CBAG: An Efficient Genetic Algorithm for the Graph Burning Problem

TL;DR

This paper introduces CBAG, a genetic algorithm tailored for the NP-complete graph burning problem, utilizing novel operators and centrality-based initialization to outperform existing heuristics on benchmark graphs.

Contribution

The paper presents a new genetic algorithm with specialized operators and a centrality-based chromosome initialization for more effective graph burning solutions.

Findings

CBAG outperforms previous heuristics on benchmark graphs.

The algorithm achieves better solutions in less computational time.

Source code is publicly available for further use and validation.

Abstract

Information spread is an intriguing topic to study in network science, which investigates how information, influence, or contagion propagate through networks. Graph burning is a simplified deterministic model for how information spreads within networks. The complicated NP-complete nature of the problem makes it computationally difficult to solve using exact algorithms. Accordingly, a number of heuristics and approximation algorithms have been proposed in the literature for the graph burning problem. In this paper, we propose an efficient genetic algorithm called Centrality BAsed Genetic-algorithm (CBAG) for solving the graph burning problem. Considering the unique characteristics of the graph burning problem, we introduce novel genetic operators, chromosome representation, and evaluation method. In the proposed algorithm, the well-known betweenness centrality is used as the backbone of our chromosome initialization procedure. The proposed algorithm is implemented and compared with previous heuristics and approximation algorithms on 15 benchmark graphs of different sizes. Based on the results, it can be seen that the proposed algorithm achieves better performance in comparison to the previous state-of-the-art heuristics. The complete source code is available online and can be used to find optimal or near-optimal solutions for the graph burning problem.