Graph Theory and

Applications
Lecture 7: TSP and related problems

Ta Viet Cuong, Ph.D

HMI laboratory, FIT-UET
Today
I. Review
II. Cover set and Maximum Independent Set
III. TSP
Homework

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(s-t) Cuts
Definition: An (s-t) cut of graph G = <V, E> in a way to partition V into
two disjoint set A, B with s in A and t in B

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Flow value lemma
Let f be any flow, and let (A, B) be any s-t cut, then the value of f equal the flow leaving A

Proof: (by induction)

- Base case A = {s}

- Assume |A| < k

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Optimality Conditions for Max Flow
Let f be a flow in a graph G, the following are equivalent:
a) f is maximum flow
b) there is an (s, t)-cut (A, B) such that the value of f equals the capacity
of (A, B)
c) there is no s-t path in the residual network of G(f)

Proof sketch: (2) -> (1) -> (3) -> (2)

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Algorithms

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Application 1: Bipartite Matching
Students and jobs:

- Company only has one job

- Student can join one company

Can you find a match:

- Between student and company

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Application 1: Bipartite Matching
Matching: Given a Bipartite Graph, we want to associate vertex from L to R as many as
possible with a constraint:
- Each vertex is matched to one and only one vertex of the other side

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Variants of Flow problems
There are several variants of the flow problems:

- Multi sources/sinks flow

- Flow with vertex capacity
- Flow with max/min constraint
- Max flow min-cost problems
- Max-flow problem can be augmented by disjunctive constraints

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Excercise
Given a chess board of size NxN, there is K-Pawn place on the tables. Find the maximum
number of Rook that can place in the board with the constraint that: no Rook can attack
each others.

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Today
I. Review
II. Cover set and Maximum Independent Set
III. TSP
Homework

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Minimum Cover set
Give a undirected graph G = <V, E>, a vertex cover is a set of vertices V’ where every
edges of E has at least one endpoint in V’

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Minimum Cover set
Trivial Cover: we can use V as a cover set

We want to find the cover set with smallest possible size

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Maximum Independent Set
Give a undirected graph G = <V, E>, a vertex cover is a set of vertices V’ where there is no
edge in E connect two vertices in V’

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Maximum Independent Set
We want to maximize the set of independent set

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Properties
- The complement of a vertex cover is an independent set
- The minimum number of vertex cover plus the maximum number of independent set
is the number of vertices |V|

Exact solutions:

- For bipartite graph, the vertex cover is equal the maximum matching number
- For tree graph, we can go from leaf to find the minimum number of vertex cover

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Solution
The minimum vertex cover set is a NP-complete in general.

Exhaustive search approach: can try 2kNO(1) approach: test all the cover set of k vertex

Improve exhaustive search approach:

- With each vertex v, choose v or choose all of the neighbors of v

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Approximate solution
We can based on the matching properties:

- Find a maximal matching M, then using all the vertices of edge in M

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Homework
Find the maximum matching M and its related cover set. Which is the optimal cover set?

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Today
I. Review
II. Cover set and Maximum Independent Set
III. TSP
Homework

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Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP)
One of the most famous problem in graph domain:

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Travelling Salesman Problem
Formal definition:

- Give a undirected graph G = <V, E>, for e in E, the cost

- A TSP tour is a simple cycle that visited each vertex once

The goal is: find the cycle that have the minimum cost

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Example 1:
The tour through the number of positions: it started as far as 1832 as a tour through some
cities in Germany and Switzerland

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Example 2:
Task scheduler:

- There is a number of tasks

- The tasks can be set up with a cost: locating
resources, workers
- The cost is depending on the previous tasks

Find the optimal order of tasks:

- A hard disk with a number of read requests

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Theorem
Theorem: If P != NP, then there is no 𝜶-approximation algorithm for the for the TSP, for
any 𝜶

𝜶-approximation: for a minimization problem runs in polynomial time and always returns
a feasible solution with cost at most α times the minimum possible

Proof: Using reduction n from the Hamiltonian cycle problem

Short: The TSP is hard, even to approximate

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Theorem
Theorem: If P != NP, then there is no 𝜶-approximation algorithm for the for the TSP, for
any 𝜶

Proof: Using reduction n from the Hamiltonian cycle problem

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Theorem
Theorem: If P != NP, then there is no 𝜶-approximation algorithm for the for the TSP, for
any 𝜶

𝜶-approximation: for a minimization problem runs in polynomial time and always returns
a feasible solution with cost at most α times the minimum possible

Short: The TSP is hard, even to approximate

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Version of TSP
+ Metric TSP: The edge costs satisfy the triangle inequality

+ Point TSP: the set of v is set on the plane, with the cost is the distance

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The Minimum Spanning Tree heuristics
Lenma: For every instance G = (V, E, c), the minimum-possible cost of a TSP tour is at
least the cost of a minimum spanning tree (MST).

Proof: you can try to reduce an edge from the TSP

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The Minimum Spanning Tree heuristics

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The Minimum Spanning Tree heuristics
d - output of the algorithms

e - optimal solution

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The Minimum Spanning Tree heuristics
Theorem: The MST heuristic is a 2-approximation algorithm for the metric TSP.

Or:

We can find a TSP tour that is less than 2*OPTIMAL TSP

Proof: (we need double the tree)

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The Minimum Spanning Tree heuristics
We do not need to double the edges:

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The Minimum Spanning Tree heuristics
Theorem: the above algorithms is an 3/2-approximation algorithm for the metric TSP

Some notes:

- It is the best approximation algorithm to this day for metric TSP

- If possible, there is some conjecture that can results in a 4/3-approximation
- In July 2020 however, Karlin, Klein, and Gharan released a preprint in which they
introduced a novel approximation algorithm and claimed that its approximation ratio
is 1.5 − 10−36

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Homework
Improve the TSP tour of the following graph, using block distance

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