Hyperbolic uniform disk graphs (HUDGs) are intersection graphs of disks with some radius r in the hyperbolic plane, where r may be constant or depend on the number of vertices in a family of HUDGs. We show that HUDGs with constant clique number do not admit product structure, i.e., that there is no constant c such that every such graph is a subgraph of H ⊠ P for some graph H of treewidth at most c. This justifies that HUDGs are described as not having a grid-like structure in the literature, and is in contrast to unit disk graphs in the Euclidean plane, whose grid-like structure is evident from the fact that they are subgraphs of the strong product of two paths and a clique of constant size [Dvořák et al., '21, MATRIX Annals]. By allowing H to be any graph of constant treewidth instead of a path-like graph, we reject the possibility of a grid-like structure not merely by the maximum degree (which is unbounded for HUDGs) but due to their global structure. We complement this by showing that for every (sub-)constant r, HUDGs admit product structure, whereas the typical hyperbolic behavior is observed if r grows with the number of vertices. Our proof involves a family of n-vertex HUDGs with radius log n that has bounded clique number but unbounded treewidth, and one for which the ratio of treewidth and clique number is log n / log log n. Up to a log log n factor, this negatively answers a question raised by Bläsius et al. [SoCG '25] asking whether balanced separators of HUDGs with radius log n can be covered by less than log n cliques. Our results also imply that the local and layered tree-independence number of HUDGs are both unbounded, answering an open question of Dallard et al. [arXiv '25].

Spherical range queries are a fundamental primitive for working with spatial data. Many spatial data structures have been developed to answer these queries, but choosing the optimal one for a specific application is a difficult task. This is because theoretical worst-case bounds are often overly pessimistic, and existing average-case analyses are rather restricted and hard to compare. We address this problem with two main contributions. First, we present a comprehensive evaluation of state-of-the-art spatial indices across a diverse set of benchmarks. This includes a new benchmark based on graph embeddings alongside multiple real-world datasets from the literature. Our benchmark covers instances scaling up to 10M points and ranging between 2 and 960 dimensions. Second, we introduce the Sorted-Projection Radius KD-tree (SPRK-tree), a high-performance KD-tree variant. The SPRK-tree combines aggressive subtree pruning via radius reduction, sorted projection-based leaf nodes, and careful implementation optimizations. It consistently achieves the fastest query times in almost all benchmarks, and ranks second in the few remaining cases.

We consider a maximum entropy edge weight model that allows for negative weights. Given a graph $G$ and possible weights $\mathcal{W}$ typically consisting of positive and negative values, the model selects edge weights $w \in \mathcal{W}^m$ uniformly at random from all weights that do not introduce a negative cycle. We propose an MCMC process and show that it converges to the required distribution. We then engineer an implementation of the process using a dynamic version of Johnson's algorithm in connection with a bidirectional Dijkstra search as well as an innovative resampling method. We empirically study the performance characteristics of these novel sampling algorithms as well as the output produced by the model.

A common speedup technique for shortest path queries in graphs is bidirectional search, i.e., performing a forward search from the start and a backward search from the destination until a common vertex is found. In practice, this leads to massive performance improvements on some real-world networks, while saving only a constant factor on other networks. So far, only few studies have attempted to explain the apparent asymptotic speedups on some networks using average-case analysis on certain models of real-world networks. In this paper we provide a new perspective on this, by analyzing deterministic properties that allow theoretical analysis while being easily checked on any particular instance. We prove that these parameters imply sublinear running time for bidirectional BFS in several regimes, some of which are tight. Furthermore, we perform experiments on a large set of real-world networks and show that our parameters capture the concept of practical running time well. • Demonstrates Efficiency of Bidirectional Searches: Highlights how bidirectional breadth-first search significantly accelerates shortest path queries in certain real-world networks. • Establishes Sublinear Running Time Parameters: Proves that certain identified parameters result in sublinear running times for bidirectional breadth-first search in various scenarios, including some optimal conditions. • Validates with Real-World Network Experiments: Empirically tests and confirms the relevance of these parameters in capturing practical running times through experiments on a diverse set of real-world networks.

Learning low-dimensional numerical representations from symbolic data, e.g., embedding the nodes of a graph into a geometric space, is an important concept in machine learning. While embedding into Euclidean space is common, recent observations indicate that hyperbolic geometry is better suited to represent hierarchical information and heterogeneous data (e.g., graphs with a scale-free degree distribution). Despite their potential for more accurate representations, hyperbolic embeddings also have downsides like being more difficult to compute and harder to use in downstream tasks. We propose embedding into a weighted space, which is closely related to hyperbolic geometry but mathematically simpler. We provide the embedding algorithm WEmbed and demonstrate, based on generated as well as over 2000 real-world graphs, that our weighted embeddings heavily outperform state-of-the-art Euclidean embeddings for heterogeneous graphs while using fewer dimensions. The running time of WEmbed and embedding quality for the remaining instances is on par with state-of-the-art Euclidean embedders.

