Abstract: In this work, we study the Population Protocol model of Angluin et al. from the perspective of protocol verification. In particular, we are interested in algorithmically solving the problem of determining whether a given population protocol conforms to its specifications. Since this is the first work on verification of population protocols, we redefine most notions of population protocols in order to make them suitable for algorithmic verification. Moreover, we formally define the general verification problem and some interesting special cases. All these problems are shown to be NP-hard. We next propose some first algorithmic solutions for a natural special case. Finally, we conduct experiments and algorithmic engineering in order to improve our verifiers' running times.
Abstract: The study of the path coloring problem is motivated by the allocation of optical bandwidth to communication requests in all-optical networks that utilize Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM). WDM technology establishes communication between pairs of network nodes by establishing transmitter-receiver paths and assigning wavelengths to each path so that no two paths going through the same fiber link use the same wavelength. Optical bandwidth is the number of distinct wavelengths. Since state-of-the-art technology allows for a limited number of wavelengths, the engineering problem to be solved is to establish communication minimizing the total number of wavelengths used. This is known as the wavelength routing problem. In the case where the underlying network is a tree, it is equivalent to the path coloring problem.
We survey recent advances on the path coloring problem in both undirected and bidirected trees. We present hardness results and lower bounds for the general problem covering also the special case of sets of symmetric paths (corresponding to the important case of symmetric communication). We give an overview of the main ideas of deterministic greedy algorithms and point out their limitations. For bidirected trees, we present recent results about the use of randomization for path coloring and outline approximation algorithms that find path colorings by exploiting fractional path colorings. Also, we discuss upper and lower bounds on the performance of on-line algorithms.
Abstract: When one engineers distributed algorithms, some special characteristics
arise that are different from conventional (sequential or parallel)
computing paradigms. These characteristics include: the need for either a
scalable real network environment or a platform supporting a simulated
distributed environment; the need to incorporate asynchrony, where arbitrarya
synchrony is hard, if not impossible, to implement; and the generation
of “difficult” input instances which is a particular challenge. In this
work, we identifys ome of the methodological issues required to address
the above characteristics in distributed algorithmengineering and illustrate
certain approaches to tackle them via case studies. Our discussion
begins byad dressing the need of a simulation environment and how asynchronyis
incorporated when experimenting with distributed algorithms.
We then proceed bys uggesting two methods for generating difficult input
instances for distributed experiments, namelya game-theoretic one and another
based on simulations of adversarial arguments or lower bound proofs.
We give examples of the experimental analysis of a pursuit-evasion protocol
and of a shared memorypro blem in order to demonstrate these ideas.
We then address a particularlyi nteresting case of conducting experiments
with algorithms for mobile computing and tackle the important issue of
motion of processes in this context. We discuss the two-tier principle as
well as a concurrent random walks approach on an explicit representation
of motions in ad-hoc mobile networks, which allow at least for averagecase
analysis and measurements and may give worst-case inputs in some
cases. Finally, we discuss a useful interplay between theory and practice
that arise in modeling attack propagation in networks.
Abstract: A crucial issue in wireless networks is to support efficiently communication patterns that are typical in traditional (wired) networks. These include broadcasting, multicasting, and gossiping (all-to-all communication). In this work we study such problems in static ad hoc networks. Since, in ad hoc networks, energy is a scarce resource, the important engineering question to be solved is to guarantee a desired communication pattern minimizing the total energy consumption. Motivated by this question, we study a series of wireless network design problems and present new approximation algorithms and inapproximability results.
Abstract: We present key aspects (hardware, software, topology, networking) of SenseWall, an experimental sensor network test-bed we have created for the implementation and engineering of distributed sensor network algorithms. We then describe how SenseWall has been in particular used to implement two recent state of the art algorithms for energy balanced sensor data propagation. We elaborate on the issues and challenges created by the restrictions and particularities of the experimental test-bed and how we dealt with them. We also carry out a detailed performance evaluation comparing the energy balance protocols to two baseline protocols that include only either single hop or direct data transmissions.
Abstract: Dynamic graph algorithms have been extensively studied in the last two
decades due to their wide applicabilityin manycon texts. Recently, several
implementations and experimental studies have been conducted investigating
the practical merits of fundamental techniques and algorithms. In most
cases, these algorithms required sophisticated engineering and fine-tuning
to be turned into efficient implementations. In this paper, we surveysev -
eral implementations along with their experimental studies for dynamic
problems on undirected and directed graphs. The former case includes
dynamic connectivity, dynamic minimum spanning trees, and the sparsification
technique. The latter case includes dynamic transitive closure and
dynamic shortest paths. We also discuss the design and implementation of
a software libraryfor dynamic graph algorithms.
Abstract: We study computationally hard combinatorial problems arising from the important engineering question of how to maximize the number of connections that can be simultaneously served in a WDM optical network. In such networks, WDM technology can satisfy a set of connections by computing a route and assigning a wavelength to each connection so that no two connections routed through the same fiber are assigned the same wavelength. Each fiber supports a limited number of w wavelengths and in order to fully exploit the parallelism provided by the technology, one should select a set connections of maximum cardinality which can be satisfied using the available wavelengths. This is known as the maximum routing and path coloring problem (maxRPC).
Our main contribution is a general analysis method for a class of iterative algorithms for a more general coloring problem. A lower bound on the benefit of such an algorithm in terms of the optimal benefit and the number of available wavelengths is given by a benefit-revealing linear program. We apply this method to maxRPC in both undirected and bidirected rings to obtain bounds on the approximability of several algorithms. Our results also apply to the problem maxPC where paths instead of connections are given as part of the input. We also study the profit version of maxPC in rings where each path has a profit and the objective is to satisfy a set of paths of maximum total profit.