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Lecture Notes on
Analysis and Design of Algorithms
BCS401

Module-5

Contents

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LIMITATIONS OF ALGORITHMIC POWER

Decision Trees

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1. NP-Complete and NP-Hard problems

1.1 Basic concepts
For many of the problems we know and study, the best algorithms for their solution have
computing times can be clustered into two groups;
1. Solutions are bounded by the polynomial- Examples include Binary search O(log n),
Linear search O(n), sorting algorithms like merge sort O(n log n), Bubble sort O(n2)
&matrix multiplication O(n3) or in general O(nk) where k is a constant.
2. Solutions are bounded by a non-polynomial-Examples include travelling salesman
problem O(n22n) & knapsack problem O(2n/2). As the time increases exponentially,
even moderate size problems cannot be solved.
So far, no one has been able to device an algorithm which is bounded by the polynomial for
the problems belonging to the non-polynomial. However impossibility of such an algorithm
is not proved.

1.2 P, NP, NP-Complete and NP-Hard classes

NP stands for Non-deterministic Polynomial time.

Definition: P is a set of all decision problems solvable by a deterministic algorithm in

polynomial time.
Definition: NP is the set of all decision problems solvable by a nondeterministic algorithm in
polynomial time. This also implies P ⊆ NP

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Problems known to be in P are trivially in NP — the nondeterministic machine just never

troubles itself to fork another process, and acts just like a deterministic one. One example of a
problem not in P but in NP is Integer Factorization.

But there are some problems which are known to be in NP but don’t know if they’re in P. The
traditional example is the decision-problem version of the Travelling Salesman Problem
(decision-TSP). It’s not known whether decision-TSP is in P: there’s no known poly-time
solution, but there’s no proof such a solution doesn’t exist.
There are problems that are known to be neither in P nor NP; a simple example is to
enumerate all the bit vectors of length n. No matter what, that takes 2n steps.
Now, one more concept: given decision problems P and Q, if an algorithm can transform a
solution for P into a solution for Q in polynomial time, it’s said that Q is poly-time
reducible (or just reducible) to P.

The most famous unsolved problem in computer science is “whether P=NP or P≠NP? ”

Figure: Commonly believed

relationship between P and NP

Figure: Commonly believed relationship between P, NP, NP-

Complete and NP-hard problems

Definition: A decision problem D is said to be NP-complete if:

1. it belongs to class NP
2. every problem in NP is polynomially reducible to D
The fact that closely related decision problems are polynomially reducible to each other is not
very surprising. For example, Hamiltonian circuit problem is polynomially reducible to the
decision version of the traveling salesman problem.
NP-Complete problems have the property that it can be solved in polynomial time if all other
NP-Complete problems can be solved in polynomial time. i.e if anyone ever finds a poly-time
solution to one NP-complete problem, they’ve automatically got one for all the NP-complete
problems; that will also mean that P=NP.
Example for NP-complete is CNF-satisfiability problem. The CNF-satisfiability problem
deals with boolean expressions. This is given by Cook in 1971. The CNF-satisfiability
problem asks whether or not one can assign values true and false to variables of a given
boolean expression in its CNF form to make the entire expression true.
Over the years many problems in NP have been proved to be in P (like Primality Testing).
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Still, there are many problems in NP not proved to be in P. i.e. the question still remains
whether P=NP? NP Complete Problems helps in solving this question. They are a subset
of NP problems with the property that all other NP problems can be reduced to any of them in
polynomial time. So, they are the hardest problems in NP, in terms of running time. If it can
be showed that any NP-Complete problem is in P, then all problems in NP will be in P
(because of NP-Complete definition), and hence P=NP=NPC.
NP Hard Problems - These problems need not have any bound on their running time. If
any NP-Complete Problem is polynomial time reducible to a problem X, that problem X
belongs to NP-Hard class. Hence, all NP-Complete problems are also NP-Hard. In other
words if a NP-Hard problem is non-deterministic polynomial time solvable, it is a NP-
Complete problem. Example of a NP problem that is not NPC is Halting Problem.
If a NP-Hard problem can be solved in polynomial time then all NP-Complete can be solved
in polynomial time.
“All NP-Complete problems are NP-Hard but not all NP-Hard problems are not NP-
Complete.”NP-Complete problems are subclass of NP-Hard
The more conventional optimization version of Traveling Salesman Problem for finding the
shortest route is NP-hard, not strictly NP-complete.

