Let $G=(U \cup V, E)$ be a bipartite graph, where $U$ represents jobs and $V$ represents machines. We study a new variant of the bipartite matching problem in which each job in $U$ can be matched to at most one machine in $V$, and the number of jobs that can be assigned to a machine depends on the specific jobs matched to it. These pair-dependent bounds reflect systems where different jobs have varying tolerance for congestion, determined by the specific machine they are assigned to.
We define a bipartite PD-matching as a set of edges $M \subseteq E$ that satisfies these job-to-machine tolerance constraints. This variant of matching extends well-known matching problems, however, despite its relevance to real-world systems, it has not been studied before. We study bipartite PD-matchings with the objective of maximizing the matching size. As we show, the problem exhibits significant differences from previously studied matching problems. We analyze its computational complexity both in the general case and for specific restricted instances, presenting hardness results alongside optimal and approximation algorithms.
An $(f,g)$-semi-matching in a bipartite graph $G=(U \cup V,E)$ is a set of edges $M \subseteq E$ such that each vertex $u\in U$ is incident with at most $f(u)$ edges of $M$, and each vertex $v\in V$ is incident with at most $g(v)$ edges of $M$. In this paper we give an algorithm that for a graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, $n\le m$, constructs a maximum $(f,g)$-semi-matching in running time $O(m\cdot \min (\sqrt{\sum_{u\in U}f(u)}, \sqrt{\sum_{v\in V}g(v)}))$. Using the reduction of [5], our result on maximum $(f,g)$-semi-matching problem directly implies an algorithm for the optimal semi…
We study the oblivious matching problem, which aims at finding a maximum matching on a graph with unknown edge set. Any algorithm for the problem specifies an ordering of the vertex pairs. The matching is then produced by probing the pairs following the ordering, and including a pair if both of them are unmatched and there exists an edge between them. The unweighted (Chan et al. (SICOMP 2018)) and the vertex-weighted (Chan et al. (TALG 2018)) versions of the problem are well studied. In this paper, we consider the edge-weighted oblivious matching problem on bipartite graphs, which generalizes …
A maximum priority matching is a matching in an undirected graph that maximizes a priority score defined with respect to given vertex priorities. An earlier paper showed how to find maximum priority matchings in unweighted graphs. This paper describes an algorithm for bipartite graphs that is faster when the number of distinct priority classes is limited. For graphs with $k$ distinct priority classes it runs in $O(kmn^{1/2})$ time, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph and $m$ is the number of edges.
In this paper we analyze the expected time complexity of the auction algorithm for the matching problem on random bipartite graphs. We prove that the expected time complexity of the auction algorithm for bipartite matching is $O\left(\frac{N\log^2(N)}{\log\left(Np\right)}\right)$ on sequential machines. This is equivalent to other augmenting path algorithms such as the HK algorithm. Furthermore, we show that the algorithm can be implemented on parallel machines with $O(\log(N))$ processors and shared memory with an expected time complexity of $O(N\log(N))$.
The optimized assignment of staff is of great significance for improving the production efficiency of the society. For specific tasks, the key to optimizing staffing is personnel scheduling. The assignment problem is classical in the personnel scheduling. In this paper, we abstract it as an optimal matching model of a bipartite graph and propose the Ultimate Hungarian Algorithm(UHA). By introducing feasible labels, iteratively searching for the augmenting path to get the optimal match(maximum-weight matching). And we compare the algorithm with the traditional brute force method, then conclude …
For numerous online bipartite matching problems, such as edge-weighted matching and matching under two-sided vertex arrivals, the state-of-the-art fractional algorithms outperform their randomized integral counterparts. This gap is surprising, given that the bipartite fractional matching polytope is integral, and so lossless rounding is possible. This gap was explained by Devanur et al.~(SODA'13), who showed that \emph{online} lossless rounding is impossible. Despite the above, we initiate the study of lossless online rounding for online bipartite matching problems. Our key observation is that…
Two related online problems: knapsack and truthful bipartite matching are considered. For these two problems, the common theme is how to `match' an arriving left vertex in an online fashion with any of the available right vertices, if at all, so as to maximize the sum of the value of the matched edges, subject to satisfying a sum-weight constraint on the matched left vertices. Assuming that the left vertices arrive in an uniformly random order (secretary model), two almost similar algorithms are proposed for the two problems, that are $2e$ competitive and $24$ competitive, respectively. The pr…
