Consider two planar graphs which are subject to edge insertions and deletions. We show that whether the two graphs are isomorphic can be maintained with first-order logic formulas and auxiliary data of polynomial size. This places the dynamic planar graph isomorphism problem into the dynamic descriptive complexity class DynFO. As a consequence, there is a dynamic constant-time parallel algorithm with polynomial-size auxiliary data which maintains whether two dynamic planar graphs are isomorphic.

Constructing a Depth First Search (DFS) tree is a fundamental graph problem, whose parallel complexity is still not settled. Reif showed parallel intractability of lex-first DFS. In contrast, randomized parallel algorithms (and more recently, deterministic quasipolynomial parallel algorithms) are known for constructing a DFS tree in general (di)graphs. However a deterministic parallel algorithm for DFS in general graphs remains an elusive goal. Working towards this, a series of works gave deterministic NC algorithms for DFS in planar graphs and digraphs. We further extend these results to more general graph classes, by providing NC algorithms for (di)graphs of bounded genus, and for undirected H-minor-free graphs where H is a fixed graph with at most one crossing. For the case of (di)graphs of bounded treewidth, we further improve the complexity to a Logspace bound. Constructing a maximal path is a simpler problem (that reduces to DFS) for which no deterministic parallel bounds are known for general graphs. For planar graphs a bound of O(log n) parallel time on a CRCW PRAM (thus in NC²) is known. We improve this bound to Logspace.

Let $G$ be a finite group given as input by its multiplication table. For a subset $S$ of $G$ and an element $g\in G$ the Cayley Group Membership Problem (denoted CGM) is to check if $g$ belongs to the subgroup generated by $S$. While this problem is easily seen to be in polynomial time, pinpointing its parallel complexity has been of research interest over the years. In this paper we further explore the parallel complexity of the abelian CGM problem, with focus on the dynamic setting: the generating set $S$ changes with insertions and deletions and the goal is to maintain a data structure that supports efficient membership queries to the subgroup $\angle{S}$. We obtain the following results: 1. We first consider the more general problem of Monoid Membership. When $G$ is a commutative monoid we give a deterministic dynamic algorithm constant time parallel algorithm for membership testing that supports $O(1)$ insertions and deletions in each step. 2. Building on the previous result we show that there is a dynamic randomized constant-time parallel algorithm for abelian CGM that supports polylogarithmically many insertions/deletions to $S$ in each step. 3. If the number of insertions/deletions is at most $O(\log n/\log\log n)$ then we obtain a deterministic dynamic constant-time parallel algorithm for the problem. 4. We obtain analogous results for the dynamic abelian Group Isomorphism.

Finding a simple path of even length between two designated vertices in a directed graph is a fundamental NP-complete problem known as the EvenPath problem. Nedev proved in 1999, that for directed planar graphs, the problem can be solved in polynomial time. More than two decades since then, we make the first progress in extending the tractable classes of graphs for this problem. We give a polynomial time algorithm to solve the EvenPath problem for classes of H-minor-free directed graphs,1 where H is a single-crossing graph. We make two new technical contributions along the way, that might be of independent interest. The first, and perhaps our main, contribution is the construction of small, planar, parity-mimicking networks. These are graphs that mimic parities of all possible paths between a designated set of terminals of the original graph. Finding vertex disjoint paths between given source-destination pairs of vertices is another fundamental problem, known to be NP-complete in directed graphs, though known to be tractable in planar directed graphs. We encounter a natural variant of this problem, that of finding disjoint paths between given pairs of vertices, but with constraints on parity of the total length of paths. The other significant contribution of our paper is to give a polynomial time algorithm for the 3-disjoint paths with total parity problem, in directed planar graphs with some restrictions (and also in directed graphs of bounded treewidth).

Which dynamic queries can be maintained efficiently? For constant-size changes, it is known that constant-depth circuits or, equivalently, first-order updates suffice for maintaining many important queries, among them reachability, tree isomorphism, and the word problem for context-free languages. In other words, these queries are in the dynamic complexity class DynFO. We show that most of the existing results for constant-size changes can be recovered for batch changes of polylogarithmic size if one allows circuits of depth O(log log n) or, equivalently, first-order updates that are iterated O(log log n) times.

