A biologically inspired solution for fuzzy shortest path problems

By considering the uncertainty that exists in the edge weights of the network, fuzzy shortest path problems, as one of the derivative problems of shortest path problems, emerge from various practical applications in different areas. A path finding model, inspired by an amoeboid organism, Physarum polycephalum, has been shown as an effective approach for deterministic shortest path problems. In this paper, a biologically inspired algorithm called Fuzzy Physarum Algorithm (FPA) is proposed for fuzzy shortest path problems. FPA is developed based on the path finding model, while utilizing fuzzy arithmetic and fuzzy distance to deal with fuzzy issues. As a result, FPA can represent and handle the fuzzy shortest path problem flexibly and effectively. Distinct from many existing methods, no order relation has been assumed in the proposed FPA. Several examples, including a tourist problem, are given to illustrate the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed method and the results are compared with existing methods.     

基于规则的最短路径查询算法

最短路径查询是图数据管理中非常重要的一类问题.研究了基于规则的最短路径查询,它是一类特殊的最短路径查询问题.给定起点和终点,基于规则的最短路径查询是指找到一条从起点到终点的最短路径,使得此路径经过用户指定点集中的所有点,并且某些点的访问顺序满足一定的偏序规则.该问题被证明是一个NP-hard问题.目前已有的工作侧重于空间数据集（两点之间的最短距离用欧氏距离表示）上基于规则的最短路径问题,它采用穷举的方式列出所有满足规则的路径,然后选择长度最小的路径作为问题的解.然而在实际的道路交通网中,两点之间的距离等于两点之间的最短路径的长度,它往往大于两点之间的欧氏距离;此外,采用穷举的方式会造成大量重复的计算.因此,设计了一种前向搜索算法以及一些优化技术来求解该问题.最后,在不同的真实数据集上设计了大量的实验来验证算法的有效性.实验结果表明,该算法可以快速给出问题的解,而且算法的效率在很大程度上超过了现有的算法.     

Shortest paths in euclidean graphs

We analyze a simple method for finding shortest paths inEuclidean graphs (where vertices are points in a Euclidean space and edge weights are Euclidean distances between points). For many graph models, the average running time of the algorithm to find the shortest path between a specified pair of vertices in a graph withV vertices andE edges is shown to beO(V) as compared withO(E +V logV) required by the classical algorithm due to Dijkstra.     

Optimal route selection based on Monte Carlo method and adaptive amoeba algorithm under uncertain environment

The fuzzy optimal path under uncertainty is one of the basic network optimization problems. Considering the uncertain environment, many fuzzy numbers are used to represent the edge weights, such as interval number and triangular fuzzy number. Then, these fuzzy numbers are converted to real numbers directly. This converting makes the optimal path the shortest path selection problem. However, much information of uncertainty get lost when converting fuzzy numbers to real numbers. In order to ensure all the origan data complete, in this paper, a fuzzy optimal path solving model based on the Monte Carlo method and adaptive amoeba algorithm is proposed. In Monte Carlo process, a random number which belongs to the fuzzy number is generated. Then, Physarum polycephalum algorithm is used to solve the shortest path every time and record the result. After many times calculation, many shortest paths have been found and recorded. At last, by analysing the characters of all the results, the optimal path can be selected. Several numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the results show that the proposed method can deal with the fuzzy optimal path problems effectively.     

带均匀分布权值的最短路问题

最短路问题是网络设计中的一个基本问题,当前研究工作都基于边的权值是确定的这一假设。论文研究边的权值是一区间数时的最短路问题,利用优化理论,建立了目标函数系数在区间上均匀分布的模糊线性整数规划模型。通过引入正、负理想点概念,将模型转化为具有确定系数的单目标优化问题,给出了求解算法,并证明了算法的时间复杂性是多项式时间的。仿真实例说明了模型和算法的有效性。     

Parallel Mesh Algorithms for Grid Graph Shortest Paths with Application to Separation of Touching Chromosomes

The grid graph shortest path problem has many applications. In this paper, we present practical mesh algorithms using a local cost-reducing operation for various forms of the grid graph shortest path problem. The algorithms are very simple and can easily mark the vertices on shortest paths between any two vertices. The time complexity of the algorithm is proportional to the maximum length of the shortest paths with a very small multiplicative constant. Also in this paper, we discuss the application of the parallel algorithms in automatic chromosome analysis to intelligently split touching chromosomes. We identify local features useful for finding a potential path to separate touching chromosomes. We then define a distance measure based on the local features and find the best splitting path to cut touching chromosomes. The splitting algorithm only uses local information and is highly parallel.     

