Abstract. In the NP-hard Cluster Editing problem, we have as input an undirected graph G andanintegerk ≥ 0. The question is whether we can transform G, by inserting and deleting at most k edges, into a cluster graph, that is, a union of disjoint cliques. We first confirm a conjecture by Michael Fellows [IWPEC 2006] that there is a polynomialtime kernelization for Cluster Editing that leads to a problem kernel with at most 6k vertices. More precisely, we present a cubic-time algorithm that, given a graph G andanintegerk ≥ 0, finds a graph G ′ and an integer k ′ ≤ k such that G can be transformed into a cluster graph by at most k edge modifications iff G ′ can be transformed into a cluster graph by at most k ′ edge modifications, and the problem kernel G ′ has at most 6k vertices. So far, only a problem kernel of 24k vertices was known. Second, we show that this bound for the number of vertices of G ′ can be further improved to 4k. Finally, we consider the variant of Cluster Editing where the number of cliques that the cluster graph can contain is stipulated to be a constant d>0. We present a simple kernelization for this variant leaving a problem kernel of at most (d +2)k + d vertices. 1

The OR-SAT problem asks, given Boolean formulae φ1,..., φm each of size at most n, whether at least one of the φi’s is satisfiable. We show that there is no reduction from OR-SAT to any set A where the length of the output is bounded by a polynomial in n, unless NP ⊆ coNP/poly, and the Polynomial-Time Hierarchy collapses. This result settles an open problem proposed by Bodlaender et. al. [4] and Harnik and Naor [15] and has a number of implications. • A number of parametric NP problems, including Satisfiability, Clique, Dominating Set and Integer Programming, are not instance compressible or polynomially kernelizable unless NP ⊆ coNP/poly. • Satisfiability does not have PCPs of size polynomial in the number of variables unless NP ⊆ coNP/poly. • An approach of Harnik and Naor to constructing collisionresistant hash functions from one-way functions is unlikely to be viable in its present form. • (Buhrman-Hitchcock) There are no subexponential-size hard sets for NP unless NP is in co-NP/poly. We also study probabilistic variants of compression, and show various results about and connections between these variants. To this end, we introduce a new strong derandomization hypothesis, the Oracle Derandomization Hypothesis, and discuss how it relates to traditional derandomization assumptions. Categories and Subject Descriptors

The fixed-parameter approach is an algorithm design technique for solving combinatorially hard (mostly NP-hard) problems. For some of these problems, it can lead to algorithms that are both efficient and yet at the same time guaranteed to find optimal solutions. Focusing on their application to solving NP-hard problems in practice, we survey three main techniques to develop fixed-parameter algorithms, namely: kernelization (data reduction with provable performance guarantee), depth-bounded search trees and a new technique called iterative compression. Our discussion is circumstantiated by several concrete case studies and provides pointers to various current challenges in the field.

We prove that given an undirected graph G on n vertices and an integer k, one can compute in polynomial time in n a graph G ′ with at most 5k 2 +k vertices and an integer k ′ such that G has a feedback vertex set of size at most k iff G ′ has a feedback vertex set of size at most k ′. This result improves a previous O(k 11) kernel of Burrage et al. [6], and a more recent cubic kernel of Bodlaender [3]. This problem was communicated by Fellows in [5]. 1

Abstract. Important generalizations of the Vertex Cover problem

The POSSIBLE WINNER problem asks whether some distinguished candidate may become the winner of an election when the given incomplete votes are extended into complete ones in a favorable way. POSSIBLE WINNER is NP-complete for common voting rules such as Borda, many other positional scoring rules, Bucklin, Copeland etc. We investigate how three different parameterizations influence the computational complexity of POSSI-BLE WINNER for a number of voting rules. We show fixed-parameter tractability results with respect to the parameter “number of candidates ” but intractability results with respect to the parameter “number of votes”. Finally, we derive fixedparameter tractability results with respect to the parameter “total number of undetermined candidate pairs ” and identify an interesting polynomial-time solvable special case for Borda. 1

Abstract. Settling a ten years open question, we show that the NPcomplete Feedback Vertex Set problem is deterministically solvable in O(c k ·m) time, where m denotes the number of graph edges, k denotes the size of the feedback vertex set searched for, and c is a constant. As a second result, we present a fixed-parameter algorithm for the NPcomplete Edge Bipartization problem with runtime O(2 k · m 2). 1

Abstract. We develop a generic framework for deriving linear-size problem kernels for NP-hard problems on planar graphs. We demonstrate the usefulness of our framework in several concrete case studies, giving new kernelization results for Connected Vertex Cover, Minimum Edge Dominating Set, Maximum Triangle Packing, and Efficient Dominating Set on planar graphs. On the route to these results, we present effective, problem-specific data reduction rules that are useful in any approach attacking the computational intractability of these problems. 1

Control and bribery are settings in which an external agent seeks to influence the outcome of an election. Constructive control of elections refers to attempts by an agent to, via such actions as addition/deletion/partition of candidates or voters, ensure that a given candidate wins. Destructive control refers to attempts by an agent to, via the same actions, preclude a given candidate’s victory. An election system in which an agent can sometimes affect the result and it can be determined in polynomial time on which inputs the agent can succeed is said to be vulnerable to the given type of control. An election system in which an agent can sometimes affect the result, yet in which it is NP-hard to recognize the inputs on which the agent can succeed, is said to be resistant to the given type of control. Aside from election systems with an NP-hard winner problem, the only systems previously known to be resistant to all the standard control types were highly artificial election systems created by hybridization. This paper studies a parameterized version of Copeland voting, denoted by Copeland α, where the parameter α is a rational number between 0 and 1 that specifies how ties are valued in the pairwise comparisons of candidates. In every previously studied constructive or destructive

To cover the edges of a graph with a minimum number of cliques is an NP-complete problem with many applications. The state-of-the-art solving algorithm is a polynomial-time heuristic from the 1970’s. We present an improvement of this heuristic. Our main contribution, however, is the development of efficient and effective polynomial-time data reduction rules that, combined with a search tree algorithm, allow for exact problem solutions in competitive time. This is confirmed by experiments with real-world and synthetic data. Moreover, we prove the fixed-parameter tractability of covering edges by cliques. 1