Planar Embedding is a drawing of a graph on the plane such that the edges do not intersect each other except at the vertices. We know that testing the planarity of a graph and computing its embedding (if it exists), can efficiently be computed, both sequentially [HT] and in parallel [RR94], when the entire graph is presented as input. In the dynamic setting, the input graph changes one edge at a time through insertion and deletions and planarity testing/embedding has to be updated after every change. By storing auxilliary information we can improve the complexity of dynamic planarity testing/embedding over the obvious recomputation from scratch. In the sequential dynamic setting, there has been a series of works [EGIS, IPR, HIKLR, HR1], culminating in the breakthrough result of polylog(n) sequential time (amortized) planarity testing algorithm of Holm and Rotenberg [HR2]. In this paper, we study planar embedding through the lens of DynFO, a parallel dynamic complexity class introduced by Patnaik et al. [PI] (also [DST95]). We show that it is possible to dynamically maintain whether an edge can be inserted to a planar graph without causing non-planarity in DynFO. We extend this to show how to maintain an embedding of a planar graph under both edge insertions and deletions, while rejecting edge insertions that violate planarity. Our main idea is to maintain embeddings of only the triconnected components and a special two-colouring of separating pairs that enables us to side-step cascading flips when embedding of a biconnected planar graph changes, a major issue for sequential dynamic algorithms [HR1, HR2].

Reachability, distance, and matching are some of the most fundamental graph problems that have been of particular interest in dynamic complexity theory in recent years [Samir Datta et al., 2018; Samir Datta et al., 2018; Samir Datta et al., 2020]. Reachability can be maintained with first-order update formulas, or equivalently in DynFO in general graphs with n nodes [Samir Datta et al., 2018], even under O(log(n)/log log(n)) changes per step [Samir Datta et al., 2018]. In the context of how large the number of changes can be handled, it has recently been shown [Samir Datta et al., 2020] that under a polylogarithmic number of changes, reachability is in DynFOpar in planar, bounded treewidth, and related graph classes - in fact in any graph where small non-zero circulation weights can be computed in NC. We continue this line of investigation and extend the meta-theorem for reachability to distance and bipartite maximum matching with the same bounds. These are amongst the most general classes of graphs known where we can maintain these problems deterministically without using a majority quantifier and even maintain witnesses. For the bipartite matching result, modifying the approach from [Stephen A. Fenner et al., 2016], we convert the static non-zero circulation weights to dynamic matching-isolating weights. While reachability is in DynFOar under O(log(n)/log log(n)) changes, no such bound is known for either distance or matching in any non-trivial class of graphs under non-constant changes. We show that, in the same classes of graphs as before, bipartite maximum matching is in DynFOar under O(log(n)/log log(n)) changes per step. En route to showing this we prove that the rank of a matrix can be maintained in DynFOar, also under O(log(n)/log log(n)) entry changes, improving upon the previous O(1) bound [Samir Datta et al., 2018]. This implies a similar extension for the non-uniform DynFO bound for maximum matching in general graphs and an alternate algorithm for maintaining reachability under O(log(n)/log log(n)) changes [Samir Datta et al., 2018].

We show that for each single crossing graph $H$, a polynomially bounded weight function for all $H$-minor free graphs $G$ can be constructed in Logspace such that it gives nonzero weights to all the cycles in $G$. This class of graphs subsumes almost all classes of graphs for which such a weight function is known to be constructed in Logspace. As a consequence, we obtain that for the class of $H$-minor free graphs where $H$ is a single crossing graph, reachability can be solved in UL, and bipartite maximum matching can be solved in SPL, which are small subclasses of the parallel complexity class NC. In the restrictive case of bipartite graphs, our maximum matching result improves upon the recent result of Eppstein and Vazirani, where they show an NC bound for constructing perfect matching in general single crossing minor free graphs.