SOLVING ABSTRACT COOPERATIVE PATH‐FINDING IN DENSELY POPULATED ENVIRONMENTS

The problem of cooperative path‐finding is addressed in this work. A set of agents moving in a certain environment is given. Each agent needs to reach a given goal location. The task is to find spatial temporal paths for agents such that they eventually reach their goals by following these paths without colliding with each other. An abstraction where the environment is modeled as an undirected graph is adopted—vertices represent locations and edges represent passable regions. Agents are modeled as elements placed in the vertices while at most one agent can be located in a vertex at a time. At least one vertex remains unoccupied to allow agents to move. An agent can move into unoccupied neighboring vertex or into a vertex being currently vacated if a certain additional condition is satisfied. Two novel scalable algorithms for solving cooperative path‐finding in bi‐connected graphs are presented. Both algorithms target environments that are densely populated by agents. A theoretical and experimental evaluation shows that the suggested algorithms represent a viable alternative to search based techniques as well as to techniques employing permutation groups on the studied class of the problem.     

SPLZ: An efficient algorithm for single source shortest path problem using compression method

Efficient solution of the single source shortest path (SSSP) problem on road networks is an important requirement for numerous real-world applications. This paper introduces an algorithm for the SSSP problem using compression method. Owning to precomputing and storing all-pairs shortest path (APSP), the process of solving SSSP problem is a simple lookup of a little data from precomputed APSP and decompression. APSP without compression needs at least 1TB memory for a road network with one million vertices. Our algorithm can compress such an APSP into several GB, and ensure a good performance of decompression. In our experiment on a dataset about Northwest USA (with 1.2 millions vertices), our method can achieve about three orders of magnitude faster than Dijkstra algorithm based on binary heap.     

改进的Dijkstra最短路径算法及其应用研究

求最短路径是一个应用很广泛的问题。求最短路径的算法有很多,公认较好的算法是Dijkstra标号法。但实验结果表明,Dijkstra标号法有需要改进的地方:①其退出机制对不联通的有向图是无效的,会陷入死循环;②没有涉及最短路径上顶点的邻接点(特指前面的相邻点)问题;③没有涉及多个顶点同时获得p标号的问题。针对上述问题,对标号法进行了改进。算法实验表明,改进的标号法能够有效解决上述问题。在上述工作的基础上,开发了"北京市道路最优路线选择系统",以提供起点和终点之间的最优路线,帮助用户选择出行路线,使市民能够避过交通最拥堵的路段,节约出行时间。     

Shortest paths in euclidean graphs

We analyze a simple method for finding shortest paths inEuclidean graphs (where vertices are points in a Euclidean space and edge weights are Euclidean distances between points). For many graph models, the average running time of the algorithm to find the shortest path between a specified pair of vertices in a graph withV vertices andE edges is shown to beO(V) as compared withO(E +V logV) required by the classical algorithm due to Dijkstra.Support for the first author was provided in part by NSF Grant MCS-83-08806. Support for the second author was provided in part by NSF Grants MCS-81-05324 and DCR-84-03613, an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, an IBM research contract, and an IBM Faculty Development Award. Support for this research was also provided in part by an ONR and DARPA under Contract N00014-83-K-0146 and ARPA Order No. 4786. Equipment support was provided by NSF Grant MCS-81-218106.     

