Will Dijkstra ever a path with cycle? - dijkstra

Note: There is no negative cost.
I am considering to implement U-turn in routing, which uses Dijkstra.
Will Dijkstra ever recommend route A-B-C-B-D over A-B-D? When encountering B for the first time, B is marked as visited after visiting its neighbours, thus cycle from B-C-B will never be considered
In that case, Dijkstra never recommends cycles in the result?

It's task is to find the shortest (lowest costs) path ...
There will be no cycle in case the edge weight is greater than zero
on edge weights equal to zero it could happen but makes no sence in your case

TL;DR - It is not possible unless the cost of each edge on the cycle is 0. Otherwise, including the cycle in the shortest path would add unnecessary cost to the shortest path (meaning it would no longer be the shortest path).
Background:
Dijkstra's operates by maintaining two sets of vertices. One set is the vertices that have already been marked and the other set is the vertices that have yet to be marked. Given these two sets, Dijkstra's algorithm looks for the next cheapest element to add to the list of marked vertices and then updates the shortest paths to unmarked vertices.
In the case that A-B-C have been marked and the next edge added is C->B, B would be reached twice and the cost to get to B from A with the cycle included is [x + p + q]. However, the cost of getting to B from A without the cycle would obviously be [x]. Now the shortest path from A to D with the cycle is [x + p + q + r], while the shortest path without the cycle would be [x + r]. If p and q are both greater than 0, we see the path without the cycle will be shorter.
In the general case (with positive costs of edges), a cycle will never be included because the shortest path would contain unnecessary extra cost to get back to the starting point of the cycle.
If the U-turn is actually the shortest path:
For Dijkstra's to work for a necessary U-turn, you could just start the algorithm over from C and search for the shortest path to D (hence the recalculating notification when routing). Another solution could be to modify the underlying graph ahead of time. For example, the path A-B-C-B-D would become A-B-C-Z-D. Alternatively, the edge from C->B and the edge from B->D could both be removed and replaced with a single edge from C->D.

Related

ASP Core-2: Infinite Loop in Hamiltonian Path Solver

I am totally new in answer set proramming (ASP Core-2 with Clingo) and am struggling with a problem I have not been able to solve.
The goal is to solve the 'Hamiltonian Path' problem, which is described as follows:
In a directed graph we're looking for a path which visits all nodes of the graph exactly once.
We can assume that all edge relations are known as facts, and that the input graph does actually contain a Hamiltonian Path. The desired output are the predicates
visited(NodeName, StepInOrder)
that each contains a node and the number at which step this node is reached. So for example, an output could be
visited(a, 1), visited(c, 2), visited(b, 3)
See my code below. The problem is, that at the last line, the program seems to enter an infinite loop. And I do not understand what the cause of this could probably be.
% pick one random start node
1 <= {startNode(N) : node(N)} <= 1.
% define helper predicate inPath which is true once and false once for each edge of the graph
{inPath(X, Y)} :- edge(X,Y).
% create possible paths
visited(X, 1) :- startNode(X).
visited(Y, C+1) :- visited(X, C), inPath(X, Y), not visited(Y, _). % infinite loop here
% some killing constraints to eliminate invalid solution candidates...
My guess is, that the program is generating an infinite number of answer sets, which all differ in their #stepInOrder value, because of some sort of cycle, but I thought this should be prevented by the not visited(Y, _).
If you need any additional context, let me know. Thanks in advance!
Lets go through your code:
1 <= {startNode(N) : node(N)} <= 1.
I guess this works, but just writing 1 {startNode(N) : node(N)} 1. or {startNode(N) : node(N)} == 1. would do the same.
% define helper predicate inPath which is true once and false once for each edge of the graph
{inPath(X, Y)} :- edge(X,Y).
This one works, allthough there are more efficient approaches to write it.
% create possible paths
visited(X, 1) :- startNode(X).
visited(Y, C+1) :- visited(X, C), inPath(X, Y), not visited(Y, _). % infinite loop here
You basically say: a node Y is visited at time C+1, if a node X was visited at time C, there is a path from X to Y, and at no time Y was visited or will be visited. So you clearly want to generate something but if you generate it you violate the rule which generated it. In clingo atoms can not change values. If an atom is labeled as True, it is True the whole time.
So I would probably write something like this:
1 { visited(Y,C+1) : inPath(X,Y) } 1 :- visited(X, C).
which reads: given X is visited at time C, the number of outgoing marked edges from X to any node Y is exactly 1. Mark Y as visited at time C+1.
All what is missing now, is a constraint to include all nodes to be visited.
You might want to have a look at this question from around the same time. The solution of the user has a different approach, he or she does not assign numbers to the nodes to indicate an order.

