The graph parameter of pathwidth can be seen as a measure of the topological resemblance of a graph to a path. A popular definition of pathwidth is given in terms of node search where we are given a system of tunnels that is contaminated by some infectious substance and we are looking for a search strategy that, at each step, either places a searcher on a vertex or removes a searcher from a vertex and where an edge is cleaned when both endpoints are simultaneously occupied by searchers. It was proved that the minimum number of searchers required for a successful cleaning strategy is equal to the pathwidth of the graph plus one. Two desired characteristics for a cleaning strategy is to be monotone (no recontamination occurs) and connected (clean territories always remain connected). Under these two demands, the number of searchers is equivalent to a variant of pathwidth called {\em connected pathwidth}. We prove that connected pathwidth is fixed parameter tractable, in particular we design a $2^{O(k^2)}\cdot n$ time algorithm that checks whether the connected pathwidth of $G$ is at most $k.$ This resolves an open question by [Dereniowski, Osula, and Rz{ą}{ż}ewski, Finding small-width connected path-decompositions in polynomial time. Theor. Comput. Sci., 794:85-100, 2019]. For our algorithm, we enrich the typical sequence technique that is able to deal with the connectivity demand. Typical sequences have been introduced in [Bodlaender and Kloks. Efficient and constructive algorithms for the pathwidth and treewidth of graphs. J. Algorithms, 21(2):358-402, 1996] for the design of linear parameterized algorithms for treewidth and pathwidth. The proposed extension is based on an encoding of the connectivity property that is quite versatile and may be adapted so to deliver linear parameterized algorithms for the connected variants of other width parameters as well.
In this paper, we consider the problem of counting and sampling structures in graphs. We define a class of "edge universal labeling problems"---which include proper $k$-colorings, independent sets, and downsets---and describe simple algorithms for counting and uniformly sampling valid labelings of graphs, assuming a path decomposition is given. Thus, we show that several well-studied counting and sampling problems are fixed parameter tractable (FPT) when parameterized by the pathwidth of the input graph. We discuss connections to counting and sampling problems for distributive lattices and, in…
The pathwidth of a graph is a measure of how path-like the graph is. Given a graph G and an integer k, the problem of finding whether there exist at most k vertices in G whose deletion results in a graph of pathwidth at most one is NP- complete. We initiate the study of the parameterized complexity of this problem, parameterized by k. We show that the problem has a quartic vertex-kernel: We show that, given an input instance (G = (V, E), k); |V| = n, we can construct, in polynomial time, an instance (G', k') such that (i) (G, k) is a YES instance if and only if (G', k') is a YES instance, (ii)…
We show that the Temporal Graph Exploration Problem is NP-complete, even when the underlying graph has pathwidth 2 and at each time step, the current graph is connected.
Given a connected outerplanar graph G of pathwidth p, we give an algorithm to add edges to G to get a supergraph of G, which is 2-vertex-connected, outerplanar and of pathwidth O(p). This settles an open problem raised by Biedl, in the context of computing minimum height planar straight line drawings of outerplanar graphs, with their vertices placed on a two dimensional grid. In conjunction with the result of this paper, the constant factor approximation algorithm for this problem obtained by Biedl for 2-vertex-connected outerplanar graphs will work for all outer planar graphs.
A connected path decomposition of a simple graph $G$ is a path decomposition $(X_1,\ldots,X_l)$ such that the subgraph of $G$ induced by $X_1\cup\cdots\cup X_i$ is connected for each $i\in\{1,\ldots,l\}$. The connected pathwidth of $G$ is then the minimum width over all connected path decompositions of $G$. We prove that for each fixed $k$, the connected pathwidth of any input graph can be computed in polynomial-time. This answers an open question raised by Fedor V. Fomin during the GRASTA 2017 workshop, since connected pathwidth is equivalent to the connected (monotone) node search game.