Two-level heaps: a new priority queue structure with applications to the single source shortest path problem

The single source shortest paths problem with positive edge weights (SSSPP) is one of the more widely studied problems in operations research and theoretical computer science, on account of its wide applicability to practical situations. This problem was first solved in polynomial time by Dijkstra, who showed that by extracting vertices with the smallest distance from the source and relaxing its outgoing edges, the shortest path to each vertex is obtained. Variations of this general theme have led to a number of algorithms which work well in practice. At the heart of a Dijkstra implementation is the technique used to implement a priority queue. It is well known that using Dijkstra’s approach requires Ω(n log n) steps on a graph having n vertices, since it essentially sorts vertices based on their distances from the source. Accordingly, the fastest implementation of Dijkstra’s algorithm on a graph with n vertices and m edges should take Ω(m + n · log n) time, and consequently, the Dijkstra procedure for SSSPP using Fibonacci Heaps is optimal in the comparison-based model. In this paper, we introduce a new data structure to implement priority queues called two-level heap (TLH) and a new variant of Dijkstra’s algorithm called Phased Dijkstra. We contrast the performance of Dijkstra’s algorithm (both the simple and the phased variants) using a number of data structures to implement the priority queue and empirically establish that TLH are far superior to Fibonacci heaps on every graph family considered. It is to be noted that our profiling includes both sparse and dense graphs.     

PH-graphs for analyzing shortest path problems with correlated traveling times

This paper presents a new approach to model weighted graphs with correlated weights at the edges. Such models are important to describe many real world problems like routing in computer networks or finding shortest paths in traffic models under realistic assumptions. Edge weights are modeled by phase type distributions (PHDs), a versatile class of distributions based on continuous time Markov chains (CTMCs). Correlations between edge weights are introduced by adding dependencies between the PHDs of adjacent edges using transfer matrices. The new model class, denoted as PH graphs (PHGs), allows one to formulate many shortest path problems as the computation of an optimal policy in a continuous time Markov decision process (CTMDP). The basic model class is defined, methods to parameterize the required PHDs and transfer matrices based on measured data are introduced and the formulation of basic shortest path problems as solutions of CTMDPs with the corresponding solution algorithms are also provided. Numerical examples for some typical stochastic shortest path problems demonstrate the usability of the new approach.     

Knowledge representation using fuzzy deduction graphs

A new knowledge representation model, known as fuzzy deduction graph (FDG), is introduced in this paper. An FDG can represent a knowledge base containing the fuzzy propositions and fuzzy rules. In an FDG, a systematic method of finding the fuzzy reasoning path (FRP) is given which is based on Dijkstra's shortest path framework. The FRP gives a relationship between the antecedent (source) proposition and consequent (goal) proposition, such that the consequent proposition is reached with the greatest fuzzy value. The process of finding the FRP is illustrated with examples.     

应急模糊网络系统最大满意度路径的选取

讨论给定限制期条件下的应急系统模糊路径问题.当边的长度为对称三角模糊数 (Symmetric Triangular Fuzzy Number)时,由于模糊数的不可比性,网络中一般不存在绝对 最短的路.为此,引入了路径满意度函数的概念,从而问题就变成:寻找一条从起点到终点的 通路,应急车辆经过此路的时间不超过限制期t的满意度最大.这样的路径选取问题实际可 转化为一个比例路径问题,尽管许多比例路径问题已被证明是NP问题,完全可以针对问题 的具体特点,运用最短路方法的变权迭代实现对该问题的精确求解.     

Fast approximation of betweenness centrality through sampling

Betweenness centrality is a fundamental measure in social network analysis, expressing the importance or influence of individual vertices (or edges) in a network in terms of the fraction of shortest paths that pass through them. Since exact computation in large networks is prohibitively expensive, we present two efficient randomized algorithms for betweenness estimation. The algorithms are based on random sampling of shortest paths and offer probabilistic guarantees on the quality of the approximation. The first algorithm estimates the betweenness of all vertices (or edges): all approximate values are within an additive factor \(\varepsilon \in (0,1)\) from the real values, with probability at least \(1-\delta \). The second algorithm focuses on the top-K vertices (or edges) with highest betweenness and estimate their betweenness value to within a multiplicative factor \(\varepsilon \), with probability at least \(1-\delta \). This is the first algorithm that can compute such approximation for the top-K vertices (or edges). By proving upper and lower bounds to the VC-dimension of a range set associated with the problem at hand, we can bound the sample size needed to achieve the desired approximations. We obtain sample sizes that are independent from the number of vertices in the network and only depend on a characteristic quantity that we call the vertex-diameter, that is the maximum number of vertices in a shortest path. In some cases, the sample size is completely independent from any quantitative property of the graph. An extensive experimental evaluation on real and artificial networks shows that our algorithms are significantly faster and much more scalable as the number of vertices grows than other algorithms with similar approximation guarantees.     