Why is this Dijkstra code correct (node processing)?

https://bradfieldcs.com/algos/graphs/dijkstras-algorithm/
I don't quite understand why this is true. They claim that by checking current_distance > distances[current_vertex], we process each node exactly one time. However, that doesn't look right to me since the last two lines in the while loop are
distances[neighbor] = distance
heapq.heappush(pq, (distance, neighbor))
So I would think every time a node is pushed to the heap, if it's popped again and we observe current_vertex, current_vertex (the popped node and weight), distances[neighbor] will equal to the current_distance. Therefore, the node will get re-processed and not skipped as previously claimed.
import heapq
def calculate_distances(graph, starting_vertex):
distances = {vertex: float('infinity') for vertex in graph}
distances[starting_vertex] = 0
pq = [(0, starting_vertex)]
while len(pq) > 0:
current_distance, current_vertex = heapq.heappop(pq)
# Nodes can get added to the priority queue multiple times. We only
# process a vertex the first time we remove it from the priority queue.
if current_distance > distances[current_vertex]:
continue
for neighbor, weight in graph[current_vertex].items():
distance = current_distance + weight
# Only consider this new path if it's better than any path we've
# already found.
if distance < distances[neighbor]:
distances[neighbor] = distance
heapq.heappush(pq, (distance, neighbor))
return distances
Can someone tell me what I'm missing here? I know every node is supposed to be processed only once but I don't see why that code makes it so. And I don't see where I'm wrong.
The vertex can be added into the heap multiple times. Each time it's added to the heap with different distance. Now, you finally process it. Since it's a priority queue, you will process a pair (vertex, distance) with a smallest distance.
Two ideas:
For each vertex only one of existing (present in the heap) pairs can be processed.
After the vertex is processed, no new pairs for this vertex will be added.
First, a distance to a vertex always decreases. It means that for a given vertex there is only one (vertex, distance) that can be triggered: namely, the one with the smallest distance (unless later a pair with even smaller distance arrives). In other words, when the vertex is processed, all its other pairs in the heap won't be processed.
After the vertex is processed, its distance can't change. The reason for this is that Dijkstra selects a vertex with smallest distance; and since all edge weights are positive and all other vertices have bigger distance, the distance to the processed vertex can't decrease. Therefore, a new pair for the vertex can't appear in the heap.

Clusters merge threshold

I'm working with Mean shift, this procedure calculates where every point in the data set converges. I can also calculate the euclidean distance between the coordinates where 2 distinct points converged but I have to give a threshold, to say, if (distance < threshold) then this points belong to the same cluster and I can merge them.
How can I find the correct value to use as threshold??
(I can use every value and from it depends the result, but I need the optimal value)
I've implemented mean-shift clustering several times and have run into this same issue. Depending on how many iterations you're willing to shift each point for, or what your termination criteria is, there is usually some post-processing step where you have to group the shifted points into clusters. Points that theoretically shift to the same mode need not practically end up on directly top of each other.
I think the best and most general way to do this is to use a threshold based on the kernel bandwidth, as suggested in the comments. In the past my code to do this post processing has usually looked something like this:
threshold = 0.5 * kernel_bandwidth
clusters = []
for p in shifted_points:
cluster = findExistingClusterWithinThresholdOfPoint(p, clusters, threshold)
if cluster == null:
// create new cluster with p as its first point
newCluster = [p]
clusters.add(newCluster)
else:
// add p to cluster
cluster.add(p)
For the findExistingClusterWithinThresholdOfPoint function I usually use the minimum distance of p to each currently defined cluster.
This seems to work pretty well. Hope this helps.

To find the largest edge in the path between two given nodes / vertices

I am trying to update a MST by adding a new vertex in the MST. For this, I have been following "Updating Spanning Tree" by Chin and Houck. http://www.computingscience.nl/docs/vakken/al/WerkC/UpdatingSpanningTrees.pdf
A step in the paper requires me to find the largest edge in the path/paths between two given vertices. My idea is to find all the possible paths between the vertices and then, subsequently find the largest edge from the paths. I have been trying to implement this in MATLAB. However, so far, I have been unsuccessful. Any lead / clear algorithm to find all paths between two vertices or even the largest edge in the path between two given nodes/ vertices would be really welcome.
For reference, I would like to put forward an example. If the graph has following edges 1-2, 1-3, 2-4 and 3-4, the paths between 4 and 4 are:
1) 4-2-1-3-4
2) 4-3-1-2-4
Thank you
The algorithm works by lowering the t value to exclude large edges from the new MST. When the algorithm completes, t will be the lowest edge that remains to be inserted to complete the MST.
The m value represents the largest edge on a path from r to z, local to each run of INSERT. m is lowered at each iteration of the loop if possible, thereby removing the previous m edge as a possible candidate for t.
It's not easy to explain in words, I recommend doing a run of the algorithm on paper until the steps are clear.
I made a quick attempt to sketch the steps here: http://jacob.midtgaard-olesen.dk/?p=140
But basically, the algorithm adds edges from the old MST unless it finds a smaller edge to add between the new node z and another node in the old MST. In the example, the edge (A,B) is not in the new tree, since a better connection to B was found by the algorithm.
Note that on selecting h and k, if t and (w,r) have equal edge value, I believe you should choose (w,r)
Finally you should probably go trough the proof following the algorithm to understand why the algorithm works. (I didn't read it all :) )

