An automata network is a network of entities, each holding a state from a finite set and evolving according to a local update rule which depends only on its neighbors in the network's graph. It is freezing if there is an order on states such that the state evolution of any node is non-decreasing in any orbit. They are commonly used to model epidemic propagation, diffusion phenomena like bootstrap percolation or cristal growth. In this paper we establish how treewidth and maximum degree of the underlying graph are key parameters which influence the overall computational complexity of finite freezing automata networks. First, we define a general model checking formalism that captures many classical decision problems: prediction, nilpotency, predecessor, asynchronous reachability. Then, on one hand, we present an efficient parallel algorithm that solves the general model checking problem in NC for any graph with bounded degree and bounded treewidth. On the other hand, we show that these problems are hard in their respective classes when restricted to families of graph with polynomially growing treewidth. For prediction, predecessor and asynchronous reachability, we establish the hardness result with a fixed set-defiend update rule that is universally hard on any input graph of such families.
Sparse structures are frequently sought when pursuing tractability in optimization problems. They are exploited from both theoretical and computational perspectives to handle complex problems that become manageable when sparsity is present. An example of this type of structure is given by treewidth: a graph theoretical parameter that measures how "tree-like" a graph is. This parameter has been used for decades for analyzing the complexity of various optimization problems and for obtaining tractable algorithms for problems where this parameter is bounded. The goal of this work is to contribute …
The NC versus P-hard classification of the prediction problem for sandpiles on the two dimensional grid with von Neumann neighborhood is a famous open problem. In this paper we make two kinds of progresses, by studying its freezing variant. First, it enables to establish strong connections with other well known prediction problems on networks of threshold Boolean functions such as majority. Second, we can highlight some necessary and sufficient elements to the dynamical complexity of sandpiles, with a surprisingly crucial role of cells with two grains.
Answer Set Programming (ASP) is a problem modeling and solving framework for several problems in KR with growing industrial applications. Also for studies of computational complexity and deeper insights into the hardness and its sources, ASP has been attracting researchers for many years. These studies resulted in fruitful characterizations in terms of complexity classes, fine-grained insights in form of dichotomy-style results, as well as detailed parameterized complexity landscapes. Recently, this lead to a novel result establishing that for the measure treewidth, which captures structural d…
For graphs $G$ and $H$, a \emph{homomorphism} from $G$ to $H$ is an edge-preserving mapping from the vertex set of $G$ to the vertex set of $H$. For a fixed graph $H$, by \textsc{Hom($H$)} we denote the computational problem which asks whether a given graph $G$ admits a homomorphism to $H$. If $H$ is a complete graph with $k$ vertices, then \textsc{Hom($H$)} is equivalent to the $k$-\textsc{Coloring} problem, so graph homomorphisms can be seen as generalizations of colorings. It is known that \textsc{Hom($H$)} is polynomial-time solvable if $H$ is bipartite or has a vertex with a loop, and NP-…
The Metric Dimension problem asks for a minimum-sized resolving set in a given (unweighted, undirected) graph $G$. Here, a set $S \subseteq V(G)$ is resolving if no two distinct vertices of $G$ have the same distance vector to $S$. The complexity of Metric Dimension in graphs of bounded treewidth remained elusive in the past years. Recently, Bonnet and Purohit [IPEC 2019] showed that the problem is W[1]-hard under treewidth parameterization. In this work, we strengthen their lower bound to show that Metric Dimension is NP-hard in graphs of treewidth 24.
We prove that for every $n$-vertex graph $G$, the extension complexity of the correlation polytope of $G$ is $2^{O(\mathrm{tw}(G) + \log n)}$, where $\mathrm{tw}(G)$ is the treewidth of $G$. Our main result is that this bound is tight for graphs contained in minor-closed classes.
In this paper we study the family of two-state Totalistic Freezing Cellular Automata (TFCA) defined over the triangular and square grids with von Neumann neighborhoods. We say that a Cellular Automaton is Freezing and Totalistic if the active cells remain unchanged, and the new value of an inactive cell depends only on the sum of its active neighbors. We classify all the Cellular Automata in the class of TFCA, grouping them in five different classes: the Trivial rules, Turing Universal rules,Algebraic rules, Topological rules and Fractal Growing rules. At the same time, we study in this family…
We investigate the complexity of local search based on steepest ascent. We show that even when all variables have domains of size two and the underlying constraint graph of variable interactions has bounded treewidth (in our construction, treewidth 7), there are fitness landscapes for which an exponential number of steps may be required to reach a local optimum. This is an improvement on prior recursive constructions of long steepest ascents, which we prove to need constraint graphs of unbounded treewidth.