We study the online bipartite matching problem, introduced by Karp, Vazirani and Vazirani [1990]. For bipartite graphs with matchings of size $n$, it is known that the Ranking randomized algorithm matches at least $(1 - \frac{1}{e})n$ edges in expectation. It is also known that no online algorithm matches more than $(1 - \frac{1}{e})n + O(1)$ edges in expectation, when the input is chosen from a certain distribution that we refer to as $D_n$. This upper bound also applies to fractional matchings. We review the known proofs for this last statement. In passing we observe that the $O(1)$ additive…
An algorithm is presented which produces the minimum cost bipartite matching between two sets of M points each, where the cost of matching two points is proportional to the minimum distance by which a particle could reach one point from the other while constrained to travel on a connected set of curves, or roads. Given any such roadmap, the algorithm obtains O(M log M) total runtime in terms of M, which is the best possible bound in the sense that any algorithm for minimal matching has runtime Omega(M log M). The algorithm is strongly polynomial and is based on a capacity-scaling approach to t…
The Adwords and Online Bipartite Matching problems have enjoyed a renewed attention over the past decade due to their connection to Internet advertising. Our community has contributed, among other things, new models (notably stochastic) and extensions to the classical formulations to address the issues that arise from practical needs. In this paper, we propose a new generalization based on matroids and show that many of the previous results extend to this more general setting. Because of the rich structures and expressive power of matroids, our new setting is potentially of interest both in th…
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 …
In this paper we introduce the \emph{semi-online} model that generalizes the classical online computational model. The semi-online model postulates that the unknown future has a predictable part and an adversarial part; these parts can be arbitrarily interleaved. An algorithm in this model operates as in the standard online model, i.e., makes an irrevocable decision at each step. We consider bipartite matching in the semi-online model, for both integral and fractional cases. Our main contributions are competitive algorithms for this problem that are close to or match a hardness bound. The comp…
We show that the pseudoflow algorithm for maximum flow is particularly efficient for the bipartite matching problem both in theory and in practice. We develop several implementations of the pseudoflow algorithm for bipartite matching, and compare them over a wide set of benchmark instances to state-of-the-art implementations of push-relabel and augmenting path algorithms that are specifically designed to solve these problems. The experiments show that the pseudoflow variants are in most cases faster than the other algorithms. We also show that one particular implementation---the matching pseud…
Online bipartite matching has been extensively studied. In the unweighted setting, Karp et al. gave an optimal $(1 - 1/e)$-competitive randomized algorithm. In the weighted setting, optimal algorithms have been achieved only under assumptions on the edge weights. For the general case, little was known beyond the trivial $1/2$-competitive greedy algorithm. Recently, Fahrbach et al. have presented an 0.5086-competitive algorithm (for the problem in a model, namely free-disposal), overcoming the long-standing barrier of 1/2. Besides, in designing competitive algorithms for the online matching pro…
The approach mapping from a matching of bipartite graphs to digraphs has been successfully used for forcing set problem, in this paper, it is extended to uniquely restricted matching problem. We show to determine a uniquely restricted matching in a bipartite graph is equivalent to recognition a acyclic digraph. Based on these results, it proves that determine the bipartite graphs with all maximum matching are uniquely restricted is polynomial time. This answers an open question of Levit and Mandrescu(Discrete Applied Mathematics 132(2004) 163-164).
A maximum weighted matching for bipartite graphs $G=(A \cup B,E)$ can be found by using the algorithm of Edmonds and Karp with a Fibonacci Heap and a modified Dijkstra in $O(nm + n^2 \log{n})$ time where n is the number of nodes and m the number of edges. For the case that $|A|=|B|$ the number of edges is $n^2$ and therefore the complexity is $O(n^3)$. In this paper we want to present a simple heuristic method to reduce the number of edges of complete bipartite graphs $G=(A \cup B,E)$ with $|A|=|B|$ such that $m = n\log{n}$ and therefore the complexity of such that $m = n\log{n}$ and therefore…