Motivated by the cabling of solar farms, we study the problem Constrained Layer Tree. At its core, it asks whether there exists a tree that connects a set of sources (the leaves) to one sink (the root) such that certain capacity constraints at the inner nodes are satisfied. Our main algorithmic contribution is a dynamic program with various optimizations for Constrained Layer Tree. It outperforms the previously used MILP by multiple orders of magnitude. Moreover, our experiments show that the somewhat abstract problem Constrained Layer Tree is actually the core of the cabling problem in solar farms, i.e., the feasible solution produced by our dynamic program can be used to bootstrap an MILP that can then find good solutions for the original cabling problem efficiently.

We consider intersection graphs of disks of radius r in the hyperbolic plane. Unlike the Euclidean setting, these graph classes are different for different values of r, where very small r corresponds to an almost-Euclidean setting and r ∈ Ω(log n) corresponds to a firmly hyperbolic setting. We observe that larger values of r create simpler graph classes, at least in terms of separators and the computational complexity of the Independent Set problem. First, we show that intersection graphs of disks of radius r in the hyperbolic plane can be separated with 𝒪((1+1/r)log n) cliques in a balanced manner. Our second structural insight concerns Delaunay complexes in the hyperbolic plane and may be of independent interest. We show that for any set S of n points with pairwise distance at least 2r in the hyperbolic plane, the corresponding Delaunay complex has outerplanarity 1+𝒪((log n)/r), which implies a similar bound on the balanced separators and treewidth of such Delaunay complexes. Using this outerplanarity (and treewidth) bound we prove that Independent Set can be solved in n^𝒪(1+(log n)/r) time. The algorithm is based on dynamic programming on some unknown sphere cut decomposition that is based on the solution. The resulting algorithm is a far-reaching generalization of a result of Kisfaludi-Bak (SODA 2020), and it is tight under the Exponential Time Hypothesis. In particular, Independent Set is polynomial-time solvable in the firmly hyperbolic setting of r ∈ Ω(log n). Finally, in the case when the disks have ply (depth) at most 𝓁, we give a PTAS for Maximum Independent Set that has only quasi-polynomial dependence on 1/ε and 𝓁. Our PTAS is a further generalization of our exact algorithm.

Abstract The problem Power Dominating Set (PDS) is motivated by the placement of phasor measurement units to monitor electrical networks. It asks for a minimum set of vertices in a graph that observes all remaining vertices by exhaustively applying two observation rules. Our contribution is twofold. First, we determine the parameterized complexity of PDS by proving it is W[P]-complete when parameterized with respect to the solution size. We note that it was only known to be W[2]-hard before. Our second and main contribution is a new algorithm for PDS that efficiently solves practical instances. Our algorithm consists of two complementary parts. The first is a set of reduction rules for PDS that can also be used in conjunction with previously existing algorithms. The second is an algorithm for solving the remaining kernel based on the implicit hitting set approach. Our evaluation on a set of power grid instances from the literature shows that our solver outperforms previous state-of-the-art solvers for PDS by more than one order of magnitude on average. Furthermore, our algorithm can solve previously unsolved instances of continental scale within a few minutes.

Functional dependencies (FDs) are among the most important integrity constraints in databases. They serve to normalize datasets and thus resolve redundancies, they contribute to query optimization, and they are frequently used to guide data cleaning efforts. Because the FDs of a particular dataset are usually unknown, automatic profiling algorithms are needed to discover them. These algorithms have made considerable advances in the past few years, but they still require a significant amount of time and memory to process datasets of practically relevant sizes. We present FDHits, a novel FD discovery algorithm that finds all valid, minimal FDs in a given relational dataset. FDHits is based on several discovery optimizations that include a hybrid validation approach, effective hitting set enumeration techniques, one-pass candidate validations, and parallelization. Our experiments show that FDHits, even without parallel execution, has a median speedup of 8.1 compared to state-of-the-art FD discovery algorithms while using significantly less memory. This allows the discovery of all FDs even on datasets that could not be processed by the current state-of-the-art.

The number one criticism of average-case analysis is that we do not actually know the probability distribution of real-world inputs. Thus, analyzing an algorithm on some random model has no implications for practical performance. At its core, this criticism doubts the existence of external validity ; i.e., it assumes that algorithmic behavior on the somewhat simple and clean models does not translate beyond the models to practical performance real-world input. With this article, we provide a first step toward studying the question of external validity systematically. To this end, we evaluate the performance of six graph algorithms on a collection of 2,740 sparse real-world networks depending on two properties: heterogeneity (variance in the degree distribution) and locality (tendency of edges to connect vertices that are already close). We compare this with the performance on generated networks with varying locality and heterogeneity. We find that the performance in the idealized setting of network models translates surprisingly well to real-world networks. Moreover, heterogeneity and locality appear to be the core properties impacting the performance of many graph algorithms.

