. Suppose that $Δ= Δ(n)$ is the maximum degree of $\ber{H_n}$. We analyse three algorithms for sampling $d$-regular subgraphs ($d$-factors) of $H_n$. This is equivalent to uniformly sampling $d$-regular graphs which avoid a set $E(\ber{H_n})$ of forbidden edges. Here $d=d(n)$ is a positive integer which may depend on $n$. Two of these algorithms produce a uniformly random $d$-factor of $H_n$ in expected runtime which is linear in $n$ and low-degree polynomial in $d$ and $Δ$. The first algorithm applies when …
We prove that every weighted graph contains a spanning tree subgraph of average stretch O((log n log log n)^2). Moreover, we show how to construct such a tree in time O(m log^2 n).
In the Survivable Network Design Problem (SNDP), the input is an edge-weighted (di)graph $G$ and an integer $r_{uv}$ for every pair of vertices $u,v\in V(G)$. The objective is to construct a subgraph $H$ of minimum weight which contains $r_{uv}$ edge-disjoint (or node-disjoint) $u$-$v$ paths. This is a fundamental problem in combinatorial optimization that captures numerous well-studied problems in graph theory and graph algorithms. In this paper, we consider the version of the problem where we are given a $λ$-edge connected (di)graph $G$ with a non-negative weight function $w$ on the edges an…
Constructing a spanning tree of a graph is one of the most basic tasks in graph theory. We consider this problem in the setting of local algorithms: one wants to quickly determine whether a given edge $e$ is in a specific spanning tree, without computing the whole spanning tree, but rather by inspecting the local neighborhood of $e$. The challenge is to maintain consistency. That is, to answer queries about different edges according to the same spanning tree. Since it is known that this problem cannot be solved without essentially viewing all the graph, we consider the relaxed version of findi…
A strongly connected graph is strongly biconnected if after ignoring the direction of its edges we have an undirected graph with no articulation points. A 3-vertex strongly biconnected graph is a strongly biconnected digraph that has the property that deleting any two vertices in this graph leaves a strongly binconnected subgraph. Jaberi [11] presented approximation algorithms for minimum cardinality 2-vertex strongly biconnected directed subgraph problem. We will focus in this paper on polynomial time algorithms which we have implemented for producing spanning subgraphs that are 3-vertex stro…
A locally connected spanning tree of a graph $G$ is a spanning tree $T$ of $G$ such that the set of all neighbors of $v$ in $T$ induces a connected subgraph of $G$ for every $v\in V(G)$. The purpose of this paper is to give linear-time algorithms for finding locally connected spanning trees on strongly chordal graphs and proper circular-arc graphs, respectively.
Finding the exact integrality gap $α$ for the LP relaxation of the 2-edge-connected spanning multigraph problem (2EC) is closely related to the same problem for the Held-Karp relaxation of the metric traveling salesman problem (TSP). While the former problem seems easier than the latter, since it is less constrained, currently the upper bounds on the respective integrality gaps for the two problems are the same. An approach to proving integrality gaps for both of these problems is to consider fundamental classes of extreme points. For 2EC, better bounds on the integrality gap are known for cer…
We present a 6-approximation algorithm for the minimum-cost $k$-node connected spanning subgraph problem, assuming that the number of nodes is at least $k^3(k-1)+k$. We apply a combinatorial preprocessing, based on the Frank-Tardos algorithm for $k$-outconnectivity, to transform any input into an instance such that the iterative rounding method gives a 2-approximation guarantee. This is the first constant-factor approximation algorithm even in the asymptotic setting of the problem, that is, the restriction to instances where the number of nodes is lower bounded by a function of $k$.
We prove new results for approximating the graphic TSP and some related problems. We obtain polynomial-time algorithms with improved approximation guarantees. For the graphic TSP itself, we improve the approximation ratio to 7/5. For a generalization, the connected-$T$-join problem, we obtain the first nontrivial approximation algorithm, with ratio 3/2. This contains the graphic $s$-$t$-path-TSP as a special case. Our improved approximation guarantee for finding a smallest 2-edge-connected spanning subgraph is 4/3. The key new ingredient of all our algorithms is a special kind of ear-decomposi…
Each vertex of an arbitrary simple graph on $n$ vertices chooses $k$ random incident edges. What is the expected number of edges in the original graph that connect different connected components of the sampled subgraph? We prove that the answer is $O(n/k)$, when $k\ge c\log n$, for some large enough $c$. We conjecture that the same holds for smaller values of $k$, possibly for any $k\ge 2$. Such a result is best possible for any $k\ge 2$. As an application, we use this sampling result to obtain a one-way communication protocol with \emph{private} randomness for finding a spanning forest of a g…