For a finite collection of graphs ${\cal F}$, the ${\cal F}$-M-DELETION (resp. ${\cal F}$-TM-DELETION) problem consists in, given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, decide whether there exists $S \subseteq V(G)$ with $|S| \leq k$ such that $G \setminus S$ does not contain any of the graphs in ${\cal F}$ as a minor (resp. topological minor). We are interested in the parameterized complexity of both problems when the parameter is the treewidth of $G$, denoted by $tw$, and specifically in the cases where ${\cal F}$ contains a single connected planar graph $H$. We present algorithms running in time $…
This paper studies three classes of cellular automata from a computational point of view: freezing cellular automata where the state of a cell can only decrease according to some order on states, cellular automata where each cell only makes a bounded number of state changes in any orbit, and finally cellular automata where each orbit converges to some fixed point. Many examples studied in the literature fit into these definitions, in particular the works on cristal growth started by S. Ulam in the 60s. The central question addressed here is how the computational power and computational hardnes…
Twin-width is a newly introduced graph width parameter that aims at generalizing a wide range of "nicely structured" graph classes. In this work, we focus on obtaining good bounds on twin-width $\text{tww}(G)$ for graphs $G$ from a number of classic graph classes. We prove the following: - $\text{tww}(G) \leq 3\cdot 2^{\text{tw}(G)-1}$, where $\text{tw}(G)$ is the treewidth of $G$, - $\text{tww}(G) \leq \max(4\text{bw}(G),\frac{9}{2}\text{bw}(G)-3)$ for a planar graph $G$ with $\text{bw}(G) \geq 2$, where $\text{bw}(G)$ is the branchwidth of $G$, - $\text{tww}(G) \leq 183$ for a planar graph $…
A square coloring of a graph $G$ is a coloring of the square $G^2$ of $G$, that is, a coloring of the vertices of $G$ such that any two vertices that are at distance at most $2$ in $G$ receive different colors. We investigate the complexity of finding a square coloring with a given number of $q$ colors. We show that the problem is polynomial-time solvable on graphs of bounded treewidth by presenting an algorithm with running time $n^{2^{\operatorname{tw} + 4}+O(1)}$ for graphs of treewidth at most $\operatorname{tw}$. The somewhat unusual exponent $2^{\operatorname{tw}}$ in the running time is…
The Parameterized Complexity of Computing the VC-Dimension
Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, Mines Saint-Étienne, Clermont Auvergne INP, LIMOS（克莱蒙特-奥弗涅大学、国家科学研究中心、圣艾蒂安矿业学院、克莱蒙特-奥弗涅理工学院、LIMOS实验室）；Telefónica Scientific Research Barcelona, Spain（西班牙巴塞罗那电信科学研究所）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune Pune, India（印度班加罗尔印度科学教育与研究学院）
For any fixed graph $G$, the subgraph isomorphism problem asks whether an $n$-vertex input graph has a subgraph isomorphic to $G$. A well-known algorithm of Alon, Yuster and Zwick (1995) efficiently reduces this to the "colored" version of the problem, denoted $G$-$\mathsf{SUB}$, and then solves $G$-$\mathsf{SUB}$ in time $O(n^{tw(G)+1})$ where $tw(G)$ is the treewidth of $G$. Marx (2010) conjectured that $G$-$\mathsf{SUB}$ requires time $Ω(n^{\mathrm{const}\cdot tw(G)})$ and, assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis, proved a lower bound of $Ω(n^{\mathrm{const}\cdot emb(G)})$ for a certain gr…
For a finite collection of graphs ${\cal F}$, the ${\cal F}$-M-DELETION problem consists in, given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, decide whether there exists $S \subseteq V(G)$ with $|S| \leq k$ such that $G \setminus S$ does not contain any of the graphs in ${\cal F}$ as a minor. We are interested in the parameterized complexity of ${\cal F}$-M-DELETION when the parameter is the treewidth of $G$, denoted by $tw$. Our objective is to determine, for a fixed ${\cal F}$, the smallest function $f_{\cal F}$ such that ${\cal F}$-M-DELETION can be solved in time $f_{\cal F}(tw) \cdot n^{O(1)}$ on $n…
Treewidth is an important graph invariant, relevant for both structural and algorithmic reasons. A necessary condition for a graph class to have bounded treewidth is the absence of large cliques. We study graph classes closed under taking induced subgraphs in which this condition is also sufficient, which we call $(tw,ω)$-bounded. Such graph classes are known to have useful algorithmic applications related to variants of the clique and $k$-coloring problems. We consider six well-known graph containment relations: the minor, topological minor, subgraph, induced minor, induced topological minor,…
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, two vertices $s,t\in V$, and two integers $k,\ell$, the Short Secluded Path problem is to find a simple $s$-$t$-path with at most $k$ vertices and $\ell$ neighbors. We study the parameterized complexity of the problem with respect to four structural graph parameters: the vertex cover number, treewidth, feedback vertex number, and feedback edge number. In particular, we completely settle the question of the existence of problem kernels with size polynomial in these parameters and their combinations with $k$ and $\ell$. We also obtain a $2^{O(w)}\cdot \ell^2\cdot n$-time…
