Design and Analysis of Algorithms May 12, 2011

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 6.046J/18.410J

Profs. Dana Moshkovitz and Bruce Tidor Practice Final Exam

Practice Final Exam

• Do not open this quiz booklet until you are directed to do so. Read all the instructions first.
• The quiz contains 6 problems, several with multiple parts. You have 180 minutes to earn 120
points.
• This quiz booklet contains 15 pages, including this one, and a sheet of scratch paper which
can be detached.
′′
• This quiz is closed book. You may use two double sided Letter (8 21 ×11′′ ) or A4 crib sheets.
No calculators or programmable devices are permitted. Cell phones must be put away.
• Write your solutions in the space provided. If you run out of space, continue your answer on
the back of the same sheet and make a notation on the front of the sheet.
• Do not waste time deriving facts that we have studied. It is sufficient to cite known results.
• Do not spend too much time on any one problem. Generally, a problem’s point value is an
indication of how many minutes to spend on it.
• Show your work, as partial credit will be given. You will be graded not only on the correct-
ness of your answer, but also on the clarity with which you express it. Please be neat.
• Good luck!

Problem Title Points Parts Grade Initials

0 Name 1 15

1 True or False 44 11

2 P, NP & Friends 10 1

3 Taming M AX -C UT 10 3

4 Spy Games 10 2

5 Lots of Spanning trees 25 5

6 Traveling with the salesman 20 3

Total 120

Name:
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Problem 0. Name. [1 point] Write your name on every page of this exam booklet! Don’t forget
the cover.

Problem 1. True or False. [44 points] (11 parts)

Circle T or F for each of the following statements to indicate whether the statement is true or false,
respectively, and briefly explain why. Your justification is worth more points than your true-or-false
designation.

(a) T F [4 points] If problem A can be reduced to 3SAT via a deterministic polynomial-

time reduction, and A ∈ NP, then A is NP-complete.

(b) T F [4 points] Let G = (V, E) be a flow network, i.e., a weighted directed graph
with a distinguished source vertex s, a sink vertex t, and non-negative capacity
c(u, v) for every edge (u, v) in E. Suppose you find an s-t cut C which has edges
e1 , e2 , . . . , ek and a capacity f . Suppose the value of the maximum s-t flow in G
is f .
Now let H be the flow network obtained by adding 1 to the capacity of each edge
in C. Then the value of the maximum s-t flow in H is f + k.
6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 3

(c) T F [4 points] Let A and B be optimization problems where it is known that A

reduces to B in polynomial time. Additionally, it is known that there exists a
polynomial-time 2-approximation for B. Then there must exist a polynomial-
time 2-approximation for A.

(d) T F [4 points] There exists a polynomial-time 2-approximation algorithm for the

general Traveling Salesman Problem.
6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 4

(e) T F [4 points] If we use a max-queue instead of a min-queue in Kruskal’s MST algo-

rithm, it will return the spanning tree of maximum total cost (instead of returning
the spanning tree of minimum total cost). (Assume the input is a weighted con-
nected undirected graph.)

(f) T F [4 points] A randomized algorithm for a decision problem with one-sided-error

and correctness probability 1/3 (that is, if the answer is YES, it will always output
YES, while if the answer is NO, it will output NO with probability 1/3) can always
be amplified to a correctness probability of 99%.
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(g) T F [4 points] Suppose that a randomized algorithm A has expected running time
Θ(n2 ) on any input of size n. Then it is possible for some execution of A to take
Ω(3n ) time.

(h) T F [4 points] Building a heap on n elements takes Θ(n lg n) time.

(i) T F [4 points] We can evaluate a polynomial of degree-bound n at any set of n points

in O(n lg n) time.
6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 6

(j) T F [4 points] Suppose that you have two deterministic online algorithms, A1 and
A2 , with a competitive ratios c1 and c2 respectively. Consider the randomized
algorithm A∗ that flips a fair coin once at the beginning; if the coin comes up
heads, it runs A1 from then on; if the coin comes up tails, it runs A2 from then
on. Then the expected competitive ratio of A∗ is at least min{c1 , c2 }.
6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 7

Problem 2. Taming Max-Cut [10 points] A C UT, in a graph G = (V, E), is a partition of V into
two non-intersecting sets A, B. An edge is said to be in the cut if one of its end points is in A and
the other is in B. In the M AX -C UT problem, the objective is to maximize the number of edges
in the cut. We intend to design an approximation scheme for M AX -C UT. Consider the following
scheme. Every vertex v ∈ V is assigned to A, B uniformly at random.

(a) What is the probability that e ∈ E is in the cut?

(b) What is the expected number of edges in the cut?

6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 8

(c) Conclude that the randomized scheme presented above is a 2-approximation to the
M AX -C UT.

Problem 3. Lots of Spanning Trees. (5 parts) [25 points] Let G = (V, E) be a connected
R
undirected graph with edge-weight function w : E → . Let wmin and wmax denote the minimum
and maximum weights, respectively, of the edges in the graph. Do not assume that the edge weights
in G are distinct or nonnegative. The following statements may or may not be correct. In each case,
either prove the statement is correct or give a counterexample if it is incorrect.

(a) If the graph G has more than |V | − 1 edges and there is a unique edge having the
largest weight wmax , then this edge cannot be part of any minimum spanning tree.
6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 9

(b) Any edge e with weight wmin , must be part of some MST.

(c) If G has a cycle and there is unique edge e which has the minimum weight on this
cycle, then e must be part of every MST.
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(d) If the edge e is not part of any MST of G, then it must be the maximum weight edge
on some cycle in G.

(e) Suppose the edge weights are nonnegative. Then the shortest path between two ver-
tices must be part of some MST.
6.046J/18.410J Practice Final Exam Name 11

Problem 4. Traveling with the salesman. [20 points] In the traveling-salesman problem, a
salesman must visit n cities. Modeling the problem as a complete graph on n vertices, we can say
that the salesman wishes to make a tour or a hamiltonian cycle, visiting each city exactly only
once and finishing at the city he starts from. The salesman incurs a nonnegative integer cost c(i, j)
to travel from city i to city j, and the salesman wishes to make a tour whose total cost is minimum,
where the total cost is the sum of the individual costs along the edges of the tour.

(a) Formulate the traveling salesman problem as a language.

TSP =

(b) Prove that TSP ∈ NP.

A hamiltonian cycle in a graph is a cycle that visits every vertex exactly once. Define the language
H AM -C YCLE = {< G >: there is a hamiltonian cycle in G}.

(c) Assuming that H AM -C YCLE is complete for the class NP, prove that TSP is NP-
Complete.
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6.046J / 18.410J Design and Analysis of Algorithms

Spring 2012

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