The problem Power Dominating Set (PDS) is motivated by the placement of phasor measurement units to monitor electrical networks. It asks for a minimum set of vertices in a graph that observes all remaining vertices by exhaustively applying two observation rules. Our contribution is twofold. First, we determine the parameterized complexity of PDS by proving it is $W[P]$-complete when parameterized with respect to the solution size. We note that it was only known to be $W[2]$-hard before. Our second and main contribution is a new algorithm for PDS that efficiently solves practical instances. Our algorithm consists of two complementary parts. The first is a set of reduction rules for PDS that can also be used in conjunction with previously existing algorithms. The second is an algorithm for solving the remaining kernel based on the implicit hitting set approach. Our evaluation on a set of power grid instances from the literature shows that our solver outperforms previous state-of-the-art solvers for PDS by more than one order of magnitude on average. Furthermore, our algorithm can solve previously unsolved instances of continental scale within a few minutes.

The class of Euclidean unit disk graphs is one of the most fundamental and well-studied graph classes with underlying geometry. In this paper, we identify this class as a special case in the broader class of hyperbolic unit disk graphs and introduce strongly hyperbolic unit disk graphs as a natural counterpart to the Euclidean variant. In contrast to the grid-like structures exhibited by Euclidean unit disk graphs, strongly hyperbolic networks feature hierarchical structures, which are also observed in complex real-world networks. We investigate basic properties of strongly hyperbolic unit disk graphs, including adjacencies and the formation of cliques, and utilize the derived insights to demonstrate that the class is useful for the development and analysis of graph algorithms. Specifically, we develop a simple greedy routing scheme and analyze its performance on strongly hyperbolic unit disk graphs in order to prove that routing can be performed more efficiently on such networks than in general.

We consider a variant of treewidth that we call clique-partitioned treewidth in which each bag is partitioned into cliques. This is motivated by the recent development of FPT-algorithms based on similar parameters for various problems. With this paper, we take a first step towards computing clique-partitioned tree decompositions. Our focus lies on the subproblem of computing clique partitions, i.e., for each bag of a given tree decomposition, we compute an optimal partition of the induced subgraph into cliques. The goal here is to minimize the product of the clique sizes (plus 1). We show that this problem is NP-hard. We also describe four heuristic approaches as well as an exact branch-and-bound algorithm. Our evaluation shows that the branch-and-bound solver is sufficiently efficient to serve as a good baseline. Moreover, our heuristics yield solutions close to the optimum. As a bonus, our algorithms allow us to compute first upper bounds for the clique-partitioned treewidth of real-world networks. A comparison to traditional treewidth indicates that clique-partitioned treewidth is a promising parameter for graphs with high clustering.

Abstract Finding a minimum vertex cover in a network is a fundamental NP-complete graph problem. One way to deal with its computational hardness, is to trade the qualitative performance of an algorithm (allowing non-optimal outputs) for an improved running time. For the vertex cover problem, there is a gap between theory and practice when it comes to understanding this trade-off. On the one hand, it is known that it is NP-hard to approximate a minimum vertex cover within a factor of $$\sqrt{2}$$ 2 . On the other hand, a simple greedy algorithm yields close to optimal approximations in practice. A promising approach towards understanding this discrepancy is to recognize the differences between theoretical worst-case instances and real-world networks. Following this direction, we narrow the gap between theory and practice by providing an algorithm that efficiently computes nearly optimal vertex cover approximations on hyperbolic random graphs; a network model that closely resembles real-world networks in terms of degree distribution, clustering, and the small-world property. More precisely, our algorithm computes a $$(1 + o(1))$$ ( 1 + o ( 1 ) ) -approximation, asymptotically almost surely, and has a running time of $${\mathcal {O}}(m \log (n))$$ O ( m log ( n ) ) . The proposed algorithm is an adaptation of the successful greedy approach, enhanced with a procedure that improves on parts of the graph where greedy is not optimal. This makes it possible to introduce a parameter that can be used to tune the trade-off between approximation performance and running time. Our empirical evaluation on real-world networks shows that this allows for improving over the near-optimal results of the greedy approach.

Abstract The computational complexity of the VertexCover problem has been studied extensively. Most notably, it is NP-complete to find an optimal solution and typically NP-hard to find an approximation with reasonable factors. In contrast, recent experiments suggest that on many real-world networks the run time to solve VertexCover is way smaller than even the best known FPT-approaches can explain. We link these observations to two properties that are observed in many real-world networks, namely a heterogeneous degree distribution and high clustering. To formalize these properties and explain the observed behavior, we analyze how a branch-and-reduce algorithm performs on hyperbolic random graphs, which have become increasingly popular for modeling real-world networks. In fact, we are able to show that the VertexCover problem on hyperbolic random graphs can be solved in polynomial time, with high probability. The proof relies on interesting structural properties of hyperbolic random graphs. Since these predictions of the model are interesting in their own right, we conducted experiments on real-world networks showing that these properties are also observed in practice.

