We study the classical and parameterized complexity of efficient connected allocation problems on graphs, where efficiency is measured by egalitarian and utilitarian welfare maximization. We first establish a sharp complexity dichotomy in the classical setting: both problems are NP-hard in general and remain hard even on very restricted graph classes such as paths, and consequently trees and cycles. In contrast, they are polynomial-time solvable on stars, but this tractability does not extend even to the case of two disjoint stars. Motivated by these boundaries, we move to the parameterized complexity framework, where we study the problem with respect to the number of agents. We obtain fixed-parameter tractability (FPT) on trees and, more generally, identify a robust phenomenon whereby tractability on a connected graph class extends to disjoint unions of graphs from that class. We further investigate the parameters treewidth and treedepth, showing that the utilitarian version is FPT for both, whereas the egalitarian version remains para-NP-hard even on graphs of treedepth two. Finally, we analyze the number of connected components and show that except for the collection of stars, the problems remain hard. For the collection of stars,while we obtain para-NP-hardness for the egalitarian case, the utilitarian case gives W[2]-hardness together with an XP algorithm.
S. Bandopadhyay, Anish Datta, Palash Dey et al.· 0 citations
Telephone broadcasting is a classical model for spreading information in a network. Given a connected graph $G(V,E)$ with source vertex $s$, each informed vertex may inform exactly one uninformed neighbor in every time step. The \textsc{Broadcasting} problem asks whether all vertices can be informed within $t$ steps; the minimum such value is the broadcast time $b(G,s)$. A related variant considers the worst-case source, $b(G)=\max_{u\in V} b(G,u)$. Both variants are NP-hard, and every $n$-vertex graph satisfies $b(G,s)\ge \log_2 n$. Fomin \textit{et al.}~\cite{fomin2023parameterized} recently gave FPT algorithms for this problem under several structural graph parameters. Instead of computing optimal broadcast schedules, we study faster approximation algorithms that produce valid schedules. We improve the $O^*(3^n)$ exact algorithm of Fomin \textit{et al.} to an $O^*((3-f(x))^n)$ algorithm with a $+x$ additive approximation, where $f(x)>0$ is a constant for every fixed $x$. We also give approximation algorithms on graphs of bounded vertex integrity, including a polynomial-time $+2k$ additive approximation algorithm. Complementing these positive results, we prove parameterized hardness for vertex cover above maximum matching ($\mathrm{VC}-\mathrm{MM}$), dominating set size, and graph diameter, indicating that FPT algorithms for these parameters are unlikely. Finally, we present a $+2$ additive approximation algorithm for distance-to-clique running in $O^*(2^{O(k\log k)})$ time, a $2$-factor approximation algorithm for distance-to-path running in XP time, and a polynomial-time algorithm for polar graphs.
Rudranarayan Kar, Praneet Kumar Patra, Diya Roy et al.· 0 citations
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