CMPSCI 611: Advanced Algorithms

David Mix Barrington

Fall, 2005

Homework Assignment #5

Posted Wednesday 30 November 2005

Due on paper to the CMPSCI main office by 3:00 pm EST Wednesday 13 December 2005

(Due for off-campus students by 3:00 pm EST Wednesday 20 December 2005)

There are four questions for 100 total points. They are based on lectures 19-25, and thus on Chapters 8 and 9 of the Adler notes.

Corrections in orange made 8 December 2005.

Corrections in purple made 12 December 2005.

Students are responsible for understanding and following the academic honesty policies indicated on the course main page.

• Problem 5.1 (45): (see last four slides of revised Lecture 21) The DUAL-BIN-PACKING optimization problem has as input a sequence of n items with their sizes and a number b. A valid solution is a division of the items into b bins, the score is the total size of the items in the bin that is most full, and the goal is to minimize the score.

  • (a,5) Prove carefully that this optimization problem is NP-hard.
  • (b,15) Algorithm A₀ is an on-line approximation algorithm for the special case of DUAL-BIN-PACKING with b = 2. The inputs are considered in order, and each input is placed in the bin that currently has less in it. Prove that for any sequence of inputs, A₀ gets a score that is at most 3/2 times the optimal division (from an off-line algorithm). Give a sequence of inputs on which it does this badly. (Hint: There is a solution with fewer than six items, each with an integer size that is 3 or less.)
  • (c,15) For any integer k, Algorithm A_k is a partially on-line approximation algorithm for the b = 2 case of DUAL-BIN-PACKING. It takes the k largest items, finds an optimal partition of them by exhaustive search, then considers the remaining items in the given order and places each in the bin that currently is least full. Prove that for any k, A_k is a (k+3)/(k+2) approximation algorithm for this optimization problem. Describe an input sequence that does this badly.
  • (d,10) Argue that from these algorithms A_k, we can devise a PTAS for the b = 2 case of DUAL-BIN-PACKING. Analyze the running time in terms of n and ε -- is this an FPTAS? (I renamed the number of bins from "k" to "b" to avoid possible confusion.)

• Problem 5.2 (20): (adapted from Problem 35-2 in CLRS) Let G = (V,E) be an undirected graph and let k be a positive integer. We define the power graph G^k to have vertex set V_k (all sequences of k elements of V, possibly with repeats) and define there to be an edge from (e₁,...,e_k) to (f₁,...,f_k) iff for every i, either there is an edge (e_i,f_i) in E or e_i = f_i.

  • (a,10) Prove that if the maximum clique size of G is c, then the maximum clique size in G^k is exactly c^k.
  • (b,10) Suppose you have a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for MAX-CLIQUE that a constant ratio r with r>1. Construct a PTAS for MAX-CLIQUE. (Do not use the fact that approximating MAX-CLIQUE is NP-hard.)

    I originally asked for an FPTAS, as CLRS does, but the construction from (a) does not give this. You can use the PCP Theorem to prove that an FPTAS exists, but I asked you not to apply that theorem here.

• Problem 5.3 (25): The optimization problem MIN-COLOR is to input an undirected graph with n vertices and find a coloring with as few colors as possible. There is a significant body of research on how well we can do in poly-time if the optimal coloring has three colors.

  • (a,5) Prove that if a graph has maximum degree d, you can produce a coloring with at most d+1 colors in polynomial time.
  • (b,10) Prove that you can color a 3-colorable graph with O(√n) colors in polynomial time. (Hint: First show that in a 3-colorable graph, the neighbors of any given vertex are 2-colorable. Then note that any graph either has maximum degree √n or has a set of √n vertices that you can take care of with only two colors. This should give you a recursive algorithm.)
  • (c,10) Suppose that the graph has only O(n) edges. Suppose we color the graph by choosing one of √n colors uniformly and independently for each vertex. Show that with high probability, we can adjust this random coloring in linear time to a valid one using O(√n) more colors. (The correction is to prevent you from just using the solution to 5.3(b) in polynomial time, or even finding the three-coloring if you had unlimited time.)

• Problem 5.4 (10): (from Problem 29-1 of CLRS) The linear programming problem is to maximize or minimize a linear function subject to a set of constraints that are linear inequalities. The linear inequality feasibility problem takes as input a set of m linear inequalities in n variables and asks whether there is a setting of the variables that satisfies all the inequalities. Show that each of these problems is Cook-reducible to the other.

Last modified 12 December 2005