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The mathematical side of applied problems in multiple subject areas (biology, pattern recognition, etc.) is reduced to the problem of discrete optimization in the following mathematical method. We were provided a network and graphs in its leaves, for which we needed to find a rearrangement of graphs by non-leaf nodes, in which the given functional reached its minimum. Such a problem, even in the simplest case, is NP-hard, which means unavoidable restrictions on the network, on graphs, or on the functional. In this publication, this problem is addressed in the case of all graphs being so-called "structures", meaning directed-loaded graphs consisting of paths and cycles, and the functional as the sum (over all edges in the network) of distances between structures at the endpoints of every edge. The distance itself is equal to the minimal length of sequence from the fixed list of operations, the composition of which transforms the structure at one endpoint of the edge into the structure at its other endpoint. The list of operations (and their costs) on such a graph is fixed. Under these conditions, the given discrete optimization problem is called the reconstruction problem. This paper presents novel algorithms for solving the reconstruction problem, along with full proofs of their low error and low polynomial complexity. For example, for the network, the problem is solved with a zero error algorithm that has a linear polynomial computational complexity; and for the tree the problem is solved using an algorithm with a multiplicative error of at most two, which has a second order polynomial computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cryptographic system is the foundation of blockchain security mechanisms. This paper constructs a blockchain security mechanism based on the Chinese national cryptographic SM2 algorithm, involving the generation of public–private key pairs and the signing of block information using key pairs. However, the original SM2 algorithm has a high computational complexity, which cannot meet the requirements of low on-chain delay in blockchain applications. To solve this problem, this paper optimizes the SM2 digital signature algorithm. The scalar multiplication operation in the digital signature algorithm has a large computational complexity, which affects the efficiency of a digital signature. To reduce its computational complexity, this paper improves the traditional window non-adjacent form (w-NAF) algorithm for the scalar multiplication operation and proposes a low computational complexity Fw-NAF algorithm based on the prime number precomputation window, which greatly reduces its computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that accurate estimation of the loop delay between the input and output feedback signals is the key to behavioral modeling and digital predistortion of power amplifier. Nevertheless, most of the traditional loop‐delay compensation algorithms have the disadvantage of high computational complexity. For the purpose of solving this problem, a loop‐delay estimation algorithm based on sliding window has been proposed in this paper, where the first derivative characteristic of the signal is employed to evaluate the correlation between the input and output feedback signals. The simulation and experiment are carried out with different bandwidth signals in this paper. The results show that the proposed algorithm and the traditional cross‐correlation‐based method could align the input and output feedback signals successfully. But in terms of resource consumption, the proposed algorithm could reduce the multiplier nearly by 100% and the adder by approximately 93.2%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the meta-heuristic algorithm solves the joint resource allocation problem of multi-beam satellites, the computational complexity increases and the algorithm is difficult to converge due to the time delay constraint and capacity constraint. This paper introduced a penalty mechanism in the objective function, and added a penalty value to the objective function of the invalid solution, so that the optimized solution adaptively satisfied these two constraints. Based on this, this paper proposed a joint resource allocation algorithm based on quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization. Simulation results show that the introduction of the penalty strategy solves the problem of difficulty in handling the delay constraint and capacity constraint when applying the meta-heuristic algorithm. The quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization algorithm with penalty mechanism outperforms the existing joint allocation algorithm in terms of allocation fairness index and total system capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the issue of solving problems with multiple components, multiple objectives, and target values for each objective. There are limitations in managing these multi-component, multi-goal problems such as the need for domain expertise to combine or prioritize the goals. In this paper, we propose a domain-independent method, Adaptive Leveling-Weighting-Clustering (ALWC), to manage the exploration of design scenarios of multi-goal, engineering-design problems. Using ALWC, designers explore combinations and priorities of the goals based on their interrelationships. Through iteration, design scenarios are obtained with higher goal achievements and an improved understanding of the relationship among subsystems. This is achieved without increasing computational complexity. This knowledge is helpful for multi-component design. The ALWC method is demonstrated using a thermal-system design problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the offline assignment of fixed priorities in partitioned preemptive real-time systems where tasks have precedence constraints. This problem is crucial in this type of systems, as having a good fixed priority assignment allows for an efficient use of the processing resources while meeting all the deadlines. In the literature, we can find several proposals to solve this problem, which offer varying trade-offs between the quality of their results and their computational complexities. In this paper , we propose a new approach, leveraging existing algorithms that are widely exploited in the field of Machine Learning: Gradient Descent, the Adam Optimizer, and Gradient Noise. We show how to adapt these algorithms to the problem of fixed priority assignment in conjunction with existing worst-case response time analyses. We demonstrate the performance of our proposal on synthetic task-sets with different sizes. This evaluation shows that our proposal is able to find more schedulable solutions than previous heuristics, approximating optimal but intractable algorithms such as MILP or brute-force, while requiring reasonable execution times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of big data, a large amount of unstructured text data springs up every day. Entity linking involves relating the mentions found in the texts to the corresponding entities, which stand for objective things in the real world, in a knowledge base. This task can help computers understand semantics