We introduce the problem S ynchronized P lanarity . Roughly speaking, its input is a loop-free multi-graph together with synchronization constraints that, e.g., match pairs of vertices of equal degree by providing a bijection between their edges. S ynchronized P lanarity then asks whether the graph admits a crossing-free embedding into the plane such that the orders of edges around synchronized vertices are consistent. We show, on the one hand, that S ynchronized P lanarity can be solved in quadratic time, and, on the other hand, that it serves as a powerful modeling language that lets us easily formulate several constrained planarity problems as instances of S ynchronized P lanarity . In particular, this lets us solve C lustered P lanarity in quadratic time, where the most efficient previously known algorithm has an upper bound of O ( n 8 ).

The hitting set problem asks for a collection of sets over a universe U to find a minimum subset of U that intersects each of the given sets. It is NP-hard and equivalent to the problem set cover. We give a branch-and-bound algorithm to solve hitting set. Though it requires exponential time in the worst case, it can solve many practical instances from different domains in reasonable time. Our algorithm outperforms a modern ILP solver, the state-of-the-art for hitting set, by at least an order of magnitude on most instances.

Here you find supplemental material for our paper On the External Validity of Average-Case Analyses of Graph Algorithms. Code The source code and a description of how to use it can be found at github.com/thobl/external-validity. Additionally external-validity-main.zip contains a snapshot. Docker Image The easiest way to reproduce the experiments is to use the docker image ext-val.zip. Refer to github.com/thobl/external-validity for instructions how to use it. Input Data: Networks from Network Repository We use a set of 3006 networks from networkrepository.com [1]. Refer to our paper for more details on the data set. [1] Ryan A. Rossi and Nesreen K. Ahmed, The Network Data Repository with Interactive Graph Analytics and Visualization (AAAI 2015) Here we provide this data set in two formats. Use the first for reproducing our experiments. If you want to do your own experiments on the same networks, we recommend using the second. input_data.zip contains the original graph as edge list (one edge per line) with no guarantees on where node indices start (usually at 0 or 1) or whether they are consecutive. The graphs might consist of multiple connected components. edge_lists_real.zip contains the graphs reduced to their largest connected component. Node indices are consecutive starting at 0 and every edge is contained only for one direction. Output Data: Generated Networks The generated networks are provided as edge lists (one connected component, consecutive node indices starting at 0, every edge is contained only in one direction). They are grouped into different categories. For more details on the generated networks, refer to our paper. cl stands for Chung-Lu graphs er stands for Erdős-Rényi graphs deg_20 indicates that the average degree is 20, otherwise it is 10 girg stands for geometric inhomogeneous random graphs girg_square means that a square was used as ground space, otherwise a torus was used girg_deg_scaling contains girgs with various average degrees Output Data: Computation Results The raw data computed by our experiments is contained in output_data.zip. Additionally, there are three csv files summarizing all computed statistics for the networks. graph_stats.csv contains the stats for all graphs graph_stats_real.csv contains the same stats but only for the graphs from Network Repository graph_stats_gen.csv contains stats for the generated networks, including the parameters used to generate them

A standard approach to accelerating shortest path algorithms on networks is the bidirectional search, which explores the graph from the start and the destination, simultaneously. In practice this strategy performs particularly well on scale-free real-world networks. Such networks typically have a heterogeneous degree distribution (e.g., a power-law distribution) and high clustering (i.e., vertices with a common neighbor are likely to be connected themselves). These two properties can be obtained by assuming an underlying hyperbolic geometry. To explain the observed behavior of the bidirectional search, we analyze its running time on hyperbolic random graphs and prove that it is Õ( n 2 - 1/α + n 1/(2α) + δ max ) with high probability, where α ∈ (1/2, 1) controls the power-law exponent of the degree distribution, and δ max is the maximum degree. This bound is sublinear, improving the obvious worst-case linear bound. Although our analysis depends on the underlying geometry, the algorithm itself is oblivious to it.

Finding a minimum vertex cover in a network is a fundamental NP-complete graph problem. One way to deal with its computational hardness, is to trade the qualitative performance of an algorithm (allowing non-optimal outputs) for an improved running time. For the vertex cover problem, there is a gap between theory and practice when it comes to understanding this tradeoff. On the one hand, it is known that it is NP-hard to approximate a minimum vertex cover within a factor of √2. On the other hand, a simple greedy algorithm yields close to optimal approximations in practice. A promising approach towards understanding this discrepancy is to recognize the differences between theoretical worst-case instances and real-world networks. Following this direction, we close the gap between theory and practice by providing an algorithm that efficiently computes nearly optimal vertex cover approximations on hyperbolic random graphs; a network model that closely resembles real-world networks in terms of degree distribution, clustering, and the small-world property. More precisely, our algorithm computes a (1 + o(1))-approximation, asymptotically almost surely, and has a running time of 𝒪(m log(n)). The proposed algorithm is an adaption of the successful greedy approach, enhanced with a procedure that improves on parts of the graph where greedy is not optimal. This makes it possible to introduce a parameter that can be used to tune the tradeoff between approximation performance and running time. Our empirical evaluation on real-world networks shows that this allows for improving over the near-optimal results of the greedy approach.

