We provide $\widetilde{O}(ε^{-1})$-pass semi-streaming algorithms for computing $(1-ε)$-approximate maximum cardinality matchings in bipartite graphs. Our most efficient methods are deterministic and use optimal, $O(n)$, space, improving upon the space complexity of the previous state-of-the-art $\widetilde{O}(ε^{-1})$-pass algorithm of Ahn and Guha. To obtain our results we provide semi-streaming adaptations of more general continuous optimization tools. Further, we leverage these techniques to obtain improvements for streaming variants of approximate linear programming, optimal transport, exact matching, transshipment, and shortest path problems.
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…
In this paper, we study the non-bipartite maximum matching problem in the semi-streaming model. The maximum matching problem in the semi-streaming model has received a significant amount of attention lately. While the problem has been somewhat well solved for bipartite graphs, the known algorithms for non-bipartite graphs use $2^{\frac1ε}$ passes or $n^{\frac1ε}$ time to compute a $(1-ε)$ approximation. In this paper we provide the first FPTAS (polynomial in $n,\frac1ε$) for the problem which is efficient in both the running time and the number of passes. We also show that we can estimate the …
Depth first search (DFS) tree is a fundamental data structure for solving various graph problems. The classical DFS algorithm requires $O(m+n)$ time for a graph having $n$ vertices and $m$ edges. In the streaming model, an algorithm is allowed several passes (preferably single) over the input graph having a restriction on the size of local space used. Trivially, a DFS tree can be computed using a single pass using $O(m)$ space. In the semi-streaming model allowing $O(n)$ space, it can be computed in $O(n)$ passes, where each pass adds one vertex to the DFS tree. However, it remains an open pro…
In the semi-streaming model, an algorithm receives a stream of edges of a graph in arbitrary order and uses a memory of size $O(n \mbox{ polylog } n)$, where $n$ is the number of vertices of a graph. In this work, we present semi-streaming algorithms that perform one or two passes over the input stream for maximum matching with no restrictions on the input graph, and for the important special case of bipartite graphs that we refer to as maximum bipartite matching (MBM). The Greedy matching algorithm performs one pass over the input and outputs a $1/2$ approximation. Whether there is a better o…
Kernelization is a formalization of preprocessing for combinatorially hard problems. We modify the standard definition for kernelization, which allows any polynomial-time algorithm for the preprocessing, by requiring instead that the preprocessing runs in a streaming setting and uses $\mathcal{O}(poly(k)\log|x|)$ bits of memory on instances $(x,k)$. We obtain several results in this new setting, depending on the number of passes over the input that such a streaming kernelization is allowed to make. Edge Dominating Set turns out as an interesting example because it has no single-pass kernelizat…
We study the problem of minimizing total completion time on parallel machines subject to varying processing capacity. In this paper, we develop an approximation scheme for the problem under the data stream model where the input data is massive and cannot fit into memory and thus can only be scanned for a few passes. Our algorithm can compute the approximate value of the optimal total completion time in one pass and output the schedule with the approximate value in two passes.
We show that, given a string $s$ of length $n$, with constant memory and logarithmic passes over a constant number of streams we can build a context-free grammar that generates $s$ and only $s$ and whose size is within an $\Oh{\min (g \log g, \sqrt{n \log g})}$-factor of the minimum $g$. This stands in contrast to our previous result that, with polylogarithmic memory and polylogarithmic passes over a single stream, we cannot build such a grammar whose size is within any polynomial of $g$.
