Motivated by applications in community detection and dense subgraph discovery, we consider new clustering objectives in hypergraphs and bipartite graphs. These objectives are parameterized by one or more resolution parameters in order to enable diverse knowledge discovery in complex data.
For both hypergraph and bipartite objectives, we identify parameter regimes that are equivalent to existing objectives and share their (polynomial-time) approximation algorithms. We first show that our parameterized hypergraph correlation clustering objective is related to higher-order notions of normalized cut and modularity in hypergraphs. It is further amenable to approximation algorithms via hyperedge expansion techniques.
Our parameterized bipartite correlation clustering objective generalizes standard unweighted bipartite correlation clustering, as well as bicluster deletion. For a certain choice of parameters it is also related to our hypergraph objective. Although in general it is NP-hard, we highlight a parameter regime for the bipartite objective where the problem reduces to the bipartite matching problem and thus can be solved in polynomial time. For other parameter settings, we present approximation algorithms using linear program rounding techniques. These results allow us to introduce the first constant-factor approximation for bicluster deletion, the task of removing a minimum number of edges to partition a bipartite graph into disjoint bi-cliques.
In several experimental results, we highlight the flexibility of our framework and the diversity of results that can be obtained in different parameter settings. This includes clustering bipartite graphs across a range of parameters, detecting motif-rich clusters in an email network and a food web, and forming clusters of retail products in a product review hypergraph, that are highly correlated with known product categories.
Haxell's condition is a natural hypergraph analog of Hall's condition, which is a well-known necessary and sufficient condition for a bipartite graph to admit a perfect matching. That is, when Haxell's condition holds it forces the existence of a perfect matching in the bipartite hypergraph. Unlike in graphs, however, there is no known polynomial time algorithm to find the hypergraph perfect matching that is guaranteed to exist when Haxell's condition is satisfied. We prove the existence of an efficient algorithm to find perfect matchings in bipartite hypergraphs whenever a stronger version of…
Hypergraphs are important objects to model ternary or higher-order relations of objects, and have a number of applications in analysing many complex datasets occurring in practice. In this work we study a new heat diffusion process in hypergraphs, and employ this process to design a polynomial-time algorithm that approximately finds bipartite components in a hypergraph. We theoretically prove the performance of our proposed algorithm, and compare it against the previous state-of-the-art through extensive experimental analysis on both synthetic and real-world datasets. We find that our new algo…
A hypergraph is said to be $1$-Sperner if for every two hyperedges the smallest of their two set differences is of size one. We present several applications of $1$-Sperner hypergraphs and their structure to graphs. In particular, we consider the classical characterizations of threshold and domishold graphs and use them to obtain further characterizations of these classes in terms of $1$-Spernerness, thresholdness, and $2$-asummability of their vertex cover, clique, dominating set, and closed neighborhood hypergraphs. Furthermore, we apply a decomposition property of $1$-Sperner hypergraphs to …
We give an analog of the Myhill-Nerode methods from formal language theory for hypergraphs and use it to derive the following results for two NP-hard hypergraph problems: * We provide an algorithm for testing whether a hypergraph has cutwidth at most k that runs in linear time for constant k. In terms of parameterized complexity theory, the problem is fixed-parameter linear parameterized by k. * We show that it is not expressible in monadic second-order logic whether a hypergraph has bounded (fractional, generalized) hypertree width. The proof leads us to conjecture that, in terms of parameter…
Constructing a shortest path between two network nodes is a fundamental task in distributed computing. This work develops schemes for the construction of shortest paths in randomized beeping networks between a predetermined source node and an arbitrary set of destination nodes. Our first scheme constructs a (single) shortest path to an arbitrary destination in $O (D \log\log n + \log^3 n)$ rounds with high probability. Our second scheme constructs multiple shortest paths, one per each destination, in $O (D \log^2 n + \log^3 n)$ rounds with high probability. Our schemes are based on a reduction…