Assuming the AND-distillation conjecture, the Pathwidth problem of determining whether a given graph G has pathwidth at most k admits no polynomial kernelization with respect to k. The present work studies the existence of polynomial kernels for Pathwidth with respect to other, structural, parameters. Our main result is that, unless NP is in coNP/poly, Pathwidth admits no polynomial kernelization even when parameterized by the vertex deletion distance to a clique, by giving a cross-composition from Cutwidth. The cross-composition works also for Treewidth, improving over previous lower bounds b…
Structural graph parameters, such as treewidth, pathwidth, and clique-width, are a central topic of study in parameterized complexity. A main aim of research in this area is to understand the "price of generality" of these widths: as we transition from more restrictive to more general notions, which are the problems that see their complexity status deteriorate from fixed-parameter tractable to intractable? This type of question is by now very well-studied, but, somewhat strikingly, the algorithmic frontier between the two (arguably) most central width notions, treewidth and pathwidth, is still…
Given a graph $G = (V,E)$, $A \subseteq V$, and integers $k$ and $\ell$, the \textsc{$(A,\ell)$-Path Packing} problem asks to find $k$ vertex-disjoint paths of length $\ell$ that have endpoints in $A$ and internal points in $V \setminus A$. We study the parameterized complexity of this problem with parameters $|A|$, $\ell$, $k$, treewidth, pathwidth, and their combinations. We present sharp complexity contrasts with respect to these parameters. Among other results, we show that the problem is polynomial-time solvable when $\ell \le 3$, while it is NP-complete for constant $\ell \ge 4$. We also…
We investigate two types of graph layouts, track layouts and layered path decompositions, and the relations between their associated parameters track-number and layered pathwidth. We use these two types of layouts to characterize leveled planar graphs, which are the graphs with planar leveled drawings with no dummy vertices. It follows from the known NP-completeness of leveled planarity that track-number and layered pathwidth are also NP-complete, even for the smallest constant parameter values that make these parameters nontrivial. We prove that the graphs with bounded layered pathwidth inclu…
Grid graphs, and, more generally, $k\times r$ grid graphs, form one of the most basic classes of geometric graphs. Over the past few decades, a large body of works studied the (in)tractability of various computational problems on grid graphs, which often yield substantially faster algorithms than general graphs. Unfortunately, the recognition of a grid graph is particularly hard -- it was shown to be NP-hard even on trees of pathwidth 3 already in 1987. Yet, in this paper, we provide several positive results in this regard in the framework of parameterized complexity (additionally, we present …
We consider the complexity of the firefighter problem where b>=1 firefighters are available at each time step. This problem is proved NP-complete even on trees of degree at most three and budget one (Finbow et al.,2007) and on trees of bounded degree b+3 for any fixed budget b>=2 (Bazgan et al.,2012). In this paper, we provide further insight into the complexity landscape of the problem by showing that the pathwidth and the maximum degree of the input graph govern its complexity. More precisely, we first prove that the problem is NP-complete even on trees of pathwidth at most three for any fix…
We consider the parameterised complexity of several list problems on graphs, with parameter treewidth or pathwidth. In particular, we show that List Edge Chromatic Number and List Total Chromatic Number are fixed parameter tractable, parameterised by treewidth, whereas List Hamilton Path is W[1]-hard, even parameterised by pathwidth. These results resolve two open questions of Fellows, Fomin, Lokshtanov, Rosamond, Saurabh, Szeider and Thomassen (2011).
A k-page book embedding of a graph G draws the vertices of G on a line and the edges on k half-planes (called pages) bounded by this line, such that no two edges on the same page cross. We study the problem of determining whether G admits a k-page book embedding both when the linear order of the vertices is fixed, called Fixed-Order Book Thickness, or not fixed, called Book Thickness. Both problems are known to be NP-complete in general. We show that Fixed-Order Book Thickness and Book Thickness are fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the vertex cover number of the graph and that Fixed-…
We consider the problem of finding a 1-planar drawing for a general graph, where a 1-planar drawing is a drawing in which each edge participates in at most one crossing. Since this problem is known to be NP-hard we investigate the parameterized complexity of the problem with respect to the vertex cover number, tree-depth, and cyclomatic number. For these parameters we construct fixed-parameter tractable algorithms. However, the problem remains NP-complete for graphs of bounded bandwidth, pathwidth, or treewidth.