We present an algorithm for constructing a depth-first search tree in planar digraphs; the algorithm can be implemented in the complexity class AC^1(UL∩co-UL), which is contained in AC². Prior to this (for more than a quarter-century), the fastest uniform deterministic parallel algorithm for this problem was O(log^{10}n) (corresponding to the complexity class AC^{10} ⊆ NC^{11}). We also consider the problem of computing depth-first search trees in other classes of graphs, and obtain additional new upper bounds.

We present a parallel algorithm for permanent mod 2^k of a matrix of univariate integer polynomials. It places the problem in ParityL subset of NC^2. This extends the techniques of [Valiant], [Braverman, Kulkarni, Roy] and [Björklund, Husfeldt], and yields a (randomized) parallel algorithm for shortest 2-disjoint paths improving upon the recent result from (randomized) polynomial time. We also recognize the disjoint paths problem as a special case of finding disjoint cycles, and present (randomized) parallel algorithms for finding a shortest cycle and shortest 2-disjoint cycles passing through any given fixed number of vertices or edges.

In 2015, it was shown that reachability for arbitrary directed graphs can be updated by first-order formulas after inserting or deleting single edges. Later, in 2018, this was extended for changes of size $\frac{\log n}{\log \log n}$, where $n$ is the size of the graph. Changes of polylogarithmic size can be handled when also majority quantifiers may be used. In this paper we extend these results by showing that, for changes of polylogarithmic size, first-order update formulas suffice for maintaining (1) undirected reachability, and (2) directed reachability under insertions. For classes of directed graphs for which efficient parallel algorithms can compute non-zero circulation weights, reachability can be maintained with update formulas that may use "modulo 2" quantifiers under changes of polylogarithmic size. Examples for these classes include the class of planar graphs and graphs with bounded treewidth. The latter is shown here. As the logics we consider cannot maintain reachability under changes of larger sizes, our results are optimal with respect to the size of the changes.

In the setting of DynFO, dynamic programs update the stored result of a query whenever the underlying data changes. This update is expressed in terms of first-order logic. We introduce a strategy for constructing dynamic programs that utilises periodic computation of auxiliary data from scratch and the ability to maintain a query for a limited number of change steps. We show that if some program can maintain a query for log n change steps after an AC$^1$-computable initialisation, it can be maintained by a first-order dynamic program as well, i.e., in DynFO. As an application, it is shown that decision and optimisation problems defined by monadic second-order (MSO) formulas are in DynFO, if only change sequences that produce graphs of bounded treewidth are allowed. To establish this result, a Feferman-Vaught-type composition theorem for MSO is established that might be useful in its own right.

The well-known k-disjoint path problem (k-DPP) asks for pairwise vertex-disjoint paths between k specified pairs of vertices (s_i, t_i) in a given graph, if they exist. The decision version of the shortest k-DPP asks for the length of the shortest (in terms of total length) such paths. Similarly, the search and counting versions ask for one such and the number of such shortest set of paths, respectively. We restrict attention to the shortest k-DPP instances on undirected planar graphs where all sources and sinks lie on a single face or on a pair of faces. We provide efficient sequential and parallel algorithms for the search versions of the problem answering one of the main open questions raised by Colin de Verdière and Schrijver [Éric Colin de Verdière and Alexander Schrijver, 2011] for the general one-face problem. We do so by providing a randomised NC^2 algorithm along with an O(n^{omega/2}) time randomised sequential algorithm, for any fixed k. We also obtain deterministic algorithms with similar resource bounds for the counting and search versions. In contrast, previously, only the sequential complexity of decision and search versions of the "well-ordered" case has been studied. For the one-face case, sequential versions of our routines have better running times for constantly many terminals. The algorithms are based on a bijection between a shortest k-tuple of disjoint paths in the given graph and cycle covers in a related digraph. This allows us to non-trivially modify established techniques relating counting cycle covers to the determinant. We further need to do a controlled inclusion-exclusion to produce a polynomial sum of determinants such that all "bad" cycle covers cancel out in the sum allowing us to count "pure" cycle covers.