Let c denote a non-negative constant. Suppose that we are given an edge-weighted bipartite graph G=(V,E) with its 2-layered drawing and a family X of intersecting edge pairs. We consider the problem of finding a maximum weighted matching M* such that each edge in M* intersects with at most c other edges in M*, and that all edge crossings in M* are contained in X. In the present paper, we propose polynomial-time algorithms for the cases of c=1 and 2. The time complexities of the algorithms are O((k+m)log n+n) for c=1 and O(k^3+k^2n+m(m+log n)) for c=2, respectively, where n=|V|, m=|E| and k=|X|…
We introduce a weighted version of the ranking algorithm by Karp et al. (STOC 1990), and prove a competitive ratio of 0.6534 for the vertex-weighted online bipartite matching problem when online vertices arrive in random order. Our result shows that random arrivals help beating the 1-1/e barrier even in the vertex-weighted case. We build on the randomized primal-dual framework by Devanur et al. (SODA 2013) and design a two dimensional gain sharing function, which depends not only on the rank of the offline vertex, but also on the arrival time of the online vertex. To our knowledge, this is the…
In bipartite matching problems, vertices on one side of a bipartite graph are paired with those on the other. In its online variant, one side of the graph is available offline, while the vertices on the other side arrive online. When a vertex arrives, an irrevocable and immediate decision should be made by the algorithm; either match it to an available vertex or drop it. Examples of such problems include matching workers to firms, advertisers to keywords, organs to patients, and so on. Much of the literature focuses on maximizing the total relevance---modeled via total weight---of the matching…
We prove that a fractional perfect matching in a non-bipartite graph can be written, in polynomial time, as a convex combination of perfect matchings. This extends the Birkhoff-von Neumann Theorem from bipartite to non-bipartite graphs. The algorithm of Birkhoff and von Neumann is greedy; it starts with the given fractional perfect matching and successively "removes" from it perfect matchings, with appropriate coefficients. This fails in non-bipartite graphs -- removing perfect matchings arbitrarily can lead to a graph that is non-empty but has no perfect matchings. Using odd cuts appropriatel…
We study the average performance of online greedy matching algorithms on $G(n,n,p)$, the random bipartite graph with $n$ vertices on each side and edges occurring independently with probability $p=p(n)$. In the online model, vertices on one side of the graph are given up front while vertices on the other side arrive sequentially; when a vertex arrives its edges are revealed and it must be immediately matched or dropped. We begin by analyzing the \textsc{oblivious} algorithm, which tries to match each arriving vertex to a random neighbor, even if the neighbor has already been matched. The algor…
We study the following vertex-weighted online bipartite matching problem: $G(U, V, E)$ is a bipartite graph. The vertices in $U$ have weights and are known ahead of time, while the vertices in $V$ arrive online in an arbitrary order and have to be matched upon arrival. The goal is to maximize the sum of weights of the matched vertices in $U$. When all the weights are equal, this reduces to the classic \emph{online bipartite matching} problem for which Karp, Vazirani and Vazirani gave an optimal $\left(1-\frac{1}{e}\right)$-competitive algorithm in their seminal work~\cite{KVV90}. Our main resu…
The surprising results of Karp, Vazirani and Vazirani and (respectively) Buchbinder et al are examples where rather simple randomizations provide provably better approximations than the corresponding deterministic counterparts for online bipartite matching and (respectively) unconstrained non-monotone submodular maximization. We show that seemingly strong extensions of the deterministic online computation model can at best match the performance of naive randomization. More specifically, for bipartite matching, we show that in the priority model (allowing very general ways to order the input st…
We consider instances of bipartite graphs and a number of asymptotic performance experiments in three projects: (1) top movie lists, given databases of movies and viewers, (2) maximum matchings, and (3) minimum set covers. Experiments are designed to measure the asymptotic runtime performance of abstract data types (ADTs) in three programming languages: Java, R, and C++. The outcomes of these experiments may be surprising. In project (1), the best ADT in R consistently outperforms all ADTs in public domain Java libraries, including the library from Google. The largest movie list has $2^{20}$ t…
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…
We show that the ratio of the number of near perfect matchings to the number of perfect matchings in $d$-regular strong expander (non-bipartite) graphs, with $2n$ vertices, is a polynomial in $n$, thus the Jerrum and Sinclair Markov chain [JS89] mixes in polynomial time and generates an (almost) uniformly random perfect matching. Furthermore, we prove that such graphs have at least $Ω(d)^n$ any perfect matchings, thus proving the Lovasz-Plummer conjecture [LP86] for this family of graphs.
