On polynomial cases of the unichain classification problem for Markov Decision Processes

The Unichain classification problem detects whether a finite state and action MDP is unichain under all deterministic policies. This problem is NP-hard. This paper provides polynomial algorithms for this problem when there is a state that is either recurrent under all deterministic policies or absorbing under some action.     

Analysis of Decomposition Algorithms with Benders Cuts for p-Median Problem

In this paper the algorithms for solving the p-median problem based on the Benders decomposition are investigated. A family of problems hard for solving with such algorithms is constructed and then generalized to a special NP-hard case of the p-median problem. It is shown that the effectiveness of the considered algorithms depends on the choice of the optimal values of the dual variables used in Benders cuts. In particular, the depth of the cuts can be equal to one.     

Multiphase double‐porosity homogenization for perimeter functionals

In this paper, we study a homogenization problem for perimeter energies in highly contrasted media; the analysis of the previous paper is carried out by removing the hypothesis that the perforated medium Rⁿ ? E is composed of disjoint compact components. Assuming E to be the union of a finite number N of connected components E¹, … ,E^N, the Γ‐limit F is a multiphase energy with a ‘decoupled’ surface part, obtained by homogenization from the surface tensions in each E ^j, a trivial bulk term obtained as a weak limit, and a further interacting term between the phases, involving an asymptotic formula for a family minimum problems on invading an asymptotic formula for a family of minimum problems on invading domains with prescribed boundary conditions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast wavelet transforms and numerical algorithms I

A class of algorithms is introduced for the rapid numerical application of a class of linear operators to arbitrary vectors. Previously published schemes of this type utilize detailed analytical information about the operators being applied and are specific to extremely narrow classes of matrices. In contrast, the methods presented here are based on the recently developed theory of wavelets and are applicable to all Calderon-Zygmund and pseudo-differential operators. The algorithms of this paper require order O(N) or O(N log N) operations to apply an N × N matrix to a vector (depending on the particular operator and the version of the algorithm being used), and our numerical experiments indicate that many previously intractable problems become manageable with the techniques presented here.     

Probabilistic analysis of a new class of strip packing algorithms

A new class of algorithms for online packing of rectangles into a strip is proposed and studied. It is proved that the expectation of the unfilled area for this class of algorithms is O(N ^2/3) in the standard (for this type of problems) probabilistic model for N random rectangles.     

Finding maximin latin hypercube designs by Iterated Local Search heuristics

The maximin LHD problem calls for arranging N points in a k-dimensional grid so that no pair of points share a coordinate and the distance of the closest pair of points is as large as possible. In this paper we propose to tackle this problem by heuristic algorithms belonging to the Iterated Local Search (ILS) family and show through some computational experiments that the proposed algorithms compare very well with different heuristic approaches in the established literature.     

Deterministic Time-inconsistent Optimal Control Problems - an Essentially Cooperative Approach

A general deterministic time-inconsistent optimal control problem is formulated for ordinary differential equations. To find a time-consistent equilibrium value function and the corresponding time-consistent equilibrium control, a non-cooperative N-person differential game (but essentially cooperative in some sense) is introduced. Under certain conditions, it is proved that the open-loop Nash equilibrium value function of the N -person differential game converges to a time-consistent equilibrium value function of the original problem, which is the value function of a time-consistent optimal control problem. Moreover, it is proved that any optimal control of the time-consistent limit problem is a time-consistent equilibrium control of the original problem.     

Relative Equilibria of the (1+N)-Vortex Problem

We examine existence and stability of relative equilibria of the n-vortex problem specialized to the case where N vortices have small and equal circulation and one vortex has large circulation. As the small circulation tends to zero, the weak vortices tend to a circle centered on the strong vortex. A special potential function of this limiting problem can be used to characterize orbits and stability. Whenever a critical point of this function is nondegenerate, we prove that the orbit can be continued via the Implicit Function Theorem, and its linear stability is determined by the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix of the potential. For N≥3 there are at least three distinct families of critical points associated to the limiting problem. Assuming nondegeneracy, one of these families continues to a linearly stable class of relative equilibria with small and large circulation of the same sign. This class becomes unstable as the small circulation passes through zero and changes sign. Another family of critical points which is always nondegenerate continues to a configuration with small vortices arranged in an N-gon about the strong central vortex. This class of relative equilibria is linearly unstable regardless of the sign of the small circulation when N≥4. Numerical results suggest that the third family of critical points of the limiting problem also continues to a linearly unstable class of solutions of the full problem independent of the sign of the small circulation. Thus there is evidence that linearly stable relative equilibria exist when the large and small circulation strengths are of the same sign, but that no such solutions exist when they have opposite signs. The results of this paper are in contrast to those of the analogous celestial mechanics problem, for which the N-gon is the only relative equilibrium for N sufficiently large, and is linearly stable if and only if N≥7.     

