Temporal Interval Cliques and Independent Sets

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Temporal Δ Independent Set problem, explores its complexity on temporal unit interval graphs, and provides approximation and fixed-parameter tractable algorithms for solving it and related problems.

Contribution

It defines the Temporal Δ Independent Set problem, analyzes its computational complexity, and offers new algorithms including approximation and fixed-parameter algorithms for special cases.

Findings

Constant-factor approximation algorithms for fixed τ and Δ.

An exact FPT algorithm for Temporal Δ Clique with respect to τ+k.

FPT algorithms parameterized by vertex deletion set to order preservation.

Abstract

Temporal graphs have been recently introduced to model changes to a given network that occur throughout a fixed period of time. The Temporal $\Delta$ Clique problem, that generalizes the well known Clique problem to temporal graphs, has been studied in the context of finding nodes of interest in dynamic networks [TCS '16]. We introduce the Temporal $\Delta$ Independent Set problem, a temporal generalization of Independent Set. This problem is e.g. motivated in the context of finding conflict-free schedules for maximum subsets of tasks, that have certain (changing) constraints on each day they need to be performed. We are specifically interested in the case where each task needs to be performed in a certain time-interval on each day and two tasks are in conflict on a certain day if their time-intervals on that day overlap. This leads us to considering both problems on the restricted class of temporal unit interval graphs, i.e., temporal graphs where each layer is a unit interval graph. We present several hardness results as well as positive results. On the algorithmic side, we provide constant-factor approximation algorithms for instances of both problems where $\tau$, the total number of time steps (layers) of the temporal graph, and $\Delta$, a parameter that allows us to model conflict tolerance, are constants. We develop an exact FPT algorithm for Temporal $\Delta$ Clique with respect to parameter $\tau+k$. Finally, we use the notion of order preservation for temporal unit interval graphs that, informally, requires the intervals of every layer to obey a common ordering. For both problems we provide an FPT algorithm parameterized by the size of minimum vertex deletion set to order preservation.