We perform an experimental study of algorithms for online bipartite matching under the known i.i.d. input model with integral types. In the last decade, there has been substantial effort in designing complex algorithms with the goal of improving worst-case approximation ratios. Our goal is to determine how these algorithms perform on more practical instances rather than worst-case instances. In particular, we are interested in whether the ranking of the algorithms by their worst-case performance is consistent with the ranking of the algorithms by their average-case/practical performance. We ar…
\noindent By a seminal result of Valiant, computing the permanent of $(0,1)$-matrices is, in general, $\#\mathsf{P}$-hard. In 1913 Pólya asked for which $(0,1)$-matrices $A$ it is possible to change some signs such that the permanent of $A$ equals the determinant of the resulting matrix. In 1975, Little showed these matrices to be exactly the biadjacency matrices of bipartite graphs excluding $K_{3,3}$ as a \{matching minor}. This was turned into a polynomial time algorithm by McCuaig, Robertson, Seymour, and Thomas in 1999. However, the relation between the exclusion of some matching minor in…
In this paper, we study the parameterized complexity and inapproximability of the {\sc Induced Matching} problem in hamiltonian bipartite graphs. We show that, given a hamiltonian cycle in a hamiltonian bipartite graph, the problem is W[1]-hard and cannot be solved in time $n^{o(k^{\frac{1}{2}})}$ unless W[1]=FPT, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph. In addition, we show that unless NP=P, the maximum induced matching in a hamiltonian graph cannot be approximated within a ratio of $n^{1-ε}$, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph. For a bipartite hamiltonian graph in $n$ …
Maximum bipartite matching is a fundamental algorithmic problem which can be solved in polynomial time. We consider a natural variant in which there is a separation constraint: the vertices on one side lie on a path or a grid, and two vertices that are close to each other are not allowed to be matched simultaneously. We show that the problem is hard to approximate even for paths, and provide constant-factor approximation algorithms for both paths and grids.
We show that the bipartite perfect matching problem is in quasi-NC$^2$. That is, it has uniform circuits of quasi-polynomial size $n^{O(\log n)}$, and $O(log^2 n)$ depth. Previously, only an exponential upper bound was known on the size of such circuits with poly-logarithmic depth. We obtain our result by an almost complete derandomization of the famous Isolation Lemma when applied to yield an efficient randomized parallel algorithm for the bipartite perfect matching problem.
We study the classical weighted perfect matchings problem for bipartite graphs or sometimes referred to as the assignment problem, i.e., given a weighted bipartite graph $G = (U\cup V,E)$ with weights $w : E \rightarrow \mathcal{R}$ we are interested to find the maximum matching in $G$ with the minimum/maximum weight. In this work we present a new and arguably simpler analysis of one of the earliest techniques developed for solving the assignment problem, namely the auction algorithm. Using our analysis technique we present tighter and improved bounds on the runtime complexity for finding an a…
Let G be a bipartite graph with positive integer weights on the edges and without isolated nodes. Let n, N and W be the node count, the largest edge weight and the total weight of G. Let k(x,y) be log(x)/log(x^2/y). We present a new decomposition theorem for maximum weight bipartite matchings and use it to design an O(sqrt(n)W/k(n,W/N))-time algorithm for computing a maximum weight matching of G. This algorithm bridges a long-standing gap between the best known time complexity of computing a maximum weight matching and that of computing a maximum cardinality matching. Given G and a maximum wei…
We settle the complexities of the maximum-cardinality bipartite matching problem (BMM) up to poly-logarithmic factors in five models of computation: the two-party communication, AND query, OR query, XOR query, and quantum edge query models. Our results answer open problems that have been raised repeatedly since at least three decades ago [Hajnal, Maass, and Turan STOC'88; Ivanyos, Klauck, Lee, Santha, and de Wolf FSTTCS'12; Dobzinski, Nisan, and Oren STOC'14; Nisan SODA'21] and tighten the lower bounds shown by Beniamini and Nisan [STOC'21] and Zhang [ICALP'04]. We also settle the communicatio…
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, ex…
We present a deterministic way of assigning small (log bit) weights to the edges of a bipartite planar graph so that the minimum weight perfect matching becomes unique. The isolation lemma as described in (Mulmuley et al. 1987) achieves the same for general graphs using a randomized weighting scheme, whereas we can do it deterministically when restricted to bipartite planar graphs. As a consequence, we reduce both decision and construction versions of the matching problem to testing whether a matrix is singular, under the promise that its determinant is 0 or 1, thus obtaining a highly parallel…
We introduce a `concrete complexity' model for studying algorithms for matching in bipartite graphs. The model is based on the "demand query" model used for combinatorial auctions. Most (but not all) known algorithms for bipartite matching seem to be translatable into this model including exact, approximate, sequential, parallel, and online ones. A perfect matching in a bipartite graph can be found in this model with O(n^{3/2}) demand queries (in a bipartite graph with n vertices on each side) and our main open problem is to either improve the upper bound or prove a lower bound. An improved up…
We consider the well-studied problem of finding a perfect matching in $d$-regular bipartite graphs with $2n$ vertices and $m = nd$ edges. While the best-known algorithm for general bipartite graphs (due to Hopcroft and Karp) takes $O(m \sqrt{n})$ time, in regular bipartite graphs, a perfect matching is known to be computable in $O(m)$ time. Very recently, the $O(m)$ bound was improved to $O(\min\{m, \frac{n^{2.5}\ln n}{d}\})$ expected time, an expression that is bounded by $\tilde{O}(n^{1.75})$. In this paper, we further improve this result by giving an $O(\min\{m, \frac{n^2\ln^3 n}{d}\})$ exp…
In a graph, a matching cut is an edge cut that is a matching. Matching Cut is the problem of deciding whether or not a given graph has a matching cut, which is known to be NP-complete even when restricted to bipartite graphs. It has been proved that Matching Cut is polynomially solvable for graphs of diameter two. In this paper, we show that, for any fixed integer $d\ge 3$, Matching Cut is NP-complete in the class of graphs of diameter $d$. This resolves an open problem posed by Borowiecki and Jesse-Józefczyk in [Matching cutsets in graphs of diameter $2$, Theoretical Computer Science 407 (200…
We show that the problem of counting perfect matchings remains #P-complete even if we restrict the input to very dense graphs, proving the conjecture in [5]. Here "dense graphs" refer to bipartite graphs of bipartite independence number $\leq 2$, or general graphs of independence number $\leq 2$. Our proof is by reduction from counting perfect matchings in bipartite graphs, via elementary linear algebra tricks and graph constructions.
