Riccardo Silvestri

On the power assignment problem in radio networks

Given a finite set S of points (i.e. the stations of a radio network) on a d-dimensional Euclidean space and a positive integer 1≤h≤|S|−1, the MIN DD H-RANGE ASSIGNMENT problem consists of assigning transmission ranges to the stations so as to minimize the total power consumption, provided that the transmission ranges of the stations ensure the communication between any pair of stations in at most h hops.Two main issues related to this problem are considered in this paper: the trade-off between the power consumption and the number of hops; the computational complexity of the MIN DD H-RANGE ASSIGNMENT problem.As for the first question, we provide a lower bound on the minimum power consumption of stations on the plane for constant h. The lower bound is a function of |S|, h and the minimum distance over all the pairs of stations in S. Then, we derive a constructive upper bound as a function of |S|, h and the maximum distance over all pairs of stations in S (i.e. the diameter of S). It turns out that when the minimum distance between any two stations is “not too small” (i.e. well spread instances) the upper bound matches the lower bound. Previous results for this problem were known only for very special 1-dimensional configurations (i.e., when points are arranged on a line at unitary distance) [Kirousis, Kranakis, Krizanc and Pelc, 1997].As for the second question, we observe that the tightness of our upper bound implies that MIN 2D H-RANGE ASSIGNMENT restricted to well spread instances admits a polynomial time approximation algorithm. Then, we also show that the same approximation result can be obtained for random instances. On the other hand, we prove that for h=|S|−1 (i.e. the unbounded case) MIN 2D H-RANGE ASSIGNMENT is NP-hard and MIN 3D H-RANGE ASSIGNMENT is APX-complete.

Hardness Results for the Power Range Assignmet Problem in Packet Radio Networks

The minimum range assignment problem consists of assigning transmission ranges to the stations of a multi-hop packet radio network so as to minimize the total power consumption provided that the transmission range assigned to the stations ensures the strong connectivity of the network (i.e. each station can communicate with any other station by multi-hop transmission). The complexity of this optimization problem was studied by Kirousis, Kranakis, Krizanc, and Pelc (1997). In particular, they proved that, when the stations are located in a 3-dimensional Euclidean space, the problem is NP-hard and admits a 2-approximation algorithm. On the other hand, they left the complexity of the 2-dimensional case as an open problem.

A uniform approach to define complexity classes

Abstract Complexity classes are usually defined by referring to computation models and by putting suitable restrictions on them. Following this approach, many proofs of results are tightly bound to the characteristics of the computation model and of its restrictions and, therefore, they sometimes hide the essential properties which insure the obtained results. In order to obtain more general results, a uniform family of computation models which encompasses most of the complexity classes of interest is introduced. As a first initial set of results derivable from the proposed approach, we will give a sufficient and necessary condition for proving separations of relativized complexity classes, a characterization of complexity classes with complete languages and a sufficient condition for proving strong separations of relativized complexity classes. Examples of applications of these results to some specific complexity classes are then given. Additional results related to separations by sparse oracles can be found in Bovet (1991).

Distributed broadcast in radio networks of unknown topology

A multi-hop synchronous radio network is said to be unknown if the nodes have no knowledge of the topology. A basic task in radio network is that of broadcasting a message (created by a fixed source node) to all nodes of the network. Typical operations in real-life radio networks is the multi-broadcast that consists in performing a set of r independent broadcasts. The study of broadcast operations on unknown radio network is started by the seminal paper of Bar-Yehuda et al. [J. Comput. System Sci. 45 (1992) 104] and has been the subject of several recent works.In this paper, we study the completion and the termination time of distributed protocols for both the (single) broadcast and the multi-broadcast operations on unknown networks as functions of the number of nodes n, the maximum eccentricity D, the maximum in-degree Δ, and the congestion c of the networks. We establish new connections between these operations and some combinatorial concepts, such as selective families, strongly selective families (also known as superimposed codes), and pairwise r-different families. Such connections, combined with a set of new lower and upper bounds on the size of the above families, allow us to derive new lower bounds and new distributed protocols for the broadcast and multi-broadcast operations. In particular, our upper bounds are almost tight and strongly improve over the previous bounds for a large class of networks.