Recently it was shown that the transitive closure of a directed graph can be updated using first-order formulas after insertions and deletions of single edges in the dynamic descriptive complexity framework by Dong, Su, and Topor, and Patnaik and Immerman. In other words, Reachability is in DynFO. In this article we extend the framework to changes of multiple edges at a time, and study the Reachability and Distance queries under these changes. We show that the former problem can be maintained in DynFO(+, x) under changes affecting O({log n}/{log log n}) nodes, for graphs with n nodes. If the update formulas may use a majority quantifier then both Reachability and Distance can be maintained under changes that affect O(log^c n) nodes, for fixed c in N. Some preliminary results towards showing that distances are in DynFO are discussed.

Perfect matchings in planar graphs have been extensively studied and understood in the context of parallel complexity [P W Kastelyn, 1967; Vijay Vazirani, 1988; Meena Mahajan and Kasturi R. Varadarajan, 2000; Datta et al., 2010; Nima Anari and Vijay V. Vazirani, 2017]. However, corresponding results for maximum matchings have been elusive. We partly bridge this gap by proving: 1) An SPL upper bound for planar bipartite maximum matching search. 2) Planar maximum matching search reduces to planar maximum matching decision. 3) Planar maximum matching count reduces to planar bipartite maximum matching count and planar maximum matching decision. The first bound improves on the known [Thanh Minh Hoang, 2010] bound of L^{C_=L} and is adaptable to any special bipartite graph class with non-zero circulation such as bounded genus graphs, K_{3,3}-free graphs and K_5-free graphs. Our bounds and reductions non-trivially combine techniques like the Gallai-Edmonds decomposition [L. Lovász and M.D. Plummer, 1986], deterministic isolation [Datta et al., 2010; Samir Datta et al., 2012; Rahul Arora et al., 2016], and the recent breakthroughs in the parallel search for planar perfect matchings [Nima Anari and Vijay V. Vazirani, 2017; Piotr Sankowski, 2018].

Patnaik and Immerman introduced the dynamic complexity class DynFO of database queries that can be maintained by first-order dynamic programs with the help of auxiliary relations under insertions and deletions of edges. This article confirms their conjecture that the reachability query is in DynFO. As a byproduct, it is shown that the rank of a matrix with small values can be maintained in DynFO. It is further shown that the (size of the) maximum matching of a graph can be maintained in non-uniform DynFO, an extension of DynFO, with non-uniform initialisation of the auxiliary relations.

A strategy for constructing dynamic programs is introduced that utilises periodic computation of auxiliary data from scratch and the ability to maintain a query for a limited number of change steps. It is established that if some program can maintain a query for log n change steps after an AC^1-computable initialisation, it can be maintained by a first-order dynamic program as well, i.e., in DynFO. As an application, it is shown that decision and optimisation problems defined by monadic second-order (MSO) and guarded second-order logic (GSO) formulas are in DynFO, if only change sequences that produce graphs of bounded treewidth are allowed. To establish this result, Feferman-Vaught-type composition theorems for MSO and GSO are established that might be useful in their own right.

The query complexity of graph properties is well-studied when queries are on edges. We investigate the same when queries are on nodes. In this setting a graph $G = (V, E)$ on $n$ vertices and a property $\mathcal{P}$ are given. A black-box access to an unknown subset $S \subseteq V$ is provided via queries of the form `Does $i \in S$?'. We are interested in the minimum number of queries needed in worst case in order to determine whether $G[S]$, the subgraph of $G$ induced on $S$, satisfies $\mathcal{P}$. Apart from being combinatorially rich, this setting allows us to initiate a systematic study of breaking symmetry in the context of query complexity of graph properties. In particular, we focus on hereditary graph properties. The monotone functions in the node-query setting translate precisely to the hereditary graph properties. The famous Evasiveness Conjecture asserts that even with a minimal symmetry assumption on $G$, namely that of vertex-transitivity, the query complexity for any hereditary graph property in our setting is the worst possible, i.e., $n$. We show that in the absence of any symmetry on $G$ it can fall as low as $O(n^{1/(d + 1) })$ where $d$ denotes the minimum possible degree of a minimal forbidden sub-graph for $\mathcal{P}$. In particular, every hereditary property benefits at least quadratically. The main question left open is: can it go exponentially low for some hereditary property? We show that the answer is no for any hereditary property with {finitely many} forbidden subgraphs by exhibiting a bound of $Ω(n^{1/k})$ for some constant $k$ depending only on the property. For general ones we rule out the possibility of the query complexity falling down to constant by showing $Ω(\log n/ \log \log n)$ bound. Interestingly, our lower bound proofs rely on the famous Sunflower Lemma due to Erdös and Rado.