Dijkstra's algorithm with negative weights

Can we use Dijkstra's algorithm with negative weights?
STOP! Before you think "lol nub you can just endlessly hop between two points and get an infinitely cheap path", I'm more thinking of one-way paths.
An application for this would be a mountainous terrain with points on it. Obviously going from high to low doesn't take energy, in fact, it generates energy (thus a negative path weight)! But going back again just wouldn't work that way, unless you are Chuck Norris.
I was thinking of incrementing the weight of all points until they are non-negative, but I'm not sure whether that will work.
As long as the graph does not contain a negative cycle (a directed cycle whose edge weights have a negative sum), it will have a shortest path between any two points, but Dijkstra's algorithm is not designed to find them. The best-known algorithm for finding single-source shortest paths in a directed graph with negative edge weights is the Bellman-Ford algorithm. This comes at a cost, however: Bellman-Ford requires O(|V|·|E|) time, while Dijkstra's requires O(|E| + |V|log|V|) time, which is asymptotically faster for both sparse graphs (where E is O(|V|)) and dense graphs (where E is O(|V|^2)).
In your example of a mountainous terrain (necessarily a directed graph, since going up and down an incline have different weights) there is no possibility of a negative cycle, since this would imply leaving a point and then returning to it with a net energy gain - which could be used to create a perpetual motion machine.
Increasing all the weights by a constant value so that they are non-negative will not work. To see this, consider the graph where there are two paths from A to B, one traversing a single edge of length 2, and one traversing edges of length 1, 1, and -2. The second path is shorter, but if you increase all edge weights by 2, the first path now has length 4, and the second path has length 6, reversing the shortest paths. This tactic will only work if all possible paths between the two points use the same number of edges.
If you read the proof of optimality, one of the assumptions made is that all the weights are non-negative. So, no. As Bart recommends, use Bellman-Ford if there are no negative cycles in your graph.
You have to understand that a negative edge isn't just a negative number --- it implies a reduction in the cost of the path. If you add a negative edge to your path, you have reduced the cost of the path --- if you increment the weights so that this edge is now non-negative, it does not have that reducing property anymore and thus this is a different graph.
I encourage you to read the proof of optimality --- there you will see that the assumption that adding an edge to an existing path can only increase (or not affect) the cost of the path is critical.
You can use Dijkstra's on a negative weighted graph but you first have to find the proper offset for each Vertex. That is essentially what Johnson's algorithm does. But that would be overkill since Johnson's uses Bellman-Ford to find the weight offset(s). Johnson's is designed to all shortest paths between pairs of Vertices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson%27s_algorithm
There is actually an algorithm which uses Dijkstra's algorithm in a negative path environment; it does so by removing all the negative edges and rebalancing the graph first. This algorithm is called 'Johnson's Algorithm'.
The way it works is by adding a new node (lets say Q) which has 0 cost to traverse to every other node in the graph. It then runs Bellman-Ford on the graph from point Q, getting a cost for each node with respect to Q which we will call q[x], which will either be 0 or a negative number (as it used one of the negative paths).
E.g. a -> -3 -> b, therefore if we add a node Q which has 0 cost to all of these nodes, then q[a] = 0, q[b] = -3.
We then rebalance out the edges using the formula: weight + q[source] - q[destination], so the new weight of a->b is -3 + 0 - (-3) = 0. We do this for all other edges in the graph, then remove Q and its outgoing edges and voila! We now have a rebalanced graph with no negative edges to which we can run dijkstra's on!
The running time is O(nm) [bellman-ford] + n x O(m log n) [n Dijkstra's] + O(n^2) [weight computation] = O (nm log n) time
More info: http://joonki-jeong.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/johnsons-algorithm.html
Actually I think it'll work to modify the edge weights. Not with an offset but with a factor. Assume instead of measuring the distance you are measuring the time required from point A to B.
weight = time = distance / velocity
You could even adapt velocity depending on the slope to use the physical one if your task is for real mountains and car/bike.
Yes, you could do that with adding one step at the end i.e.
If v ∈ Q, Then Decrease-Key(Q, v, v.d)
Else Insert(Q, v) and S = S \ {v}.
An expression tree is a binary tree in which all leaves are operands (constants or variables), and the non-leaf nodes are binary operators (+, -, /, *, ^). Implement this tree to model polynomials with the basic methods of the tree including the following:
A function that calculates the first derivative of a polynomial.
Evaluate a polynomial for a given value of x.
[20] Use the following rules for the derivative: Derivative(constant) = 0 Derivative(x) = 1 Derivative(P(x) + Q(y)) = Derivative(P(x)) + Derivative(Q(y)) Derivative(P(x) - Q(y)) = Derivative(P(x)) - Derivative(Q(y)) Derivative(P(x) * Q(y)) = P(x)*Derivative(Q(y)) + Q(x)*Derivative(P(x)) Derivative(P(x) / Q(y)) = P(x)*Derivative(Q(y)) - Q(x)*Derivative(P(x)) Derivative(P(x) ^ Q(y)) = Q(y) * (P(x) ^(Q(y) - 1)) * Derivative(Q(y))