in the texts correctly. Although there have been numerous approaches employed in research such as this, some challenges are still unresolved. Most current approaches utilize neural models to learn important features of the entity and mention context. However, the topic coherence among the referred entities is frequently ignored, which leads to a clear preference for popular entities but poor accuracy for less popular ones. Moreover, the graph-based models face much noise information and high computational complexity. To solve the problems above, the paper puts forward an entity linking algorithm derived from the asymmetric graph convolutional network and the contextualized semantic relevance, which can make full use of the neighboring node information as well as deal with unnecessary noise in the graph. The semantic vector of the candidate entity is obtained by continuously iterating and aggregating the information from neighboring nodes. The contextualized relevance model is a symmetrical structure that is designed to realize the deep semantic measurement between the mentions and the entities. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can fully explore the topology information of the graph and dramatically improve the effect of entity linking compared with the baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problems of key abuse and digital certificate management in the current lattice-based proxy re-en-cryption scheme, this paper proposed a new identity-based accountable proxy re-encryption scheme by introducing the account-ability algorithm. This scheme used the user ID to calculate matrix as the public key and used the pre-image sampling algo-rithm to extract the private key, which solved the problem of digital certificate management. It used the public keys of both us-ers to calculate and generate the re-encryption key, which improved the computational efficiency of encryption and decryption. It used the proxy's public and private keys to participate in the re-encryption calculation, completed the accountability algo-rithm, and inhibited the collusion of the proxy and the delegate. The security analysis shows that the scheme satisfies the cho-sen-plaintext attack security. In terms of efficiency, the scheme has less computational complexity and ciphertext overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose to use Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization to solve the joint mode selection, channel assignment, and power allocation (JMSCPA) problem to maximize system throughput and spectral efficiency. JMSCPA is a problem where the allocation of channel and power depends on the mode selection. Such problems require two step solution and are called bi-level optimization problems. As bi-level optimization increases the complexity and computational time, we propose a modified version of single-level ABC algorithm aided with the adaptive transmission mode selection algorithm to allocate the cellular, reuse, and dedicated modes to the DUs along with channel and power allocation based on the network traffic load scenarios. A single variable, represented by the users (CUs and DUs) is used to allocate mode selection, and channel allocation to solve the JMSCPA problem, leading to a simpler solution with faster convergence, and significant reduction in the computational complexity which scales linearly with the number of users. Further, the proposed solution avoids premature stagnation of conventional ABC into local minima by incorporating a modification in its update procedure. The efficacy of the ABC-aided approach, as compared to the results reported in the literature, is validated by extensive numerical investigations under different simulation scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With low hardware cost and power consumption, direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation exploiting one-bit quantized array data has become an attractive topic. In this paper, the gridless compressed sensing (CS) with multiple measurement vectors for one-bit DOA estimation is investigated. First, the one-bit quantized signal model is established. Then an atomic norm minimization scheme is proposed based on the output of one-bit quantizer, in which the objective function is reformulated as a semidefinite programming problem combined with a one-sided l 1 -norm constraint, representing the sign inconsistency between the quantized and unquantized measurements. To efficiently solve such a problem and reduce its computational complexity, an accelerated proximal gradient-based algorithm is developed. The proposed approach outperforms the one-bit MUSIC in a small number of measurements, and avoids the grid-mismatch issue of several existing one-bit CS methods. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the superiorities of the proposed one-bit DOA estimation approach in accuracy and running time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a vital player of modern networks providing different types of services such as traffic optimization, content filtering, and load balancing. More precisely, NFV is a provisioning technology aims at reducing the large Capital Expenditure (CapEx) of network providers by moving services from dedicated hardware to commodity servers using Virtualized Network Functions (VNF). A sequence of VNFs/services following a logical goal is referred to as a Service Function Chain (SFC). The movement toward SFC introduces new challenges to those network services which require high reliability. To address this challenge, redundancy schemes are introduced. Existing redundancy schemes using dedicated protection enhance the reliability of services, however, they do not consider the cost of redundant VNFs. In this paper, we propose a novel reliability enhancement method using a shared protection scheme to reduce the cost of redundant VNFs. To this end, we mathematically formulate the problem as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). The objective is to determine optimal reliability that could be achieved with minimum cost. Although the corresponding optimization problem can be solved using existing MILP solvers, the computational complexity is not rational for realistic scenarios. Thereafter, we propose a Reliability-aware and minimum-Cost based Genetic (RCG) algorithm to solve this problem with low computational complexity. In order to evaluate the proposed solution, we have compared it with four different solutions. Simulation results show that RCG achieves near-optimal performance at a much lower complexity compared with the optimal solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In hyperspectral remote sensing, the classification of hyperspectral imagery is an important issue of concern. However, obtaining sufficient labelled samples for the classification is hard work and consumes enormous labour and material resources. To solve this problem, many scholars make their efforts to the semi-supervised learning method. The self-training model is a popular semi-supervised learning method, which trains a classifier using a few labelled samples and many unlabelled samples in an iterative manner. Nevertheless, the self-training model may provide misclassification as adding incorrect