More Like this

1. Improved Hitting Set for Orbit of ROABPs

   https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX/RANDOM.2021.30  

   Bhargava, Vishwas; Ghosh, Sumanta (September 2021, Leibniz international proceedings in informatics)

   Wootters, Mary; Sanita, Laura (Ed.)

   The orbit of an n-variate polynomial f(x) over a field 𝔽 is the set {f(Ax+b) ∣ A ∈ GL(n, 𝔽) and b ∈ 𝔽ⁿ}, and the orbit of a polynomial class is the union of orbits of all the polynomials in it. In this paper, we give improved constructions of hitting-sets for the orbit of read-once oblivious algebraic branching programs (ROABPs) and a related model. Over fields with characteristic zero or greater than d, we construct a hitting set of size (ndw)^{O(w²log n⋅ min{w², dlog w})} for the orbit of ROABPs in unknown variable order where d is the individual degree and w is the width of ROABPs. We also give a hitting set of size (ndw)^{O(min{w²,dlog w})} for the orbit of polynomials computed by w-width ROABPs in any variable order. Our hitting sets improve upon the results of Saha and Thankey [Chandan Saha and Bhargav Thankey, 2021] who gave an (ndw)^{O(dlog w)} size hitting set for the orbit of commutative ROABPs (a subclass of any-order ROABPs) and (nw)^{O(w⁶log n)} size hitting set for the orbit of multilinear ROABPs. Designing better hitting sets in large individual degree regime, for instance d > n, was asked as an open problem by [Chandan Saha and Bhargav Thankey, 2021] and this work solves it in small width setting. We prove some new rank concentration results by establishing low-cone concentration for the polynomials over vector spaces, and they strengthen some previously known low-support based rank concentrations shown in [Michael A. Forbes et al., 2013]. These new low-cone concentration results are crucial in our hitting set construction, and may be of independent interest. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time when low-cone rank concentration has been used for designing hitting sets. 

   more » « less
2. Lossy Kernelization for (Implicit) Hitting Set Problems

   https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2023.49  

   Fomin, Fedor V; Le, Tien-Nam; Lokshtanov, Daniel; Saurabh, Saket; Thomassé, Stéphan; Zehavi, Meirav (January 2023, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik)

   Gørtz, Inge Li; Farach-Colton, Martin; Puglisi, Simon J; Herman, Grzegorz (Ed.)

   We re-visit the complexity of polynomial time pre-processing (kernelization) for the d-Hitting Set problem. This is one of the most classic problems in Parameterized Complexity by itself, and, furthermore, it encompasses several other of the most well-studied problems in this field, such as Vertex Cover, Feedback Vertex Set in Tournaments (FVST) and Cluster Vertex Deletion (CVD). In fact, d-Hitting Set encompasses any deletion problem to a hereditary property that can be characterized by a finite set of forbidden induced subgraphs. With respect to bit size, the kernelization complexity of d-Hitting Set is essentially settled: there exists a kernel with 𝒪(k^d) bits (𝒪(k^d) sets and 𝒪(k^{d-1}) elements) and this it tight by the result of Dell and van Melkebeek [STOC 2010, JACM 2014]. Still, the question of whether there exists a kernel for d-Hitting Set with fewer elements has remained one of the most major open problems in Kernelization. In this paper, we first show that if we allow the kernelization to be lossy with a qualitatively better loss than the best possible approximation ratio of polynomial time approximation algorithms, then one can obtain kernels where the number of elements is linear for every fixed d. Further, based on this, we present our main result: we show that there exist approximate Turing kernelizations for d-Hitting Set that even beat the established bit-size lower bounds for exact kernelizations - in fact, we use a constant number of oracle calls, each with "near linear" (𝒪(k^{1+ε})) bit size, that is, almost the best one could hope for. Lastly, for two special cases of implicit 3-Hitting set, namely, FVST and CVD, we obtain the "best of both worlds" type of results - (1+ε)-approximate kernelizations with a linear number of vertices. In terms of size, this substantially improves the exact kernels of Fomin et al. [SODA 2018, TALG 2019], with simpler arguments. 