We study the maximum-flow/minimum-cut problem on scale-free networks, i.e., graphs whose degree distribution follows a power-law. We propose a simple algorithm that capitalizes on the fact that often only a small fraction of such a network is relevant for the flow. At its core, our algorithm augments Dinitz's algorithm with a balanced bidirectional search. Our experiments on a scale-free random network model indicate sublinear run time. On scale-free real-world networks, we outperform the commonly used highest-label Push-Relabel implementation by up to two orders of magnitude. Compared to Dinitz's original algorithm, our modifications reduce the search space, e.g., by a factor of 275 on an autonomous systems graph. Beyond these good run times, our algorithm has an additional advantage compared to Push-Relabel. The latter computes a preflow, which makes the extraction of a minimum cut potentially more difficult. This is relevant, for example, for the computation of Gomory-Hu trees. On a social network with 70000 nodes, our algorithm computes the Gomory-Hu tree in 3 seconds compared to 12 minutes when using Push-Relabel.

We introduce the problem Synchronized Planarity. Roughly speaking, its input is a loop-free multi-graph together with synchronization constraints that, e.g., match pairs of vertices of equal degree by providing a bijection between their edges. Synchronized Planarity then asks whether the graph admits a crossing-free embedding into the plane such that the orders of edges around synchronized vertices are consistent. We show, on the one hand, that Synchronized Planarity can be solved in quadratic time, and, on the other hand, that it serves as a powerful modeling language that lets us easily formulate several constrained planarity problems as instances of Synchronized Planarity. In particular, this lets us solve Clustered Planarity in quadratic time, where the most efficient previously known algorithm has an upper bound of O(n⁸).

The cluster editing problem is to transform an input graph into a cluster graph by performing a minimum number of edge editing operations. A cluster graph is a graph where each connected component is a clique. An edit operation can be either adding a new edge or removing an existing edge. In this write-up we outline the core techniques used in the exact cluster editing algorithm of the KaPoCE framework (contains also a heuristic solver), submitted to the exact track of the 2021 PACE challenge.

The cluster editing problem is to transform an input graph into a cluster graph by performing a minimum number of edge editing operations. A cluster graph is a graph where each connected component is a clique. An edit operation can be either adding a new edge or removing an existing edge. In this write-up we outline the core techniques used in the heuristic cluster editing algorithm of the Karlsruhe and Potsdam Cluster Editing (KaPoCE) framework, submitted to the heuristic track of the 2021 PACE challenge.

Satisfiability is considered the canonical NP-complete problem and is used as a starting point for hardness reductions in theory, while in practice heuristic SAT solving algorithms can solve large-scale industrial SAT instances very efficiently. This disparity between theory and practice is believed to be a result of inherent properties of industrial SAT instances that make them tractable. Two characteristic properties seem to be prevalent in the majority of real-world SAT instances, heterogeneous degree distribution and locality. To understand the impact of these two properties on SAT, we study the proof complexity of random k-SAT models that allow to control heterogeneity and locality. Our findings show that heterogeneity alone does not make SAT easy as heterogeneous random k-SAT instances have superpolynomial resolution size. This implies intractability of these instances for modern SAT-solvers. On the other hand, modeling locality with an underlying geometry leads to small unsatisfiable subformulas, which can be found within polynomial time. A key ingredient for the result on geometric random k-SAT can be found in the complexity of higher-order Voronoi diagrams. As an additional technical contribution, we show an upper bound on the number of non-empty Voronoi regions, that holds for points with random positions in a very general setting. In particular, it covers arbitrary p-norms, higher dimensions, and weights affecting the area of influence of each point multiplicatively. Our bound is linear in the total weight. This is in stark contrast to quadratic lower bounds for the worst case.

Force-directed drawing algorithms are the most commonly used approach to visualize networks. While they are usually very robust, the performance of Euclidean spring embedders decreases if the graph exhibits the high level of heterogeneity that typically occurs in scale-free real-world networks. As heterogeneity naturally emerges from hyperbolic geometry (in fact, scale-free networks are often perceived to have an underlying hyperbolic geometry), it is natural to embed them into the hyperbolic plane instead. Previous techniques that produce hyperbolic embeddings usually make assumptions about the given network, which (if not met) impairs the quality of the embedding. It is still an open problem to adapt force-directed embedding algorithms to make use of the heterogeneity of the hyperbolic plane, while also preserving their robustness. We identify fundamental differences between the behavior of spring embedders in Euclidean and hyperbolic space, and adapt the technique to take advantage of the heterogeneity of the hyperbolic plane.