unlabelled samples. This paper proposes a novel semi-supervised learning method, which attempts to introduce the affinity propagation and spatial constraint to self-training model. In the proposed algorithm, a self-training model is employed to expand the labelled sample set. The affinity propagation is applied to select a group of reliable unlabelled samples. To further protect the reliability of unlabelled samples, the selection process of self-training model is constrained in the spatial local area of the labelled samples. In the iteration, the reliable unlabelled samples are selected and added to the labelled sample set. After that, the classifier is trained by the updated labelled samples. The algorithm finishes as the iterations exceed the predetermined value or the labelled sample set is unchanged. Different from the traditional self-training-based semi-supervised learning method, there are mainly three improvements. First, the selection of reliable unlabelled samples is conducted by the affinity propagation, which can effectively improve the reliability of the unlabelled samples. Second, the spatial constraint is introduced to restrict the selection process of self-training model, which can protect the reliability of unlabelled samples and alleviate the computational complexity. Finally, the spectral correlation angle is applied to construct the similarity matrix of affinity propagation, so that the algorithm is more suitable for hyperspectral imagery. A comparative analysis was conducted with classical self-training semi-supervised algorithms to test the effectiveness of the method. It was found that the proposed method provided higher overall accuracy, average accuracy and kappa coefficient (κ) than the competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, numerous meta-heuristic-based approaches are deliberated to reduce the computational complexities of several existing approaches that include tricky derivations, very large memory space requirement, initial value sensitivity, etc. However, several optimization algorithms namely firefly algorithm, sine–cosine algorithm, and particle swarm optimization algorithm have few drawbacks such as computational complexity and convergence speed. So to overcome such shortcomings, this paper aims in developing a novel chaotic sine–cosine firefly (CSCF) algorithm with numerous variants to solve optimization problems. Here, the chaotic form of two algorithms namely the sine–cosine algorithm and the firefly algorithms is integrated to improve the convergence speed and efficiency thus minimizing several complexity issues. Moreover, the proposed CSCF approach is operated under various chaotic phases and the optimal chaotic variants containing the best chaotic mapping are selected. Then numerous chaotic benchmark functions are utilized to examine the system performance of the CSCF algorithm. Finally, the simulation results for the problems based on engineering design are demonstrated to prove the efficiency, robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale optimization problems arising from the discretization of problems involving PDEs sometimes admit solutions that can be well approximated by low-rank matrices. In this paper, we will exploit this low-rank approximation property by solving the optimization problem directly over the set of low-rank matrices. In particular, we introduce a new multilevel algorithm, where the optimization variable is constrained to the Riemannian manifold of fixed-rank matrices. In contrast to most other multilevel algorithms, where the rank is chosen adaptively on each level in order to control the perturbation due to the low-rank truncation, we can keep the ranks (and thus the computational complexity) fixed throughout the iterations. Furthermore, classical implementations of line searches based on Wolfe conditions enable computing a solution where the numerical accuracy is limited to about the square root of the machine epsilon. Here, we propose an extension to Riemannian manifolds of the line search of Hager and Zhang, which uses approximate Wolfe conditions that enable computing a solution on the order of the machine epsilon. Numerical experiments demonstrate the computational efficiency of the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detection is a fundamental problem in wireless communications and it is strongly NP-hard in general. Massive MIMO has been recognized as a key technology in fifth generation (5G) and beyond communication networks, which on one hand can significantly improve the communication performance and on the other hand poses new challenges of solving the corresponding optimization problems due to the large problem size. While various efficient algorithms such as semidefinite relaxation (SDR) based approaches have been proposed for solving the small-scale MIMO detection problem, they are not suitable to solve the large-scale MIMO detection problem due to their high computational complexities. In this paper, we propose an efficient quadratic programming (QP) relaxation based algorithm for solving the large-scale MIMO detection problem. In particular, we first reformulate the MIMO detection problem as a sparse QP problem. By dropping the sparse constraint, the resulting relaxation problem shares the same global minimizer with the sparse QP problem. In sharp contrast to the SDRs for the MIMO detection problem, our relaxation does not contain any (positive semidefinite) matrix variable and the numbers of variables and constraints in our relaxation are significantly less than those in the SDRs, which makes it particularly suitable for the large-scale problem. Then we propose a projected Newton based quadratic penalty method to solve the relaxation problem, which is guaranteed to converge to the vector of transmitted signals under reasonable conditions. By extensive numerical experiments, when applied to solve small-scale problems, the proposed algorithm is demonstrated to be competitive with the state-of-the-art approaches in terms of detection accuracy and solution efficiency; when applied to solve large-scale problems, the proposed algorithm achieves better detection performance than a recently proposed generalized power method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The qualities of new data used in the sequential learning phase of the online sequential extreme learning machine algorithm (OS-ELM) have a significant impact on the performance of OS-ELM. This paper proposes a novel data filter mechanism for OS-ELM from the perspective of fuzziness and a fuzziness-based online sequential extreme learning machine algorithm (FOS-ELM). In FOS-ELM, when new data arrive, a fuzzy classifier first picks out the meaningful data according to the fuzziness of each sample. Specifically, the new samples with high-output fuzziness are selected and then used in sequential learning. The experimental results on eight binary classification problems and three multiclass classification problems have shown that FOS-ELM updated by the new samples with high-output fuzziness has better generalization performance than OS-ELM. Since the unimportant data are discarded before sequential learning, FOS-ELM can save more memory and have higher computational efficiency. In