Unit-5-Np Hard and NP Complete Problems-1

Unit-5
NP hard and NP Complete problems

Basic Concepts
K. RAGHAVA RAO
Professor in CSE
KL University
[email protected]
http://mcadaa.blog.com
1
NP –HARD AND NP – COMPLETE PROBLEMS
Basic Concepts
Basic Conepts
Decision Problems
To keep things simple, we will mainly concern ourselves with
decision problems. These problems only require a single bit output:
``yes'' and ``no''.
How would you solve the following decision problems?
-Is this directed graph acyclic?

-Is there a spanning tree of this undirected graph with total
weight less than w?
-Does this bipartite graph have a perfect (all nodes matched)
matching?
-Does the pattern p appear as a substring in text t?
BASIC CONCEPTS
• The computing times of algorithms fall into two

groups.
• Group1– consists of problems whose solutions are

bounded by the polynomial of small degree.
Example – Binary search o(log n) , sorting o(n log n),

matrix multiplication 0(n 2.81).
4
• Group2 – contains problems whose best known algorithms are

non polynomial.
• Example –Traveling salesperson problem 0(n22n), knapsack

problem 0(2n/2) etc.
• There are two classes of non polynomial time problems

1) NP- hard
2) NP-complete
• A problem which is NP complete will have the property that it

can be solved in polynomial time iff all other NP – complete
problems can also be solved in polynomial time. 5
Basic Concepts
The class NP (meaning non-deterministic polynomial time) is the

set of problems that might appear in a puzzle magazine: ``Nice
puzzle.''
What makes these problems special is that they might be hard to

solve, but a short answer can always be printed in the back, and it
is easy to see that the answer is
correct once you see it.
Example... Does matrix A have an LU decomposition?
No guarantee if answer is ``no''.

Basic Concepts
Another way of thinking of NP is it is the set of problems that can

solved efficiently by a really good guesser.
The guesser essentially picks the accepting certificate out of the air
(Non-deterministic Polynomial time). It can then convince itself
that
it is correct using a polynomial
time algorithm. (Like a right-brain, left-brain sort of thing.)
Clearly this isn't a practically useful characterization: how could

we build such a machine?
Basic Conepts
Exponential Upperbound
Another useful property of the class NP is that all NP problems can

be solved in exponential time (EXP).
This is because we can always list out all short certificates in

exponential time and check all O(2nk) of them.
Thus, P is in NP, and NP is in EXP. Although we know that P is

not equal to EXP, it is possible that NP = P, or EXP, or neither.
Frustrating!
Basic Conepts
NP-hardness
As we will see, some problems are at least as hard to solve as any

problem in NP. We call such problems NP-hard.
How might we argue that problem X is at least as hard (to within

a polynomial factor) as problem Y?
If X is at least as hard as Y, how would we expect an algorithm

that is able to solve X to behave?
• If an NP-hard problem can be solved in polynomial

time, then all NP-complete problems can be solved
in polynomial time.
• All NP-complete problems are NP-hard, but all NP-

hard problems are not NP-complete.
• The class of NP-hard problems is very rich in the

sense that it contain many problems from a wide
variety of disciplines.
10
• P: the class of problems which can be solved by a
deterministic polynomial algorithm.
• NP : the class of decision problem which can be solved by a

non-deterministic polynomial algorithm.
• NP-hard: the class of problems to which every NP problem

reduces.
• NP-complete (NPC): the class of problems which are NP-

hard and belong to NP.
8- 11
NP-Completeness
• How we would you define NP-Complete?
• They are the “hardest” problems in NP
NP-Complete
P
NP
DETERMINISTIC and NONDETERMINISTIC ALGORITHMS
• Algorithms with the property that the result of every

operation is uniquely defined are termed
deterministic.
• Such algorithms agree with the way programs are

executed on a computer.
• In a theoretical framework, we can allow algorithms to

contain operations whose outcome is not uniquely
defined but is limited to a specified set of possibilities.
13
Deterministic and Nondeterministic algorithms
• The machine executing such operations are allowed to
choose any one of these outcomes subject to a termination
condition.
• This leads to the concept of non deterministic algorithms.
• To specify such algorithms in SPARKS, we introduce three

statements
i) choice (s) ……… arbitrarily chooses one of the
elements of the set S.
ii) failure …. Signals an unsuccessful completion.
iii) Success : Signals a successful completion. 14
• Whenever there is a set of choices that leads to a successful

completion then one such set of choices is always made and
the algorithm terminates.
• A nondeterministic algorithm terminates unsuccessfully if and

only if there exists no set of choices leading to a successful
signal.
• A machine capable of executing a non deterministic algorithm

is called a non deterministic machine.
• While non-deterministic machines do not exist in practice they