Traditional navigation services find the fastest route for a single driver. Though always using the fastest route seems desirable for every individual, selfish behavior can have undesirable effects such as higher energy consumption and avoidable congestion, even leading to higher overall and individual travel times. In contrast, strategic routing aims at optimizing the traffic for all agents regarding a global optimization goal. We introduce a framework to formalize real-world strategic routing scenarios as algorithmic problems and study one of them, which we call Single Alternative Path (SAP), in detail. There, we are given an original route between a single origin--destination pair. The goal is to suggest an alternative route to all agents that optimizes the overall travel time under the assumption that the agents distribute among both routes according to a psychological model, for which we introduce the concept of Pareto-conformity. We show that the SAP problem is NP-complete, even for such models. Nonetheless, assuming Pareto-conformity, we give multiple algorithms for different variants of SAP, using multi-criteria shortest path algorithms as subroutines. Moreover, we prove that several natural models are in fact Pareto-conform. The implementation of our algorithms serves as a proof of concept, showing that SAP can be solved in reasonable time even though the algorithms have exponential running time in the worst case.

We investigate the maximum-entropy model B_{n,m,p} for random n-vertex, m-edge multi-hypergraphs with expected edge size pn. We show that the expected size of the minimization min(B_{n,m,p}), i.e., the number of inclusion-wise minimal edges of B_{n,m,p}, undergoes a phase transition with respect to m. If m is at most 1/(1-p)^{(1-p)n}, then E[|min(B_{n,m,p})|] is of order Θ(m), while for m ≥ 1/(1-p)^{(1-p+ε)n} for any ε > 0, it is Θ(2^{(H(α) + (1-α) log₂ p) n}/√n). Here, H denotes the binary entropy function and α = - (log_{1-p} m)/n. The result implies that the maximum expected number of minimal edges over all m is Θ((1+p)ⁿ/√n). Our structural findings have algorithmic implications for minimizing an input hypergraph. This has applications in the profiling of relational databases as well as for the Orthogonal Vectors problem studied in fine-grained complexity. We make several technical contributions that are of independent interest in probability. First, we improve the Chernoff-Hoeffding theorem on the tail of the binomial distribution. In detail, we show that for a binomial variable Y ∼ Bin(n,p) and any 0 < x < p, it holds that P[Y ≤ xn] = Θ(2^{-D(x‖p) n}/√n), where D is the binary Kullback-Leibler divergence between Bernoulli distributions. We give explicit upper and lower bounds on the constants hidden in the big-O notation that hold for all n. Secondly, we establish the fact that the probability of a set of cardinality i being minimal after m i.i.d. maximum-entropy trials exhibits a sharp threshold behavior at i^* = n + log_{1-p} m.

We devise an enumeration method for inclusion-wise minimal hitting sets in hypergraphs. It has delay O(mk* +1 · n2) and uses linear space. Hereby, n is the number of vertices, m the number of hyperedges, and k* the rank of the transversal hypergraph. In particular, on classes of hypergraphs for which the cardinality k* of the largest minimal hitting set is bounded, the delay is polynomial. The algorithm solves the extension problem for minimal hitting sets as a subroutine. We show that the extension problem is W[3]-complete when parameterised by the cardinality of the set which is to be extended. For the subroutine, we give an algorithm that is optimal under the exponential time hypothesis. Despite these lower bounds, we provide empirical evidence showing that the enumeration outperforms the theoretical worst-case guarantee on hypergraphs arising in the profiling of relational databases, namely, in the detection of unique column combinations.

Hyperbolic random graphs (HRG) and geometric inhomogeneous random graphs (GIRG) are two similar generative network models that were designed to resemble complex real world networks. In particular, they have a power-law degree distribution with controllable exponent beta, and high clustering that can be controlled via the temperature T. We present the first implementation of an efficient GIRG generator running in expected linear time. Besides varying temperatures, it also supports underlying geometries of higher dimensions. It is capable of generating graphs with ten million edges in under a second on commodity hardware. The algorithm can be adapted to HRGs. Our resulting implementation is the fastest sequential HRG generator, despite the fact that we support non-zero temperatures. Though non-zero temperatures are crucial for many applications, most existing generators are restricted to T = 0. We also support parallelization, although this is not the focus of this paper. Moreover, we note that our generators draw from the correct probability distribution, i.e., they involve no approximation. Besides the generators themselves, we also provide an efficient algorithm to determine the non-trivial dependency between the average degree of the resulting graph and the input parameters of the GIRG model. This makes it possible to specify the desired expected average degree as input. Moreover, we investigate the differences between HRGs and GIRGs, shedding new light on the nature of the relation between the two models. Although HRGs represent, in a certain sense, a special case of the GIRG model, we find that a straight-forward inclusion does not hold in practice. However, the difference is negligible for most use cases.