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COPING WITH LIMITATIONS OF ALGORITHMIC POWER

2. Backtracking
Some problems can be solved, by exhaustive search. The exhaustive-search technique
suggests generating all candidate solutions and then identifying the one (or the ones) with a
desired property.
Backtracking is a more intelligent variation of this approach. The principal idea is to
construct solutions one component at a time and evaluate such partially constructed
candidates as follows. If a partially constructed solution can be developed further without
violating the problem’s constraints, it is done by taking the first remaining legitimate option
for the next component. If there is no legitimate option for the next component, no
alternatives for any remaining component need to be considered. In this case, the algorithm
backtracks to replace the last component of the partially constructed solution with its next
option.
It is convenient to implement this kind of processing by constructing a tree of choices being
made, called the state-space tree. Its root represents an initial state before the search for a
solution begins. The nodes of the first level in the tree represent the choices made for the first
component of a solution; the nodes of the second level represent the choices for the second
component, and soon. A node in a state-space tree is said to be promising if it corresponds to
a partially constructed solution that may still lead to a complete solution; otherwise, it is
called non-promising. Leaves represent either non-promising dead ends or complete
solutions found by the algorithm.
In the majority of cases, a statespace tree for a backtracking algorithm is constructed in the
manner of depth-first search. If the current node is promising, its child is generated by adding
the first remaining legitimate option for the next component of a solution, and the processing
moves to this child. If the current node turns out to be non-promising, the algorithm
backtracks to the node’s parent to consider the next possible option for its last component; if
there is no such option, it backtracks one more level up the tree, and so on. Finally, if the
algorithm reaches a complete solution to the problem, it either stops (if just one solution is
required) or continues searching for other possible solutions.

2.1 N-Queens problem

The problem is to place n queens on an n × n chessboard so that no two queens attack each
other by being in the same row or in the same column or on the same diagonal.
So let us consider the four-queens problem and solve it by the backtracking technique.
Since each of the four queens has to be placed in its own row, all we need to do is to assign a
column for each queen on the board presented in figure.

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We start with the empty board and then place queen 1 in the first possible position of its row,
which is in column 1 of row 1. Then we place queen 2, after trying unsuccessfully columns 1
and 2, in the first acceptable position for it, which is square (2, 3), the square in row 2 and
column 3. This proves to be a dead end because there is no acceptable position for queen 3.
So, the algorithm backtracks and puts queen 2 in the next possible position at (2, 4). Then
queen 3 is placed at (3, 2), which proves to be another dead end. The algorithm then
backtracks all the way to queen 1 and moves it to (1, 2). Queen 2 then goes to (2, 4), queen 3
to(3, 1), and queen 4 to (4, 3), which is a solution to the problem. The state-space tree of this
search is shown in figure.

Figure: State-space tree of solving the four-queens problem by backtracking. ×

denotes an unsuccessful attempt to place a queen in the indicated column. The
numbers above the nodes indicate the order in which the nodes are generated.

If other solutions need to be found, the algorithm can simply resume its operations at the leaf
at which it stopped. Alternatively, we can use the board’s symmetry for this purpose.
Finally, it should be pointed out that a single solution to the n-queens problem for any n ≥ 4
can be found in linear time.

Note: The algorithm NQueens() is not in the syllabus. It is given here for interested learners.
The algorithm is referred from textbook T2.

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2.2 Sum of subsets problem

Problem definition: Find a subset of a given set A = {a1, . . . , an} of n positive integers
whose sum is equal to a given positive integer d.
For example, for A = {1, 2, 5, 6, 8} and d = 9, there are two solutions: {1, 2, 6} and {1, 8}.
Of course, some instances of this problem may have no solutions.
It is convenient to sort the set’s elements in increasing order. So, we will assume that
a1< a2< . . . < an.
The state-space tree can be constructed as a binary tree like that in Figure shown below for
the instance A = {3, 5, 6, 7} and d = 15.
The number inside a node is the sum of the elements already included in the subsets
represented by the node. The inequality below a leaf indicates the reason for its termination.

The root of the tree represents the starting point, with no decisions about the given elements
made as yet. Its left and right children represent, respectively, inclusion and exclusion of a1 in
a set being sought.
Similarly, going to the left from a node of the first level corresponds to inclusion of a2 while
going to the right corresponds to its exclusion, and so on. Thus, a path from the root to a node
on the ith level of the tree indicates which of the first in numbers have been included in the
subsets represented by that node.
We record the value of s, the sum of these numbers, in the node. If s is equal to d, we have a
solution to the problem. We can either report this result and stop or, if all the solutions need
to be found, continue by backtracking to the node’s parent. If s is not equal to d, we can
terminate the node as non-promising if either of the following two inequalities holds:

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Example: Apply backtracking to solve the following instance of the subset sum problem: A
= {1, 3, 4, 5} and d = 11.