Multi-pass streaming algorithm for Maximum Matching have been studied since more than 15 years and various algorithmic results are known today, including $2$-pass streaming algorithms that break the $1/2$-approximation barrier, and $(1-ε)$-approximation streaming algorithms that run in $O(\text{poly} \frac{1}ε)$ passes in bipartite graphs and in $O( (\frac{1}ε)^{\frac{1}ε})$ or $O(\text{poly} (\frac{1}ε) \cdot \log n)$ passes in general graphs, where $n$ is the number of vertices of the input graph. However, proving impossibility results for such algorithms has so far been elusive, and, for ex…
Streaming interactive proofs (SIPs) are a framework for outsourced computation. A computationally limited streaming client (the verifier) hands over a large data set to an untrusted server (the prover) in the cloud and the two parties run a protocol to confirm the correctness of result with high probability. SIPs are particularly interesting for problems that are hard to solve (or even approximate) well in a streaming setting. The most notable of these problems is finding maximum matchings, which has received intense interest in recent years but has strong lower bounds even for constant factor…
We study the classic set cover problem in the streaming model: the sets that comprise the instance are revealed one by one in a stream and the goal is to solve the problem by making one or few passes over the stream while maintaining a sublinear space $o(mn)$ in the input size; here $m$ denotes the number of the sets and $n$ is the universe size. Notice that in this model, we are mainly concerned with the space requirement of the algorithms and hence do not restrict their computation time. Our main result is a resolution of the space-approximation tradeoff for the streaming set cover problem: …
Recent progress in (semi-)streaming algorithms for monotone submodular function maximization has led to tight results for a simple cardinality constraint. However, current techniques fail to give a similar understanding for natural generalizations, including matroid constraints. This paper aims at closing this gap. For a single matroid of rank $k$ (i.e., any solution has cardinality at most $k$), our main results are: 1) a single-pass streaming algorithm that uses $\widetilde{O}(k)$ memory and achieves an approximation guarantee of $0.3178$, and 2) a multi-pass streaming algorithm that uses $\…
For a directed graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and a start vertex $u_{\sf start}$, we wish to (approximately) sample an $L$-step random walk over $G$ starting from $u_{\sf start}$ with minimum space using an algorithm that only makes few passes over the edges of the graph. This problem found many applications, for instance, in approximating the PageRank of a webpage. If only a single pass is allowed, the space complexity of this problem was shown to be $\tildeΘ(n \cdot L)$. Prior to our work, a better space complexity was only known with $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{L})$ passes. We settle the space complexity…
We study two-pass streaming algorithms for Maximum Bipartite Matching (MBM). All known two-pass streaming algorithms for MBM operate in a similar fashion: They compute a maximal matching in the first pass and find 3-augmenting paths in the second in order to augment the matching found in the first pass. Our aim is to explore the limitations of this approach and to determine whether current techniques can be used to further improve the state-of-the-art algorithms. We give the following results: We show that every two-pass streaming algorithm that solely computes a maximal matching in the first …
The semi-streaming model is a variant of the streaming model frequently used for the computation of graph problems. It allows the edges of an $n$-node input graph to be read sequentially in $p$ passes using $\tilde{O}(n)$ space. In this model, some graph problems, such as spanning trees and $k$-connectivity, can be exactly solved in a single pass; while other graph problems, such as triangle detection and unweighted all-pairs shortest paths, are known to require $\tildeΩ(n)$ passes to compute. For many fundamental graph problems, the tractability in these models is open. In this paper, we stud…
We give improved multi-pass streaming algorithms for the problem of maximizing a monotone or arbitrary non-negative submodular function subject to a general $p$-matchoid constraint in the model in which elements of the ground set arrive one at a time in a stream. The family of constraints we consider generalizes both the intersection of $p$ arbitrary matroid constraints and $p$-uniform hypergraph matching. For monotone submodular functions, our algorithm attains a guarantee of $p+1+\varepsilon$ using $O(p/\varepsilon)$-passes and requires storing only $O(k)$ elements, where $k$ is the maximum …
We consider the problem of estimating the value of max cut in a graph in the streaming model of computation. At one extreme, there is a trivial $2$-approximation for this problem that uses only $O(\log n)$ space, namely, count the number of edges and output half of this value as the estimate for max cut value. On the other extreme, if one allows $\tilde{O}(n)$ space, then a near-optimal solution to the max cut value can be obtained by storing an $\tilde{O}(n)$-size sparsifier that essentially preserves the max cut. An intriguing question is if poly-logarithmic space suffices to obtain a non-tr…
In this paper, we design the first streaming algorithms for the problem of multitasking scheduling on parallel machines with shared processing. In one pass, our streaming approximation schemes can provide an approximate value of the optimal makespan. If the jobs can be read in two passes, the algorithm can find the schedule with the approximate value. This work not only provides an algorithmic big data solution for the studied problem, but also gives an insight into the design of streaming algorithms for other problems in the area of scheduling.
Set cover, over a universe of size $n$, may be modelled as a data-streaming problem, where the $m$ sets that comprise the instance are to be read one by one. A semi-streaming algorithm is allowed only $O(n\, \mathrm{poly}\{\log n, \log m\})$ space to process this stream. For each $p \ge 1$, we give a very simple deterministic algorithm that makes $p$ passes over the input stream and returns an appropriately certified $(p+1)n^{1/(p+1)}$-approximation to the optimum set cover. More importantly, we proceed to show that this approximation factor is essentially tight, by showing that a factor bette…
We present new lower bounds that show that a polynomial number of passes are necessary for solving some fundamental graph problems in the streaming model of computation. For instance, we show that any streaming algorithm that finds a weighted minimum $s$-$t$ cut in an $n$-vertex undirected graph requires $n^{2-o(1)}$ space unless it makes $n^{Ω(1)}$ passes over the stream. To prove our lower bounds, we introduce and analyze a new four-player communication problem that we refer to as the hidden-pointer chasing problem. This is a problem in spirit of the standard pointer chasing problem with the…
The problem of counting small subgraphs, and specifically cycles, in the streaming model received a lot of attention over the past few years. In this paper, we consider arbitrary order insertion-only streams, improving over the state-of-the-art result on counting 4-cycles. Our algorithm computes a $(1+ε)$-approximation by taking three passes over the stream and using space $O(\frac{m \log n}{ε^2 T^{1/3}})$, where $m$ is the number of edges in the graph and $T$ is the number of 4-cycles.