addition, FOS-ELM can handle data one-by-one or chunk-by-chunk with fixed or varying sizes. The relationship between the fuzziness of new samples and the model performance is also studied in this paper, which is expected to provide some useful guidelines for improving the generalization ability of online sequential learning algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Driven by the growth of internet, commercial cloud computing now provides on-demand, massively parallel computational power. This cloud processing can be utilized for solving science and engineering problems. Relying on computationally intensive ray-tracing, optical design can greatly benefit from a cloud based optimization approach if suitable parallelizable optimization algorithms can be implemented. Commercial optical design packages have algorithms tuned for optical design. There are also various local and global optimization algorithms for scientific and engineering problems. In this paper, several general purpose, open-source local and global optimization algorithms are evaluated for a lens design problem. The results are compared to results from a commercial optical design package, and some algorithms are shown to give similar performance. This research provides valuable insight into different optimization algorithms and therefore is a first step for taking optical design from desktop computers to cloud computing in order to achieve massively parallel processing in system optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One novel control policy named selective siphon control policy is proposed to solve for deadlock problems of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs). The new policy not only solves the deadlock problem successfully but also obtains maximally permissive controllers. According to our awareness, the policy is the first one to achieve the goal of obtaining maximally permissive controllers for all S3PR (one system of simple sequential processes with resources, S3PR) models in existing literature. However, one main problem is still needed to solve in their algorithm. The problem is that the proposed policy cannot check the exact number of maximally permissive states of a deadlock net in advance. After all iterating steps, the final maximally permissive states can then be known. Additionally, all legal markings are still to be checked again and again until all critical markings vanished. In this paper, one computationally improved methodology is proposed to solve the two problems. According to the experimental results, the computational efficiency can be enhanced based on the proposed methodology in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Twin support vector machine with pinball loss (PinTSVM) has been proposed recently, which enjoys noise insensitivity and has many admirable properties. However, users have to repeatedly train the model multiple times to tune parameters. To address this issue, in this paper we propose a new solution-path approach for the PinTSVM (Path-PinTSVM). We prove that both the primal and dual solutions are piecewise linear with the model parameters c and τ varying. The proposed algorithm could provide the optimal accuracy through all possible parameter values. The solution for the starting point of the path could be achieved analytically without solving optimization problem. Compared with the existing path algorithms for SVMs, our method is more flexible and has better prediction performance. As it deals with two classes separately, the analytic solution could be directly obtained no matter whether two classes are balanced or not. Besides, the computational cost is also less since only one class of the instances is considered at a time. Our approach also gives a guidance for exploiting path algorithms for other TSVMs. In numerical experiments, the validity of our proposed method is demonstrated on a synthetic dataset, 16 benchmark datasets and a real biological dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We study, in this paper, a taxi-sharing problem, called Dial-a-Ride problem with money as an incentive (DARP-M). This problem consists in defining a set of taxis that will be shared by different clients in order to reduce their bill by a given factor α < 1. To achieve this, each client shares the cost of the ride with other passengers. More precisely, the fragments of the ride in which the client is alone is fully paid by this client and, for each fragment in which the client shares the taxi with other passengers, the cost is equally divided between the passengers. In addition to this cost constraint, the taxi must satisfy a time window constraint for each passenger and a capacity constraint. We define three versions of the problem: max-DARP-M where the objective is to drive the maximum number of clients with an arbitrarily large number of taxis; max-1-DARP-M in which we want to drive the maximum number of clients with one taxi; and 1-DARP-M which consists in deciding whether it is possible to drive at least one client while satisfying the constraints. We study the parameterized complexity and approximability of those problems with respect to four parameters: the factor α , the capacity c a p a of the taxis, the maximum size TW of the time windows of the clients, and the value S of an optimal solution. Among other results, we prove that 1-DARP-M is NP-Complete and max-DARP-M and max-1-DARP-M cannot be approximated in polynomial time to within any variable ratio even if α , c a p a and TW are fixed and if the road network is a planar graph. We also give a polynomial algorithm for max-1-DARP-M for the case where c a p a and TW are fixed and where the network does not contain a circuit. This algorithm implies a 1 n -polynomial approximation for max-DARP-M. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper proposes an exact exponential algorithm for the single machine total tardiness problem. It exploits the structure of a basic branch-and-reduce framework based on the well known Lawler's decomposition property that solves the problem with worst-case complexity in time O ⁎ (3 n) and polynomial space. The proposed algorithm, called branch-and-merge, is an improvement of the branch-and-reduce technique with the embedding of a node merging operation. Its time complexity converges to O ⁎ (2 n) keeping the space complexity polynomial. This improves upon the best-known complexity result for this problem provided by dynamic programming across the subsets with O ⁎ (2 n) worst-case time and space complexity. The branch-and-merge technique is likely to be generalized to other sequencing problems with similar decomposition properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central problem in parameterized algorithms is to obtain algorithms with running time f(k) · nO(1) such that f is as slow growing a function of the parameter k as possible. In particular, a large number of basic parameterized problems admit parameterized algorithms where f(k) is single-exponential, that is, ck for some constant c, which makes aiming for such a running time a natural goal for other problems as well. However, there are still plenty of problems where the f(k) appearing in the best-known running time is worse than single-exponential