The field of knowledge compilation establishes the tractability of many tasks by studying how to compile them to Boolean circuit classes obeying some requirements such as structuredness, decomposability, and determinism. However, in other settings such as intensional query evaluation on databases, we obtain Boolean circuits that satisfy some width bounds, e.g., they have bounded treewidth or pathwidth. In this work, we give a systematic picture of many circuit classes considered in knowledge compilation and show how they can be systematically connected to width measures, through upper and lowe…
We consider a bi-criteria generalization of the pathwidth problem, where, for given integers $k,l$ and a graph $G$, we ask whether there exists a path decomposition $\cP$ of $G$ such that the width of $\cP$ is at most $k$ and the number of bags in $\cP$, i.e., the \emph{length} of $\cP$, is at most $l$. We provide a complete complexity classification of the problem in terms of $k$ and $l$ for general graphs. Contrary to the original pathwidth problem, which is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to $k$, we prove that the generalized problem is NP-complete for any fixed $k\geq 4$, and is als…
We perform a systematic study in the computational complexity of the connected variant of three related transversal problems: Vertex Cover, Feedback Vertex Set, and Odd Cycle Transversal. Just like their original counterparts, these variants are NP-complete for general graphs. A graph $G$ is $H$-free for some graph $H$ if $G$ contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$. It is known that Connected Vertex Cover is NP-complete even for $H$-free graphs if $H$ contains a claw or a cycle. We show that the two other connected variants also remain NP-complete if $H$ contains a cycle or claw. In the…
We algorithmize the recent structural characterization for claw-free graphs by Chudnovsky and Seymour. Building on this result, we show that Dominating Set on claw-free graphs is (i) fixed-parameter tractable and (ii) even possesses a polynomial kernel. To complement these results, we establish that Dominating Set is not fixed-parameter tractable on the slightly larger class of graphs that exclude K_{1,4} as an induced subgraph (K_{1,4}-free graphs). We show that our algorithmization can also be used to show that the related Connected Dominating Set problem is fixed-parameter tractable on claw…
We study the weighted improper coloring problem, a generalization of defective coloring. We present some hardness results and in particular we show that weighted improper coloring is not fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by pathwidth. We generalize bounds for defective coloring to weighted improper coloring and give a bound for weighted improper coloring in terms of the sum of edge weights. Finally we give fixed-parameter algorithms for weighted improper coloring both when parameterized by treewidth and maximum degree and when parameterized by treewidth and precision of edge weights…
We develop a new framework for generalizing approximation algorithms from the structural graph algorithm literature so that they apply to graphs somewhat close to that class (a scenario we expect is common when working with real-world networks) while still guaranteeing approximation ratios. The idea is to $\textit{edit}$ a given graph via vertex- or edge-deletions to put the graph into an algorithmically tractable class, apply known approximation algorithms for that class, and then $\textit{lift}$ the solution to apply to the original graph. We give a general characterization of when an optimi…
The {\sc Directed Maximum Leaf Out-Branching} problem is to find an out-branching (i.e. a rooted oriented spanning tree) in a given digraph with the maximum number of leaves. In this paper, we improve known parameterized algorithms and combinatorial bounds on the number of leaves in out-branchings. We show that \begin{itemize} \item every strongly connected digraph $D$ of order $n$ with minimum in-degree at least 3 has an out-branching with at least $(n/4)^{1/3}-1$ leaves; \item if a strongly connected digraph $D$ does not contain an out-branching with $k$ leaves, then the pathwidth of its und…
Given a graph $G = (V,E)$, a threshold function $t~ :~ V \rightarrow \mathbb{N}$ and an integer $k$, we study the Harmless Set problem, where the goal is to find a subset of vertices $S \subseteq V$ of size at least $k$ such that every vertex $v\in V$ has less than $t(v)$ neighbors in $S$. We enhance our understanding of the problem from the viewpoint of parameterized complexity. Our focus lies on parameters that measure the structural properties of the input instance. We show that the problem is W[1]-hard parameterized by a wide range of fairly restrictive structural parameters such as the fe…