We consider the classic Set Cover problem in the data stream model. For $n$ elements and $m$ sets ($m\geq n$) we give a $O(1/δ)$-pass algorithm with a strongly sub-linear $\tilde{O}(mn^δ)$ space and logarithmic approximation factor. This yields a significant improvement over the earlier algorithm of Demaine et al. [DIMV14] that uses exponentially larger number of passes. We complement this result by showing that the tradeoff between the number of passes and space exhibited by our algorithm is tight, at least when the approximation factor is equal to $1$. Specifically, we show that any algorith…
This work is in the line of designing efficient checkers for testing the reliability of some massive data structures. Given a sequential access to the insert/extract operations on such a structure, one would like to decide, a posteriori only, if it corresponds to the evolution of a reliable structure. In a context of massive data, one would like to minimize both the amount of reliable memory of the checker and the number of passes on the sequence of operations. Chu, Kannan and McGregor initiated the study of checking priority queues in this setting. They showed that use of timestamps allows to…
We study the fundamental problem of butterfly (i.e. (2,2)-bicliques) counting in bipartite streaming graphs. Similar to triangles in unipartite graphs, enumerating butterflies is crucial in understanding the structure of bipartite graphs. This benefits many applications where studying the cohesion in a graph shaped data is of particular interest. Examples include investigating the structure of computational graphs or input graphs to the algorithms, as well as dynamic phenomena and analytic tasks over complex real graphs. Butterfly counting is computationally expensive, and known techniques do …
In this paper, we study the problem of finding a maximum matching in the semi-streaming model when edges arrive in a random order. In the semi-streaming model, an algorithm receives a stream of edges and it is allowed to have a memory of $\tilde{O}(n)$ where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph. A recent inspiring work by Assadi et al. shows that there exists a streaming algorithm with the approximation ratio of $\frac{2}{3}$ that uses $\tilde{O}(n^{1.5})$ memory. However, the memory of their algorithm is much larger than the memory constraint of the semi-streaming algorithms. In this wo…
In this paper we give a construction of cut sparsifiers of Benczur and Karger in the {\em dynamic} streaming setting in a single pass over the data stream. Previous constructions either required multiple passes or were unable to handle edge deletions. We use $\tilde{O}(1/\e^2)$ time for each stream update and $\tilde{O}(n/\e^2)$ time to construct a sparsifier. Our $\e$-sparsifiers have $O(n\log^3 n/\e^2)$ edges. The main tools behind our result are an application of sketching techniques of Ahn et al.[SODA'12] to estimate edge connectivity together with a novel application of sampling with limi…
Data streaming, in which a large dataset is received as a "stream" of updates, is an important model in the study of space-bounded computation. Starting with the work of Le Gall [SPAA `06], it has been known that quantum streaming algorithms can use asymptotically less space than their classical counterparts for certain problems. However, so far, all known examples of quantum advantages in streaming are for problems that are either specially constructed for that purpose, or require many streaming passes over the input. We give a one-pass quantum streaming algorithm for one of the best studied …
The $k$-core decomposition is a fundamental primitive in many machine learning and data mining applications. We present the first distributed and the first streaming algorithms to compute and maintain an approximate $k$-core decomposition with provable guarantees. Our algorithms achieve rigorous bounds on space complexity while bounding the number of passes or number of rounds of computation. We do so by presenting a new powerful sketching technique for $k$-core decomposition, and then by showing it can be computed efficiently in both streaming and MapReduce models. Finally, we confirm the eff…
We study the classic NP-Hard problem of finding the maximum $k$-set coverage in the data stream model: given a set system of $m$ sets that are subsets of a universe $\{1,\ldots,n \}$, find the $k$ sets that cover the most number of distinct elements. The problem can be approximated up to a factor $1-1/e$ in polynomial time. In the streaming-set model, the sets and their elements are revealed online. The main goal of our work is to design algorithms, with approximation guarantees as close as possible to $1-1/e$, that use sublinear space $o(mn)$. Our main results are: Two $(1-1/e-ε)$ approximati…
We design a generic method for reducing the task of finding weighted matchings to that of finding short augmenting paths in unweighted graphs. This method enables us to provide efficient implementations for approximating weighted matchings in the streaming model and in the massively parallel computation (MPC) model. In the context of streaming with random edge arrivals, our techniques yield a $(1/2+c)$-approximation algorithm thus breaking the natural barrier of $1/2$. For multi-pass streaming and the MPC model, we show that any algorithm computing a $(1-δ)$-approximate unweighted matching in …