and it remained "slightly superexponential" even after serious attempts to bring it down. A natural question to ask is whether the f(k) appearing in the running time of the best-known algorithms is optimal for any of these problems. In this paper, we examine parameterized problems where f(k) is kO(k) = 2O(k log k) in the best-known running time, and for a number of such problems we show that the dependence on k in the running time cannot be improved to single-exponential. More precisely we prove the following tight lower bounds, for four natural problems, arising from three different domains: (1) In the Closest String problem, given strings s1, ..., st over an alphabet Σ of length L each, and an integer d, the question is whether there exists a string s over Σ of length L, such that its hamming distance from each of the strings si, 1 ≤ i ≤ t, is at most d. The pattern matching problem Closest String is known to be solvable in times 2O(d log d) · nO(1) and 2O(d log |Σ|) · nO(1). We show that there are no 2o(d log d) · nO(1) or 2o(d log |Σ|) · nO(1) time algorithms, unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) fails. (2) The graph embedding problem Distortion, that is, deciding whether a graph G has a metric embedding into the integers with distortion at most d can be solved in time 2O(d log d) · nO(1). We show that there is no 2o(d log d) · nO(1) time algorithm, unless the ETH fails. (3) The Disjoint Paths problem can be solved in time 2O(w log w) · nO(1) on graphs of treewidth at most w. We show that there is no 2o(w log w) · nO(1) time algorithm, unless the ETH fails. (4) The Chromatic Number problem can be solved in time 2O(w log w) ·nO(1) on graphs of treewidth at most w. We show that there is no 2o(w log w) · nO(1) time algorithm, unless the ETH fails. To obtain our results, we first prove the lower bound for variants of basic problems: finding cliques, independent sets, and hitting sets. These artificially constrained variants form a good starting point for proving lower bounds on natural problems without any technical restrictions and could be of independent interest. Several follow-up works have already obtained tight lower bounds by using our framework, and we believe it will prove useful in obtaining even more lower bounds in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The crowd distribution information is the crucial information for abnormal behaviors detection in the crowd scenes. In this paper, we firstly refer to the definition of the entropy and propose an algorithm effectively and accurately representing the crowd distribution information in the crowd scenes. The proposed algorithm not only avoids unstable foreground extraction, but also owns low computational complexity. To detect the abnormal crowd behaviors, we use the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) over the normal crowd behaviors to predict the abnormal crowd behaviors since GMM usually can deal well with the unbalanced problem. In this paper we simultaneously use the crowd distribution information and the crowd speed information to estimate the parameters of GMM over the normal crowd behaviors and predict abnormal crowd behaviors. Experiment conducted on publicly available dataset consisting of gathering and dispersion events validates that the proposed approach can preeminently reflect the crowd distribution information. In addition, experiments conducted on publicly UMN dataset demonstrate that the proposed abnormal crowd behavior detection method has an excellent performance and outperforms the state-of-the-art methods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We report on the First International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation (ICCMA'15) which took place in the first half of 2015 and focused on reasoning tasks in abstract argumentation frameworks. Performance of submitted solvers was evaluated on four computational problems wrt. four different semantics relating to the verification of the acceptance status of arguments, and computing jointly acceptable sets of arguments. In this paper, we describe the technical setup of the competition, and give an overview on the submitted solvers. Moreover, we report on the results and discuss our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since wind power is integrated into the thermal power operation system, dynamic economic emission dispatch (DEED) has become a new challenge due to its uncertain characteristics. This paper proposes an adaptive grid based multi-objective Cauchy differential evolution (AGB-MOCDE) for solving stochastic DEED with wind power uncertainty. To properly deal with wind power uncertainty, some scenarios are generated to simulate those possible situations by dividing the uncertainty domain into different intervals, the probability of each interval can be calculated using the cumulative distribution function, and a stochastic DEED model can be formulated under different scenarios. For enhancing the optimization efficiency, Cauchy mutation operation is utilized to improve differential evolution by adjusting the population diversity during the population evolution process, and an adaptive grid is constructed for retaining diversity distribution of Pareto front. With consideration of large number of generated scenarios, the reduction mechanism is carried out to decrease the scenarios number with covariance relationships, which can greatly decrease the computational complexity. Moreover, the constraint-handling technique is also utilized to deal with the system load balance while considering transmission loss among thermal units and wind farms, all the constraint limits can be satisfied under the permitted accuracy. After the proposed method is simulated on three test systems, the obtained results reveal that in comparison with other alternatives, the proposed AGB-MOCDE can optimize the DEED problem while handling all constraint limits, and the optimal scheme of stochastic DEED can decrease the conservation of interval optimization, which can provide a more valuable optimal scheme for real-world applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph editing problems offer an interesting perspective on sub- and supergraph identification problems for a large variety of target properties. They have also attracted significant attention in recent years, particularly in the area of parameterized complexity as the problems have rich parameter ecologies. In this paper we examine generalisations of the notion of editing a graph to obtain a regular subgraph. In particular we extend the notion of regularity to include two variants of edge-regularity along with the unifying constraint of strong regularity. We present a number of results, with the central observation that these problems retain the general complexity profile of their regularity-based inspiration: when the number of edits k and the maximum degree r are taken together as a combined parameter, the problems are tractable (i.e. in FPT ), but are otherwise intractable. We also examine variants of the basic editing to obtain a regular subgraph problem from the perspective of parameterizing by the treewidth of the input graph. In this case the treewidth of the input graph essentially becomes a limiting