The NP-hard general factor problem asks, given a graph and for each vertex a list of integers, whether the graph has a spanning subgraph where each vertex has a degree that belongs to its assigned list. The problem remains NP-hard even if the given graph is bipartite with partition U+V, and each vertex in U is assigned the list {1}; this subproblem appears in the context of constraint programming as the consistency problem for the extended global cardinality constraint. We show that this subproblem is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the size of the second partite set V. More ge…
In this paper, we propose a characterization of chordal bipartite graphs and an efficient enumeration algorithm for chordal bipartite induced subgraphs. A chordal bipartite graph is a bipartite graph without induced cycles with length six or more. It is known that the incident graph of a hypergraph is chordal bipartite graph if and only if the hypergraph is $β$-acyclic. As the main result of our paper, we show that a graph $G$ is chordal bipartite if and only if there is a special vertex elimination ordering for $G$, called CBEO. Moreover, we propose an algorithm ECB which enumerates all chord…
We introduce the problem Partial VC Dimension that asks, given a hypergraph $H=(X,E)$ and integers $k$ and $\ell$, whether one can select a set $C\subseteq X$ of $k$ vertices of $H$ such that the set $\{e\cap C, e\in E\}$ of distinct hyperedge-intersections with $C$ has size at least $\ell$. The sets $e\cap C$ define equivalence classes over $E$. Partial VC Dimension is a generalization of VC Dimension, which corresponds to the case $\ell=2^k$, and of Distinguishing Transversal, which corresponds to the case $\ell=|E|$ (the latter is also known as Test Cover in the dual hypergraph). We also in…
Until recently, LP relaxations have played a limited role in the design of approximation algorithms for the Steiner tree problem. In 2010, Byrka et al. presented a ln(4)+epsilon approximation based on a hypergraphic LP relaxation, but surprisingly, their analysis does not provide a matching bound on the integrality gap. We take a fresh look at hypergraphic LP relaxations for the Steiner tree problem - one that heavily exploits methods and results from the theory of matroids and submodular functions - which leads to stronger integrality gaps, faster algorithms, and a variety of structural insig…
In the weighted partial vertex cover problem (WPVC), we are given a graph $G=(V,E)$, cost function $c:V\rightarrow N$, profit function $p:E\rightarrow N$, and positive integers $R$ and $L$. The goal is to check whether there is a subset $V'\subseteq V$ of cost at most $R$, such that the total profit of edges covered by $V'$ is at least $L$. In this paper we study the fixed-parameter tractability of WPVC in bipartite graphs (WPVCB). By extending the methods of Amini et al., we show that WPVCB is FPT with respect to $R$ if $c\equiv 1$. On the negative side, it is $W[1]$-hard for arbitrary $c$, e…
We consider the algorithmic complexity of recognizing bipartite temporal graphs. Rather than defining these graphs solely by their underlying graph or individual layers, we define a bipartite temporal graph as one in which every layer can be 2-colored in a way that results in few changes between any two consecutive layers. This approach follows the framework of multistage problems that has received a growing amount of attention in recent years. We investigate the complexity of recognizing these graphs. We show that this problem is NP-hard even if there are only two layers or if only one change…
We investigate the parameterized complexity of finding subgraphs with hereditary properties on graphs belonging to a hereditary graph class. Given a graph $G$, a non-trivial hereditary property $Π$ and an integer parameter $k$, the general problem $P(G,Π,k)$ asks whether there exists $k$ vertices of $G$ that induce a subgraph satisfying property $Π$. This problem, $P(G,Π,k)$ has been proved to be NP-complete by Lewis and Yannakakis. The parameterized complexity of this problem is shown to be W[1]-complete by Khot and Raman, if $Π$ includes all trivial graphs but not all complete graphs and vic…
An edge labeling of a graph distinguishes neighbors by sets (multisets, resp.), if for any two adjacent vertices $u$ and $v$ the sets (multisets, resp.) of labels appearing on edges incident to $u$ and $v$ are different. In an analogous way we define total labelings distinguishing neighbors by sets or multisets: for each vertex, we consider labels on incident edges and the label of the vertex itself. In this paper we show that these problems, and also other problems of similar flavor, admit an elegant and natural generalization as a hypergraph coloring problem. An ieds-coloring (iedm-coloring,…