will provide strong intuitive reason to conclude that certain
problems cannot be solved by fast deterministic algorithms.15
Nondeterministic algorithms
• A nondeterminstic algorithm consists of
phase 1: guessing
phase 2: checking
• If the checking stage of a nondeterministic algorithm is of

polynomial time-complexity, then this algorithm is called
an NP (nondeterministic polynomial) algorithm.
• NP problems : (must be decision problems)
– e.g. searching, MST
sorting
satisfiability problem (SAT)
traveling salesperson problem (TSP) 8- 16
Example of a non deterministic algorithm
// The problem is to search for an element x //
// Output j such that A(j) =x; or j=0 if x is not in A //
j choice (1 :n )
if A(j) =x then print(j) ; success endif
print (‘0’) ; failure
complexity 0(1);
- Non-deterministic decision algorithms generate a zero or one
as their output.
- Deterministic search algorithm complexity. (n)
17
• Many optimization problems can be recast into decision problems

with the property that the decision problem can be solved in
polynomial time iff the corresponding optimization problem can .
EXAMPLE : [0/1 knapsack] :
• The decision is to determine if there is a 0/1 assignment of values to

xi 1 i n such that pixi R, and wixi M, R, M are given numbers
pi, wi 0, 1 i n.
• It is easy to obtain polynomial time non deterministic algorithms for

many problems that can be deterministically solved by a systematic
search of a solution space of exponential size.
18
SATISFIABILITY
• Let x1,x2,x3….xn denotes Boolean variables.

_
• Let xi denotes the relation of xi.
• A literal is either a variable or its negation.
• A formula in the prepositional calculus is an expression that can

be constructed using literals and the operators and or v.
• A clause is a formula with at least one positive literal.
• The satisfiability problem is to determine if a formula is true

for some assignment of truth values to the variables. 19
SATISFIABILITY
• It is easy to obtain a polynomial time non determination

algorithm that terminates successfully if and only if a given
prepositional formula E(x1,x2……xn) is satiable.
• Such an algorithm could proceed by simply choosing (non

deterministically) one of the 2n possible assignments of
truth values to (x1,x2…xn) and verify that E(x1,x2…xn) is true
for that assignment.
20
The satisfiability problem
• The satisfiability problem

– The logical formula :
x1 v x2 v x3
& - x1
& - x2
the assignment :
x1 ← F , x2 ← F , x3 ← T
will make the above formula true .
(-x1, -x2 , x3) represents x1 ← F , x2 ← F , x3 ← T
8- 21
• If there is at least one assignment which satisfies a formula,
then we say that this formula is satisfiable; otherwise, it is
unsatisfiable.
• An unsatisfiable formula :
x1 v x2
& x1 v -x2
& -x1 v x2
& -x1 v -x2
8- 22
• Definition of the satisfiability problem:
Given a Boolean formula, determine whether this
formula is satisfiable or not.
• A literal : xi or -xi
• A clause : x1 v x2 v -x3 Ci
• A formula : conjunctive normal form (CNF)

C1 & C2 & … & Cm 8- 23
NP-HARD GRAPH AND SCHEDULING PROBLEMS
Some NP-hard Graph Problems :
The strategy to show that a problem L2 is NP-hard is
(i) Pick a problem L1 already known to be NP-hard.
(ii) Show how to obtain an instance I1 of L2 from any instance

I of L1 such that from the solution of I1
- We can determine (in polynomial deterministic
time) the solution to instance I of L1.
24
(iii) Conclude from (ii) that L1 L2.
(iii) Conclude from (i),(ii), and the transitivity of that

Satisfiability L1
L1 L2
Satisfiability L2
L2 is NP-hard
25
1. Chromatic Number Decision Problem (CNP)
• A coloring of a graph G = (V,E) is a function

f : V  { 1,2, …, k} i V .
• If (U,V) E then f(u) f(v).
• The CNP is to determine if G has a coloring for a given K.
• Satisfiability with at most three literals per clause

chromatic number problem.
CNP is NP-hard.
26
2. Directed Hamiltonian Cycle (DHC)
• Let G = (V,E) be a directed graph and length n = 1V1
• The DHC is a cycle that goes through every vertex exactly once and then
returns to the starting vertex.
• The DHC problem is to determine if G has a directed Hamiltonian Cycle.
Theorem : CNF (Conjunctive Normal Form) satisfiability DHC

DHC is NP-hard.
27
3. Travelling Salesperson Decision Problem (TSP) :
• The problem is to determine if a complete directed graph

G = (V,E) with edge costs C(u,v) has a tour of cost at most
M.
Theorem : Directed Hamiltonian Cycle (DHC) TSP
• But from problem (2) satisfiability DHC

Satisfiability TSP
TSP is NP-hard.
28
NP-HARD SCHEDULING PROBLEMS
1. Sum of subsets
• The problem is to determine if A={a1,a2,…….,an}

(a1,a2,………,an are positive integers) has a subset S that
sums to a given integer M.
2. Scheduling identical processors
• Let Pi 1≤i≤m be identical processors or machines Pi.