We present a Logspace Approximation Scheme (LSAS), i.e. an approximation algorithm for maximum matching in planar graphs (not necessarily bipartite) that achieves an approximation ratio arbitrarily close to one, using only logarithmic space. This deviates from the well known Baker's approach for approximation in planar graphs by avoiding the use of distance computation - which is not known to be in Logspace. Our algorithm actually works for any "recursively sparse" graph class which contains a linear size matching and also for certain other classes like bounded genus graphs. The scheme is based on an LSAS in bounded degree graphs which are not known to be amenable to Baker's method. We solve the bounded degree case by parallel augmentation of short augmenting paths. Finding a large number of such disjoint paths can, in turn, be reduced to finding a large independent set in a bounded degree graph. The bounded degree assumption allows us to obtain a Logspace algorithm.

We show that counting Euler tours in undirected bounded tree-width graphs is tractable even in parallel - by proving a GapL upper bound. This is in stark contrast to #P-completeness of the same problem in general graphs. Our main technical contribution is to show how (an instance of) dynamic programming on bounded clique-width graphs can be performed efficiently in parallel. Thus we show that the sequential result of Espelage, Gurski and Wanke for efficiently computing Hamiltonian paths in bounded clique-width graphs can be adapted in the parallel setting to count the number of Hamiltonian paths which in turn is a tool for counting the number of Euler tours in bounded tree-width graphs. Our technique also yields parallel algorithms for counting longest paths and bipartite perfect matchings in bounded-clique width graphs. While establishing that counting Euler tours in bounded tree-width graphs can be computed by non-uniform monotone arithmetic circuits of polynomial degree (which characterize #SAC^1) is relatively easy, establishing a uniform #SAC^1 bound needs a careful use of polynomial interpolation.

We exhibit the following new upper bounds on the space complexity and the parallel complexity of the Bipartite Perfect Matching (BPM) problem for graphs of small genus: (1) BPM in planar graphs is in UL (improves upon the SPL bound from Datta, Kulkarni, and Roy; (2) BPM in constant genus graphs is in NL (orthogonal to the SPL bound from Datta, Kulkarni, Tewari, and Vinodchandran.; (3) BPM in poly-logarithmic genus graphs is in NC; (extends the NC bound for O(log n) genus graphs from Mahajan and Varadarajan, and Kulkarni, Mahajan, and Varadarajan. For Part (1) we combine the flow technique of Miller and Naor with the double counting technique of Reinhardt and Allender . For Part (2) and (3) we extend Miller and Naor's result to higher genus surfaces in the spirit of Chambers, Erickson and Nayyeri.

We investigate the space complexity of certain perfect matching problems over bipartite graphs embedded on surfaces of constant genus (orientable or non-orientable). We show that the problems of deciding whether such graphs have (1) a perfect matching or not and (2) a unique perfect matching or not, are in the logspace complexity class \SPL. Since \SPL\ is contained in the logspace counting classes $\oplusŁ$ (in fact in \modk\ for all $k\geq 2$), \CeqL, and \PL, our upper bound places the above-mentioned matching problems in these counting classes as well. We also show that the search version, computing a perfect matching, for this class of graphs is in $\FL^{\SPL}$. Our results extend the same upper bounds for these problems over bipartite planar graphs known earlier. As our main technical result, we design a logspace computable and polynomially bounded weight function which isolates a minimum weight perfect matching in bipartite graphs embedded on surfaces of constant genus. We use results from algebraic topology for proving the correctness of the weight function.