The hardness of formulas at the solubility phase transition of random propositional satisfiability (SAT) has been intensely studied for decades both empirically and theoretically. Solvers based on stochastic local search (SLS) appear to scale very well at the critical threshold, while complete backtracking solvers exhibit exponential scaling. On industrial SAT instances, this phenomenon is inverted: backtracking solvers can tackle large industrial problems, where SLS-based solvers appear to stall. Industrial instances exhibit sharply different structure than uniform random instances. Among many other properties, they are often heterogeneous in the sense that some variables appear in many while others appear in only few clauses. We conjecture that the heterogeneity of SAT formulas alone already contributes to the trade-off in performance between SLS solvers and complete backtracking solvers. We empirically determine how the run time of SLS vs. backtracking solvers depends on the heterogeneity of the input, which is controlled by drawing variables according to a scale-free distribution. Our experiments reveal that the efficiency of complete solvers at the phase transition is strongly related to the heterogeneity of the degree distribution. We report results that suggest the depth of satisfying assignments in complete search trees is influenced by the level of heterogeneity as measured by a power-law exponent. We also find that incomplete SLS solvers, which scale well on uniform instances, are not affected by heterogeneity. The main contribution of this paper utilizes the scale-free random 3-SAT model to isolate heterogeneity as an important factor in the scaling discrepancy between complete and SLS solvers at the uniform phase transition found in previous works.

Greedy routing computes paths between nodes in a network by successively moving to the neighbor closest to the target with respect to coordinates given by an embedding into some metric space. Its advantage is that only local information is used for routing decisions. We present different algorithms for generating graph embeddings into the hyperbolic plane that are well suited for greedy routing. In particular our embeddings guarantee that greedy routing always succeeds in reaching the target and we try to minimize the lengths of the resulting greedy paths. We evaluate our algorithm on multiple generated and real wold networks. For networks that are generally assumed to have a hidden underlying hyperbolic geometry, such as the Internet graph [2], we achieve near-optimal results, i.e., the resulting greedy paths are only slightly longer than the corresponding shortest paths. In the case of the Internet graph, they are only 6% longer when using our best algorithm, which greatly improves upon the previous best known embedding, whose creation required substantial manual intervention.

A common way to accelerate shortest path algorithms on graphs is the use of a bidirectional search, which simultaneously explores the graph from the start and the destination. It has been observed recently that this strategy performs particularly well on scale-free real-world networks. Such networks typically have a heterogeneous degree distribution (e.g., a power-law distribution) and high clustering (i.e., vertices with a common neighbor are likely to be connected themselves). These two properties can be obtained by assuming an underlying hyperbolic geometry. To explain the observed behavior of the bidirectional search, we analyze its running time on hyperbolic random graphs and prove that it is {O~}(n^{2 - 1/alpha} + n^{1/(2 alpha)} + delta_{max}) with high probability, where alpha in (0.5, 1) controls the power-law exponent of the degree distribution, and delta_{max} is the maximum degree. This bound is sublinear, improving the obvious worst-case linear bound. Although our analysis depends on the underlying geometry, the algorithm itself is oblivious to it.

Modern routing algorithms reduce query time by depending heavily on preprocessed data. The recently developed Navigation Data Standard (NDS) enforces a separation between algorithms and map data, rendering preprocessing inapplicable. Furthermore, map data is partitioned into tiles with respect to their geographic coordinates. With the limited memory found in portable devices, the number of tiles loaded becomes the major factor for run time. We study routing under these restrictions and present new algorithms as well as empirical evaluations. Our results show that, on average, the most efficient algorithm presented uses more than 20 times fewer tile loads than a normal A.

We present TrussFab, an integrated end-to-end system that allows users to fabricate large scale structures that are sturdy enough to carry human weight. TrussFab achieves the large scale by complementing 3D print with plastic bottles. It does not use these bottles as "bricks" though, but as beams that form structurally sound node-link structures, also known as trusses, allowing it to handle the forces resulting from scale and load. TrussFab embodies the required engineering knowledge, allowing non-engineers to design such structures and to validate their design using integrated structural analysis. We have used TrussFab to design and fabricate tables and chairs, a 2.5 m long bridge strong enough to carry a human, a functional boat that seats two, and a 5 m diameter dome.

Isocontours in road networks represent the area that is reachable from a source within a given resource limit. We study the problem of computing accurate isocontours in realistic, large-scale networks. We propose isocontours represented by polygons with minimum number of segments that separate reachable and unreachable components of the network. Since the resulting problem is not known to be solvable in polynomial time, we introduce several heuristics that run in (almost) linear time and are simple enough to be implemented in practice. A key ingredient is a new practical linear-time algorithm for minimum-link paths in simple polygons. Experiments in a challenging realistic setting show excellent performance of our algorithms in practice, computing near-optimal solutions in a few milliseconds on average, even for long ranges.

Hyperbolic random graphs share many common properties with complex real-world networks; e.g., small diameter and average distance, large clustering coefficient, and a power-law degree sequence with adjustable exponent beta. Thus, when analyzing algorithms for large networks, potentially more realistic results can be achieved by assuming the input to be a hyperbolic random graph of size n. The worst-case run-time is then replaced by the expected run-time or by bounds that hold with high probability (whp), i.e., with probability 1-O(1/n). Though many structural properties of hyperbolic random graphs have been studied, almost no algorithmic results are known. Divide-and-conquer is an important algorithmic design principle that works particularly well if the instance admits small separators. We show that hyperbolic random graphs in fact have comparatively small separators. More precisely, we show that they can be expected to have balanced separator hierarchies with separators of size O(n^{3/2-beta/2}), O(log n), and O(1) if 2 < beta < 3, beta = 3, and 3 < beta, respectively. We infer that these graphs have whp a treewidth of O(n^{3/2-beta/2}), O(log^2 n), and O(log n), respectively. For 2 < \beta < 3, this matches a known lower bound. To demonstrate the usefulness of our results, we give several algorithmic applications.