Flooding time in edge-Markovian dynamic graphs

We introduce stochastic time-dependency in evolving graphs: starting from an arbitrary initial edge probability distribution, at every time step, every edge changes its state (existing or not) according to a two-state Markovian process with probabilities p (edge birth-rate) and q (edge death-rate). If an edge exists at time t then, at time t+1, it dies with probability q. If instead the edge does not exist at time t, then it will come into existence at time t+1 with probability p. Such evolving graph model is a wide generalization of time-independent dynamic random graphs [6] and will be called edge-Markovian dynamic graphs. We investigate the speed of information dissemination in such dynamic graphs. We provide nearly tight bounds (which in fact turn out to be tight for a wide range of probabilities p and q) on the completion time of the flooding mechanism aiming to broadcast a piece of information from a source node to all nodes. In particular, we provide: i) A tight characterization of the class of edge-Markovian dynamic graphs where flooding time is constant and, thus, it does not asymptotically depend on the initial probability distribution. ii) A tight characterization of the class of edge-Markovian dynamic graphs where flooding time does not asymptotically depend on the edge death-rate q.

Information spreading in stationary Markovian evolving graphs

Markovian evolving graphs are dynamic-graph models where the links among a fixed set of nodes change during time according to an arbitrary Markovian rule. They are extremely general and they can well describe important dynamic-network scenarios. We study the speed of information spreading in the stationary phase by analyzing the completion time of the flooding mechanism. We prove a general theorem that establishes an upper bound on flooding time in any stationary Markovian evolving graph in terms of its node-expansion properties. We apply our theorem in two natural and relevant cases of such dynamic graphs. Geometric Markovian evolving graphs where the Markovian behaviour is yielded by n mobile radio stations, with fixed transmission radius, that perform independent random walks over a square region of the plane. Edge-Markovian evolving graphs where the probability of existence of any edge at time t depends on the existence (or not) of the same edge at time t-1. In both cases, the obtained upper bounds hold with high probability and they are nearly tight. In fact, they turn out to be tight for a large range of the values of the input parameters. As for geometric Markovian evolving graphs, our result represents the first analytical upper bound for flooding time on a class of concrete mobile networks.

Round Robin is optimal for fault-tolerant broadcasting on wireless networks

We study the completion time of broadcast operations on static ad hoc wireless networks in presence of unpredictable and dynamical faults.Concerning oblivious fault-tolerant distributed protocols, we provide an Ω(Dn) lower bound where n is the number of nodes of the network and D is the source eccentricity in the fault-free part of the network. Rather surprisingly, this lower bound implies that the simple Round Robin protocol, working in O(Dn) time, is an optimal fault-tolerant oblivious protocol. Then, we demonstrate that networks of o(n/log n) maximum in-degree admit faster oblivious protocols. Indeed, we derive an oblivious protocol having O(D min{n, Δ log n}) completion time on any network of maximum in-degree Δ.Finally, we address the question whether adaptive protocols can be faster than oblivious ones. We show that the answer is negative at least in the general setting: we indeed prove an Ω(Dn) lower bound when D = Θ(√n). This clearly implies that no (adaptive) protocol can achieve, in general, o(Dn) completion time.

Experimental analysis of simple, distributed vertex coloring algorithms

Abstract We perform an extensive experimental evaluation of very simple, distributed, randomized algorithms for (Δ + 1) and so-called Brooks–Vizing vertex colorings, i.e., colorings using considerably fewer than Δ colors (here Δ denotes the maximum degree of the graph). We consider variants of algorithms known from the literature, boosting them with a distributed independent set computation. Our study clearly determines the relative performance of the algorithms with respect to the number of communication rounds and the number of colors. The results are confirmed by all the experiments and instance families. The empirical evidence shows that some algorithms use very few rounds and are rather effective, thus being amenable to be used in practice.

Flooding Time of Edge-Markovian Evolving Graphs

=1We introduce stochastic time-dependency in evolving graphs: starting from an initial graph, at every time step, every edge changes its state (existing or not) according to a two-state Markovian process with probabilities

On compact representations of propositional circumscription

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