parameter on the natural k + r parameterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Split cuts constitute a class of cutting planes that has been successfully employed by the majority of branch-and-cut solvers for mixed-integer linear programs. Given a basis of the linear programming (LP) relaxation and a split disjunction, the corresponding split cut can be computed with a closed-form expression. In this paper, we use the lift-and-project framework introduced by Balas and Perregaard to provide the basis, and the reduce-and-split algorithm as described by Cornuéjols and Nannicini to compute the split disjunction. We propose a cut generation algorithm that starts from a Gomory mixed-integer cut and alternates between lift-and-project and reduce-and-split in order to strengthen it. This paper has two main contributions. First, we extend the Balas and Perregaard procedure for strengthening cuts arising from split disjunctions involving one variable to split disjunctions on multiple variables. Second, we apply the reduce-and-split algorithm to nonoptimal bases of the LP relaxation. We provide detailed computational testing of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we study the geodetic convexity of graphs, focusing on the problem of the complexity of computing a minimum hull set of a graph in several graph classes. For any two vertices of a connected graph , the closed interval of and is the set of vertices that belong to some shortest -path. For any , let . A subset is geodesically convex or convex if . In other words, a subset is convex if, for any and for any shortest -path , . Given a subset , the convex hull of is the smallest convex set that contains . We say that is a hull set of if . The size of a minimum hull set of is the hull number of , denoted by . The Hull Number problem is to decide whether , for a given graph and an integer . Dourado et al. showed that this problem is NP-complete in general graphs. In this paper, we answer an open question of Dourado et al. (2009) [1] by showing that the Hull Number problem is NP-hard even when restricted to the class of bipartite graphs. Then, we design polynomial-time algorithms to solve the Hull Number problem in several graph classes. First, we deal with the class of complements of bipartite graphs. Then, we generalize some results in Araujo et al. (2011) [2] to the class of -graphs and to cacti. Finally, we prove tight upper bounds on the hull numbers. In particular, we show that the hull number of an -node graph without simplicial vertices is at most in general, at most if is regular or has no triangle, and at most if has girth at least . [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper aims to address one of the many problems existing in current facial recognition techniques using tensor (TensorFace Algorithm and its extensions). Current methods rasterize facial images as vectors, which result in a loss of spatial structure information of facial images. In this paper, we propose a method called Sp-Tensor to extend TensorFace by applying the sub-pattern technique. Advantages of the proposed method include: (1) a portion of spatial structure and local information of facial images is preserved; (2) dramatically reduce the computation complexity than other existing methods when building the model. The experimental results demonstrate that Sp-Tensor has better performance than the original TensorFace and Sp-PCA1, especially for facial images with un-modeled views and light conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: “Clarithmetic” is a generic name for formal number theories similar to Peano arithmetic, but based on computability logic instead of the more traditional classical or intuitionistic logics. Formulas of clarithmetical theories represent interactive computational problems, and their “truth” is understood as existence of an algorithmic solution. Imposing various complexity constraints on such solutions yields various versions of clarithmetic. The present paper introduces a system of clarithmetic for polynomial time computability, which is shown to be sound and complete. Sound in the sense that every theorem T of the system represents an interactive number-theoretic computational problem with a polynomial time solution and, furthermore, such a solution can be efficiently extracted from a proof of T. And complete in the sense that every interactive number-theoretic problem with a polynomial time solution is represented by some theorem T of the system. The paper is written in a semitutorial style and targets readers with no prior familiarity with computability logic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• This paper aims to jointly design transmit waveform and mismatched filter to achieve low sidelobe level limited discussion in the open literature. We formulate an l_p-norm metric for pulse compression model which suits for either the ISL or PSL minimization only with different initializations of p. The waveform and filter can be updated simultaneously (not in alternating manner). A new algorithm with guaranteed convergence is proposed to solve the introduced problem. A number of new Lemmas are proved to find proper majorizers. Low sidelobe level is required for pulse compression (PC) radar systems since it can reduce false alarm triggered by the high sidelobe and improve the ability to detect weak targets nearby strong scattering points. In most of the existing literature, sidelobe suppression is achieved by either transmit waveform design at the transmitter or mismatched filter optimization at the receiver. Joint design of waveform and filter is an approach with limited discussion. Thus, this paper aims to jointly design transmit waveform and mismatched filter to achieve low sidelobe level. We first formulate an L p -norm metric for PC model which suits for either the integrated sidelobe level or peak sidelobe level (PSL) minimization (only with different initializations of p). Then we present a new iterative method to deal with the problem by using Dinkelbach's scheme and majorization minimization method. The proposed method is shown to be convergent and the computational complexity is also analyzed. Numerical examples demonstrate that waveforms and filters designed by using the proposed method produce lower PSL than the existing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the joint design of a transmit beampattern and angular waveform (AW) for colocated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars. The importance of the AW in the proposed signal processing strategy is first clarified, and then, two optimization models are established, which are aimed at either the power spectral density (PSD) design or the spectral compatibility and similarity design of the AW. There are two main differences between the proposed models and existing models. First, instead of matching a desired template or maximizing the transmit power on specific regions, the transmit beampattern in this paper is optimized to approach several key points, which guarantees the high transmit gain and the flexible adjustment of each beam gain. Second, instead of optimizing the performance of the transmit waveform, only the characteristics of the AW are examined, and they can be