Reachability and shortest path problems are \NLC\ for general graphs. They are known to be in \Log\ for graphs of tree-width $2$ \cite{JT07}. However, for graphs of tree-width larger than $2$, no bound better than \NL\ is known. In this paper, we improve these bounds for $k$-trees, where $k$ is a constant. In particular, the main results of our paper are log-space algorithms for reachability in directed $k$-trees, and for computation of shortest and longest paths in directed acyclic $k$-trees. Besides the path problems mentioned above, we consider the problem of deciding whether a $k$-tree has a perfect macthing (decision version), and if so, finding a perfect matching (search version), and prove that these problems are \Log-complete. These problems are known to be in \Ptime\ and in \RNC\ for general graphs, and in \SPL\ for planar bipartite graphs \cite{DKR08}. Our results settle the complexity of these problems for the class of $k$-trees. The results are also applicable for bounded tree-width graphs, when a tree-decomposition is given as input. The technique central to our algorithms is a careful implementation of divide-and-conquer approach in log-space, along with some ideas from \cite{JT07} and \cite{LMR07}.

Graph isomorphism is the prime example of a computational problem with a wide difference between the best known lower and upper bounds on its complexity. There is a significant gap between extant lower and upper bounds for planar graphs as well. We bridge the gap for this natural and important special case by presenting an upper bound that matches the known log-space hardness. In fact, we show the formally stronger result that planar graph canonization is in log-space. This improves the previously known upper bound of AC. Our algorithm first constructs the biconnected component tree of a connected planar graph and then refines each biconnected component into a triconnected component tree. The next step is to log-space reduce the biconnected planar graph isomorphism and canonization problems to those for 3-connected planar graphs, which are known to be in log-space by. This is achieved by using the above decomposition, and by making significant modifications to Lindellpsilas algorithm for tree canonization, along with changes in the space complexity analysis. The reduction from the connected case to the biconnected case requires further new ideas, including a non-trivial case analysis and a group theoretic lemma to bound the number of automorphisms of a colored 3-connected planar graph. This lemma is crucial for the reduction to work in log-space.

Graph isomorphism is an important and widely studied computational problem with a yet unsettled complexity. However, the exact complexity is known for isomorphism of various classes of graphs. Recently, \cite{DLNTW09} proved that planar isomorphism is complete for log-space. We extend this result %of \cite{DLNTW09} further to the classes of graphs which exclude $K_{3,3}$ or $K_5$ as a minor, and give a log-space algorithm. Our algorithm decomposes $K_{3,3}$ minor-free graphs into biconnected and those further into triconnected components, which are known to be either planar or $K_5$ components \cite{Vaz89}. This gives a triconnected component tree similar to that for planar graphs. An extension of the log-space algorithm of \cite{DLNTW09} can then be used to decide the isomorphism problem. For $K_5$ minor-free graphs, we consider $3$-connected components. These are either planar or isomorphic to the four-rung mobius ladder on $8$ vertices or, with a further decomposition, one obtains planar $4$-connected components \cite{Khu88}. We give an algorithm to get a unique decomposition of $K_5$ minor-free graphs into bi-, tri- and $4$-connected components, and construct trees, accordingly. Since the algorithm of \cite{DLNTW09} does not deal with four-connected component trees, it needs to be modified in a quite non-trivial way.

We consider the isomorphism and canonization problem for $3$-connected planar graphs. The problem was known to be \Log-hard and in \ULcoUL\ \cite{TW07}. In this paper, we give a deterministic log-space algorithm for $3$-connected planar graph isomorphism and canonization. This gives an \Log-completeness result, thereby settling its complexity. \par The algorithm uses the notion of universal exploration sequences from \cite{koucky01} and \cite{Rei05}. To our knowledge, this is a completely new approach to graph canonization.

We present a deterministic way of assigning small (log bit) weights to the edges of a bipartite planar graph so that the minimum weight perfect matching becomes unique. The isolation lemma as described in (Mulmuley et al. 1987) achieves the same for general graphs using a randomized weighting scheme, whereas we can do it deterministically when restricted to bipartite planar graphs. As a consequence, we reduce both decision and construction versions of the matching problem to testing whether a matrix is singular, under the promise that its determinant is $0$ or $1$, thus obtaining a highly parallel SPL algorithm for bipartite planar graphs. This improves the earlier known bounds of non-uniform SPL by (Allender et al. 1999) and $NC^2$ by (Miller and Naor 1995, Mahajan and Varadarajan 2000). It also rekindles the hope of obtaining a deterministic parallel algorithm for constructing a perfect matching in non-bipartite planar graphs, which has been open for a long time. Our techniques are elementary and simple.

