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In the Minimum Consistent Subset (MCS) problem, we are presented with a connected simple undirected graph $G=(V,E)$, consisting of a vertex set $V$ of size $n$ and an edge set $E$. Each vertex in $V$ is assigned a color from the set $\{1,2,\ldots, c\}$. The objective is to determine a subset $V' \subseteq V$ with minimum possible cardinality, such that for every vertex $v \in V$, at least one of its nearest neighbors in $V'$ (measured in terms of the hop distance) shares the same color as $v$. The decision problem, indicating whether there exists a subset $V'$ of cardinality at most $l$ for some positive integer $l$, is known to be NP-complete even for planar graphs. In this paper, we establish that the MCS problem for trees, when the number of colors $c$ is considered an input parameter, is NP-complete. We propose a fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) algorithm for MCS on trees running in $O(2^{6c}n^6)$ time, significantly improving the currently best-known algorithm whose running time is $O(2^{4c}n^{2c+3})$. In an effort to comprehensively understand the computational complexity of the MCS problem across different graph classes, we extend our investigation to interval graphs. We show that it remains NP-complete for interval graphs, thus enriching graph classes where MCS remains intractable.

In this article, we study the Euclidean minimum spanning tree problem in an imprecise setup. The problem is known as the \emph{Minimum Spanning Tree Problem with Neighborhoods} in the literature. We study the problem where the neighborhoods are represented as non-crossing line segments. Given a set ${\cal S}$ of $n$ disjoint line segments in $I\!\!R^2$, the objective is to find a minimum spanning tree (MST) that contains exactly one end-point from each segment in $\cal S$ and the cost of the MST is minimum among $2^n$ possible MSTs. We show that finding such an MST is NP-hard in general, and propose a $2\alpha$-factor approximation algorithm for the same, where $\alpha$ is the approximation factor of the best-known approximation algorithm to compute a minimum cost Steiner tree in an undirected graph with non-negative edge weights. As an implication of our reduction, we can show that the unrestricted version of the problem (i.e., one point must be chosen from each segment such that the cost of MST is as minimum as possible) is also NP-hard. We also propose a parameterized algorithm for the problem based on the "separability" parameter defined for segments.

We study geometric variations of the discriminating code problem. In the \emph{discrete version} of the problem, a finite set of points $P$ and a finite set of objects $S$ are given in $\mathbb{R}^d$. The objective is to choose a subset $S^* \subseteq S$ of minimum cardinality such that for each point $p_i \in P$, the subset $S_i^* \subseteq S^*$ covering $p_i$ satisfies $S_i^*\neq \emptyset$, and each pair $p_i,p_j \in P$, $i \neq j$, we have $S_i^* \neq S_j^*$. In the \emph{continuous version} of the problem, the solution set $S^*$ can be chosen freely among a (potentially infinite) class of allowed geometric objects. In the 1-dimensional case ($d=1$), the points in $P$ are placed on a horizontal line $L$, and the objects in $S$ are finite-length line segments aligned with $L$ (called intervals). We show that the discrete version of this problem is NP-complete. This is somewhat surprising as the continuous version is known to be polynomial-time solvable. Still, for the 1-dimensional discrete version, we design a polynomial-time $2$-approximation algorithm. We also design a PTAS for both discrete and continuous versions in one dimension, for the restriction where the intervals are all required to have the same length. We then study the 2-dimensional case ($d=2$) for axis-parallel unit square objects. We show that both continuous and discrete versions are NP-complete, and design polynomial-time approximation algorithms that produce $(16\cdot OPT+1)$-approximate and $(64\cdot OPT+1)$-approximate solutions respectively, using rounding of suitably defined integer linear programming problems. We show that the identifying code problem for axis-parallel unit square intersection graphs (in $d=2$) can be solved in the same manner as for the discrete version of the discriminating code problem for unit square objects.

A majority of real life networks are weighted and sparse. The present article aims at characterization of weighted networks based on sparsity, as a measure of inherent diversity, of different network parameters. It utilizes sparsity index defined on ordered degree sequence of simple networks and derives further properties of this index. The range of possible values of sparsity index of any connected network, with edge-count in specific intervals, is worked out analytically in terms of node-count; a pattern is uncovered in corresponding degree sequences to produce highest sparsities. Given the edge-weight frequency distribution of a network, we have formulated an expression of the sparsity index of edge-weights. Its properties are analyzed under different distributions of edge-weights. For example, the upper and lower bounds of sparsity index of edge-weights of a network, having all distinct edge-weights, is determined in terms of its node-count and edge density. The article highlights that this summary index with low computational cost, computed on different network parameters, is useful to reveal different structural and organizational aspects of networks for performing analysis. An application of this index has been demonstrated through overlapping community detection of networks. The results validated on artificial and real-world networks show its efficacy., Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures

In this article, we study a generalized version of the maximum independent set and minimum dominating set problems, namely, the maximum $d$-distance independent set problem and the minimum $d$-distance dominating set problem on unit disk graphs for a positive integer $d>0$. We first show that the maximum $d$-distance independent set problem and the minimum $d$-distance dominating set problem belongs to NP-hard class. Next, we propose a simple polynomial-time constant-factor approximation algorithms and PTAS for both the problems.

