Submodular functions and valued constraint satisfaction problems over infinite domains

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Valued constraint satisfaction problems (VCSPs) are a large class of combinatorial optimisation problems. It is desirable to classify the computational complexity of VCSPs depending on a fixed set of allowed cost functions in the input. Recently, the computational complexity of all VCSPs for finite sets of cost functions over finite domains has been classified in this sense. Many natural optimisation problems, however, cannot be formulated as VCSPs over a finite domain. We initiate the systematic investigation of infinite-domain VCSPs by studying the complexity of VCSPs for piecewise linear homogeneous cost functions. We remark that in this paper the infinite domain will always be the set of rational numbers. We show that such VCSPs can be solved in polynomial time when the cost functions are additionally submodular, and that this is indeed a maximally tractable class: adding any cost function that is not submodular leads to an NP-hard VCSP.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationComputer Science Logic 2018, CSL 2018
EditorsDan R. Ghica, Achim Jung
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing
ISBN (print)9783959770880
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2018
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesLeibniz international proceedings in informatics : LIPIcs
Volume119
ISSN1868-8969

Conference

Title27th Annual EACSL Conference Computer Science Logic, CSL 2018
Duration4 - 7 September 2018
CityBirmingham
CountryUnited Kingdom

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-8228-3611/work/142241088

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Constraint satisfaction, Model theory, Optimisation, Piecewise linear functions, Semilinear, Submodular functions, Valued constraint satisfaction problems