Efficient Reassembling of Graphs, Part 1: The Linear Case

TL;DR

This paper studies the problem of reassembling graphs in a linear order, establishing polynomial relationships between reassembling optimization and classic graph layout problems, with implications for network analysis.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of linear reassembling of graphs and proves polynomial reductions to well-known graph layout problems, connecting reassembling optimization to existing algorithms.

Findings

Alpha-optimization of linear reassembling is polynomially reducible to minimum-cutwidth linear arrangement.

Beta-optimization of linear reassembling is polynomially reducible to minimum-cost linear arrangement.

The study establishes a theoretical link between graph reassembling and classical graph layout problems.

Abstract

The reassembling of a simple connected graph G = (V,E) is an abstraction of a problem arising in earlier studies of network analysis. Its simplest formulation is in two steps: (1) We cut every edge of G into two halves, thus obtaining a collection of n=|V| one-vertex components. (2) We splice the two halves of every edge together, not of all the edges at once, but in some ordering \Theta of the edges that minimizes two measures that depend on the edge-boundary degrees of assembled components. The edge-boundary degree of a component A (subset of V) is the number of edges in G with one endpoint in A and one endpoint in V-A. We call the maximum edge-boundary degree encountered during the reassembling process the alpha-measure of the reassembling, and the sum of all edge-boundary degrees is its beta-measure. The alpha-optimization (resp. beta-optimization) of the reassembling of G is to determine an order \Theta for splicing the edges that minimizes its alpha-measure (resp. beta-measure). There are different forms of reassembling. We consider only cases satisfying the condition that if the an edge between disjoint components A and B is spliced, then all the edges between A and B are spliced at the same time. In this report, we examine the particular case of linear reassembling, which requires that the next edge to be spliced must be adjacent to an already spliced edge. We delay other forms of reassembling to follow-up reports. We prove that alpha-optimization of linear reassembling and minimum-cutwidth linear arrangment (CutWidth) are polynomially reducible to each other, and that beta-optimization of linear reassembling and minimum-cost linear arrangement (MinArr) are polynomially reducible to each other.