In the paper "Linear time algorithm to cover and hit a set of line segments optimally by two axis-parallel squares", TCS Volume 769 (2019), pages 63--74, the LHIT problem is proposed as follows: For a given set of non-intersecting line segments ${\cal L} = \{\ell_1, \ell_2, \ldots, \ell_n\}$ in $I\!\!R^2$, compute two axis-parallel congruent squares ${\cal S}_1$ and ${\cal S}_2$ of minimum size whose union hits all the line segments in $\cal L$, and a linear time algorithm was proposed. Later it was observed that the algorithm has a bug. In this corrigendum, we corrected the algorithm. The time complexity of the corrected algorithm is $O(n^2)$.

Classical separability problem involving multi-color point sets is an important area of study in computational geometry. In this paper, we study different separability problems for bichromatic point set P=P_r\cup P_b on a plane, where $P_r$ and $P_b$ represent the set of n red points and m blue points respectively, and the objective is to compute a monochromatic object of the desired type and of maximum size. We propose in-place algorithms for computing (i) an arbitrarily oriented monochromatic rectangle of maximum size in R^2, (ii) an axis-parallel monochromatic cuboid of maximum size in R^3. The time complexities of the algorithms for problems (i) and (ii) are O(m(m+n)(m\sqrt{n}+m\log m+n \log n)) and O(m^3\sqrt{n}+m^2n\log n), respectively. As a prerequisite, we propose an in-place construction of the classic data structure the k-d tree, which was originally invented by J. L. Bentley in 1975. Our in-place variant of the $k$-d tree for a set of n points in R^k supports both orthogonal range reporting and counting query using O(1) extra workspace, and these query time complexities are the same as the classical complexities, i.e., O(n^{1-1/k}+\mu) and O(n^{1-1/k}), respectively, where \mu is the output size of the reporting query. The construction time of this data structure is O(n\log n). Both the construction and query algorithms are non-recursive in nature that do not need O(\log n) size recursion stack compared to the previously known construction algorithm for in-place k-d tree and query in it. We believe that this result is of independent interest. We also propose an algorithm for the problem of computing an arbitrarily oriented rectangle of maximum weight among a point set P=P_r \cup P_b, where each point in P_b (resp. P_r) is associated with a negative (resp. positive) real-valued weight that runs in O(m^2(n+m)\log(n+m)) time using O(n) extra space.

Let P be a set of n points and each of the points is colored with one of the k possible colors. We present efficient algorithms to pre-process P such that for a given query point q, we can quickly identify the smallest color spanning object of the desired type containing q. In this paper, we focus on (i) intervals, (ii) axis-parallel square, (iii) axis-parallel rectangle, (iv) equilateral triangle of fixed orientation and (v) circle, as our desired type of objects., Comment: A preliminary version of the paper appeared in the proceedings of 5th International Conference on Algorithms and Discrete Applied Mathematics, CALDAM 2019

This paper discusses the problem of covering and hitting a set of line segments $\cal L$ in ${\mathbb R}^2$ by a pair of axis-parallel squares such that the side length of the larger of the two squares is minimized. We also discuss the restricted version of covering, where each line segment in $\cal L$ is to be covered completely by at least one square. The proposed algorithm for the covering problem reports the optimum result by executing only two passes of reading the input data sequentially. The algorithm proposed for the hitting and restricted covering problems produces optimum result in $O(n)$ time. All the proposed algorithms are in-place, and they use only $O(1)$ extra space. The solution of these problems also give a $\sqrt{2}$ approximation for covering and hitting those line segments $\cal L$ by two congruent disks of minimum radius with same computational complexity., Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appeared in COCOON 2017, pages 457-468

We study the problem of assigning non-overlapping geometric objects centered at a given set of points such that the sum of area covered by them is maximized. If the points are placed on a straight-line and the objects are disks, then the problem is solvable in polynomial time. However, we show that the problem is NP-hard even for simplest objects like disks or squares in ${\mathbb{R}}^2$. Eppstein [CCCG, pages 260--265, 2016] proposed a polynomial time algorithm for maximizing the sum of radii (or perimeter) of non-overlapping balls or disks when the points are arbitrarily placed on a plane. We show that Eppstein's algorithm for maximizing sum of perimeter of the disks in ${\mathbb{R}}^2$ gives a $2$-approximation solution for the sum of area maximization problem. We propose a PTAS for our problem. These approximation results are extendible to higher dimensions. All these approximation results hold for the area maximization problem by regular convex polygons with even number of edges centered at the given points., Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures

Maximum independent set from a given set $D$ of unit disks intersecting a horizontal line can be solved in $O(n^2)$ time and $O(n^2)$ space. As a corollary, we design a factor 2 approximation algorithm for the maximum independent set problem on unit disk graph which takes both time and space of $O(n^2)$. The best known factor 2 approximation algorithm for this problem runs in $O(n^2 \log n)$ time and takes $O(n^2)$ space [Jallu and Das 2016, Das et al. 2016].