3. Branch and Bound

Recall that the central idea of backtracking, discussed in the previous section, is tocut off a
branch of the problem’s state-space tree as soon as we can deduce that it cannot lead to a
solution. This idea can be strengthened further if we deal with an optimization problem.
An optimization problem seeks to minimize or maximize some objective function (a tour
length, the value of items selected, the cost of an assignment, and the like), usually subject to
some constraints. An optimal solution is a feasible solution with the best value of the
objective function (e.g., the shortest Hamiltonian circuit or the most valuable subset of items
that fit the knapsack).
Compared to backtracking, branch-and-bound requires two additional items:
1. a way to provide, for every node of a state-space tree, a bound on the best value of
the objective function on any solution that can be obtained by adding further
components to the partially constructed solution represented by the node
2. the value of the best solution seen so far
In general, we terminate a search path at the current node in a state-space tree of a branch-
and-bound algorithm for any one of the following three reasons:
1. The value of the node’s bound is not better than the value of the best solution seen so
far.
2. The node represents no feasible solutions because the constraints of the problem are
already violated.
3. The subset of feasible solutions represented by the node consists of a single point (and
hence no further choices can be made)—in this case, we compare the value of the
objective function for this feasible solution with that of the best solution seen so far
and update the latter with the former if the new solution is better.

1. 0/1 Knapsack problem

Let us now discuss how we can apply the branch-and-bound technique to solving the
knapsack problem. Given n items of known weights wi and values vi, i = 1, 2, . . . , n, and a
knapsack of capacity W, find the most valuable subset of the items that fit in the knapsack.
∑ 𝑤𝑖𝑥𝑖 ≤ 𝑊 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ∑ 𝑖𝑥𝑖 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑥𝑖 = 0 𝑜𝑟 1
1≤𝑖≤𝑛 1≤𝑖≤𝑛

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It is convenient to order the items of a given instance in descending order by their value-to-
weight ratios.

Each node on the ith level of state space tree, 0 ≤ i ≤ n, represents all the subsets of n items
that include a particular selection made from the first i ordered items. This particular
selection is uniquely determined by the path from the root to the node: a branch going to the
left indicates the inclusion of the next item, and a branch going to the right indicates its
exclusion.
We record the total weight w and the total value v of this selection in the node, along with
some upper bound ub on the value of any subset that can be obtained by adding zero or more
items to this selection. A simple way to compute the upper bound ub is to add to v, the total
value of the items already selected, the product of the remaining capacity of the knapsack W
– w and the best per unit payoff among the remaining items, which is vi+1/wi+1:

ub = v + (W − w)(vi+1/wi+1).
Example: Consider the following problem. The items are already ordered in descending order
of their value-to-weight ratios.

Let us apply the branch-and-bound algorithm. At the root of the state-space tree (see Figure
12.8), no items have been selected as yet. Hence, both the total weight of the items already
selected w and their total value v are equal to 0. The value of the upper bound is 100.
Node 1, the left child of the root, represents the subsets that include item 1. The total weight
and value of the items already included are 4 and 40, respectively; the value of the upper
bound is 40 + (10 − 4) * 6 = 76.
Node 2 represents the subsets that do not include item 1. Accordingly, w = 0, v = 0, and ub =
0 + (10 − 0) * 6 = 60. Since node 1 has a larger upper bound than the upper bound of node 2,
it is more promising for this maximization problem, and we branch from node 1 first. Its
children—nodes 3 and 4—represent subsets with item 1 and with and without item 2,
respectively. Since the total weight w of every subset represented by node 3 exceeds the
knapsack’s capacity, node 3 can be terminated immediately.
Node 4 has the same values of w and v as its parent; the upper bound ub is equal to 40 + (10
− 4) * 5 = 70. Selecting node 4 over node 2 for the next branching (Due to better ub), we get
nodes 5 and 6 by respectively including and excluding item 3. The total weights and values as
well as the upper bounds for these nodes are computed in the same way as for the preceding
nodes.
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Branching from node 5 yields node 7, which represents no feasible solutions, and node 8,
which represents just a single subset {1, 3} of value 65. The remaining live nodes 2 and 6
have smaller upper-bound values than the value of the solution represented by node 8. Hence,
both can be terminated making the subset {1, 3} of node 8 the optimal solution to the
problem.

Solving the knapsack problem by a branch-and-bound algorithm has a rather unusual

characteristic. Typically, internal nodes of a state-space tree do not define a point of the
problem’s search space, because some of the solution’s components remain undefined. (See,
for example, the branch-and-bound tree for the assignment problem discussed in the
preceding subsection.) For the knapsack problem, however, every node of the tree represents
a subset of the items given. We can use this fact to update the information about the best
subset seen so far after generating each new node in the tree. If we had done this for the
instance investigated above, we could have terminated nodes 2 and 6 before node 8 was
generated because they both are inferior to the subset of value 65 of node 5.

12.3 Approximation Algorithms for NP-Hard Problems

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Approximation Algorithms for the Knapsack Problem

The knapsack problem, another well-known NP-hard problem, given n items of known
weights w1,...,wn and values v1,...,vn and a knapsack of weight capacity W, find the most
valuable sub set of the items that fits into the knapsack.

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Review Questions

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