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: We study the following Constrained Bipartite Edge Coloring problem: We are given a bipartite graph G=(U,V,E) of maximum degree I with n vertices, in which some of the edges have been legally colored with c colors. We wish to complete the coloring of the edges of G minimizing the total number of colors used. The problem has been proved to be NP-hard even for bipartite graphs of maximum degree three. Two special cases of the problem have been previously considered and tight upper and ower bounds on the optimal number of colors were proved. The upper bounds led to 3/2-approximation algorithms for both problems. In this paper we present a randomized (1.37+o(1))-approximation algorithm for the general problem in the case where max{l,c} = {\`u}(ln n). Our techniques are motivated by recent works on the Circular Arc Coloring problem and are essentially different and simpler than the existing ones.
Abstract: Motivated by the wavelength assignment problem in WDM optical networks, we study path coloring problems in graphs. Given a set of paths P on a graph G, the path coloring problem is to color the paths of P so that no two paths traversing the same edge of G are assigned the same color and the total number of colors used is minimized. The problem has been proved to be NP-hard even for trees and rings.
Using optimal solutions to fractional path coloring, a natural relaxation of path coloring, on which we apply a randomized rounding technique combined with existing coloring algorithms, we obtain new upper bounds on the minimum number of colors sufficient to color any set of paths on any graph. The upper bounds are either existential or constructive.
The existential upper bounds significantly improve existing ones provided that the cost of the optimal fractional path coloring is sufficiently large and the dilation of the set of paths is small. Our algorithmic results include improved approximation algorithms for path coloring in rings and in bidirected trees. Our results extend to variations of the original path coloring problem arizing in multifiber WDM optical networks.
Abstract: The Team Orienteering Problem with Time Windows (TOPTW)
deals with deriving a number of tours comprising a subset of candidate
nodes (each associated with a \pro t" value and a visiting time window)
so as to maximize the overall \pro t", while respecting a speci ed time
span. TOPTW has been used as a reference model for the Tourist Trip
Design Problem (TTDP) in order to derive near-optimal multiple-day
tours for tourists visiting a destination featuring several points of inter-
est (POIs), taking into account a multitude of POI attributes. TOPTW
is an NP-hard problem and the most ecient known heuristic is based on
Iterated Local Search (ILS). However, ILS treats each POI separately;
hence it tends to overlook highly pro table areas of POIs situated far
from the current location, considering them too time-expensive to visit.
We propose two cluster-based extensions to ILS addressing the afore-
mentioned weakness by grouping POIs on disjoint clusters (based on
geographical criteria), thereby making visits to such POIs more attrac-
tive. Our approaches improve on ILS with respect to solutions quality,
while executing at comparable time and reducing the frequency of overly
long transfers among POIs.
Abstract: We investigate the existence of optimal tolls for atomic symmetric
network congestion games with unsplittable traffic and arbitrary non-negative and
non-decreasing latency functions.We focus on pure Nash equilibria and a natural
toll mechanism, which we call cost-balancing tolls. A set of cost-balancing tolls
turns every path with positive traffic on its edges into a minimum cost path. Hence
any given configuration is induced as a pure Nash equilibrium of the modified
game with the corresponding cost-balancing tolls. We show how to compute in
linear time a set of cost-balancing tolls for the optimal solution such that the total
amount of tolls paid by any player in any pure Nash equilibrium of the modified
game does not exceed the latency on the maximum latency path in the optimal
solution. Our main result is that for congestion games on series-parallel networks
with increasing latencies, the optimal solution is induced as the unique pure Nash
equilibrium of the game with the corresponding cost-balancing tolls. To the best
of our knowledge, only linear congestion games on parallel links were known to
admit optimal tolls prior to this work. To demonstrate the difficulty of computing
a better set of optimal tolls, we show that even for 2-player linear congestion
games on series-parallel networks, it is NP-hard to decide whether the optimal
solution is the unique pure Nash equilibrium or there is another equilibrium of
total cost at least 6/5 times the optimal cost.
Abstract: The Time Dependent Team Orienteering Problem with Time Windows (TDTOPTW) can be used to model several real life problems. Among them, the route planning problem for tourists interested in visiting multiple points of interest (POIs) using public transport. The main objective of this problem is to select POIs that match tourist preferences, while taking into account a multitude of parameters and constraints and respecting the time available for sightseeing in a daily basis. TDTOPTW is NP-hard while almost the whole body of the related literature addresses the non time dependent version of the problem. The only TDTOPTW heuristic proposed so far is based on the assumption of periodic service schedules. Herein, we propose two efficient cluster-based heuristics for the TDTOPTW which yield high quality solutions, take into account time dependency in calculating travel times between POIs and make no assumption on periodic service schedules. The validation scenario for our prototyped algorithms included the metropolitan transit network and real POI sets compiled from Athens (Greece).
