Title
On the speed of constraint propagation and the time complexity of arc consistency testing
Abstract
Establishing arc consistency on two relational structures is one of the most popular heuristics for the constraint satisfaction problem. We aim at determining the time complexity of arc consistency testing. The input structures G and H can be supposed to be connected colored graphs, as the general problem reduces to this particular case. We first observe the upper bound O(e(G)v(H)+v(G)e(H)), which implies the bound O(e(G)e(H)) in terms of the number of edges and the bound O((v(G)+v(H))3) in terms of the number of vertices. We then show that both bounds are tight as long as an arc consistency algorithm is based on constraint propagation (as all current algorithms are). Our lower bounds are based on examples of slow constraint propagation. We measure the speed of constraint propagation observed on a pair G,H by the size of a combinatorial proof that Spoiler wins the existential 2-pebble game on G,H.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1016/j.jcss.2017.09.003
Journal of Computer and System Sciences
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Constraint satisfaction problem,Constraint propagation,Arc consistency,Time complexity,Existential 2-pebble game,Existential-positive two-variable logic
Conference
91
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0022-0000
2
0.40
References 
Authors
20
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Christoph Berkholz1497.03
Oleg Verbitsky219127.50