Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

On temporally connected graphs of small cost

Akrida, E.C.; Gasieniec, L.; Mertzios, G.B.; Spirakis, P.G.

Authors

L. Gasieniec

P.G. Spirakis



Abstract

We study the design of small cost temporally connected graphs, under various constraints. We mainly consider undirected graphs of n vertices, where each edge has an associated set of discrete availability instances (labels). A journey from vertex u to vertex v is a path from u to v where successive path edges have strictly increasing labels. A graph is temporally connected iff there is a (u, v)-journey for any pair of vertices u,v, u≠v. We first give a simple polynomial-time algorithm to check whether a given temporal graph is temporally connected. We then consider the case in which a designer of temporal graphs can freely choose availability instances for all edges and aims for temporal connectivity with very small cost; the cost is the total number of availability instances used. We achieve this via a simple polynomial-time procedure which derives designs of cost linear in n, and at most the optimal cost plus 2. To show this, we prove a lower bound on the cost for any undirected graph. However, there are pragmatic cases where one is not free to design a temporally connected graph anew, but is instead given a temporal graph design with the claim that it is temporally connected, and wishes to make it more cost-efficient by removing labels without destroying temporal connectivity (redundant labels). Our main technical result is that computing the maximum number of redundant labels is APX-hard, i.e., there is no PTAS unless P=NP. On the positive side, we show that in dense graphs with random edge availabilities, all but Θ(n) labels are redundant whp. A temporal design may, however, be minimal, i.e., no redundant labels exist. We show the existence of minimal temporal designs with at least nlogn labels.

Citation

Akrida, E., Gasieniec, L., Mertzios, G., & Spirakis, P. (2016). On temporally connected graphs of small cost. In Approximation and online algorithms : 13th International Workshop, WAOA 2015, Patras, Greece, September 17-18, 2015. Revised selected papers (84-96). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28684-6_8

Conference Name 13th Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms (WAOA)
Conference Location Patras, Greece
Start Date Sep 17, 2015
End Date Sep 18, 2015
Acceptance Date Jul 24, 2015
Online Publication Date Jan 13, 2016
Publication Date Jan 13, 2016
Deposit Date Sep 30, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Publisher Springer Verlag
Pages 84-96
Series Title Lecture notes in computer science
Series Number 9499
Book Title Approximation and online algorithms : 13th International Workshop, WAOA 2015, Patras, Greece, September 17-18, 2015. Revised selected papers.
ISBN 9783319286839
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28684-6_8

Files





You might also like



Downloadable Citations