Abstract: Intuitively, Braess's paradox states that destroying a part
of a network may improve the common latency of sel sh
ows at Nash
equilibrium. Such a paradox is a pervasive phenomenon in real-world
networks. Any administrator, who wants to improve equilibrium delays
in sel sh networks, is facing some basic questions: (i) Is the network
paradox-ridden? (ii) How can we delete some edges to optimize equilibrium
ow delays? (iii) How can we modify edge latencies to optimize
equilibrium
ow delays?
Unfortunately, such questions lead to NP-hard problems in general. In
this work, we impose some natural restrictions on our networks, e.g.
we assume strictly increasing linear latencies. Our target is to formulate
ecient algorithms for the three questions above.We manage to provide:
{ A polynomial-time algorithm that decides if a network is paradoxridden,
when latencies are linear and strictly increasing.
{ A reduction of the problem of deciding if a network with arbitrary
linear latencies is paradox-ridden to the problem of generating all
optimal basic feasible solutions of a Linear Program that describes
the optimal trac allocations to the edges with constant latency.
{ An algorithm for nding a subnetwork that is almost optimal wrt
equilibrium latency. Our algorithm is subexponential when the number
of paths is polynomial and each path is of polylogarithmic length.
{ A polynomial-time algorithm for the problem of nding the best
subnetwork, which outperforms any known approximation algorithm
for the case of strictly increasing linear latencies.
{ A polynomial-time method that turns the optimal
ow into a Nash
ow by deleting the edges not used by the optimal
ow, and performing
minimal modi cations to the latencies of the remaining ones.
Our results provide a deeper understanding of the computational complexity
of recognizing the Braess's paradox most severe manifestations,
and our techniques show novel ways of using the probabilistic method
and of exploiting convex separable quadratic programs.
Abstract: Intuitively, Braess’s paradox states that destroying a part of a network may improve the common latency of selfish flows at Nash equilibrium. Such a paradox is a pervasive phenomenon in real-world networks. Any administrator who wants to improve equilibrium delays in selfish networks, is facing some basic questions:
– Is the network paradox-ridden?
– How can we delete some edges to optimize equilibrium flow delays?
– How can we modify edge latencies to optimize equilibrium flow delays?
Unfortunately, such questions lead to View the MathML sourceNP-hard problems in general. In this work, we impose some natural restrictions on our networks, e.g. we assume strictly increasing linear latencies. Our target is to formulate efficient algorithms for the three questions above. We manage to provide:
– A polynomial-time algorithm that decides if a network is paradox-ridden, when latencies are linear and strictly increasing.
– A reduction of the problem of deciding if a network with (arbitrary) linear latencies is paradox-ridden to the problem of generating all optimal basic feasible solutions of a Linear Program that describes the optimal traffic allocations to the edges with constant latency.
– An algorithm for finding a subnetwork that is almost optimal wrt equilibrium latency. Our algorithm is subexponential when the number of paths is polynomial and each path is of polylogarithmic length.
– A polynomial-time algorithm for the problem of finding the best subnetwork which outperforms any known approximation for the case of strictly increasing linear latencies.
– A polynomial-time method that turns the optimal flow into a Nash flow by deleting the edges not used by the optimal flow, and performing minimal modifications on the latencies of the remaining ones.
Our results provide a deeper understanding of the computational complexity of recognizing the most severe manifestations of Braess’s paradox, and our techniques show novel ways of using the probabilistic method and of exploiting convex separable quadratic programs.
Abstract: We study geometric versions of the min-size k-clustering
problem, a clustering problem which generalizes clustering to minimize
the sum of cluster radii and has important applications. We prove that
the problem can be solved in polynomial time when the points to be clus-
tered are located on a line. For Euclidean spaces of higher dimensions,
we show that the problem is NP-hard and present polynomial time ap-
proximation schemes. The latter result yields an improved approximation
algorithm for the related problem of k-clustering to minimize the sum of
cluster diameters.
Abstract: We provide an improved FPTAS for multiobjective shortest paths—a fundamental (NP-hard) problem in multiobjective optimization—along with a new generic method for obtaining FPTAS to any multiobjective optimization problem with non-linear objectives. We show how these results can be used to obtain better approximate solutions to three related problems, multiobjective constrained [optimal] path and non-additive shortest path, that have important applications in QoS routing and in traffic optimization. We also show how to obtain a FPTAS to a natural generalization of the weighted multicommodity flow problem with elastic demands and values that models several realistic scenarios in transportation and communication networks.