constrained quantitatively according to their relationship with the transmit gain. The two models can be unified into the same framework, and an efficient algorithm is proposed to solve the problem under a constant modulus constraint. The convergence of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated, and some improvements to reduce the computational complexity are proposed. Numerical simulations showed that compared to the existing methods, the proposed approach can be used to obtain a higher transmit gain, flexibly adjust each beam gain, and more accurately control the PSD, spectral compatibility, and similarity of the AW. Moreover, numerical simulations showed that, compared to the use of existing methods, the proposed algorithm has higher computational efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solve the problem of task scheduling in the cloud computing system, this paper proposes a scheduling algorithm for cloud computing based on the driver of dynamic essential path (DDEP). This algorithm applies a predecessor-task layer priority strategy to solve the problem of constraint relations among task nodes. The strategy assigns different priority values to every task node based on the scheduling order of task node as affected by the constraint relations among task nodes, and the task node list is generated by the different priority value. To address the scheduling order problem in which task nodes have the same priority value, the dynamic essential long path strategy is proposed. This strategy computes the dynamic essential path of the pre-scheduling task nodes based on the actual computation cost and communication cost of task node in the scheduling process. The task node that has the longest dynamic essential path is scheduled first as the completion time of task graph is indirectly influenced by the finishing time of task nodes in the longest dynamic essential path. Finally, we demonstrate the proposed algorithm via simulation experiments using Matlab tools. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the task Makespan in most cases and meet a high quality performance objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Possible winner problem in computational social choice theory, we are given a set of partial preferences and the question is whether a distinguished candidate could be made winner by extending the partial preferences to linear preferences. Previous work has provided, for many common voting rules, fixed parameter tractable algorithms for the Possible winner problem, with number of candidates as the parameter. However, the corresponding kernelization question is still open and in fact, has been mentioned as a key research challenge [10] . In this paper, we settle this open question for many common voting rules. We show that the Possible winner problem for maximin, Copeland, Bucklin, ranked pairs, and a class of scoring rules that includes the Borda voting rule does not admit a polynomial kernel with the number of candidates as the parameter. We show however that the Coalitional manipulation problem which is an important special case of the Possible winner problem does admit a polynomial kernel for maximin, Copeland, ranked pairs, and a class of scoring rules that includes the Borda voting rule, when the number of manipulators is polynomial in the number of candidates. A significant conclusion of our work is that the Possible winner problem is harder than the Coalitional manipulation problem since the Coalitional manipulation problem admits a polynomial kernel whereas the Possible winner problem does not admit a polynomial kernel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative sequential pattern (NSP) discovery is crucial, and sometimes it carries more enlightening information than positive sequential pattern (PSP) mining in data science. Owing to its computational complexity and exponential search space, the task of discovering NSPs is often more difficult and challenging than that for PSPs. To date, a few NSP mining algorithms have been proposed. Particularly, most algorithms only consider a single support for mining, thus they cannot present good results in many special real-world applications. To solve this problem and achieve better efficiency on a long sequence database or a large-scale database, we propose a novel algorithm called Negative Sequential Patterns with Individual Support (NSPIS) in this paper. The projection mechanism is adopted to NSPIS, which allows greatly reduce the search space and simultaneously improve the efficiency. Finally, detailed results of the experiments show that NSPIS can achieve better performance, and it costs less memory on large-scale datasets compared to the state-of-the-art algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the multiobjective solutions of the flow shop scheduling problem with and without sequence dependent setup times. In our case, the two objectives are the minimization of makespan and total flowtime. These problems are solved with a novel multiobjective local search framework-based decomposition, called multiobjective local search based decomposition (MOLSD), which decomposes a multiobjective problem into a number of single objective optimization subproblems using aggregation method and optimizes them simultaneously. First, a problem-specific Nawaz–Enscore–Hoam heuristic is used to initialize the population to enhance the quality of the initial solution. Second, a Pareto local search embedded with a heavy perturbation operator is applied to search the promising neighbors of each nondominated solution found so far. Then, when solving each subproblem, a single insert-based local search, a multiple local search strategy, and a doubling perturbation mechanism are designed to exploit the new individual. Finally, a restarted method is used to avoid the algorithm trapping into the local optima, which has a significant effect on the performance of the MOLSD. Comprehensive experiments have been conducted by two standard multiobjective metrics: 1) hyper-volume indicator; and 2) set coverage. The experimental results show that the proposed MOLSD provides better solutions that several state of the art algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Closest String problem asks to find a string s which is not too far from each string in a set of m input strings, where the distance is taken as the Hamming distance. This well-studied problem has various applications in computational biology and drug design. In this paper, we introduce a new variant of Closest String where the input strings can contain wildcards that can match any letter in the alphabet, and the goal is to find a solution string without wildcards. We call this problem the Closest String with Wildcards problem, and we analyze it in the framework of parameterized complexity. Our study determines for each natural parameterization whether this parameterization yields a fixed-parameter algorithm, or whether such an algorithm is highly unlikely to exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an original and efficient PSO algorithm, which is divided into three phases: (1) stabilization, (2) breadth-first search, and (3) depth-first search. The proposed algorithm, called PSO-3P, was tested with 