The problem of finding a maximum size matching in a graph (known as the maximum matching problem) is one of the most classical problems in computer science. Despite a significant body of work dedicated to the study of this problem in the data stream model, the state-of-the-art single-pass semi-streaming algorithm for it is still a simple greedy algorithm that computes a maximal matching, and this way obtains 1/2-approximation. Some previous works described two/three-pass algorithms that improve over this approximation ratio by using their second and third passes to improve the above mentioned …
Recent breakthroughs in graph streaming have led to the design of single-pass semi-streaming algorithms for various graph coloring problems such as $(Δ+1)$-coloring, degeneracy-coloring, coloring triangle-free graphs, and others. These algorithms are all randomized in crucial ways and whether or not there is any deterministic analogue of them has remained an important open question in this line of work. We settle this fundamental question by proving that there is no deterministic single-pass semi-streaming algorithm that given a graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ$, can output a proper coloring o…
We consider maximizing a monotone submodular function under a cardinality constraint or a knapsack constraint in the streaming setting. In particular, the elements arrive sequentially and at any point of time, the algorithm has access to only a small fraction of the data stored in primary memory. We propose the following streaming algorithms taking $O(\varepsilon^{-1})$ passes: ----a $(1-e^{-1}-\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm for the cardinality-constrained problem ---- a $(0.5-\varepsilon)$-approximation algorithm for the knapsack-constrained problem. Both of our algorithms run in $O^\a…
Consider the following gap cycle counting problem in the streaming model: The edges of a $2$-regular $n$-vertex graph $G$ are arriving one-by-one in a stream and we are promised that $G$ is a disjoint union of either $k$-cycles or $2k$-cycles for some small $k$; the goal is to distinguish between these two cases. Verbin and Yu [SODA 2011] introduced this problem and showed that any single-pass streaming algorithm solving it requires $n^{1-Ω(\frac{1}{k})}$ space. This result and the technique behind it -- the Boolean Hidden Hypermatching communication problem -- has since been used extensively …
We consider the problem of monotone, submodular maximization over a ground set of size $n$ subject to cardinality constraint $k$. For this problem, we introduce the first deterministic algorithms with linear time complexity; these algorithms are streaming algorithms. Our single-pass algorithm obtains a constant ratio in $\lceil n / c \rceil + c$ oracle queries, for any $c \ge 1$. In addition, we propose a deterministic, multi-pass streaming algorithm with a constant number of passes that achieves nearly the optimal ratio with linear query and time complexities. We prove a lower bound that impl…
Given an undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ on $n$ vertices, $m$ edges, and an integer $t\ge 1$, a subgraph $(V,E_S)$, $E_S\subseteq E$ is called a $t$-spanner if for any pair of vertices $u,v \in V$, the distance between them in the subgraph is at most $t$ times the actual distance. We present streaming algorithms for computing a $t$-spanner of essentially optimal size-stretch trade offs for any undirected graph. Our first algorithm is for the classical streaming model and works for unweighted graphs only. The algorithm performs a single pass on the stream of edges and requires $O(m)$ time to process…
The problem of (approximately) counting the number of triangles in a graph is one of the basic problems in graph theory. In this paper we study the problem in the streaming model. We study the amount of memory required by a randomized algorithm to solve this problem. In case the algorithm is allowed one pass over the stream, we present a best possible lower bound of $Ω(m)$ for graphs $G$ with $m$ edges on $n$ vertices. If a constant number of passes is allowed, we show a lower bound of $Ω(m/T)$, $T$ the number of triangles. We match, in some sense, this lower bound with a 2-pass $O(m/T^{1/3})$…
We study the problem of validating XML documents of size $N$ against general DTDs in the context of streaming algorithms. The starting point of this work is a well-known space lower bound. There are XML documents and DTDs for which $p$-pass streaming algorithms require $Ω(N/p)$ space. We show that when allowing access to external memory, there is a deterministic streaming algorithm that solves this problem with memory space $O(\log^2 N)$, a constant number of auxiliary read/write streams, and $O(\log N)$ total number of passes on the XML document and auxiliary streams. An important intermediat…