Abstract: The voting rules proposed by Dodgson and Young are both
designed to nd the alternative closest to being a Condorcet
winner, according to two di erent notions of proximity; the
score of a given alternative is known to be hard to compute
under either rule.
In this paper, we put forward two algorithms for ap-
proximating the Dodgson score: an LP-based randomized
rounding algorithm and a deterministic greedy algorithm,
both of which yield an O(logm) approximation ratio, where
m is the number of alternatives; we observe that this result
is asymptotically optimal, and further prove that our greedy
algorithm is optimal up to a factor of 2, unless problems in
NP have quasi-polynomial time algorithms. Although the
greedy algorithm is computationally superior, we argue that
the randomized rounding algorithm has an advantage from
a social choice point of view.
Further, we demonstrate that computing any reasonable
approximation of the ranking produced by Dodgson's rule
is NP-hard. This result provides a complexity-theoretic
explanation of sharp discrepancies that have been observed
in the Social Choice Theory literature when comparing
Dodgson elections with simpler voting rules.
Finally, we show that the problem of calculating the
Young score is NP-hard to approximate by any factor. This
leads to an inapproximability result for the Young ranking.
Abstract: In routing games, the network performance at equilibrium can be significantly improved if we remove some edges from the network. This counterintuitive fact, widely known as Braess's paradox, gives rise to the (selfish) network design problem, where we seek to recognize routing games suffering from the paradox, and to improve the equilibrium performance by edge removal. In this work, we investigate the computational complexity and the approximability of the network design problem for non-atomic bottleneck routing games, where the individual cost of each player is the bottleneck cost of her path, and the social cost is the bottleneck cost of the network. We first show that bottleneck routing games do not suffer from Braess's paradox either if the network is series-parallel, or if we consider only subpath-optimal Nash flows. On the negative side, we prove that even for games with strictly increasing linear latencies, it is NP-hard not only to recognize instances suffering from the paradox, but also to distinguish between instances for which the Price of Anarchy (PoA) can decrease to 1 and instances for which the PoA is as large as \Omega(n^{0.121}) and cannot improve by edge removal. Thus, the network design problem for such games is NP-hard to approximate within a factor of O(n^{0.121-\eps}), for any constant \eps > 0. On the positive side, we show how to compute an almost optimal subnetwork w.r.t. the bottleneck cost of its worst Nash flow, when the worst Nash flow in the best subnetwork routes a non-negligible amount of flow on all used edges. The running time is determined by the total number of paths, and is quasipolynomial when the number of paths is quasipolynomial.
Abstract: In this paper we study the problem of assigning transmission ranges to the nodes of a multihop
packet radio network so as to minimize the total power consumed under the constraint
that adequate power is provided to the nodes to ensure that the network is strongly connected
(i.e., each node can communicate along some path in the network to every other node). Such
assignment of transmission ranges is called complete. We also consider the problem of achieving
strongly connected bounded diameter networks.
For the case of n + 1 colinear points at unit distance apart (the unit chain) we give a tight
asymptotic bound for the minimum cost of a range assignment of diameter h when h is a xed
constant and when h>(1 + ) log n, for some constant > 0. When the distances between the
colinear points are arbitrary, we give an O(n4) time dynamic programming algorithm for nding
a minimum cost complete range assignment.
For points in three dimensions we show that the problem of deciding whether a complete
range assignment of a given cost exists, is NP-hard. For the same problem we give an O(n2)
time approximation algorithm which provides a complete range assignment with cost within a
factor of two of the minimum. The complexity of this problem in two dimensions remains open,
while the approximation algorithm works in this case as well.
Abstract: In 1876 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson suggested the intriguing voting rule that today bears his name. Although Dodgson's rule is one of the most well-studied voting rules, it suffers from serious de ciencies, both from the computational point of view|it is NP-hard even to approximate the Dodgson score within sublogarithmic factors|and from the social choice point of view|it fails basic social choice desiderata such as monotonicity and homogeneity.
In a previous paper [Caragiannis et al., SODA 2009] we have asked whether there are approximation algorithms for Dodgson's rule that are monotonic or homogeneous. In this paper we give de nitive answers to these questions. We design a monotonic exponential-time algorithm that yields a 2-approximation to the Dodgson score, while matching this result with a tight lower bound. We also present a monotonic polynomial-time O(logm)-approximation algorithm (where m is the number of alternatives); this result is tight as well due to a complexity-theoretic lower bound. Furthermore, we show that a slight variation of a known voting rule yields a monotonic, homogeneous, polynomial-time O(mlogm)-approximation algorithm, and establish that it is impossible to achieve a better approximation ratio even if one just asks for homogeneity. We complete the picture by studying several additional social choice properties; for these properties, we prove that algorithms with an approximation ratio that depends only on m do not exist.