Estimating graph distance and centrality on shared nothing architectures

We present a parallel toolkit for pairwise distance computation in massive networks. Computing the exact shortest paths between a large number of vertices is a costly operation, and serial algorithms are not practical for billion‐scale graphs. We first describe an efficient parallel method to solve the single source shortest path problem on commodity hardware with no shared memory. Using it as a building block, we introduce a new parallel algorithm to estimate the shortest paths between arbitrary pairs of vertices. Our method exploits data locality, produces highly accurate results, and allows batch computation of shortest paths with 7% average error in graphs that contain billions of edges. The proposed algorithm is up to two orders of magnitude faster than previously suggested algorithms and does not require large amounts of memory or expensive high‐end servers. We further leverage this method to estimate the closeness and betweenness centrality metrics, which involve systems challenges dealing with indexing, joining, and comparing large datasets efficiently. In one experiment, we mined a real‐world Web graph with 700 million nodes and 12 billion edges to identify the most central vertices and calculated more than 63 billion shortest paths in 6 h on a 20‐node commodity cluster. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

交通道路网中任意两点之间最短路径的快速算法

寻找交通道路网中任意两点之间最短路径的算法已有许多 ,其中Dijkstra算法是最有效的算法之一 ,其时间复杂性为O(n2 )。本文提出的算法与Dijkstra算法不同 ,其主要思想是依据从始点至终点的直线段方向选择边产生二叉树 ,并采取有效方法降低二叉树的规模及缩短路径长度 ,然后由二叉树节点的标记计算出近似最短路径及其长度。反复执行常数次该算法可以求得最短路径及其长度。     

On the complexity of vertex-disjoint length-restricted path problems

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a simple graph and $s$ and $t$ be two distinct vertices of $G$. A path in $G$ is called \lb for some $\length\in\N$ if it does not contain more than $\length$ edges. We prove that computing the maximum number of \vd \lb $s,t$-paths is \apx--complete for any $\length\geq 5$. This implies that the problem of finding $k$ \vd \lb $s,t$-paths with minimal total weight for a given number $k\in\N$, $1\leq k \leq |V|-1$, and nonnegative weights on the edges of $G$ is \npo--complete for any length bound $\length\geq 5$. Furthermore, we show that these results are tight in the sense that for $\length\leq 4$ both problems are polynomially solvable, assuming that the weights satisfy a generalized triangle inequality in the weighted problem. Similar results are obtained for the analogous problems with path lengths equal to \length instead of at most \length and with edge-disjointness instead of vertex-disjointness.     

The shortest path problem with discrete fuzzy arc lengths

In the past, the fuzzy shortest path problem in a network has attracted attention from many researchers for its importance to various applications. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm to deal with the fuzzy shortest path problem. It is composed of fuzzy shortest path length procedure and similarity measure. The former is presented to determine the fuzzy shortest path length from source node to the destination node in the network, and the latter is used to measure the similarity degree between fuzzy length sets. This algorithm not only can yield shortest length but also can offer the actual shortest path to decision makers. An illustrative example is also included to demonstrate our proposed algorithm.     

Spanning trees with minimum weighted degrees

Given a metric graph G, we are concerned with finding a spanning tree of G where the maximum weighted degree of its vertices is minimum. In a metric graph (or its spanning tree), the weighted degree of a vertex is defined as the sum of the weights of its incident edges. In this paper, we propose a 4.5-approximation algorithm for this problem. We also prove it is NP-hard to approximate this problem within a 2−ε factor.