   more » « less
3. Geometric Hitting Set for Line-Constrained Disks

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38906-1_38  

   Liu, Gang; Wang, Haitao (August 2023, Proceedings of the 18th Algorithms and Data Structures Symposium (WADS 2023))

   Given a set P of n weighted points and a set S of m disks in the plane, the hitting set problem is to compute a subset 𝑃′ of points of P such that each disk contains at least one point of 𝑃′ and the total weight of all points of 𝑃′ is minimized. The problem is known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we consider a line-constrained version of the problem in which all disks are centered on a line ℓ. We present an 𝑂((𝑚+𝑛)log(𝑚+𝑛)+𝜅log𝑚) time algorithm for the problem, where 𝜅 is the number of pairs of disks that intersect. For the unit-disk case where all disks have the same radius, the running time can be reduced to 𝑂((𝑛+𝑚)log(𝑚+𝑛)). In addition, we solve the problem in 𝑂((𝑚+𝑛)log(𝑚+𝑛)) time in the 𝐿∞ and 𝐿1 metrics, in which a disk is a square and a diamond, respectively. 

   more » « less
4. Unweighted Geometric Hitting Set for Line-Constrained Disks and Related Problems

   https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2024.68  

   Liu, Gang; Wang, Haitao (August 2024, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik)

   Kráľovič, Rastislav; Kučera, Antonín (Ed.)

   Given a set P of n points and a set S of m disks in the plane, the disk hitting set problem asks for a smallest subset of P such that every disk of S contains at least one point in the subset. The problem is NP-hard. This paper considers a line-constrained version in which all disks have their centers on a line. We present an O(mlog²n+(n+m)log(n+m)) time algorithm for the problem. This improves the previous result of O(m²log m+(n+m)log(n+m)) time for the weighted case of the problem where every point of P has a weight and the objective is to minimize the total weight of the hitting set. Our algorithm also solves a more general line-separable problem with a single intersection property: The points of P and the disk centers are separated by a line 𝓁 and the boundary of every two disks intersect at most once on the side of 𝓁 containing P. 

   more » « less
5. A Dynamic Programming Framework for Generating Approximately Diverse and Optimal Solutions

   Gálvez, Waldo; Goswami, Mayank; Merino, Arturo; Park, GiBeom; Tsai, Meng-Tsung; Verdugo, Victor (January 2025, Arxiv)

   We develop a general framework, called approximately-diverse dynamic programming (ADDP) that can be used to generate a collection of k≥2 maximally diverse solutions to various geometric and combinatorial optimization problems. Given an approximation factor 0≤c≤1, this framework also allows for maximizing diversity in the larger space of c-approximate solutions. We focus on two geometric problems to showcase this technique: 1. Given a polygon P, an integer k≥2 and a value c≤1, generate k maximally diverse c-nice triangulations of P. Here, a c-nice triangulation is one that is c-approximately optimal with respect to a given quality measure σ. 2. Given a planar graph G, an integer k≥2 and a value c≤1, generate k maximally diverse c-optimal Independent Sets (or, Vertex Covers). Here, an independent set S is said to be c-optimal if |S|≥c|S′| for any independent set S′ of G. Given a set of k solutions to the above problems, the diversity measure we focus on is the average distance between the solutions, where d(X,Y)=|XΔY|. For arbitrary polygons and a wide range of quality measures, we give poly(n,k) time (1−Θ(1/k))-approximation algorithms for the diverse triangulation problem. For the diverse independent set and vertex cover problems on planar graphs, we give an algorithm that runs in time 2^(O(k.δ^(−1).ϵ^(−2)).n^O(1/ϵ) and returns (1−ϵ)-approximately diverse (1−δ)c-optimal independent sets or vertex covers. Our triangulation results are the first algorithmic results on computing collections of diverse geometric objects, and our planar graph results are the first PTAS for the diverse versions of any NP-complete problem. Additionally, we also provide applications of this technique to diverse variants of other geometric problems. 

   more » « less