Abstract: In 1876 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson suggested the intriguing
voting rule that today bears his name. Although Dodg-
son's rule is one of the most well-studied voting rules, it suf-
fers from serious de ciencies, both from the computational
point of view|it is NP-hard even to approximate the Dodg-
son score within sublogarithmic factors|and from the social
choice point of view|it fails basic social choice desiderata
such as monotonicity and homogeneity.
In a previous paper [Caragiannis et al., SODA 2009] we
have asked whether there are approximation algorithms for
Dodgson's rule that are monotonic or homogeneous. In this
paper we give de nitive answers to these questions. We de-
sign a monotonic exponential-time algorithm that yields a
2-approximation to the Dodgson score, while matching this
result with a tight lower bound. We also present a monotonic
polynomial-time O(logm)-approximation algorithm (where
m is the number of alternatives); this result is tight as well
due to a complexity-theoretic lower bound. Furthermore,
we show that a slight variation of a known voting rule yields
a monotonic, homogeneous, polynomial-time O(mlogm)-
approximation algorithm, and establish that it is impossible
to achieve a better approximation ratio even if one just asks
for homogeneity. We complete the picture by studying sev-
eral additional social choice properties; for these properties,
we prove that algorithms with an approximation ratio that
depends only on m do not exist.
Abstract: Let M be a single s-t network of parallel links with load dependent latency functions shared by an infinite number of selfish users. This may yield a Nash equilibrium with unbounded Coordination Ratio [E. Koutsoupias, C. Papadimitriou, Worst-case equilibria, in: 16th Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science, STACS, vol. 1563, 1999, pp. 404-413; T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, How bad is selfish routing? in: 41st IEEE Annual Symposium of Foundations of Computer Science, FOCS, 2000, pp. 93-102]. A Leader can decrease the coordination ratio by assigning flow {\'a}r on M, and then all Followers assign selfishly the (1-{\'a})r remaining flow. This is a Stackelberg Scheduling Instance(M,r,{\'a}),0≤{\'a}≤1. It was shown [T. Roughgarden, Stackelberg scheduling strategies, in: 33rd Annual Symposium on Theory of Computing, STOC, 2001, pp. 104-113] that it is weakly NP-hard to compute the optimal Leader's strategy. For any such network M we efficiently compute the minimum portion @b"M of flow r>0 needed by a Leader to induce M's optimum cost, as well as her optimal strategy. This shows that the optimal Leader's strategy on instances (M,r,@a>=@b"M) is in P. Unfortunately, Stackelberg routing in more general nets can be arbitrarily hard. Roughgarden presented a modification of Braess's Paradox graph, such that no strategy controlling {\'a}r flow can induce ≤1/{\'a} times the optimum cost. However, we show that our main result also applies to any s-t net G. We take care of the Braess's graph explicitly, as a convincing example. Finally, we extend this result to k commodities. A conference version of this paper has appeared in [A. Kaporis, P. Spirakis, The price of optimum in stackelberg games on arbitrary single commodity networks and latency functions, in: 18th annual ACM symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures, SPAA, 2006, pp. 19-28]. Some preliminary results have also appeared as technical report in [A.C. Kaporis, E. Politopoulou, P.G. Spirakis, The price of optimum in stackelberg games, in: Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, ECCC, (056), 2005].
Abstract: In this work, we study the combinatorial structure and the
computational complexity of Nash equilibria for a certain game that
models selfish routing over a network consisting of m parallel links. We
assume a collection of n users, each employing a mixed strategy, which
is a probability distribution over links, to control the routing of its own
assigned traffic. In a Nash equilibrium, each user selfishly routes its traffic
on those links that minimize its expected latency cost, given the network
congestion caused by the other users. The social cost of a Nash equilibrium
is the expectation, over all random choices of the users, of the
maximum, over all links, latency through a link.
We embark on a systematic study of several algorithmic problems related
to the computation of Nash equilibria for the selfish routing game we consider.
In a nutshell, these problems relate to deciding the existence of a
Nash equilibrium, constructing a Nash equilibrium with given support
characteristics, constructing the worst Nash equilibrium (the one with
maximum social cost), constructing the best Nash equilibrium (the one
with minimum social cost), or computing the social cost of a (given) Nash
equilibrium. Our work provides a comprehensive collection of efficient algorithms,
hardness results (both as NP-hardness and #P-completeness
results), and structural results for these algorithmic problems. Our results
span and contrast a wide range of assumptions on the syntax of the
Nash equilibria and on the parameters of the system.