In this paper, we study different variations of minimum width color-spanning annulus problem among a set of points $P=\{p_1,p_2,\ldots,p_n\}$ in $I\!\!R^2$, where each point is assigned with a color in $\{1, 2, \ldots, k\}$. We present algorithms for finding a minimum width color-spanning axis parallel square annulus $(CSSA)$, minimum width color spanning axis parallel rectangular annulus $(CSRA)$, and minimum width color-spanning equilateral triangular annulus of fixed orientation $(CSETA)$. The time complexities of computing (i) a $CSSA$ is $O(n^3+n^2k\log k)$ which is an improvement by a factor $n$ over the existing result on this problem, (ii) that for a $CSRA$ is $O(n^4\log n)$, and for (iii) a $CSETA$ is $O(n^3k)$. The space complexity of all the algorithms is $O(k)$., Comment: 14 pages

We study several variations of line segment covering problem with axis-parallel unit squares in $I\!\!R^2$. A set $S$ of $n$ line segments is given. The objective is to find the minimum number of axis-parallel unit squares which cover at least one end-point of each segment. The variations depend on the orientation and length of the input segments. We prove some of these problems to be NP-complete, and give constant factor approximation algorithms for those problems. For some variations, we have polynomial time exact algorithms. For the general version of the problem, where the segments are of arbitrary length and orientation, and the squares are given as input, we propose a factor 16 approximation result based on multilevel linear programming relaxation technique, which may be useful for solving some other problems. Further, we show that our problems have connections with the problems studied by Arkin et al. 2015 on conflict-free covering problem. Our NP-completeness results hold for more simplified types of objects than those of Arkin et al. 2015.

Motivated by the applications of routing in PCB buses, the Rectangle Escape Problem was recently introduced and studied. In this problem, we are given a set of rectangles $\mathcal{S}$ in a rectangular region $R$, and we would like to extend these rectangles to one of the four sides of $R$. Define the density of a point $p$ in $R$ as the number of extended rectangles that contain $p$. The question is then to find an extension with the smallest maximum density. We consider the problem of maximizing the number of rectangles that can be extended when the maximum density allowed is at most $d$. It is known that this problem is polynomially solvable for $d = 1$, and NP-hard for any $d \geq 2$. We consider approximation and exact algorithms for fixed values of $d$. We also show that a very special case of this problem, when all the rectangles are unit squares from a grid, continues to be NP-hard for $d = 2$., Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, A preliminary version appeared in the Proceedings of the 26th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry, 2014

Given a convex polygon $P$ with $n$ vertices, the two-center problem is to find two congruent closed disks of minimum radius such that they completely cover $P$. We propose an algorithm for this problem in the streaming setup, where the input stream is the vertices of the polygon in clockwise order. It produces a radius $r$ satisfying $r\leq2r_{opt}$ using $O(1)$ space, where $r_{opt}$ is the optimum solution. Next, we show that in non-streaming setup, we can improve the approximation factor by $r\leq 1.84 r_{opt}$, maintaining the time complexity of the algorithm to $O(n)$, and using $O(1)$ extra space in addition to the space required for storing the input., Comment: 27 pages, 18 figures

Facility location problems are captivating both from theoretical and practical point of view. In this paper, we study some fundamental facility location problems from the space-efficient perspective. Here the input is considered to be given in a read-only memory and only constant amount of work-space is available during the computation. This {\em constant-work-space model} is well-motivated for handling big-data as well as for computing in smart portable devices with small amount of extra-space. First, we propose a strategy to implement prune-and-search in this model. As a warm up, we illustrate this technique for finding the Euclidean 1-center constrained on a line for a set of points in $\IR^2$. This method works even if the input is given in a sequential access read-only memory. Using this we show how to compute (i) the Euclidean 1-center of a set of points in $\IR^2$, and (ii) the weighted 1-center and weighted 2-center of a tree network. The running time of all these algorithms are $O(n~poly(\log n))$. While the result of (i) gives a positive answer to an open question asked by Asano, Mulzer, Rote and Wang in 2011, the technique used can be applied to other problems which admit solutions by prune-and-search paradigm. For example, we can apply the technique to solve two and three dimensional linear programming in $O(n~poly(\log n))$ time in this model. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first sub-quadratic time algorithms for all the above mentioned problems in the constant-work-space model. We also present optimal linear time algorithms for finding the centroid and weighted median of a tree in this model.