A method of estimating computational complexity based on input conditions for N-vehicle problem

This paper proposes a method of estimating computational complexity of problem through analyzing its input condition for N-vehicle exploration problem. The N-vehicle problem is firstly formulated to determine the optimal replacement in the set of permutations of 1 to N. The complexity of the problem is factorial of N （input scale of problem）. To balance accuracy and efficiency of general algorithms, this paper mentions a new systematic algorithm design and discusses correspondence between complexity of problem and its input condition, other than just putting forward a uniform approximation algorithm as usual. This is a new technique for analyzing computation of NP problems. The method of corresponding is then presented. We finally carry out a simulation to verify the advantages of the method： 1） to decrease computation in enumeration; 2） to efficiently obtain computational complexity for any N-vehicle case; 3） to guide an algorithm design for any N-vehicle case according to its complexity estimated by the method.     

Local search in routing problems with time windows

We develop local search algorithms for routing problems with time windows. The presented algorithms are based on thek-interchange concept. The presence of time windows introduces feasibility constraints, the checking of which normally requires O(N) time. Our method reduces this checking effort to O(1) time. We also consider the problem of finding initial solutions. A complexity result is given and an insertion heuristic is described.     

Efficient Algorithms for Finding the Maximum Number of Disjoint Paths in Grids

In a rectangular grid, given two sets of nodes, (sources) and (sinks), of size each, the disjoint paths (DP) problem is to connect as many nodes in to the nodes in using a set of “disjoint” paths. (Both edge-disjoint and vertex-disjoint cases are considered in this paper.) Note that in this DP problem, a node in can be connected to any node in . Although in general the sizes of and do not have to be the same, algorithms presented in this paper can also find the maximum number of disjoint paths pairing nodes in and . We use the network flow approach to solve this DP problem. By exploiting all the properties of the network, such as planarity and regularity of a grid, integral flow, and unit capacity source/sink/flow, we can optimally compress the size of the working grid (to be defined) from O(N²) to O(N^1.5) and solve the problem in O(N^2.5) time for both the edge-disjoint and vertex-disjoint cases, an improvement over the straightforward approach which takes O(N³) time.     

Invariant families of sets and zero dynamics of linear nonstationary control systems with scalar input and output

We obtain conditions for the existence of a linear feedback providing the existence of a family (N _t ) of subspaces such that this family is invariant under the closed system and the output variable is zero on all motions lying in this family.     

On a proposed divide-and-conquer minimal spanning tree algorithm

In a recent paper published in this journal, R. Chang and R. Lee purport to devise anO(N logN) time minimal spanning tree algorithm forN points in the plane that is based on a divide-and-conquer strategy using Voronoi diagrams. In this brief note, we present families of problem instances to show that the Chang-Lee worst-case timing analysis is incorrect, resulting in a time bound ofO(N ² logN). Since it is known that alternate, trulyO(N logN) time algorithms are available anyway, the general utility of the Chang-Lee algorithm is questionable.This author's research is supported in part by the Washington State Technology Center and by the National Science Foundation under grants ECS-8403859 and MIP-8603879.     

Global Minimization Algorithms for Holder Functions

This paper deals with the one-dimensional global optimization problem where the objective function satisfies a Hölder condition over a closed interval. A direct extension of the popular Piyavskii method proposed for Lipschitz functions to Hölder optimization requires an a priori estimate of the Hölder constant and solution to an equation of degree N at each iteration. In this paper a new scheme is introduced. Three algorithms are proposed for solving one-dimensional Hölder global optimization problems. All of them work without solving equations of degree N. The case (very often arising in applications) when a Hölder constant is not given a priori is considered. It is shown that local information about the objective function used inside the global procedure can accelerate the search signicantly. Numerical experiments show quite promising performance of the new algorithms.     