Hyperbolic geometry appears to be intrinsic in many large real networks. We construct and implement a new maximum likelihood estimation algorithm that embeds scale-free graphs in the hyperbolic space. All previous approaches of similar embedding algorithms require a runtime of Omega(n^2). Our algorithm achieves quasilinear runtime, which makes it the first algorithm that can embed networks with hundreds of thousands of nodes in less than one hour. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on artificial and real networks. In all typical metrics like Log-likelihood and greedy routing our algorithm discovers embeddings that are very close to the ground truth.

We study the parameterized complexity of classical problems that arise in the profiling of relational data. Namely, we characterize the complexity of detecting unique column combinations (candidate keys), functional dependencies, and inclusion dependencies with the solution size as parameter. While the discovery of uniques and functional dependencies, respectively, turns out to be W[2]-complete, the detection of inclusion dependencies is one of the first natural problems proven to be complete for the class W[3]. As a side effect, our reductions give insights into the complexity of enumerating all minimal unique column combinations or functional dependencies.

In this article, we define and study the new problem of S imultaneous PQ-O rdering . Its input consists of a set of PQ-trees, which represent sets of circular orders of their leaves, together with a set of child-parent relations between these PQ-trees, such that the leaves of the child form a subset of the leaves of the parent. S imultaneous PQ-O rdering asks whether orders of the leaves of each of the trees can be chosen simultaneously ; that is, for every child-parent relation, the order chosen for the parent is an extension of the order chosen for the child. We show that S imultaneous PQ-O rdering is NP -complete in general, and we identify a family of instances that can be solved efficiently, the 2-fixed instances . We show that this result serves as a framework for several other problems that can be formulated as instances of S imultaneous PQ-O rdering . In particular, we give linear-time algorithms for recognizing simultaneous interval graphs and extending partial interval representations. Moreover, we obtain a linear-time algorithm for P artially PQ-C onstrained P lanarity for biconnected graphs, which asks for a planar embedding in the presence of PQ-trees that restrict the possible orderings of edges around vertices, and a quadratic-time algorithm for S imultaneous E mbedding with F ixed E dges for biconnected graphs with a connected intersection. Both results can be extended to the case where the input graphs are not necessarily biconnected but have the property that each cutvertex is contained in at most two nontrivial blocks. This includes, for example, the case where both graphs have a maximum degree of 5.

Traditionally, the quality of orthogonal planar drawings is quantified by the total number of bends or the maximum number of bends per edge. However, this neglects that, in typical applications, edges have varying importance. We consider the problem O ptimal F lex D raw that is defined as follows. Given a planar graph G on n vertices with maximum degree 4 ( 4-planar graph ) and for each edge e a cost function cost e : N 0 → R defining costs depending on the number of bends e has, compute a planar orthogonal drawing of G of minimum cost. In this generality O ptimal F lex D raw is NP-hard. We show that it can be solved efficiently if (1) the cost function of each edge is convex and (2) the first bend on each edge does not cause any cost. Our algorithm takes time O ( n , ⋅, T flow ( n ) and O ( n 2 , ⋅, T flow ( n )) for biconnected and connected graphs, respectively, where T flow ( n ) denotes the time to compute a minimum-cost flow in a planar network with multiple sources and sinks. Our result is the first polynomial-time bend-optimization algorithm for general 4-planar graphs optimizing over all embeddings. Previous work considers restricted graph classes and unit costs.

In this paper, we define and study the new problem Simultaneous PQ-Ordering. Its input consists of a set of PQ-trees, which represent sets of circular orders of their leaves, together with a set of child-parent relations between these PQ-trees, such that the leaves of the child form a subset of the leaves of the parent. Simultaneous PQ-Ordering asks whether orders of the leaves of each of the trees can be chosen simultaneously, that is, for every child-parent relation the order chosen for the parent is an extension of the order chosen for the child. We show that Simultaneous PQ-Ordering is -complete in general and we identify a family of instances that can be solved efficiently, the 2-fixed instances. We show that this result serves as a framework for several other problems that can be formulated as instances of Simultaneous PQ-Ordering. In particular, we give linear-time algorithms for recognizing simultaneous interval graphs and extending partial interval representations. Moreover, we obtain a linear-time algorithm for Partially PQ-Constrained Planarity for biconnected graphs, which asks for a planar embedding in the presence of PQ-trees that restrict the possible orderings of edges around vertices, and a quadratic-time algorithm for Simultaneous Embedding with Fixed Edges for biconnected graphs with a connected intersection. Both results can be extended to the case where the input graphs are not necessarily biconnected but have the property that each cutvertex is contained in at most two non-trivial blocks. This includes for example the case where both graphs have maximum degree 5.