A widely used method for determining the similarity of two labeled trees is to compute a maximum agreement subtree of the two trees. Previous work on this similarity measure is only concerned with the comparison of labeled trees of two special kinds, namely, uniformly labeled trees (i.e., trees with all their nodes labeled by the same symbol) and evolutionary trees (i.e., leaf-labeled trees with distinct symbols for distinct leaves). This paper presents an algorithm for comparing trees that are labeled in an arbitrary manner. In addition to this generality, this algorithm is faster than the pr…
We study the the following question in Random Graphs. We are given two disjoint sets $L,R$ with $|L|=n=αm$ and $|R|=m$. We construct a random graph $G$ by allowing each $x\in L$ to choose $d$ random neighbours in $R$. The question discussed is as to the size $μ(G)$ of the largest matching in $G$. When considered in the context of Cuckoo Hashing, one key question is as to when is $μ(G)=n$ whp? We answer this question exactly when $d$ is at least four. We also establish a precise threshold for when Phase 1 of the Karp-Sipser Greedy matching algorithm suffices to compute a maximum matching whp.
Box-simplex games are a family of bilinear minimax objectives which encapsulate graph-structured problems such as maximum flow [She17], optimal transport [JST19], and bipartite matching [AJJ+22]. We develop efficient near-linear time, high-accuracy solvers for regularized variants of these games. Beyond the immediate applications of such solvers for computing Sinkhorn distances, a prominent tool in machine learning, we show that these solvers can be used to obtain improved running times for maintaining a (fractional) $ε$-approximate maximum matching in a dynamic decremental bipartite graph aga…
We study the on-line minimum weighted bipartite matching problem in arbitrary metric spaces. Here, $n$ not necessary disjoint points of a metric space $M$ are given, and are to be matched on-line with $n$ points of $M$ revealed one by one. The cost of a matching is the sum of the distances of the matched points, and the goal is to find or approximate its minimum. The competitive ratio of the deterministic problem is known to be $Θ(n)$. It was conjectured that a randomized algorithm may perform better against an oblivious adversary, namely with an expected competitive ratio $Θ(\log n)$. We prov…
A matching in a bipartite graph with parts X and Y is called envy-free if no unmatched vertex in X is a adjacent to a matched vertex in Y. Every perfect matching is envy-free, but envy-free matchings exist even when perfect matchings do not. We prove that every bipartite graph has a unique partition such that all envy-free matchings are contained in one of the partition sets. Using this structural theorem, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm for finding an envy-free matching of maximum cardinality. For edge-weighted bipartite graphs, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm for finding a maxi…
We present a new approach, called a lazy matching, to the problem of on-line matching on bipartite graphs. Imagine that one side of a graph is given and the vertices of the other side are arriving on-line. Originally, incoming vertex is either irrevocably matched to an another element or stays forever unmatched. A lazy algorithm is allowed to match a new vertex to a group of elements (possibly empty) and afterwords, forced against next vertices, may give up parts of the group. The restriction is that all the time each element is in at most one group. We present an optimal lazy algorithm (deter…
We consider the following question: given an $(X,Y)$-bigraph $G$ and a set $S \subset X$, does $G$ contain two disjoint matchings $M_1$ and $M_2$ such that $M_1$ saturates $X$ and $M_2$ saturates $S$? When $|S|\geq |X|-1$, this question is solvable by finding an appropriate factor of the graph. In contrast, we show that when $S$ is allowed to be an arbitrary subset of $X$, the problem is NP-hard.