An Even Faster and More Unifying Algorithm for Comparing Trees via Unbalanced Bipartite Matchings

A widely used method for determining the similarity of two labeled trees is to compute a maximum agreement subtree of the two trees. Previous work on this similarity measure has only been concerned with the comparison of labeled trees of two special kinds, namely, uniformly labeled trees (i.e., trees with all their nodes labeled with the same symbol) and evolutionary trees (i.e., leaf-labeled trees with distinct symbols for distinct leaves). This paper presents an algorithm for comparing trees that are labeled in an arbitrary manner. In addition to this generality, this algorithm is faster than the previous algorithms.Another contribution of this paper is on maximum weight bipartite matchings. We show how to speed up the best known matching algorithms when the input graphs are node-unbalanced or weight-unbalanced. Based on these enhancements, we obtain an efficient algorithm for a new matching problem called the hierarchical bipartite matching problem, which is at the core of our maximum agreement subtree algorithm.     

External selection

Sequential selection has been solved in linear time by Blum et al. [M.B. Blum, R.W. Floyd, V.R. Pratt, R.L. Rivest, R.E. Tarjan, Time bounds for selection, J. Comput. System Sci. 7 (4) (1972) 448–461]. Running this algorithm on a problem of size N with N>M, the size of the main-memory, results in an algorithm that reads and writes O(N) elements, while the number of comparisons is also bounded by O(N). This is asymptotically optimal, but the constants are so large that in practice sorting is faster for most values of M and N.This paper provides the first detailed study of the external selection problem. A randomized algorithm of a conventional type is close to optimal in all respects. Our deterministic algorithm is more or less the same, but first the algorithm builds an index structure of all the elements. This effort is not wasted: the index structure allows the retrieval of elements so that we do not need a second scan through all the data. This index structure can also be used for repeated selections, and can be extended over time. For a problem of size N, the deterministic algorithm reads N+o(N) elements and writes only o(N) elements and is thereby optimal to within lower-order terms.     

Extrapolation methods for some singular fixed point sequences

A fixed point sequence is singular if the Jacobian matrix at the limit has 1 as an eigenvalue. The asymptotic behaviour of some singular fixed point sequences in one dimension are extended toN dimensions. Three algorithms extrapolating singular fixed point sequences inN dimensions are given. Using numerical examples three algorithms are tested and compared.     

Scheduling on same-speed processors with at most one downtime on each machine

We consider the problem of scheduling a set of independent tasks on multiple same-speed processors with planned shutdown times with the aim of minimizing the makespan. We give an LPT-based algorithm, LPTX, which yields a maximum completion time that is less than or equal to 3/2 the optimal maximum completion time or 3/2 the time that passes from the start of the schedule until the latest end of a downtime. For problems where the optimal schedule ends after the last downtime, and when the downtimes represent fixed jobs, the LPTX maximum completion time is within 3/2 of the optimal maximum completion time. In addition, we show that this result is asymptotically tight for the class of polynomial algorithms assuming that P≠NP. We also show that the bound obtained previously for a similar problem, when no more than half of the machines are shut down at the same time, for the LPT algorithm is asymptotically tight in the class of polynomial algorithms if P≠NP.     

Fast Algorithm for Best Anisotropic Walsh Bases and Relatives

We introduce a new family of Nlog Nbest basis search algorithms for functions of more than one variable. These algorithms search the collection of anisotropic wavelet packet and cosine packet bases and output a minimum entropy basis for a given function. These algorithms are constructed after treating the model problem of computing best Walsh packet bases. Several intermediate algorithms for conducting mixed isotropic/anisotropic best basis searches in the function's various coordinate directions are also presented.     

Single Supplier Scheduling for Multiple Deliveries

The problem of scheduling the production and delivery of a supplier to feed the production of F manufacturers is studied. The orders fulfilled by the supplier are delivered to the manufacturers in batches of the same size. The supplier's production line has to be set up whenever it switches from processing an order of one manufacturer to an order of another manufacturer. The objective is to minimize the total setup cost, subject to maintaining continuous production for all manufacturers. The problem is proved to be NP-hard. It is reduced to a single machine scheduling problem with deadlines and jobs belonging to F part types. An O(NlogF) algorithm, where N is the number of delivery batches, is presented to find a feasible schedule. A dynamic programming algorithm with O(N ^F /F ^F–2) running time is presented to find an optimal schedule. If F=2 and setup costs are unit, an O(N) time algorithm is derived.