We initiate the study of the Bipartite Contraction problem from the perspective of parameterized complexity. In this problem we are given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, and the task is to determine whether we can obtain a bipartite graph from $G$ by a sequence of at most $k$ edge contractions. Our main result is an $f(k) n^{O(1)}$ time algorithm for Bipartite Contraction. Despite a strong resemblance between Bipartite Contraction and the classical Odd Cycle Transversal (OCT) problem, the methods developed to tackle OCT do not seem to be directly applicable to Bipartite Contraction. Our algori…
The Firefighter problem is to place firefighters on the vertices of a graph to prevent a fire with known starting point from lighting up the entire graph. In each time step, a firefighter may be permanently placed on an unburned vertex and the fire spreads to its neighborhood in the graph in so far no firefighters are protecting those vertices. The goal is to let as few vertices burn as possible. This problem is known to be NP-complete, even when restricted to bipartite graphs or to trees of maximum degree three. Initial study showed the Firefighter problem to be fixed-parameter tractable on t…
In $k$-hypergraph matching, we are given a collection of sets of size at most $k$, each with an associated weight, and we seek a maximum-weight subcollection whose sets are pairwise disjoint. More generally, in $k$-hypergraph $b$-matching, instead of disjointness we require that every element appears in at most $b$ sets of the subcollection. Our main result is a linear-programming based $(k-1+\tfrac{1}{k})$-approximation algorithm for $k$-hypergraph $b$-matching. This settles the integrality gap when $k$ is one more than a prime power, since it matches a previously-known lower bound. When the …
In this paper, we study the dualization in distributive lattices, a generalization of the well-known hypergraph dualization problem. We in particular propose equivalent formulations of the problem in terms of graphs, hypergraphs, and posets. It is known that hypergraph dualization amounts to generate all minimal transversals of a hypergraph, or all minimal dominating sets of a graph. In this new framework, a poset on vertices is given together with the input (hyper)graph, and minimal ``ideal solutions'' are to be generated. This in particular allows us to study the complexity of the problem un…
The Odd Cycle Transversal problem (OCT) asks whether a given graph can be made bipartite (i.e., 2-colorable) by deleting at most l vertices. We study structural parameterizations of OCT with respect to their polynomial kernelizability, i.e., whether instances can be efficiently reduced to a size polynomial in the chosen parameter. It is a major open problem in parameterized complexity whether Odd Cycle Transversal admits a polynomial kernel when parameterized by l. On the positive side, we show a polynomial kernel for OCT when parameterized by the vertex deletion distance to the class of bipar…
We study the parameterized complexity of the classical Edge Hamiltonian Path problem and give several fixed-parameter tractability results. First, we settle an open question of Demaine et al. by showing that Edge Hamiltonian Path is FPT parameterized by vertex cover, and that it also admits a cubic kernel. We then show fixed-parameter tractability even for a generalization of the problem to arbitrary hypergraphs, parameterized by the size of a (supplied) hitting set. We also consider the problem parameterized by treewidth or clique-width. Surprisingly, we show that the problem is FPT for both …
We study the parameterized complexity of interdiction problems in graphs. For an optimization problem on graphs, one can formulate an interdiction problem as a game consisting of two players, namely, an interdictor and an evader, who compete on an objective with opposing interests. In edge interdiction problems, every edge of the input graph has an interdiction cost associated with it and the interdictor interdicts the graph by modifying the edges in the graph, and the number of such modifications is constrained by the interdictor's budget. The evader then solves the given optimization problem…
We study two variants of \textsc{Maximum Cut}, which we call \textsc{Connected Maximum Cut} and \textsc{Maximum Minimal Cut}, in this paper. In these problems, given an unweighted graph, the goal is to compute a maximum cut satisfying some connectivity requirements. Both problems are known to be NP-complete even on planar graphs whereas \textsc{Maximum Cut} on planar graphs is solvable in polynomial time. We first show that these problems are NP-complete even on planar bipartite graphs and split graphs. Then we give parameterized algorithms using graph parameters such as clique-width, tree-wid…
