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Main Authors: Enright, Jessica, Lee, Duncan, Meeks, Kitty, Pettersson, William, Sylvester, John
Format: Preprint
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.10314
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author Enright, Jessica
Lee, Duncan
Meeks, Kitty
Pettersson, William
Sylvester, John
author_facet Enright, Jessica
Lee, Duncan
Meeks, Kitty
Pettersson, William
Sylvester, John
contents Understanding spatial correlation is vital in many fields including epidemiology and social science. Lee, Meeks and Pettersson (Stat. Comput. 2021) recently demonstrated that improved inference for areal unit count data can be achieved by carrying out modifications to a graph representing spatial correlations; specifically, they delete edges of the planar graph derived from border-sharing between geographic regions in order to maximise a specific objective function. In this paper we address the computational complexity of the associated graph optimisation problem. We demonstrate that this problem cannot be solved in polynomial time unless P = NP; we further show intractability for two simpler variants of the problem. We follow these results with two parameterised algorithms that exactly solve the problem. Both of these solve not only the decision problem, but also enumerate all solutions with polynomial time precalculation, delay, and postcalculation time in respective restricted settings. For this problem, efficient enumeration allows the uncertainty in the spatial correlation to be utilised in the modelling. The first enumeration algorithm utilises dynamic programming on a tree decomposition, and has polynomial time precalculation and linear delay if both the treewidth and maximum degree are bounded. The second algorithm is restricted to problem instances with maximum degree three, as may arise from triangulations of planar surfaces, but can output all solutions with FPT precalculation time and linear delay when the maximum number of edges that can be removed is taken as the parameter.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2010_10314
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publishDate 2020
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spellingShingle The complexity of finding and enumerating optimal subgraphs to represent spatial correlation
Enright, Jessica
Lee, Duncan
Meeks, Kitty
Pettersson, William
Sylvester, John
Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
Understanding spatial correlation is vital in many fields including epidemiology and social science. Lee, Meeks and Pettersson (Stat. Comput. 2021) recently demonstrated that improved inference for areal unit count data can be achieved by carrying out modifications to a graph representing spatial correlations; specifically, they delete edges of the planar graph derived from border-sharing between geographic regions in order to maximise a specific objective function. In this paper we address the computational complexity of the associated graph optimisation problem. We demonstrate that this problem cannot be solved in polynomial time unless P = NP; we further show intractability for two simpler variants of the problem. We follow these results with two parameterised algorithms that exactly solve the problem. Both of these solve not only the decision problem, but also enumerate all solutions with polynomial time precalculation, delay, and postcalculation time in respective restricted settings. For this problem, efficient enumeration allows the uncertainty in the spatial correlation to be utilised in the modelling. The first enumeration algorithm utilises dynamic programming on a tree decomposition, and has polynomial time precalculation and linear delay if both the treewidth and maximum degree are bounded. The second algorithm is restricted to problem instances with maximum degree three, as may arise from triangulations of planar surfaces, but can output all solutions with FPT precalculation time and linear delay when the maximum number of edges that can be removed is taken as the parameter.
title The complexity of finding and enumerating optimal subgraphs to represent spatial correlation
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.10314