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1. Towards a Decomposition-Optimal Algorithm for Counting and Sampling Arbitrary Motifs in Sublinear Time

   Biswas, A. S.; Eden, T.; Rubinfeld, R. (January 2021, Random)

   Counting and uniformly sampling motifs in a graph are fundamental algorithmic tasks with numerous applications across multiple fields. Since these problems are computationally expensive, recent efforts have focused on devising sublinear-time algorithms for these problems. We consider the model where the algorithm gets a constant size motif H and query access to a graph G, where the allowed queries are degree, neighbor, and pair queries, as well as uniform edge sample queries. In the sampling task, the algorithm is required to output a uniformly distributed copy of H in G (if one exists), and in the counting task it is required to output a good estimate to the number of copies of H in G. Previous algorithms for the uniform sampling task were based on a decomposition of H into a collection of odd cycles and stars, denoted D∗(H) = {Ok1 , ...,Okq , Sp1 , ..., Spℓ19 }. These algorithms were shown to be optimal for the case where H is a clique or an odd-length cycle, but no other lower bounds were known. We present a new algorithm for sampling arbitrary motifs which, up to poly(log n) factors, for any motif H whose decomposition contains at least two components or at least one star, is always preferable. The main ingredient leading to this improvement is an improved uniform algorithm for sampling stars, which might be of independent interest, as it allows to sample vertices according to the p-th moment of the degree distribution. We further show how to use our sampling algorithm to get an approximate counting algorithm, with essentially the same complexity. Finally, we prove that this algorithm is decomposition-optimal for decompositions that contain at least one odd cycle. That is, we prove that for any decomposition D that contains at least one odd cycle, there exists a motif HD 30 with decomposition D, and a family of graphs G, so that in order to output a uniform copy of H in a uniformly chosen graph in G, the number of required queries matches our upper bound. These are the first lower bounds for motifs H with a nontrivial decomposition, i.e., motifs that have more than a single component in their decomposition. 

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2. Towards a Decomposition-Optimal Algorithm for Counting and Sampling Arbitrary Motifs in Sublinear Time

   Biswas, A.S.; Eden, T.; Rubinfeld, R. (January 2021, RANDOM 2021)

   We consider the problem of sampling and approximately counting an arbitrary given motif H in a graph G, where access to G is given via queries: degree, neighbor, and pair, as well as uniform edge sample queries. Previous algorithms for these tasks were based on a decomposition of H into a collection of odd cycles and stars, denoted D^*(H) = {O_{k₁},...,O_{k_q}, S_{p₁},...,S_{p_𝓁}}. These algorithms were shown to be optimal for the case where H is a clique or an odd-length cycle, but no other lower bounds were known. We present a new algorithm for sampling arbitrary motifs which, up to poly(log n) factors, is always at least as good, and for most graphs G is strictly better. The main ingredient leading to this improvement is an improved uniform algorithm for sampling stars, which might be of independent interest, as it allows to sample vertices according to the p-th moment of the degree distribution. Finally, we prove that this algorithm is decomposition-optimal for decompositions that contain at least one odd cycle. These are the first lower bounds for motifs H with a nontrivial decomposition, i.e., motifs that have more than a single component in their decomposition. 

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3. Tiered Sampling: An Efficient Method for Counting Sparse Motifs in Massive Graph Streams

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3441299  

   Stefani, Lorenzo De; Terolli, Erisa; Upfal, Eli (June 2021, ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data)

   null (Ed.)

   We introduce Tiered Sampling , a novel technique for estimating the count of sparse motifs in massive graphs whose edges are observed in a stream. Our technique requires only a single pass on the data and uses a memory of fixed size M , which can be magnitudes smaller than the number of edges. Our methods address the challenging task of counting sparse motifs—sub-graph patterns—that have a low probability of appearing in a sample of M edges in the graph, which is the maximum amount of data available to the algorithms in each step. To obtain an unbiased and low variance estimate of the count, we partition the available memory into tiers (layers) of reservoir samples. While the base layer is a standard reservoir sample of edges, other layers are reservoir samples of sub-structures of the desired motif. By storing more frequent sub-structures of the motif, we increase the probability of detecting an occurrence of the sparse motif we are counting, thus decreasing the variance and error of the estimate. While we focus on the designing and analysis of algorithms for counting 4-cliques, we present a method which allows generalizing Tiered Sampling to obtain high-quality estimates for the number of occurrence of any sub-graph of interest, while reducing the analysis effort due to specific properties of the pattern of interest. We present a complete analytical analysis and extensive experimental evaluation of our proposed method using both synthetic and real-world data. Our results demonstrate the advantage of our method in obtaining high-quality approximations for the number of 4 and 5-cliques for large graphs using a very limited amount of memory, significantly outperforming the single edge sample approach for counting sparse motifs in large scale graphs. 

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4. Sampling Multiple Edges Efficiently

   Eden, T.; Mossel, S.; Rubinfeld, R. (January 2021, Random)

   We present a sublinear time algorithm that allows one to sample multiple edges from a distribution that is pointwise ϵ-close to the uniform distribution, in an amortized-efficient fashion. We consider the adjacency list query model, where access to a graph G is given via degree and neighbor queries. The problem of sampling a single edge in this model has been raised by Eden and Rosenbaum (SOSA 18). Let n and m denote the number of vertices and edges of G, respectively. Eden and Rosenbaum provided upper and lower bounds of Θ∗(n/ √ m) for sampling a single edge in general graphs (where O ∗(·) suppresses poly(1/ϵ) and poly(log n) dependencies). We ask whether the query complexity lower bound for sampling a single edge can be circumvented when multiple samples are required. That is, can we get an improved amortized per-sample cost if we allow a preprocessing phase? We answer in the affirmative. We present an algorithm that, if one knows the number of required samples q in advance, has an overall cost that is sublinear in q, namely, O∗(√ q · (n/ √ m)), which is strictly preferable to O∗(q · (n/ √ m)) cost resulting from q invocations of the algorithm by Eden and Rosenbaum. Subsequent to a preliminary version of this work, Tětek and Thorup (arXiv, preprint) proved that this bound is essentially optimal. 

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5. Talya Eden, Saleet Mossel, Ronitt Rubinfeld, Sampling Multiple Edges Efficiently

   Eden, T.; Mossel, S.; Rubinfeld, R. (January 2021, RANDOM 2021)

   We present a sublinear time algorithm that allows one to sample multiple edges from a distribution that is pointwise ε-close to the uniform distribution, in an amortized-efficient fashion. We consider the adjacency list query model, where access to a graph G is given via degree and neighbor queries. The problem of sampling a single edge in this model has been raised by Eden and Rosenbaum (SOSA 18). Let n and m denote the number of vertices and edges of G, respectively. Eden and Rosenbaum provided upper and lower bounds of Θ^*(n/√ m) for sampling a single edge in general graphs (where O^*(⋅) suppresses poly(1/ε) and poly(log n) dependencies). We ask whether the query complexity lower bound for sampling a single edge can be circumvented when multiple samples are required. That is, can we get an improved amortized per-sample cost if we allow a preprocessing phase? We answer in the affirmative. We present an algorithm that, if one knows the number of required samples q in advance, has an overall cost that is sublinear in q, namely, O^*(√ q ⋅(n/√ m)), which is strictly preferable to O^*(q⋅ (n/√ m)) cost resulting from q invocations of the algorithm by Eden and Rosenbaum. Subsequent to a preliminary version of this work, Tětek and Thorup (arXiv, preprint) proved that this bound is essentially optimal. 

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