We study the complexity of reachability problems on various classes of grid graphs. Reachability on certain classes of grid graphs gives natural examples of problems that are hard for NC1under AC0reductions but are not known to be hard far L; they thus give insight into the structure of L. In addition to explicating the structure of L, another of our goals is to expand the class of digraphs for which connectivity can be solved in logspace, by building on the work of Jakoby et al. (2001), who showed that reachability in series-parallel digraphs is solvable in L. We show that reachability for single-source multiple sink planar dags is solvable in L

We show that ACC/sup 0/ is precisely what can be computed with constant-width circuits of polynomial size and polylogarithmic genus. This extends a characterization given by Hansen, showing that planar constant-width circuits also characterize ACC/sup 0/. Thus polylogarithmic genus provides no additional computational power in this model. We consider other generalizations of planarity, including crossing number and thickness. We show that thickness two already suffices to capture all of NC/sup 1/.

The paper describes the design and evaluation of ad-hoc extensions to the IEEE 802.15.3 medium access control (MAC) layer for wireless personal area networks (WPANs). The proposed protocol allows communication between ad-hoc devices without the intervention of any central entity and, at the same time, ensures bounded delays for isochronous traffic. Ad-hoc communication is made possible without the hidden terminal problem. Features from both IEEE 802.15.3 and IEEE 802.11 standards are used - in particular the TDMA structure from 802.15.3 and RTS-CTS based contention from 802.11. The protocol includes certain other ingredients, like a decentralized synchronization procedure using randomized beaconing, periodically interspersed contention periods, bit maps to convey reservation information and a mechanism to estimate and react to channel errors. The MAC has been simulated in ns-2 and simulation results are reported.

In this paper we propose and analyze a new interface idling mechanism for improving energy efficiency of IEEE 802.11 based MAC hardware. A novel protocol state analysis technique is developed for detecting time windows during which a wireless interface consumes energy due to 802.11 overhearing. During this window, energy savings at the MAC layer is accomplished by forcing the wireless interface to a relatively lower-energy idling state. At the end of this window, the interface is transitioned back to its regular receiving mode. Energy savings are realized by exploiting the difference in power consumption between the overhearing state and the idling state. We evaluate the proposed protocol using ns-2 simulator. Simulation experiments validate that the proposed mechanism is capable of significantly reducing overhearing expenditure for newer 802.11 cards that support low-energy idling mode as described above. Our experimentation with Socket Communications Inc. low power 802.11 card demonstrate that the reduction in overhearing expenditure can be up to 23% and the subsequent network life extension can be up to 86% Results also show that the proposed MAC layer idling is fairly insensitive to network loading.

Continuing a line of investigation that has studied the function classes P, we study the class of functions AC/sup 0/. One way to define AC/sup 0/ is as the class of functions computed by constant-depth polynomial-size arithmetic circuits of unbounded fanin addition and multiplication gates. In contrast to the preceding function classes, for which we know no nontrivial lower bounds, lower bounds for AC/sup 0/ follow easily from established circuit lower bounds. One of our main results is a characterization of TC/sup 0/ in terms of AC/sup 0/: A language A is in TC/sup 0/ if and only if there is a AC/sup 0/ function f and a number k such that x/spl isin/A/spl hArr/f(x)=2/sup |x|k/. Using the naming conventions, this yields: TC/sup 0/=PAC/sup 0/=C=AC/sup 0/. Another restatement of this characterization is that TC/sup 0/ can be simulated by constant-depth arithmetic circuits, with a single threshold gate. We hope that perhaps this characterization of TC/sup 0/ in terms of AC/sup 0/ circuits might provide a new avenue of attack for proving lower bounds. Our characterization differs markedly from earlier characterizations of TC/sup 0/ in terms of arithmetic circuits over finite fields. Using our model of arithmetic circuits, computation over finite fields yields ACC/sup 0/. We also prove a number of closure properties and normal forms for AC/sup 0/.