• Let Ji 1≤i≤n be n jobs.
• Jobs Ji requires ti processing time.
29
NP-HARD SCHEDULING PROBLEMS
• A schedule S is an assignment of jobs to processors.
• For each job Ji ,S specifies the time intervals and the processors on
which this job is to be processed.
• A job can not be processed by more than one processor at any given
time.
• The problem is to find a minimum finish time non-preemptive
schedule.
• The finish time of S is FT(S) = max{Ti}

1≤i≤m
• Where Ti is the time at which processor Pi finishes processing all jobs
(or job segments) assigned to it.
30
SOME SIMPLIIFIED NP-HARD PROBLEMS
• An NP-hard problem L cannot be solved in deterministic polynomial

time.
• By placing enough restrictions on any NP hard problem, we can

arrive at a polynomial solvable problem.
Examples.
(i) CNF- Satisfiability with at most three literals per clause is NP-hard.
(ii) If each clause is restricted to have at most two literals then CNF-
satisfiability is polynomial solvable.
31
SOME SIMPLIIFIED NP-HARD PROBLEMS
(iii)Generating optimal code for a parallel assignment

statement is NP-hard,
- however if the expressions are restricted to be simple
variables, then optimal code can be generated in
polynomial time.
(iv)Generating optimal code for level one directed a- cyclic

graphs is NP-hard but optimal code for trees can be
generated in polynomial time.
(v)Determining if a planner graph is three colorable is NP-

Hard
- To determine if it is two colorable is a polynomial
complexity problem. (We only have to see if it is bipartite)
32

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Unit-5

NP hard and NP Complete problems

How would you solve the following decision problems?

-Is this directed graph acyclic?

• The computing times of algorithms fall into two

• Group1– consists of problems whose solutions are

Example – Binary search o(log n) , sorting o(n log n),

• Group2 – contains problems whose best known algorithms are

• Example –Traveling salesperson problem 0(n22n), knapsack

• There are two classes of non polynomial time problems

• A problem which is NP complete will have the property that it

The class NP (meaning non-deterministic polynomial time) is the

What makes these problems special is that they might be hard to

Example... Does matrix A have an LU decomposition?

No guarantee if answer is ``no''.

Another way of thinking of NP is it is the set of problems that can

Clearly this isn't a practically useful characterization: how could

Another useful property of the class NP is that all NP problems can

This is because we can always list out all short certificates in

Thus, P is in NP, and NP is in EXP. Although we know that P is

As we will see, some problems are at least as hard to solve as any

How might we argue that problem X is at least as hard (to within

If X is at least as hard as Y, how would we expect an algorithm

• If an NP-hard problem can be solved in polynomial

• All NP-complete problems are NP-hard, but all NP-

• The class of NP-hard problems is very rich in the

• NP : the class of decision problem which can be solved by a

• NP-hard: the class of problems to which every NP problem

• NP-complete (NPC): the class of problems which are NP-

• Algorithms with the property that the result of every

• Such algorithms agree with the way programs are

• In a theoretical framework, we can allow algorithms to

• This leads to the concept of non deterministic algorithms.

• To specify such algorithms in SPARKS, we introduce three

• Whenever there is a set of choices that leads to a successful

• A nondeterministic algorithm terminates unsuccessfully if and

• A machine capable of executing a non deterministic algorithm

• While non-deterministic machines do not exist in practice they

• If the checking stage of a nondeterministic algorithm is of

// Output j such that A(j) =x; or j=0 if x is not in A //

if A(j) =x then print(j) ; success endif

print (‘0’) ; failure

• Many optimization problems can be recast into decision problems

EXAMPLE : [0/1 knapsack] :

• The decision is to determine if there is a 0/1 assignment of values to

• It is easy to obtain polynomial time non deterministic algorithms for

• Let x1,x2,x3….xn denotes Boolean variables.

• A literal is either a variable or its negation.

• A formula in the prepositional calculus is an expression that can

• A clause is a formula with at least one positive literal.

• The satisfiability problem is to determine if a formula is true

• It is easy to obtain a polynomial time non determination

• Such an algorithm could proceed by simply choosing (non

• The satisfiability problem

• A formula : conjunctive normal form (CNF)

Some NP-hard Graph Problems :

The strategy to show that a problem L2 is NP-hard is

(i) Pick a problem L1 already known to be NP-hard.