Cambridge University Press, 2/6/2014EAN 9781107025196, ISBN10: 1107025192Hardcover, 396 pages, 25.4 x 17.8 x 2 cmLanguage: EnglishClassical computer science textbooks tell us that some problems are 'hard'. Yet many areas, from machine learning and computer vision to theorem proving and software verification, have defined their own set of tools for effectively solving complex problems. Tractability provides an overview of these different techniques, and of the fundamental concepts and properties used to tame intractability. This book will help you understand what to do when facing a hard computational problem. Can the problem be modelled by convex, or submodular functions? Will the instances arising in practice be of low treewidth, or exhibit another specific graph structure that makes them easy? Is it acceptable to use scalable, but approximate algorithms? A wide range of approaches is presented through self-contained chapters written by authoritative researchers on each topic. As a reference on a core problem in computer science, this book will appeal to theoreticians and practitioners alike.ContributorsIntroduction Lucas Bordeaux, Youssef Hamadi and Pushmeet KohliPart I. Graphical Structure1. Treewidth and hypertree width Georg Gottlob, Gianluigi Greco and Francesco Scarcello2. Perfect graphs and graphical modeling Tony JebaraPart II. Language Restrictions3. Submodular function maximization Andreas Krause and Daniel Golovin4. Tractable valued constraints Peter G. Jeavons and Stanislav Živný5. Tractable knowledge representation formalisms Adnan DarwichePart III. Algorithms and their Analysis6. Tree-reweighted message passing Vladimir Kolmogorov7. Tractable optimization in machine learning Suvrit Sra8. Approximation algorithms Mohit Singh and Kunal Talwar9. Kernelization methods for fixed-parameter tractability Fedor V. Fomin and Saket SaurabhPart IV. Tractability in Some Specific Areas10. Efficient submodular function minimization for computer vision Pushmeet Kohli11. Towards practical graph-based, iteratively decoded channel codesinsights through absorbing sets Lara DolecekPart V. Heuristics12. SAT solvers Joao Marques-Silva and Ines Lynce13. Tractability and modern satisfiability modulo theories solvers Nikolaj Bjørner and Leonardo de Moura.