In the classic Minimum Bisection problem we are given as input a graph $G$ and an integer $k$. The task is to determine whether there is a partition of $V(G)$ into two parts $A$ and $B$ such that $||A|-|B|| \leq 1$ and there are at most $k$ edges with one endpoint in $A$ and the other in $B$. In this paper we give an algorithm for Minimum Bisection with running time $O(2^{O(k^{3})}n^3 \log^3 n)$. This is the first fixed parameter tractable algorithm for Minimum Bisection. At the core of our algorithm lies a new decomposition theorem that states that every graph $G$ can be decomposed by small s…
For a connected graph $G = (V, E)$ and $s, t \in V$, a non-separating $s$-$t$ path is a path $P$ between $s$ and $t$ such that the set of vertices of $P$ does not separate $G$, that is, $G - V(P)$ is connected. An $s$-$t$ path is non-disconnecting if $G - E(P)$ is connected. The problems of finding shortest non-separating and non-disconnecting paths are both known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we consider the problems from the viewpoint of parameterized complexity. We show that the problem of finding a non-separating $s$-$t$ path of length at most $k$ is W[1]-hard parameterized by $k$, while t…
We study Subgraph Isomorphism on graph classes defined by a fixed forbidden graph. Although there are several ways for forbidding a graph, we observe that it is reasonable to focus on the minor relation since other well-known relations lead to either trivial or equivalent problems. When the forbidden minor is connected, we present a near dichotomy of the complexity of Subgraph Isomorphism with respect to the forbidden minor, where the only unsettled case is $P_{5}$, the path of five vertices. We then also consider the general case of possibly disconnected forbidden minors. We show fixed-parame…
Given two graphs $H$ and $G$, the Subgraph Isomorphism problem asks if $H$ is isomorphic to a subgraph of $G$. While NP-hard in general, algorithms exist for various parameterized versions of the problem: for example, the problem can be solved (1) in time $2^{O(|V(H)|)}\cdot n^{O(\tw(H))}$ using the color-coding technique of Alon, Yuster, and Zwick; (2) in time $f(|V(H)|,\tw(G))\cdot n$ using Courcelle's Theorem; (3) in time $f(|V(H)|,\genus(G))\cdot n$ using a result on first-order model checking by Frick and Grohe; or (4) in time $f(\maxdeg(H))\cdot n^{O(\tw(G)})$ for connected $H$ using the…
Graph Burning asks, given a graph $G = (V,E)$ and an integer $k$, whether there exists $(b_{0},\dots,b_{k-1}) \in V^{k}$ such that every vertex in $G$ has distance at most $i$ from some $b_{i}$. This problem is known to be NP-complete even on connected caterpillars of maximum degree $3$. We study the parameterized complexity of this problem and answer all questions arose by Kare and Reddy [IWOCA 2019] about parameterized complexity of the problem. We show that the problem is W[2]-complete parameterized by $k$ and that it does no admit a polynomial kernel parameterized by vertex cover number un…
We show that the following two problems are fixed-parameter tractable with parameter k: testing whether a connected n-vertex graph with m edges has a square root with at most n-1+k edges and testing whether such a graph has a square root with at least m-k edges. Our first result implies that squares of graphs obtained from trees by adding at most k edges can be recognized in polynomial time for every fixed k>=0; previously this result was known only for k=0. Our second result is equivalent to stating that deciding whether a graph can be modified into a square root of itself by at most k edge d…
Given an undirected graph $G$ and $q$ integers $n_1,n_2,n_3, \cdots, n_q$, balanced connected $q$-partition problem ($BCP_q$) asks whether there exists a partition of the vertex set $V$ of $G$ into $q$ parts $V_1,V_2,V_3,\cdots, V_q$ such that for all $i\in[1,q]$, $|V_i|=n_i$ and the graph induced on $V_i$ is connected. A related problem denoted as the balanced connected $q$-edge partition problem ($BCEP_q$) is defined as follows. Given an undirected graph $G$ and $q$ integers $n_1,n_2,n_3, \cdots, n_q$, $BCEP_q$ asks whether there exists a partition of the edge set of $G$ into $q$ parts $E_1,…
The CONNECTED VERTEX COVER problem asks for a vertex cover in a graph that induces a connected subgraph. The problem is known to be fixed-parameter tractable (FPT), and is unlikely to have a polynomial sized kernel (under complexity theoretic assumptions) when parameterized by the solution size. In a recent paper, Lokshtanov et al.[STOC 2017], have shown an $α$-approximate kernel for the problem for every $α> 1$, in the framework of approximate or lossy kernelization. In this work, we exhibit lossy kernels and FPT algorithms for CONNECTED VERTEX COVER for parameters that are more natural and f…
Given a directed graph $G$ and a list $(s_1,t_1),\dots,(s_d,t_d)$ of terminal pairs, the Directed Steiner Network problem asks for a minimum-cost subgraph of $G$ that contains a directed $s_i\to t_i$ path for every $1\le i \le k$. The special case Directed Steiner Tree (when we ask for paths from a root $r$ to terminals $t_1,\dots,t_d$) is known to be fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the number of terminals, while the special case Strongly Connected Steiner Subgraph (when we ask for a path from every $t_i$ to every other $t_j$) is known to be W[1]-hard. We systematically explore the …