47 benchmark continuous unconstrained optimization problems, on a total of 82 instances. The numerical results show that the proposed algorithm is able to reach the global optimum. This work mainly focuses on unconstrained optimization problems from 2 to 1,000 variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is motivated by a recent work on an extended linearproximal point algorithm(PPA) [B.S. He, X.L. Fu, and Z.K. Jiang,Proximal-point algorithm using a linear proximal term, J. Optim. Theory Appl. 141 (2009), pp. 299–319], which aims at relaxing the requirement of thelinearproximal term of classical PPA. In this paper, we make further contributions along the line. First, we generalize the linear PPA-based contraction method by using a nonlinear proximal term instead of the linear one. A notable superiority over traditional PPA-like methods is that the nonlinear proximal term of the proposed method may not necessarily be a gradient of any functions. In addition, thenonlinearityof the proximal term makes the new method more flexible. To avoid solving a variational inequality subproblem exactly, we then propose aninexactversion of the developed method, which may be more computationally attractive in terms of requiring lower computational cost. Finally, we gainfully employ our new methods to solve linearly constrained convex minimization and variational inequality problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we analyze the computational complexity of the dual gradient method for solving linearly constrained convex problems. When it is difficult to project on the primal feasible set described by linear constraints, we use the Lagrangian relaxation to handle the complicated constraints and then, we apply the dual gradient algorithm for solving the corresponding dual. We give a unified convergence rate analysis for the dual gradient algorithm: we provide sublinear or linear estimates on the primal suboptimality and feasibility violation of the generated approximate primal solutions. Our analysis relies on the Lipschitz property of the dual function or an error bound property. Furthermore, the iteration complexity analysis is based on two types of approximate primal solutions: an average primal sequence or the last primal iterate sequence. We also discuss complexity certifications and implementation aspects of the dual gradient algorithm on constrained MPC problems for embedded linear systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers multirobot task allocation problems where the estimated costs for performing tasks are interrelated, and the overall team objective need not be a standard sum-of-costs (or utilities) model, enabling straightforward treatment of the additional costs incurred by resource contention. In the model we introduce, a team may choose one of a set of shared resources to perform a task (e.g., several routes to reach a destination), and interference is modeled when multiple robots use the same resource. We show that the general problem is NP-hard, and investigate specialized subinstances with particular cost structures. For the general problem, we describe an exact algorithm which finds an optimal assignment in a reasonable time on small instances. Aiming at larger problems, we turn two particular subinstances, introducing an two algorithms that find assignments quickly even for problems of considerable size, the first being optimal, the second being an approximation algorithm but also producing high-quality solutions with bounded suboptimality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a compressed membership problem for finite automata, both deterministic (DFAs) and non-deterministic (NFAs), with compressed transition labels is studied. The compression is represented by straight-line programs (SLPs), i.e. context-free grammars generating exactly one string. A novel technique of dealing with SLPs is employed: the SLPs are recompressed, so that substrings of the input word are encoded in SLPs labelling the transitions of the NFA (DFA) in the same way, as in the SLP representing the input text. To this end, the SLPs are locally decompressed and then recompressed in a uniform way. Furthermore, in order to reflect the recompression in the NFA, we need to modify it only a little, in particular its size stays polynomial in the input size. Using this technique it is shown that the compressed membership for NFA with compressed labels is in NP, thus confirming the conjecture of Plandowski and Rytter (Jewels Are Forever, pp. 262-272, Springer, Berlin, ) and extending the partial result of Lohrey and Mathissen (in CSR, LNCS, vol. 6651, pp. 275-288, Springer, Berlin, ); as this problem is known to be NP-hard (in Plandowski and Rytter, Jewels Are Forever, pp. 262-272, Springer, Berlin, ), we settle its exact computational complexity. Moreover, the same technique applied to the compressed membership for DFA with compressed labels yields that this problem is in P, and this problem is known to be P-hard (in Markey and Schnoebelen, Inf. Process. Lett. 90(1):3-6, ; Beaudry et al., SIAM J. Comput. 26(1):138-152, ). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jin et al. (in J. Optim. Theory Appl. 155:1073-1083, ) proposed homogeneous self-dual algorithms for stochastic semidefinite programs with finite event space. In this paper, we utilize their work to derive homogeneous self-dual algorithms for stochastic second-order cone programs with finite event space. We also show how the structure in the stochastic second-order cone programming problems may be exploited so that the algorithms developed for these problems have less complexity than the algorithms developed for stochastic semidefinite programs mentioned above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For a fixed positive integer , a -tuple total dominating set of a graph is a set such that every vertex of is adjacent to at least vertices in . The -tuple total domination problem is to determine a minimum -tuple total dominating set of . This paper studies -tuple total domination from an algorithmic point of view. In particular, we present a linear-time algorithm for the -tuple total domination problem for graphs in which each block is a clique, a cycle or a complete bipartite graph, which include trees, block graphs, cacti and block-cactus graphs. We also establish NP-hardness of the -tuple total domination problem in undirected path graphs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we present a simple and efficient computational algorithm for solving eigenvalue problems of high fractional-order differential equations with variable coefficients. The method of solution is based on utilizing the series solution to convert the governing fractional differential equation into a linear system of algebraic equations. Then, the eigenvalues can be calculated by finding the roots of the corresponding characteristic polynomial. Notice that this class of eigenvalue problems is very promising to the solution of linear fractional partial differential equations (FPDE). The numerical results demonstrate reliability and efficiency of the proposed algorithm. Based on our simulations some theoretical conjectures are reported. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]