In the Multiple Allocation $k$-Hub Center (MA$k$HC), we are given a connected edge-weighted graph $G$, sets of clients $\mathcal{C}$ and hub locations $\mathcal{H}$, where ${V(G) = \mathcal{C} \cup \mathcal{H}}$, a set of demands $\mathcal{D} \subseteq \mathcal{C}^2$ and a positive integer $k$. A solution is a set of hubs $H \subseteq \mathcal{H}$ of size $k$ such that every demand $(a,b)$ is satisfied by a path starting in $a$, going through some vertex of $H$, and ending in $b$. The objective is to minimize the largest length of a path. We show that finding a $(3-ε)$-approximation is NP-hard…
We consider the following problem called the $k$-Chinese Postman Problem ($k$-CPP): given a connected edge-weighted graph $G$ and integers $p$ and $k$, decide whether there are at least $k$ closed walks such that every edge of $G$ is contained in at least one of them and the total weight of the edges in the walks is at most $p$? The problem $k$-CPP is NP-complete, and van Bevern et al. (to appear) and Sorge (2013) asked whether the $k$-CPP is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by $k$. We prove that the $k$-CPP is indeed fixed-parameter tractable. In fact, we prove a stronger result: …
The Connected Vertex Cover problem is to decide if a graph G has a vertex cover of size at most $k$ that induces a connected subgraph of $G$. This is a well-studied problem, known to be NP-complete for restricted graph classes, and, in particular, for $H$-free graphs if $H$ is not a linear forest (a graph is $H$-free if it does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph). It is easy to see that Connected Vertex Cover is polynomial-time solvable for $P_4$-free graphs. We continue the search for tractable graph classes: we prove that it is also polynomial-time solvable for $(sP_1+P_5)$-free graphs f…
The aim of edge editing or modification problems is to change a given graph by adding and deleting of a small number of edges in order to satisfy a certain property. We consider the Edge Editing to a Connected Graph of Given Degrees problem that asks for a graph G, non-negative integers d,k and a function δ:V(G)->{1,...,d}, whether it is possible to obtain a connected graph G' from G such that the degree of v is δ(v) for any vertex v by at most k edge editing operations. As the problem is NP-complete even if δ(v)=2, we are interested in the parameterized complexity and show that Edge Editing t…
Partitioning a connected graph into $k$~vertex-disjoint connected subgraphs of similar (or given) orders is a classical problem that has been intensively investigated since late seventies. Given a connected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a weight function $w : V \to \mathbb{Q}_\geq$, a connected $k$-partition of $G$ is a partition of $V$ such that each class induces a connected subgraph. The balanced connected $k$-partition problem consists in finding a connected $k$-partition in which every class has roughly the same weight. To model this concept of balance, one may seek connected $k$-partitions that ei…
We show that the dominating set problem parameterized by solution size is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) in graphs that do not contain the claw (K(1,3)), the complete bipartite graph on four vertices where the two parts have one and three vertices, respectively) as an induced subgraph. We present an algorithm that uses 2^O(k^2)n^O(1) time and polynomial space to decide whether a claw-free graph on n vertices has a dominating set of size at most k. Note that this parameterization of dominating set is W[2]-hard on the set of all graphs, and thus is unlikely to have an FPT algorithm for graphs i…
introduce {\sc Planar Disjoint Paths Completion}, a completion counterpart of the Disjoint Paths problem, and study its parameterized complexity. The problem can be stated as follows: given a, not necessarily connected, plane graph $G,$ $k$ pairs of terminals, and a face $F$ of $G,$ find a minimum-size set of edges, if one exists, to be added inside $F$ so that the embedding remains planar and the pairs become connected by $k$ disjoint paths in the augmented network. Our results are twofold: first, we give an upper bound on the number of necessary additional edges when a solution exists. This …
The Balanced Connected Subgraph problem (BCS) was recently introduced by Bhore et al. (CALDAM 2019). In this problem, we are given a graph $G$ whose vertices are colored by red or blue. The goal is to find a maximum connected subgraph of $G$ having the same number of blue vertices and red vertices. They showed that this problem is NP-hard even on planar graphs, bipartite graphs, and chordal graphs. They also gave some positive results: BCS can be solved in $O(n^3)$ time for trees and $O(n + m)$ time for split graphs and properly colored bipartite graphs, where $n$ is the number of vertices and…
